Marie Curie: On the Spectrum?

 

Sorry for the glare, but I was enjoying reading an article about Marie Curie in Smithsonian at the airport so I snapped a photo to remind me. She was fabulously brilliant and has changed our world, with the added challenge of doing it all in a time when women were not welcome in science.

It sounded like she was most comfortable in her laboratory and had a hard time with crowds, attention, etc. My guess is that if she had been alive today she would have ended up diagnosed on the “spectrum”, high-functioning of course, but nevertheless demonstrating difficulty with social skills. I imagine many of our current scientists and a disporportionate number of those with PhDs would, in today’s diagnosis-happy climate, be diagnosed with Asperger’s… brilliant, hyper-focused, amazing people, that prefer their work and labs over social situations.

One of the comments in the magazine is that Marie and her husband “renounced” pleasure for science, but I think their pleasure WAS science.

We all have our gifts. The key is recognizing these gifts as strengths and working with them. 🙂 It doesn’t make any of us any better or worse than others. Just different, and that’s okay! Remember, we are all unique, just like everybody else, to paraphrase Steven Wright…

Oct 31, 2012 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none