antiracistkaren

[antiracistkaren]

Wuthering Heights

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, I know. Things have been not great for a while, and I’m ever more aware and anxious about posting thoughts on the internet.

But the book has shook me to the core. I’m fortunate to have read it as an adult--and I’m kind of shocked that this is assigned reading for younger kids, as it exposes the intricacies and horror and anguish that can be love between two people.

I went to see the movie Emily in theaters when it came out, knowing virtually nothing about the Brönte sisters, and was struck when Emily was coded as autistic. I watched her so closely, and it was all there: social awkwardness, special interest, weird ways of being, always searching and always restless... and since I clocked this (although it wasn’t mentioned--as it never is in movies, only implied), I remembered my box set of Brönte sister books my (ex) father-in-law had bought me for Christmas.

Once I polished off Pride and Prejudice for the millionth time, I figured it was time to turn to another author before going through all of my Jane Austen set. Wuthering Heights was much less intimidating looking than Jane Eyer. 

I started reading the introduction, got impatient with spoilers, and skipped over to begin consuming the book. It took me a couple of days, and I found once I was deep into the book, it was difficult to put down. At first I was put off by this unreliable male narrator that we are introduced to, especially with his lack of social cue reading and haughty ego.

I never really liked or felt attraction to Heathcliff as a character, but I did feel attraction instead, to the core of the story. When I find a book like this, I have to read it more than once: once for structure and story (and even then, little details and lines lift out of the book, making me run for a highlighter, the poetry of the story hitting me hard), and the next time for detail, for art, for full consumption of a new favored book onto my actual soul.

People have written about this book over and over, but I couldn’t help but feel like the book was written by someone just like me. An out of place blight in the middle of a wild worldly scene, just trying to make a connection--any connection--with those who share the existence. The way the moors are discussed and described reminds me of the agonizing detail I used to take to describe my own home town. Places where others saw poverty and ugly, I saw safety and homage.

Cathy, as a character, is complicated ... I have been her. The mask that we put on in order to climb in the world is very real--her transformation from wild and beastly to charming and lilting is startling. And just like Cathy, there are attachments that I carry along with me whether the other person is willing or not. As though I’m the only one who could really know them fully because I knew them as a child. It is this toxic line of thinking though: that only we can fully know another, and that possessiveness over someone else’s story and life can lead us to do pretty awful things to each other in the name of for your own good.

--Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the book, so proceed with caution--

When Cathy inevitably dies, both of her lovers ascribe it to the other, when in reality Cathy has made her own prison inside her mask, and it is the mask that kills her. How can she possibly expect Edgar to know her when she has not been fully herself? How can she expect Heathcliff to subjugate himself for the love crumbs that she leaves for him? Cathy gives no one all of herself, and in the end is torn apart by the two people she is trying to be at once, instead of reconciling herself to her actual true identity.

There’s a lot at play here, of course, especially when you consider the social constructs and concepts of the time. Of course Cathy had limited options--much more limited than women today. But at the same time, in fiction, the author can make a choice for her character. Emily chose to tear Cathy into pieces to demonstrate her own fractured existence.

Thankfully Emily was not so abject in her own life that she gives us a totally hopeless novel. Instead, once Heathcliff finally dies, we see a Cathy and Heaton finally together and happy--because they must be happy out of sheer spite of the moors, the bitter cold, and the abusive anger they both endured under the hand of a heart broken Heathcliff.

A man that loves me (or at least he claims to) loves this novel, and I am pretty sure it is because he fancies himself a Heathcliff and me a Cathy. That possessiveness he feels about understanding “the real me” is perfectly captured in Heathcliff’s assertions about Cathy (for every thought she gives to Edgar, she gives a thousand to me... He has planted an oak tree in a flower pot...). This limits Cathy, and it limits me. And ultimately, I’d like to remind him, that it is Heathcliff’s love that destroys Cathy. Heathcliff’s desire to cause and sow pain in return for unrequited love breaks Cathy’s spirit. Although he may claim to deeply love her, there is no proof aside from his claiming that he understands her spirit (even as he ensures that it is dimmed and squashed).

Is he a devil? No. He’s an arrogant man of the time who cannot reconcile the child he knew to the woman she grew into.

My opinions at this time are mushy and half-formed. I’m sure that I’ll be reading this book over and over to find new meaning. Ultimately, I read this book as a warning--a warning away from the kind of love that will destroy us with its intensity, with its demands and with its bonds. How much better is it to be free than to be shackled and held down by this kind of “love”?

That’s a no from me, dog. (But I adore this book at the same time... thank you Emily for giving it to us.)

#autistic #wuthering heights #booklover #emily bronte #actually autistic #audhd

[antiracistkaren]

Autistic Millennial

When I think about the intersection of technology and my particular brand of autism, it occurs to me that I fall into technology intuitive but not digital-native. Now that I have been back in the work force, it is fascinating to me to see how technology, and one's use (or non-use) of it during formative years creates different outcomes of behavior. Did technology change me? Or is this just who I’m hard wired to be?

It is possible that this isn't exactly linked to generational differences--I'm specifically referring to the x-inneals (those born between 1980-1985) who did not have cell phones until late high school and college--but may instead just be a difference in dopamine processing and tolerance for anxiety.

Anyway.

Instant messenger was a revelation for my generation. Instant communication. We got it before we got texting, you know. And texts cost ten cents a piece, so I would rush home to get to my computer to instant message. Being autistic, written communication is my preference, so when I could IM people through high school, online journal in late high school, I was set free digitally. I adopted it fully. That dopamine hit of getting an IM, an email... that came for me around age 16.

I spent hours tethered to a desktop computer writing. The more I typed, the faster I became, until I got fast enough to keep up with my own thoughts. Hence... this online persona you’re witnessing at this moment. Mostly I sat at my computer waiting for an IM or email from someone or another that I was in love with at the time. Each time a chime went off, I had the chance to talk with someone! I had a lifeline outside of my house that wasn’t social!

For me, notifications cause a small amount of anxiety now that I am a working adult. I don't like them. They should be cleared away as soon as possible. My inbox is not only all read, it's usually empty. Yes. I categorize all of my emails into folders.

When I started work, we communicated by email. We now have not only email in the work place, but instant messaging in the workplace, and texting. As someone who supports hiring for a lot of different folks, I am getting requests for updates. Now, not via email, but instantly via slack, via text from my candidates. It's almost constant.

What I am saying is I have a low tolerance for notification anxiety. I am one kind of people.

And I think I am finding, as I am having to navigate the rapid acceleration of notifications in my life (what with online dating and texting, work emails and slacks, and texts from my kids’ school or a candidate), that there are people who not only don't mind those little red (angry) flags, they can ignore them entirely. I envy you. Anyway--perhaps something the digital-native crowd has over on us( ... or perhaps it's the autism...sometimes there's no way to tell), is the ability to tame the anxiety and lessen the impact of dopamine hits created by clearing notifications. They are probably too busy living in the moment.

It’s a funny little difference between people--this tolerance--but I think it may point to something larger, and it’s hard to know the source of the cause of this difference, but I wish I had time to investigate it further.

Anyway. Being a people pleaser and an exceptionally fast typer means that I can stay on top of my notifications fairly easily. They call me “Responsive” at work. I would call myself “nervous and excited.”

#actuallyautistic #milennials #genz #genx #technology #digitalnative

[antiracistkaren]

When I read a lot, I write a lot. Something about digesting beautifully written fiction makes me long to do my own writing, but I don't have any plots in my head. Just lines of poetry that randomly float through my head.

This morning I woke up exhausted, as though I had run a race yesterday. In some ways, I did. I took my meds and attacked the closets in this house, carrying everything to the living room. First refolding towels so they all matched in size, and then mostly allowing the sheets to pile as they would, smoothing out the part that would be seen in the closets.

