Might “neurodivergent” be the best word (or “diagnosis”) for Janet Frame?

In modern parlance the New Zealand writer Janet Frame might be called “neurodivergent.” Born in 1924 Frame took an overdose in her early 20s and then spent many years in and out of mental hospitals, some of which were still called “lunatic asylums” in post-war New Zealand. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with electroconvulsive therapy and insulin. In 1951 her first book, The Lagoon and Other Stories, won one of New Zealand’s most prestigious literary prizes, which caused the cancellation of her scheduled lobotomy. She was literally saved by fiction. I imagine her psychiatrists panicking and concluding “We can’t possibly perform a lobotomy on a woman who can win a major literary prize.” To perform a lobotomy the neurosurgeon severs connections between the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the “thinking and person” part of the brain, and other parts of the brain, including those responsible for emotion. The logic was that the operation would “reset” the brain and reduce…