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I love playing with language, especially things like people in disability community reclaiming “crip” or “krip” to describe themselves with pride. It’s definitely inspeak to call yourself a crip to other crips, which is part of the appeal. Of course, not everyone with experiences around disability likes or uses crip, and that’s fine. We never signed a contract to be a unified 50 million-person group with one opinion on anything at all. So I like crip. I like mad.

Even more fun to me than crip is NOS because that is such insider inspeak that I feel giggly and happy every time I come across Sarah Luterman’s NOS Magazine. It’s described as “a news and commentary source for thought and analysis about neurodiversity culture and representation.

NOS stands for ‘Not Otherwise Specified,’ a tongue-in-cheek reference to when a condition does not strictly fit the diagnostic criteria, or is in some way out of the ordinary.

Opinions: Not Otherwise Specified

Stories: Not Otherwise Specified

Perspectives: Not Otherwise Specified”

In my time training to become the rehabilitation clinician that I never became, I learned about NOS from the medical side. This person’s just deviant enough to not be normal but not quite impaired enough to have a “full blown” disorder kind of disability.

Some good news is that it can lead to getting services if services are what you need, and you are able to access non-coercive and non-abusive therapy and non-normative-forcing services. Some less good news is that it puts you into that medical mystery limbo. I’ve also seen NOS reinforce the faulty assumption that Autism is on a spectrum ranging from high functioning (ick + ugh) to low functioning (ick + ugh)². I just can’t even with the high and low functioning terms, especially because people try to compliment me by calling me high functioning. Let’s just say that the emotions I have when I get called that will remain NOS for the moment. I should write an essay on it.

If you have written an essay on your own it, or you have artwork, NOS Magazine is taking submissions, and all the instructions are very much specified on their Editorial Guidelines page!

Priority is given to publishing neurodivergent people and members of neurodiversity community. Send your submissions to NOS.editorial@gmail.com. I look forward to reading or looking at your stuff there!