And then it was time to unpack and re-pack medicine. These over here for adult pain/colds. Those over there for the kids allergies and cold medicine. This one over here? That's for beauty supplies, and two little troughs for fingernail polish that is separating they've not been used for so long. Two different colors of green that I've not successfully applied yet.

Picking up after everyone, dropping sheets on beds that needed to be changed (knowing, ugh, without a doubt that it will lead to another mountain of laundry to scale today), hastily throwing toys into bins and boxes to get them off the floor, telling myself on another day I'll re-organize everything. The small voice in my head askes what's the point? The point is me.

Last week I was watching RuPaul's Drag Race with a friend, and… they talked about really loving yourself. Suddenly, it was like I had zoomed backwards out of my body. Of course, I thought, of course. I've heard it said so many times before, but if I don't actually really love myself, I'll never be free of the anxiety over being myself. If I don't love myself, I can't be curious about myself.

In many ways, I DO love myself already. I love that I'm funny (at least, I think I'm funny). I love how I can hold the attention of a room and tell a good story. I love speaking about topics I'm passionate about. I love how quickly I can read good fiction books. But there are also things I do NOT love about myself, and it's mostly rooted in body shame. I don't love my stretchy, saggy stomach. I don't love my boobs--now my left hangs down an inch lower than my right, giving me a cock-eyed look when my nipples are hard in my sweatshirts. I don't love the way I can sink down into nothingness and allow my body to become weak. I don't love my lack of discipline.

I'm not sure what to do about those parts I decidedly DO NOT love. I need to embrace this body, as it's the only one I have… but I'm not sure how to battle that voice that was put there early (and reinforced every single day) that says that I'm only valuable if men find me attractive--if people find me attractive. It's always been such a weird spot for me.

I know that I can be conventionally pretty. I also know that I can look very frumpy and misshapen, a hidden body buried beneath sweaters and sweatpants. I know that my hair is most attractive when it's long, brushed, and shiny. Sometimes I long for beauty in myself, but most times I just want to be comfortable and hidden. No one needs to know what kind of body I have under here. When I was younger, it was never advantageous to show my body--instead, it created this horribly anxious sensation in me. People can see me, I would think. I could feel the way men looked at me, hungry for my body, but unconcerned with my brain.

I hated it--still hate it. It felt like something I was forced to do in order to make people bend to my will. I'm beautiful and you cannot stand up to me. Gaze upon me and tremble. Always I could put up a good show that I really was beautiful, but my desire for huge, swallowing clothes would be remarked upon endlessly ("you look homeless." "Why do you dress like that? You're so pretty otherwise."). I hated it every time. Every time I felt like I was less. Every time it chipped away at a deep inner part of me that seeks solace and safety.

Being dressed like a woman makes me a target. I've been a target of sexual feelings forever. The last 7, 8 years, being in a relationship has been mostly a respite from that. In my house, I'm safe. I have daughters. They don't even see my body as anything more than a comforting smushy place for solace. But my husband. My Husband is still here, and he is still hungry, and I know with certainty that he does not find me beautiful anymore. Not in the way that he used to.

He finds me comfortable. Unexciting. Predictable. Like a living weighted blanket. He hates himself too, and that hatred radiates from him. It's like watching someone cut themselves and being powerless to stop them. No words that I can utter will change the programming placed in his psyche by his parents. And nothing that he says to be will make me believe that he finds my sweatpant clad, low swinging breasted, soft tummied self will be attractive to him. No. More and more I look like a mother… and how can one find their own mother sexy? Well… oedipus I guess did.

My anxiety this morning feels like a hot poker in my chest. I'm not sure why it's there. It's a solid thing, stretching out to my underarms, my throat… swallowing is harder. The easiest way to escape is into a book. In a book I can see all the colors and pictures, I can hear the sounds. I can get lost in a world that isn't real, that is tightly controlled by the author. I trust the author completely to take me away and deliver me safely on the other side. I learn things. I absorb language, I marvel at its beauty. In a book, I don't have notifications lighting up my brain. The dopamine is real with every turn of a page. I'm hungry for it, ravenous. I eat books whole and look for another one. Escape escape escape.

My ritalin makes my anxiety worse. Much worse. I'm teetering on the edge of panic attacks in the morning, but I also feel so driven. I'm doing it to myself, taking these meds like I am. I shoot myself into the sun in the morning, tackling my to do list with almost insane focus, and then I crash into a book and don't want to come out. I think about my body wasting away while I sit and read. I think about my relationships atrophying without my care. I feel my husband's sadness pool around my feet, sucking me down into the floor and making me want to just sob against the futility of fighting it.

I sometimes wish I didn't have a body… that I could just read and think and exist without needing the upkeep the home that my brain lives in. … Fantasy.

My oldest is talking about my death a lot, and it is freaking me out. Every time she tells me that I'm going to die, I feel like she's bringing my death closer and closer in time. I know that this is because when my mom spoke the words, "I wish she would die and get it over with already," she doomed my sister to die. And then she did die. When you wish someone dead… sometimes they really do die. I think I'm still extremely angry with mom about saying that… about giving up on my sister… about not taking responsibility for the trauma that she had endured in her childhood.

When we are adults, we are so focused on our feelings and happiness. We don't think about the long term effects of our choices on our kids. At least… my parents didn't. They just casually birthed us and left us to figure it out on our own in very large ways. Mom didn't even realize that she was teaching me how to be, and that her dysfunctional way to be would become my way to be. That the rules that she taught me would live forever inside of my brain, as rigid as walls, as real as a dam holding back a river.

I think about what I'm doing all the time. How am I teaching my kids? What am I teaching my kids? That's why I send them to daycare. I don't want to be responsible for all of the lessons. I don't want to pass along these rules that have been handed down forever on to my kids. But I also feel a bit powerless to stop it. We are all marching along in time, doing things just because that's the way it has always been done, and not thinking about the larger picture.

But if I think about it too much, the futility of getting up every morning, going to work to make money and then spending all of that money as fast as we can… it would make me want to die. What I have to think of instead is… loving myself. I hate capitalism, but I can love myself and my kids. I can take care of this kid inside of me who hates her body and wishes it wasn't such an object of obsession for other people.

No one taught me how to love myself, is the problem. I'm having to learn how to do it all by myself. That's really hard to do. People really frown on folks who actually love and adore themselves. We call those people narcissists… right? But I have to start being intentional.

I am a lovable person. I have a lovely body that takes care of me--it has alarm bells and systems built in to talk to me. Ignoring my body is ignoring myself. Hello, body. I'm sorry that I don't appreciate you. I'm sorry that I make you starve and grow and shrink. I'm sorry that I eat things that don't make you feel good. I'm sorry I haven't adored you as much as I should. I'm angry at myself for not loving myself better--isn't that strange?

I guess I have to work on forgiving myself for not loving myself first. I was never taught how, but I can still learn. There is still time. I am not dead yet… and I refuse to die before I'm really gone. So I'll start here. Talking to myself. Hey, you. I love you. I really do--very deeply. I love your brain, dude. I love your style. I love your curiosity. I love your fortitude. I love that I'm autistic and special. I love that I'm unusual. I love my heart and sense of justice. I love my courage. I adore my ability to type fast enough to keep up with my brain… well… almost. I love the community I have built around me. I have done a really good job taking care of me.

So… although no one protected me as a kid, I have learned how to protect myself. I know how to protect myself and take care of myself. I don't have to wait on someone else to do it for me--that's the beauty of me. I know myself so well because I'm not afraid of me. I'm not someone to be afraid of--I am safe for me.

To that little kid inside of me--I am so sorry that no one protected you. I am sorry that you didn't have a mom that understood you, or knew how to teach you how to love yourself. I'm sorry that the men in your life weren't safe, not even your own brother, not even your own father, not even your own step-father. Not even your own husband.

But you know who has always been there for you? Me. I will never give up on you. Never. I will keep trying to learn how to love you, how to make you feel loved. I will be your faithful friend until the end. You don't have to be afraid of me. It is safe to be yourself. We just have to figure out what that means together.

