Mel: Thanks, but my frustration manifests itself emotionally, and then I get upset. And then it looks like I can't handle things. And, you know, then I can't cry in front of the patient 'cause no one wants to see their doctor cry. That's just a big red flag.
This is a great read. I'm a 64yo self-diagnosed ADHD, possibly overlapping with the autism spectrum. I really struggled with staying engaged in academics in high school and college. I just couldn't get myself to focus on what was boring material. It took me 10 years to get my undergrad degree. And it has severely hampered me in my professional life, sometimes disastrously. I loved Mel's character, loved watching her function and respond to the situations in front of her.
It was hard to read about your daughter. Especially the overlap with her gender nonconformity. I also share that experience. Trying to conform ( it was the 80s after all!) nearly killed me and led to some very destructive behaviors. Sounds like Cassie is doing well now.
\u201CI\u2019m neurodivergent so I think it\u2019s [her portrayal of Dr. Mel King] really coming from me. I have severe ADHD. So we\u2019re on the same spectrum now as autism, which was I think for all ADHD people was like, \u2018Ohhhhh.\u2019 And then all autistic people are like, \u2018That\u2019s why we got along with them.\u2019 [B]eing on the same spectrum, it just feels, it felt right anyway.\u201D
\u201CWhen resident Dr. Melissa \u201CMel\\\" King first appeared in The Pitt with her atypical body language and her enthusiastic if not entirely appropriate \u2018I\u2019m so happy to be here,\u2019 I thought I knew exactly where her character was going. She\u2019d be brusque but brilliant, filled with just enough savant-like insight to make up for her lack of bedside manner. We\u2019d never get confirmation of an actual diagnosis, but she\u2019d exhibit a number of behaviors and mannerisms that the average viewer might recognize as autism, ADHD, or a combination of the two that many people in neurodivergent circles have taken to calling AuDHD. These traits would probably be used for drama or comedic relief as necessary. A mix of House, Sherlock, Big Bang Theory\u2019s Sheldon and countless other autistic-coded or \u201Cautistish\u201D characters who came before her.
Dr. Frank Langdon may be joking, but there\u2019s one character on \u201CThe Pitt\u201D who is beloved by neurodivergent viewers everywhere. In part that\u2019s because Dr. Melissa (Mel) King is not a caricature that shouts \u201Con the spectrum\u201D in every behavior. At the same time she is exquisitely, delicately recognizable by those who know. 1
Taylor Dearden, who plays Mel, won\u2019t provide an interviewer with a specific \u201Cdiagnosis\u201D for her character. Other fictional characters that viewers have speculated are meant to be autistic or on the autism spectrum2 have been created according to a formula: emotionally distant, non-expressive, ostentatiously brilliant, their vulnerabilities hidden beneath a surface that other people mistakenly see as \u201Ccold.\u201D Doctor King is none of those things, and it\u2019s perfectly possible to not read her as neurodivergent. In fact, many reviews, despite Dearden\u2019s own comments in interviews, do just that.
Dr. Langdon (himself a character that can\u2019t be put in a neat box) gets Mel in a way that those reviews don\u2019t. In one of my favorite scenes (written by Noah Wyle), after he\u2019s complemented Mel on her sensitive and successful treatment of an autistic young man who has hurt his ankle and won\u2019t allow Langdon to diagnose him, he offers Mel a task that lights her up. Watch the change in her face; hear the excitement over \u201Ca thousand??\u201D
If you read my last stack, you know I\u2019m besotted with Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby. In his approach to the characters in \u201CThe Pitt\u201D (that he describes in the clip), he reveals what in my opinion is one of the secrets to the show\u2019s success: As