[antiracistkaren]

Working While Autistic

I started a job back in April.

At first, everything was fine. I was able to do my own thing, and I was doing well. I'm in talent acquisition, and before I was a mom, I was a high-value recruiter. I left the industry citing motherhood, but in all honesty, my mask was completely breaking and I was totally burned out by the time I was due.

I didn't plan on going back, but I also didn't make it into law school, so I felt like I didn't really have a choice. My partner and I wanted to move, and the added income would really help toward childcare expenses and the cost of renting a larger house.

My partner is bipolar. His mom died in January. He arrived at her bedside the morning after she died, and he never got to say goodbye to her.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that packing and moving would be the stresser that led to mania, but it catches me off guard every time. Suddenly, I found myself on moving day without my partner and an empty house full of boxes needing to be unpacked. This was on the tail end of an AC going out and smashing a family of 5 into two hotel rooms--one parent per room. On the heels of having wrung myself out doing the leg work for a recruiter who, in September, suddenly didn't show up to work. I won't go into details, but it became obvious that she hadn't been doing her job at all--I had been doing her job.

So full of trauma, having nightmares, feeling afraid in my own home, I pressed on at work. I showed up and worked day in and day out because it gave me something to do. I took on extra work thrown at me, and then... things started to go downhill quickly.

Another recruiter started to micromanage me. I don't report to recruiters, so it was frustrating and confusing to me. I had a meltdown during a one on one meeting with this recruiter--an hour long meeting that I had requested to be cut down to 30 minutes. That was the beginning of my body setting off alarms.

My meltdowns are emotional. I'm a crier when I meltdown, an ugly, uncontrollable flood of tears that puffs up my face until its unrecognizable. An exhausting flood of emotions that makes my head buzz and my ears ring (literally, there is no silence, just a loud ringing in my ears). I've definitely melted down before, but I didn't know what it was prior to my diagnosis.

And then my body went haywire. My hands started to itch and feel like they had pins and needles--small little blisters formed on my palms, in between my fingers, on my fingertips. They itched like crazy but I couldn't scratch them. I started sweating all the time. And then I started to lactate. I haven't fed one of my kids in over a year--this is a huge warning sign that my body is in crisis, and I know it.

So I started to plan my escape.

All throughout this plan, I was sending signals up as much as I could. I am unhappy, I said. I feel harassed, I said. I'm having PTSD, I said.

"You asked for this," was the reply. It felt like a punch in the gut--no, more, it sent me backwards to all the times those words had been said to me. And I felt the blame sit hard on my shoulders that suddenly it was my fault. Just like sexual assaults before. Just like any time I had tried to say no, stop... "you asked for this," rang in my ears.

When I gave notice, a week after I had asked to be laid off or let go, my boss acted surprised. I was so happy a month ago, he asserted. Not according to my notes. However, he continued to remind me that he had given me a job, and that I was quitting for a second time (again, I felt shouldered with the blame--something is wrong with me if I can't stay in a job without getting stressed). I reminded him, as our voices escalated into shouting, that I had told him when starting that I wanted stability, that I didn't want to work in staffing, that I was wanting to make the jump to a corporate talent acquisition gig.

He told me that I'm unprofessional. That I shouldn't just run away from something. That I was disappointing. That I wasn't showing any loyalty to him, personally, by leaving the situation. He tried to pitch other positions within the company to me, offering me 30 more dollars an hour. Beaten down, I said I would hear him out. However, after doing some research, I sent him a message the next day declining the proposition.

It's hard to describe the feeling of the last 4 months. It was like... it was like being in a total fog, unable to tell what is in front of you, but you keep walking forward. You keep trusting people around you when they say they can see further than you. You believe that the reason you can't see is your own fault--that you somehow created this fog, this confusion.

And since I was focused on my home situation, on figuring out what I was going to do in terms of my own living situation, my family situation, my partner's needs and my own, I was also navigating in a position that was putting me more and more under pressure. All the while I was being told that this was an opportunity that I had requested. I believed it. I believed everything that my boss told me, because we were friends. Why wouldn't I believe him?

In the end, everything felt extremely familiar. Waking up in cold sweats from nightmares where I was out of control, being so anxious I couldn't sit still, nausea every day knowing that I would need to end the situation no matter what anyone said to me. He told me that I should be able to control my emotions at work... as though my walking him through my autism diagnosis meant nothing. I explained to an many people as I could about what it meant that I'm autistic. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't met with understanding but judgement. It was incredibly disappointing, but not surprising. Autistic people talk about how when they reveal their diagnosis, it often leads to ableism in the workplace, rather than understanding.

I am fortunate to have enough people around me that love me fiercely telling me constantly that this sounded bad for me. That this position seemed to be having a very negative effect on me. And when I secured a position for more money with a bigger, more stable corporation, they kept me grounded and prepared for battle. Did it make confrontations with my boss less painful? No. But they did keep reminding me over and over, it wasn't my fault that I was having PTSD breakdowns, meltdowns, bodily reactions. They reminded me of the ways I had tried to communicate what was going on. They reminded me how long this had been going on. They also kept telling me that no matter what anyone said, I was a good employee. I was still a high-value recruiter.

I am very nervous about this next position, to the point where I am not sure if I would want to reveal my disability, as in my experience now it only caused my (male) coworkers to talk to me like a child, like I was deficient or stupid.

What I was reminded of in this experience, though, was that my body doesn't lie. I may be able to lie to myself, to push through, to perform under pressure, but my body will give me away every time. I'm tired of fighting that part of me. I'm tired of trying to keep that piece hidden, because it's my alarm system. I choose to honor my alarm system, no matter how much it may trash my resume. I'll keep searching for a safe place to work while autistic. On to the next one.

#actuallyautistic #unmasked

[antiracistkaren]

Sir, I'm Thirty-Seven.

Male Candidate: "You'll understand being tired when you're older..." Me: "Sir, I'm 37 with three children..." Male Candidate: "Oh... well your picture is very nice, then." Me: "Oh, I see." This is a daily interaction. Men that I talk to assume that I am (1) young (2) inexperienced (3) unmarried and (4) available (whatever that means).

While I am trying to do my job, I am also navigating the delicate social rules that are in place that by virtue of being a female presenting person, so I enter any conversations with not only my assumptions about the candidate, but also the assumptions of the candidate about (1) my age (2) my abilities and (3) my social status alongside the job I'd like to discuss.

Men are more likely to respond to a message from a female-presenting recruiter. The numbers go even higher if the recruiter is white, seemingly able-bodied, and seemingly cis and heterosexual. As an autistic adult, I don't usually bring too many assumptions with me into a phone call aside from my belief that this candidate can do the job that I am talking with them about.

So conversations like the one above usually catch me a bit off guard--off handed comments in a patronizing and paternalistic mode will wrankle me every time. This one little comment will sit in my head and spin, making me wonder if this perception that was spoken aloud is a common one, and then, strategically, if it serves me in my personal mission of filling positions with qualified candidates.

I would argue that recruiting is a strange balance between flattery and reality. Sometimes candidates hear positive feedback and read alternate intentions on that feedback, like I personally think the candidate is a good person, or attractive physically, etc, which is not within the scope of what I'm doing here.

There are rare candidate interactions that are extremely positive: a candidate doesn't feel confident in their value in the marketplace, for example, and reach out in just the right window, and let the candidate know that they're underpaid and highly skilled. This can bond a candidate and a recruiter for a long time. The cheerleading aspect of recruiting can be a positive pivot in the candidate's career, and when honored and respected, a truly special and mutually beneficial relationship can grow. It gets clouded, however, when things that are not within the scope of my position enter into the relationship with a candidate: like how pretty I am or am not, how technical I am or am not, how deferential I am or am not.

And I'm not saying that this person was *bad* for this interaction, but I just found it telling that the systems that supposedly exist around interactions in every day life are real. The comment hit me, hard, like a punch in the stomach. What is my value beyond my profile picture? What do I have to offer aside from knowing you're chatting with someone who you consider pretty on the other side of the phone? Is it not enough that I'm experienced, intelligent, organized, and thorough? When, if ever, will we get past these types of value estimations on someone based on what they look like? Youth is great and all, but it is majorly lacking in experience and wisdom. I know that the profile photo I have will age along with me, and so too will the response rate dwindle as I get older. The things haunt me, because as I strive to take care of this body I occupy, grow my mind, and gain confidence in my experience, I cannot control my outward deterioration to a certain extent. And I guess that it will continue to be remarked upon by well-meaning men that I interact with daily.

[antiracistkaren]

The passivity of white women

I am so fortunate to be a part of a few groups where Black women are pushing white women to have uncomfortable discussions.

I love uncomfortable discussions, and unpacking unsaid currents of rules around social behavior. You may have seen the twitter thread on white women “keeping the peace” and how white women can’t seem to do “real talk” and I think there’s a lot of nuance to this that I’d like to talk about.

You can’t really talk about how white women behave until we talk about how white women are taught to behave, and that begins early. Nowadays with Gender reveal party nonsense, it’s taught even before a baby arrives.

Young kids (of all genders) are taught their roles early: this is what a woman looks like, wears, does for a job, talks like, walks like, thinks like. These rules are implanted extremely early if a child is part of an organized religion (especially ones like Christianity). On top of these gender norms, kids are also taught about white supremacy very early. Patriarchy and white supremacy go hand in hand, much as capitalism and white supremacy do (in fact, they are likely a triumvirate of oppression of the masses, but I digress...).

That means that while kids are learning about what is “man” and what is “woman” they are doing so against the picture of whiteness--that the white standard of beauty is paramount, that the white woman standard of what a woman looks like is superior. Patriarchal rules around sin (that Eve was sinful from the start, and thus, all women are sinful and therefore cannot be trusted--which, again I’ll digress, is so weird that this inherent belief exists alongside being forced to care for children, who are so impressionable and plastic in the first five years of life...) and around a woman’s place in the home (”never the head of household”) creates a strange gilded cage for women in general.

This twitter thread was written as an observation by a Black woman, and I think that she does hit on several points, but it is by no means a complete evaluation of the ways in which passive-aggressive and lack of “real talk” rules perpetuate in white households.

Just as there is intersection of oppression on Black women, we have to look at the complicated nature of patriarchy’s oppression on white women and the unwritten danger of cognitive dissonance in the house with any man.

We have established that gender norms and white supremacy are implanted early. They also have lasting consequences: students who mold themselves to these rules are rewarded with verbal praise, promotion to leadership positions (which is wild when you think about it), a large social circle, and general popularity among students. Students who speak up and question these rules are met with swift and lasting punishment: social isolation, physical and verbal bullying by peers and adults, and a lack of opportunity to influence others in leadership positions.

White supremacy and Patriarchy are so ingrained by kindergarten, that parents don’t have to do much work in their kids to uphold it.

Also consider the father in this situation: what role is he playing in the family that the white mother must be wary and concerned about? If they’re going to church, he is likely very conscious of his reputation as a man within that church: a man who “provides” (economically), who manages his wife (in a myriad of ways, but definitely economically and socially), and who raises children who will also be perpetual upholders of the status quo.

When we look at violence overall, we know that it comes from men a vast majority of the time. Consider what this means within a family. Since men tend to react violently to cognitive dissonance (their worldview shifting or being questioned) it is in a wife’s best interest not to cause it. That means keeping the peace as the man deems it, and holding conflict to a minimum, as this may put her (and/or her kids) at risk for bodily, verbal, or economic harm.

There is a strong incentive for any woman of any race and class, to stay partnered with a man. He is more likely to earn more money, and a double-income household is better able to provide services and opportunities for their children. So when we consider families who have been raised straight, christian, white, and able-bodied generation over generation, it is easy to see how a white woman can have these rules and rituals (to be passive, to do as told, to not question authority) implanted and Never Question Them for the span of their entire lives.

White women tears then in some cases, when provoked into a conversation that causes cognitive dissonance, are really tears of primal fear. If I change my mind to assimilate these concepts of patriarchy and white supremacy, then as a wife, it is my job to also help my partner assimilate these concepts. But should I do so at the risk to my body, my economic status, my children and my health? These are real questions white women will have to answer.

In the mean time, it’s imperative to start drawing a line from where these rules stand right now (that women, still, are required to uphold a visual appearance that is in line with white standards of beauty, and to uphold the very social norms that keep these oppressions in place) to where they were implanted in the very minds of the women in the grip of white supremacy and patriarchal views. Until we change the way that we teach what a woman is, in a way that is inclusive, non-patriarchal, and not in a white supremacist paradigm, it is up to white women to speak up no matter the threat, to create plans to ensure their own safety, and to stand up beside BIPOC women and non-binary folks to speak out about how harmful these unspoken rules are.

#blacklivesmatter #actuallyautistic #womenempowerment #inclusive feminism #intersectional feminism

[antiracistkaren]

On Addiction

I have an addictive family history, which is known if you’ve read my past entries (my sister overdosed in 2005).

Thus, for me, getting stuck in addiction is relatively easy. Alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine... I have to make a concerted effort to avoid truly dangerous drugs. I don’t have alcohol in my house, and have pretty much shunned the substance, as it brings out the worst rage-filled shadow-self that it is not worth it to even attempt moderate use.

Social media hacking into my dopamine centers is by far my largest, most difficult, and current struggle. I had deleted Facebook for over a year before I started doing community organization after the death of Mr. Javier Ambler II in my county.

And then I got on TikTok. And then I started to garner a platform, followers, instant feedback on my videos, positive support of my “radical” positions of wealth redistribution, prison abolition, and community activism. It feels good to know that although I live in a highly conservative part of the country, I am not the only one fighting for social progress. It feels good to know that I’m making personal progress in my own deconstruction of white surpremacy within my own brain. It feels amazing to find so many other adults who, thanks to the pressures of the pandemic, found they are autistic like me.

I could argue myself into continuing to grow and push my platform, to continue a time sink of putting on makeup and the trappings of femininity as I have for 37 years in order to get a simple message across: white people are racist, including me, and we need to do something about the systemic oppression of BIPOC in America.

Recently, one of my videos took off a bit more than usual, meaning, beyond a couple of thousand views and a hundred or so likes. I didn’t expect it at all--I’ve made similar observations before, but this time the way that I put it resonated with lots of white women, who duetted and pushed the message out. Then TikTok pushed it out to Black creators.

I tried to keep up with comments because I usually do, and suddenly my phone felt attached to my eyeballs. I checked it in the morning, between LSAT sections, while eating. I checked it to the exclusion of my children, at the expense of my real-life relationships. It isn’t the first time it has happened, but this time I was garnering views on my “original” content.

What I said wasn’t that novel. Many Black authors have, I am sure, made the connection before. My particular combination of words may have been original, but the concept is not. So what am I doing here? Why am I tying my emotional and mental well being to a physical device instead of real life people. Why am I tying social justice work to a platform, instead of real-life activist work like I did before the holidays? Why am I using the growth of this platform to somehow validate that I am doing good work?

More than that, I realized, as I lay awake last night, I was actively taking attention away from Black content creators who said the same damn thing. Sure, I might have a way with words, but am I so critical to a movement that if I stop speaking, it will falter or fail? No. I, however, am faltering and failing in my central goal: to educate myself, read books by BIPOC authors on the true nature of the history of the US Government and the United States as a whole.

In a time when I feel so separated from others, TikTok seems to offer community. But it doesn’t. It’s a false reality, and I am not helping anyone really. I’m only adding to the noise in an already-existing echo chamber. And I am hurting myself, my own brain, which is getting hijacked and addicted to little red notifications. I can’t even hear myself think anymore, I just hear sound bites play over and over based on what is trending this week.

I’m not exactly sure what to do about the problem. I love being an outspoken person who pushes white women closer to real allyship. I love educating on history in a way white people might actually understand and latch on to. I like distilling complex information down to 1 minute. Less, if possible. However, I also have to be smart enough to realize when I am getting mired in the muck of addiction. And I am. I am addicted to strangers’ approval of me, and that is dangerous and problematic as an ally, and as a human being.

So here I am, jonesing for just one hit of a like, for an excuse to go apply “war paint” (makeup) and summarize this or that. I’m itchy to check other platforms, to garner accolades, to get praise since no one around here really gives me any--pre-school children aren’t known for their gratefulness, you know?

And more than that, I’m giving away valuable information about me to the parent company. With every video, I am telling on myself--what I like and don’t like, what to push toward me to keep me sucked in... it is a smart and insidious machine in that way. Fortunately, I do have the ultimate safety valve. I can’t turn off my phone and put it away. I can delete the app. I can do both. But I can’t give any more of my one life over to it for free. 

#tiktok #actuallyautistic #socialjustice #autisticadult

[antiracistkaren]

“Not One”

Yesterday I stumbled on a TikTok that asserted that all white folks are bad and liars. It advised Black youth to remain skeptical of white people, as they would capitalize on antiracism and once being antiracist fell out of fashion, they will no longer champion the rights of Black people.

Of course it was hard to hear as a white person. And I am certain that if I got my white feelings hurt, the backlash that would inevitably grow against this creator will be great.

Whenever I hear something that triggers the deepest parts of “Not ME!” as a reaction to something a Black person says about white people, I step back immediately and do a lot of thinking about it.

Realizing that there is potential for me to make money off of, and capitalize on, ideas that Black people have been pushing for centuries is very real. I have been invited to join the creator fund at TikTok several times, and I refuse. I want to make sure that my platform is not a stopping point, something standing in the way of Black creators, but a sieve that points to creators who are the very people I am advocating with (not FOR, but with--alongside).

The statement made by the creator that there is No Good white person is valid. The creator hasn’t met one yet--meaning, she has never not been betrayed or hurt by a white person. It is as similar as me saying I am skeptical of every man I met, because I have not yet met one who has not caused trauma to me... except it is much worse, much deeper, because as this creator is a Black woman, which means that her trauma and her hurt is much more than I can even imagine. My oppression and abuse at the hands of men is small compared to her oppression at the hands of men and also at the hands of white people.

So I took my white feelings and sat with them for a while. I let myself feel hurt by it, while also acknowledging that she is right. Her lived experience is correct. Just because I consider myself antiracist does not shield me from the opportunity and temptation to capitalize on Black trauma. In a capitalist system, monetization has been made into a goal. It is no longer advantageous to create a platform or art or education for its own sake. That’s the sad state of affairs we live in.

Now that I have sat and done some reflection, I know that her truth is true because she’s lived in the same world that I have. She has a perspective that I do not share. And although I want to believe that “not all white people are racist” I know that’s fundamentally untrue. It must be, because I live in a country that based capitalism on the exploitation of someone else’s labor. Because  I grew up reading white-washed history, and had to deliberately go out of the way to find historical perspectives of those who have been oppressed in America--written by BIPOC and not a white historian.

There is nothing I can possibly to do prove that I am a “good” white person. It is fair for any Black person to view me with suspicion, to never fully trust me, to be waiting for me to sell out to capitalism in exchange for a comfortable existence where my world view is unchallenged. I can get paid to give lip service and never actually do any real work in the world to bend the curve toward Justice for those who have been oppressed by colonizers like me.

Much like being in a committed relationship, I have to choose every day to resist my own upbringing, my own racist thoughts, my own ingrained deference to a capitalist society. I have to choose to be uncomfortable and accepting, to welcome opportunities for paradigm shifts and cognitive dissonance to break down these “rules” that have been handed down generation over generation: poor people are poor because they want to be, that I deserve what I get based on my hard work alone, that although racism exists I’m somehow exempt because I have done SOME antiracist work. Breaking these rules in my own head is painful work: that’s what paradigm shifts are, but if I get tripped up on crying “NOT ME THOUGH!” I miss an opportunity to accept and wrestle with someone else’s pain and lived experience.

If I turn away from the grief cycle (the anger, denial, etc), I miss the opportunity to accept reality: that the world was especially crafted around white people, able-bodied people, straight people, Christian people. It is only by accepting what reality is that I can be effective or even begin to try and undo systems of oppression in the country and resist the temptation to make it about *me* and how *good* or *great* I am as an ally. I have to remind myself that it’s not about me. It’s been about me for too long.

#thankblackwomen #antiracism #actuallyautistic

[antiracistkaren]

On Grief and White Women

The stages of grief are well known: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I am always surprised when I start coming out of the other side of grief, because the stages don’t feel like the typical grief cycle for me. Acceptance feels first: yeah, that person died. Or part of my life died, and it is that acceptance that kicks off my grief. And I’m angry, not in denial, but depressed, certainly.

It’s a weird depression though. It doesn’t make me sleepy, it makes me sharp and dangerous. It doesn’t keep me in bed, it keeps me focused on all of the pain. Any new pains added in are reacted to in a huge way: I cannot take any more, so I cause harm to others to force my experience of pain to be shared.

I am finding that my experience of pain--physical and emotional--are very intense. I am unsure if it is because of autism, or if it is because I have spent my life connecting my brain to my body, and notice the physical sensations that are a product of my stress much more readily than the average adult.

My threshold for physical pain is almost nil, in some regard. Especially internalized physical pain. I can deal with a cut, sometimes not feel it like others, but any internal discomfort radiates out from my body. It forces me to collapse mentally, I can’t make coherent thoughts from it, and due to that incoherence, I am then unable to figure out or communicate effectively about/around my pain.

So I had a surgery, and then I had a death in the family. Was it sudden? No, the person had been diagnosed with cancer in 2018. However, the speed with which she declined was shocking. I have an email written from her--a response from my own email where I poured out all of the love I had in my body for her--stating she felt really good, and didn’t think that she would be passing any time soon. She passed less than 10 days later.

Now I am about a month out from her death, and I am just starting to see how dark my world was for a long time. How angry I was that she didn’t fully accept my love, how angry I am for not having pushed to have my partner at her bedside sooner, how angry I am at myself for having a surgery which made it hard for my partner to get to her quickly and without concern for my welfare. I carried it all willingly, for a while. It was a welcome distraction from study. An excuse to dip into poor habits that brought out the worst of my anxiety. It was a reason to bomb the LSAT (unconfirmed at this moment, but I’m a catastrophizer), to not be able to focus.

I’m not denying myself those feelings and that time, but I couldn’t even see it until I started to see some sunlight again. Until I could start to receive some of the love my friends had been desperately throwing my way, until I could grab on to some of these lifelines to save myself.

All this to say: it makes me think about white women, a lot.

I learned in undergrad, when I was getting my PoliSci degree, that it is impossible to see the depth and breadth of oppression when you’re still in it or under it. On TikTok this week, white women have been handed a lot of flack for their inability to recognize that although they are oppressed by the patriarchy, they are not the most oppressed people, and their oppression (though difficult) is not the same as the oppression put on Black folks, and especially anyone who is LGBTQ, Disabled, or AFAB and also Black. That’s intersectionality, and white women suck at it.

Much like I sucked at seeing how my own sadness and oppressive grief was causing me to act out in ways that vented some of the physical and emotional pain, I think white women struggle in the same way. When you don’t feel pain, (and although women in general are abused, Black women are 3x more likely to be murdered than white women, more likely to be abused than white women) your introduction to it feels overwhelming.

However, it’s categorically wrong to try to compare oppression for oppression. It’s not a zero-sum game. I think of oppression like a ladder: white cis straight able-bodied christian men are at the top, with zero oppression and a society built around them. They have no notion of oppression, and mistake any pain they feel as systemic oppression and tantamount to the pain that others feel under the boot heel of white supremacy and patriarchy.

Everyone standing under them on the ladder know that those at the top of the ladder are not oppressed, and are aware that those on top have no idea.

White cis straight abled bodied christian women are just one rung below. Woke liberal white women start to wake up to their own oppression and fail to look down. They only look up at the men who are standing on their shoulders keeping them down, and have not a care for the myriad of people below them on the ladder. They can’t even conceive of a person who is LGBTQ, homeless, disabled, BIPOC, and a sexworker as someone who even exists, but they do.

When white women start to attempt to equate their unhappiness with oppression, it is tone deaf and very similar, if not exactly the same, as when a white man feels pain and starts screaming oppression.

Yes, we are oppressed by the patriarchy... but so are men. Yes, we are more likely to be murdered by a partner than a man, but Black women are 3x more likely than we are to be murdered by a partner or family member. Fight for women’s rights, yes, but not White women’s rights. Oppression has an additive effect: that’s what intersectionality is. Oppression has layers, and the more oppressed you are, the harder it is to find you in American Society, the more your voice is buried. The more you’re erased from consideration.

White women, if they are to participate in the liberation of all women or in smashing the patriarchy, have to take a long hard look at themselves, the ways they have upheld the patriarchy when it suits them, and the ways they benefit from specifically white patriarchy in their own lives.

Half-woke white women are dangerous allies. They scream “me too!” when Black women or Indigenous women start talking about their struggles, often over those women who are trying to share their harder, deeper, and more intense experiences. Half-woke white women who fly the banner of ally are dangerous to BIPOC. They’re the ones who will scream that a Black man is threatening because he is a man, without a care to the racism that lives in their minds alongside their fear of men.

And most of all, most white women--especially those are are not close to being awake--have no idea what the depth of oppression feels like. In order to even come to the table with BIPOC, it is our job to examine our own grief, our own mistakes, our own anger and work on that before we step out trying to lend a hand in the community. Getting triggered as a white woman can get a person of color killed in America. Only when a white woman has done her research, committed herself completely to uplifting the voices of women of color--over her own most of the time--can she really start to be effective.

Only when the healing is mostly done can we start to see the overall oppression. Until then, we are a double-edged sword that will swing back on BIPOC every time, to their detriment.

#socialjustice #whitewomen #blm #actuallyautistic #oppression

[antiracistkaren]

I’m so disgusted. #femimism #actuallyautistic #autistiktok #autisticadult #womenempowerment https://www.instagram.com/p/CKjriBGAg3k/?igshid=bip771nn0e4q

#femimism #actuallyautistic #autistiktok #autisticadult #womenempowerment

[antiracistkaren]

For Me, Christmas is Trauma

TW/CW: Death, overdose

I really didn’t want it to be that way, but it wasn’t up to me. Since I was born on Christmas, it’s really all I hear about. From birth, people wanted to really highlight the fact that I was born on Christmas Day. The nurses encouraged my mom to name me “Holly” or “Noel” but she went with something different (thank goodness). I have been asked “Do you get double Presents?” over 1 million times, and counting. I have been asked, “Oh... does it suck?” about 500,000 times.

And I heave a big sigh, every time it is brought up, and say:

If you want to know the truth, it’s complicated. I was born at 8:22 PM, and for some reason, my mom made a big deal out of the fact that it was not my birthday until 8:22 PM, and it was Christmas every minute up to that. As I got older, I really resented this, as even when family members outside of my house hold would wish me happy birthday, my mother could be heard screaming from the hills “....NOT UNTIL 8:22!”

In my teenage years, this began to truly grate on my nerves, since I had a niece and nephew who took center stage on Christmas. I loved being with them on Christmas Day, and I loved wrapping their toys, but what I didn’t love was that I couldn’t mix my birthday in and celebrate alongside them.

I asked my mom a few times about moving my birthday to my half-birthday (this is the solution that someone usually arrives at when I explain the above situation), June 25th. Mom would say, “But Dawn’s birthday is June 26th.”

Dawn. My sister was 14 years older than me. She was the mother of my niece and nephew. We had a tumultuous relationship, to say the least: when I was a kid she was fond of pinching me until I was screaming, or tickling me until I couldn’t breathe, or body slamming me on the couch, or trying to make me say something ugly to my mother (”tell mom she’s stupid!” she would whisper, and I would yell, “MOM! Dawn wants me to tell you you’re stupid.”)

To me, she was always pretty cool, although she would blow my spot up and tattle to my mother about anything. She would encourage me to drink at her house (in 6th grade), and then tell on me for it. She would allow a boy to come over and then would go out on dates, and then lied to my mother about it. That lie in particular broke our relationship: my mother hit me mercilessly and called me a liar over and over when the truth contradicted my older sister’s lie. But I can’t lie, really, especially not in emotional distress, because I am autistic. So no matter how hard I was hit, I wouldn’t change my story, which enraged my mother beyond rational capacity.

When she started doing drugs, though, she was not at all cool anymore. She had confessed to me trying oxy and saying they “felt really good,” but not liking pot because “it makes me paranoid.” She overdosed on December 26th, 2005, five years into an addiction that started with that first moment in 2000. For me, it was a moment where I kept a secret that I should have told, and for me it is a long line between this statement and the one where I was screaming “NO!” into the telephone to my mother choking out the words “Dawn’s dead.” 

You can see the issue here. My sister, who was in so much pain as a single mother she turned to drugs, died a horrific and sudden death on the day after my birthday.

And now, should I try to have a half-birthday, I am haunted on both ends. My birthday and her death juxtaposed, and a half-birthday and her birth, juxtaposed. She will forever be 36, and I will forever look back over my shoulder at her, instead of ahead of me where she should be.

Holidays during college, during the worst of her drug use, were full-on masking charades to me. I would have knots in my stomach, driving home, often having to pull over and breathe, or find a bathroom, I felt so sick. Dawn would be there, often high, with her kids looking hollow and wide-eyed. I would play with them and take them upstairs, or outside. We would make walks around the neighborhood together, and play Wii. Dawn would sometimes say something excoriating and then proceed to pass out on the couch. She would wake up and remember nothing she had said and done, cheerful and rested, a completely different than the sharp-tongued woman who had hurt me.

The Christmas Day before she died, I was so angry with her for living with another addict, for getting married again, and skipping visitation, that I refused to speak with her. I crossed my arms, shook my head no, and would not take the phone from my mother when it was my turn. Unfortunately, it was my last opportunity to say anything to her good or bad. Unfortunately, I cannot remember when I saw her before that... was it the spring before? I don’t know. It was inconsequential at that point, overshadowed by the guilt of what could have been done on Christmas Day, what I could have said to keep her alive.

So every year I mark time on a day that has never ever been about me. Another year older. Another year closer to the age when she died. And now, I move past her life. I go on without her, but I am so broken and hurt from this last year. I understand how much pain she was in, and how she died trying to numb herself from it. I understand that my passing the phone might have been the last jab she could take. I understand that it is not solely on me.

But I think about it.

So I am not really a big fan of Christmas. Having to put up decorations to the day that your sister overdosed feels fake. Celebrating and decorating are complete masks for me. If I had my way, I would take a week off from the world to think and ponder over the past year, to love on my sister’s memory in some way, and to honor the fact that I am still going. I am still fighting. And I know with confidence that I will Keep Going. Much like, even under pain, I could not lie. Even under extreme emotional distress, I cannot stop moving forward. I must move through this trauma every single year and try so hard to find the joy in it.

I know that I’m not alone in this. Trauma doesn’t care what time of year it is. The over-excited, everything-must-be-perfect, and isn’t-this-time-of-year-wonderful types of sentiments aren’t working for me. My Christmases past are morbid, tense affairs, and are mostly solemn to me. I put up the tree because custom demands that I do so for my children. 

To me, every year, it feels like I am putting sharp objects all around my house, poking at me with their bright lights and tinny sounds. Christmas is living breathing trauma for me, and I survive every year... but it feels like trauma the whole time.

#actually autistic #christmas #trauma #birthday #feminist #nonbinary

[antiracistkaren]

Post Hysterectomy Thoughts

CW/TW: Mentions of eating disorder, surgery, suicide, sexual assault/rape of trans people

I am at home with my family--meaning, I can hear every cry my girls make, every short answer from Jon, and every minute that goes by that I'm not studying. I feel it all.

I was at Dylan's this weekend for the first couple of days. I just went into a room and really didn't come out except to use the bathroom and have small talk when I was too restless to stay upstairs. I ate Oreos whenever I wanted and eggs scrambled up by Dylan in the mornings. I had one cup of coffee while I was there.

I watched all of The Crown, and have that fullness of feeling caught up on something. I finished Becoming right before my surgery, which has also extinguished my desire to read in general. It was my "easy" read, while The People's History of the United States is dense and must be read slowly. It's hard to speed read through history. It takes time to digest. And then there's This Little Light of Mine about Fannie Lou Hammer. Another dense biography with close writing and thick pages. I know the outcome of this one is not nearly as bright as Mrs. Obama's, so I am loathe to really get into it. However, I know that once I get going, I am able to polish off books rather quickly. It just takes me time to reach the halfway point--which is usually where I start to get invested in the rest of the book. I always have to fight to get to that "halfway" mark, where I bend the book and it no longer wants to snap shut on my hands, but falls beautifully open, having been appropriately used and doted on enough to break the spine.

So I just let my eyes enjoy some historical fiction. The quiet dialogue of The Crown would help me drift off the sleep when I became tired from my medication, and would be there when I woke with gentle British accents and sweet "arguments" occurring on screen.

It's hard watching Diana's eating disorder. It is not something that I personally struggle with--bulimia, but I do strictly control what I eat and when. You can always tell when I am super stressed out because I simply stop eating because I am too nervous or overwhelmed. The times when I have dropped weight suddenly are times in my life when I was at my worst, emotionally and relationally.

So I understand the Bulimia, the desire to have control at least, over what goes in and out your body. Especially when you have no control over how your mind feels, how your emotions are responded to, and even your every day movements are stilled and controlled. Post-surgery is a box, but it is one I do not mind inhabiting at the moment, because I know that once I emerge from this particular box, I will be free of cyclical pain and will be free to live as a man does: without concern or thought to when my period is coming and when I will be in pain.

Although it may sound small to most people... or to men especially, it is hard to describe the depth of thought and concern one's period brings. You hear about it a lot as a kid growing toward puberty, and then comparing severity among your peers becomes normal. Women talk about their periods to each other all the time: ways to avoid it, to skip it, to make it lighter, shorter, less painful. We use all of the strategies and tricks to attempt to act "normally" like a man does while we are mercilessly bleeding from a major organ.

It's really strange: how we treat women and their periods. Something that afflicts over half of the population on a roughly a monthly basis, and we're not even allowed to discuss it.

I want to talk about something that happened the day before my surgery, which still has me stewing and fuming a bit, and that was a Pregnancy Test.

I have not been sexually active with Jon in a way that would produce a baby since June. June, y'all. I know my life and I know my marriage, and we are hanging on by a thread, but I know this fact: I am not pregnant. I have gotten my period, often and heavily.

However, thanks to Texas state law, prior to my hysterectomy I had to prove that I'm not pregnant.

Basically, the law prevented me from "lying." And I can't help but think about... well, "what if?"

What if, after having three children and taking every single precaution I could, I was pregnant? It means I would either have to cross state lines to get an abortion and then have a hysterectomy, or carry that unwanted baby to term, furthering the pain and trauma on my body.

My body has been through enough at this point, y'all. That's what I was in the office to get this organ removed. Pregnancy is literally toxic to my body. Getting rid of my uterus was the last recourse I had, since birth control makes me suicidal and absolutely bonkers prior to my period. I'm not talking about PMS, I'm talking heavy mood swings that put me into suicidally sad places. I'm talking fits of rage that felt like explosions from my body. In short, birth control really aggravates by ability to manage my emotions at all levels. Which means, as an autistic woman that struggles to manage emotions anyway, I was absolutely psychopathic. I would come out from the fog and look backwards and see how irrational I was, how irritated I was. I found myself apologizing every few weeks for having huge breakdowns emotionally, physically around ovulation and then again around my period.

So I am telling the nurse that there is no way that I can be pregnant, and I'm mostly shrugging this off, but it really bothers me when I get to the paperwork: I must either consent to have this test, or risk not having the surgery if I won't take it. Classic catch-22: submit in order to get the thing I need to have a better quality of life, or stand up for my rights as a woman and risk being denied this surgery.

So I submitted, with great resentment. I stood up after my blood draws and asked if I needed to pee on a stick, and that I could leave a sample. The nurse informed me that no, they would run a blood test.

A blood test. Something far more accurate, detailed, and expensive. I am lucky enough to have hit my deductible, and so I will not personally pay for this bloodwork and this pregnancy test, but if I didn't have health insurance, I would have been required to do something because of my gender, and then been required to pay for it myself.

That's fucked up, y'all. Never mind that I was taking birth control. Never mind that my husband and I are basically abstinent right now. Never mind that I have three children already and if I don't want to have another one, that should be my RIGHT as a human being, I was required to take a test AND pay for it at the same time.

Smacked by two laws: one in which I do not have the right to free healthcare and pregnancy tests, and one in which I do not have the right to evacuate a toxic organ if it happens to house a mass of cells (because I just had my period, there's literally... no way that it could have been more than a mass of cells that that point), because my husband happened to catch an egg right before my procedure?

I was heartsick thinking about it. The amount of women who may try their best to get away from an endless cycle of pain or pregnancy being turned away because they caught an egg this month. Pregnancy is like being in prison for some of us. It is toxic to my body: I would get gestational diabetes without fail. That's my body telling me something: This isn't healthy for you. And yet I did it three times.

And I don't get to say when it's over without taking a test? Without proving to the medical community, to law-makers, that I am not pregnant?

What is the reasoning here? Do we somehow believe that women will, knowingly pregnant, go in for a hysterectomy? Really?

It's three days later, I still cannot get over it. I also think about Trans people, who want to have their uterus removed and are denied if they are under 30. That leaves Trans people open for getting pregnant via rape: trans people are far more likely to be sexually assaulted and raped (Source). If we refuse to allow trans people to remove their own uteruses when they deem fit, we are damning them to having to take hormones to suppress ovulation, or other chemicals that will fundamentally alter their mental state for the worse.

This isn't about oh poor suburban me--I am LUCKY I can do this. Luckily, I'm not pregnant. Luckily, we have paid out of pocket all damn year and got this surgery for free. It makes me angry that I have to feel like this is a damn gift that I got--this major abdominal surgery is a privilege that many do not have, simply because they are not a white, suburban mother whose husband has decent (not great!) healthcare through his employer.

I'm thinking about all of the women under 30 with endometriosis, cysts on their ovaries, and other conditions that make having this monthly cycle a NIGHTMARE. I'm thinking about trans people who want desperately to evacuate an organ that does not feel like part of their bodies. I'm thinking about homeless women who want to be rid of their pain on a monthly basis, who are just trying to survive and who have to make money just to be a part of society, to have money to buy sanitary supplies.

We are treating people with uteruses in this country as criminals if they want to alter their bodies. We have brought a Christian, white supremacist, doctrine into the patient/doctor relationship, and it is humiliating to women, especially those AFAB, and those women of color who cannot get access to this surgery at all.

It IS a gift, but I wish it weren't. I wish that women could take comfort in knowing that when they feel "done" with having children, they can choose to be done. Whenever they want. Empower women to take control over their own bodies and reproductive lives. You don't need to imprison us to make children--many of us want to, and will suffer in order to have children. But it shouldn't be forced on anyone simply because they have a uterus.

#trans rights #hysterectomy #lgbtq #actually autistic #autistic adult #autistic women

[antiracistkaren]

Here for it.

Gender abolition, but make it:

clothes sorted by body shape and style, instead of gender

removing unnecessary gender markers from non-medical documents like a driver's license

genderless bathrooms where the stalls have floor-to-ceiling walls for privacy

abolishing gendered toys, colors, professions, hobbies, etc.

they/them as the default if you don't know someone

And NOT:

trans and non-binary people being barred from identifying with and expressing their gender

#actually autistic #lgbtq #nonbinary #gender nonconforming

[antiracistkaren]

On the Paradigm of a House-wife

I have  been a house wife for almost 5 consecutive years.

Finding out that I am autistic turned all of it upside down for me. A nagging fear has chased me my whole life: what if I end up doing something that slowly kills me for the rest of my life?

I found myself pacing and stalking around my house like a caged animal, frantically tidying after every activity time in the house. My children and I rotated from room to room on a delay: half an hour here, then rotate, and I clean this room while they destroy that room.

Discovering my autism means that suddenly feeling bored and thrown off by all-kids-at-home-all-the-time-and-no-break destroyed my entire foundation of being at home. I was able to carefully balance all things until the quarantine. I feel that I cannot be alone in this.

In the groups in which I participate, there are many people like me: the quarantine broke their fragile stability that allowed them to function according to societal standards. Undiagnosed autistic people made it this far by doggedly adhering to some kind of routine, along with all of the internalized “rules” that were taught to us (especially taught to people who were assigned into womanhood) from a very young age.

What I am observing is that many women are finding themselves suddenly making sense of their world, of their turmoil, of their lack of understanding. Breaking that paradigm apart is painful, and as an autistic person, I find myself taking out each of these rules and drawing a line from now, when I have deeply ingrained them in my psyche, and when I learned it in the first place is helpful.

Thus, many autistic people find that their abuse is tied to their gender. At least, in my personal observations of recently diagnosed adults with children. So these very quiet and unspoken rules have literally guided all of our lives.

For example: rule for a woman is to be a wife and mother. You can say that this truth is not real, but for someone growing up in the south, I assure you that knowing the average age of marriage was 23 absolutely impacted my thought processes growing up. 23 wasn’t just an average: it was a goal to meet in order to feel and be considered “normal.”

I learned to hide my body from view almost all of the time, because it was constantly commented on, or about. My baggy clothes were also commented on, but I didn’t mind as much. Fine, call me a slouch in my clarinet lessons, Mr. so-and-so, I practiced my ass off and am winning in this lesson. Clarinet playing has nothing to do with my attire.

The comments on my breasts, bra popping, groping, and sexualization of my friendliness forced me to dress a certain way, only deploying my body as a last resort in order to achieve some kind of goal. I cannot help but think that there are other people who were born and conditioned to be “women” in the “woman” box, found themselves mentally/cognitively separated from their own bodies.

I learned that my body was a thing that seemed to matter a lot to other people, and not so much to me. Watching it grow and contract during pregnancy was a serious challenge because my body wasn’t obeying me anymore due to another autonomous being taking residence in there.

So non-binary was always felt *right* to me, but coming out as non-binary and pansexual will be seen by those who have bravely broken down those barriers and boxes as an attempt to steal something that doesn’t belong to me.

It would be lovely to see the LGBTQ+ community welcome us adult autistic “women” into the community as we break out of the paradigm in which we were raised. I cognitively understand that clothing isn’t inherently gendered, and you can say that to me, but I also understand that I am looked at differently if I am shopping in the men’s section in the south.

If you have been known and had the ability to know yourself sexually from a young age, you have some privilege here. You’ve had at least some measure of freedom to explore with others like you, with support from others like you. Those of us who have felt deficient for an undiscernable reason are just now learning that we really are different. Our cognitive processes, how we see the world, how we interact with neurotypical people, and how we dress our bodies and express our gender is a venture out into a space that we have not felt comfortable making until now. Until after monogamous marriage, after children, after houses, after financial dependence.

So I implore you to be gentle with those autistic people, especially undiagnosed autistic women, who are starting to explore gender expression and sexuality outside of the very rigid rules we internalized and lived by in order to survive in an ableist world that told us we are just plain wrong, and we need to be cured of this wrongness.

Otherwise, you may end up scaring a population of newly queer and questioning people back into their very dark, lonely, and suffocating closet.

#actually autistic #nonbinary #lgbtq

[antiracistkaren]

Let’s talk about exceptionalism. This is by no means a complete video about how to deal with people who argue with you using exceptionalism, but if you are a creator who is attracting these kinds of arguments it is important to know how to attack it and how to disengage from it as the person making this argument has absolutely no interest in having a good faith discussion on how to help the poor and disenfranchised and marginalized groups in this country. Be smart with your arguments and know why you are arguing for some thing so that when someone comes in with a counter argument you can name it for what it is, and this is just one example of a bad faith argument #actuallyunmasking #actuallyautistic #autisticadults #antiracist #politics #blm #blacklivesmatter #arguments https://www.instagram.com/p/CIDlk09gOH4/?igshid=1tg0d8ji5h5p7

#actuallyunmasking #actuallyautistic #autisticadults #antiracist #politics #blm #blacklivesmatter #arguments

[antiracistkaren]

Trust me, You’ll Like It

Sometimes, when I am having uncontrollable anxiety, I chase the fear down in my head. A door will lead to a door will lead to a door, and suddenly I find myself in my own eye’s as a child. I see the even unfold as I remember it, and I remember what thoughts I was having, my bodily sensations, and the lesson I learned.

And then, I ask myself if it was a True lesson. The answer is almost always “No.”

As an autistic person (who grew up as a girl), it was on me to figure out and understand the rules that people were making up from thin air around me. There were rules I could see: I could read at a young age, and so I could see written rules, and those made sense. However, there seemed to be times when I made adults Angry. That made me feel sad because I didn’t understand why an adult would be angered by such a little person, but because I was too scared of what the adult would do if I kept resisting, I internalized that rule and strove to not break it again.

It became confusing when my family opened up at the marriage of my sister, who was 14 years older than me. He was the first man I was exposed to on a regular basis that wasn’t my brother (my father left before my 2nd birthday).

My family loves roller coasters, and we all--my sister’s husband included--went to six flags when I was 6 or 7. Quite young to be on grown-up roller coasters. The adults wanted to all ride the Georgia Cyclone, but it was very loud and rattly and I was scared to ride it for myself.

My sister’s husband made fun of me the entire way up to the roller coaster. He belittled me, made fun of me, and my family joined in. Only my mother protested, but the damage had been done. I rode the roller coaster and it scared me terribly. It rattled my teeth. I didn’t make a sound--not even to scream. I ignored all the anxiety and fear I had in my body and allowed someone to dictate my experience. A man, no less.

I was given so much praise for my ability to supress fear that I lived that out for the rest of my life. I stopped listening to my body, my intuition, especially at the advise of men who had no interest in keeping me safe, but who had every interest in sexualizing a young girl.

That was the first time. The very first time that a man punished me for telling him no, and I gave in with the encouragement of those who I loved and felt protected by. This is a pattern I have lived over and over since then.

The issue is--I now love roller coasters. I wrestle over I would have loved them if I hadn’t ridden that first one when I was little. I probably would, and I could have felt empowered and brave within myself if I had been given the option for bodily autonomy in that moment. Instead, my consent was overridden, and I learned that making other people happy with me was more important than listening to my own body.

I learned in that moment, that something was a rule that I would hear about over and over again by the men I was in close relationships with: “Trust me, you’ll like it.”

#actuallyautistic #trauma #autism #autisticadult

[antiracistkaren]

Also, it's fun 😇 #actuallyautistic #whitewomen #antiracist #lgbtq #nonbinary https://www.instagram.com/p/CHgiGMTFLIP/?igshid=4mci1tdvogdy

#actuallyautistic #whitewomen #antiracist #lgbtq #nonbinary