Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Mental Health

Groups, labels, and feeling at home, part two

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One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot throughout my life is how much my sense of being an outsider is me and how much is them. Them meaning society. In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how there’s a channel in the Discord to which I belong that is really good for discussing various topics. It got threateneed to be age-verified when Discord switched to that (not getting into the inane politics behind it, but just, ugh), and some people who never visited the channel thought that was just fine.

Here’s the thing. It’s the one channel I felt comfortable talking about queer things, nonmonogamy, and an array of other things that did not fit into the other channels. In fact, the channel was created (before my time) when there wasa a college student (19 or 20, I think) asking questions about sexual slang. I gather this was in one of the general channels, and some people were uncomfortable with it.

Then, one of the owners of the Discord created the channel for After Dark topics and said, “Don’t make me regret this.”

We got that lifted when the threat of intrusive age-verification became a reality, for which I am profoundly grateful. In this channel, we have talked about music, dating, lightly touched on politics, and, yes, sex. We’ve talked about nonmonogamy/polyamory (and what the difference is), whether men and women can truly be friends (and introducing nonbinary/agender people into the question), and have encouraged people to go on dates.

The last few days the channel has been super-busy. No idea why, but the messages have been flying. We’ve pondered what ‘milkshake’ means in the classic R&B song of the same name by Kelis. Boobs? Butt? Blowjobs? Je ne sais quois? I’ve always thought it was the first, but I’ve heard people say it’s the second. Never heard the third or fourth until today. Other people said it’s what she has within–pretty much the same as the fourth.

How did we get on this topic? Because it’s been stuck in my head for several days, and I shared that in the channel. I think it was tangentially related to something that was going on in the channel–though I’m not absolutely sure. My brain works in werd ways (which is the whole point of the last ten or so posts), so who knows what connection it made?

Side note: when I was  younger, I would write or talk in ways that just assumed others could see the connections I was maknig in my brain. They were so clear to me, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t as clear to other people.

We also talked about dating woes people have had and muffins. Those are not related topics, byway. Oh, and it was muffins and cupcakes. We were discussing the difference between them because someone shared a meme about them. It had something to do with what the actual difference was–was it just the frosting? And then we migrated to talking about did that mean muffins were tops and cupcakes were bottoms? Because muffin tops were a thing.


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Sleep, perchance not to dream, part three

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Sleep. My enemyy. I wrote a whole novel–no, forget that novel. We don’t talk about that one. Let’s move on. I have been fighting with Morpheus since I was a kid, and I am giving up hope that I will be able to adjust it any time soon. I spent all of the last post talking about how much I’ve struggled with my sleep–and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything I can do to fix it.

I feel beaten down and defeated–and I know at least some of it is my own damn fault. Nerodivergence or not, I–you know what I’m not going to finish that sentence, either. I’m very hard on myself, and I think even when I can recognize that I am neurodivergent, I don’t fully accept that it has an impact on me. Or I downplay it and feel like I’m a lazy person, anyway.

It’s hard to say because while it is a big deterrent, that doesn’t mean it’s not up to me to do something about it. I think the problem is that I need to do the one thing I really, really don’t want to do–which is set a firm bedtime. The problem with that is setting a firm bedtime doesn’t mean I’ll be able to sleep on time or enough. In fact, when I put an emphasis on my sleeptime or forcing myself to go to bed, I become very aware of time passing. That makes it harder for me to fall asleep, and I just lie on the couch with my eyes wide open. Even when I close them, I can hear the metaphorical clock ticking in my ears.

The problem is that the little tweaks I do don’t work. Moving my bedtime up or back by an hour–nope. Melatonin–nope. Sleeping pills–a hard nope. Warm milk, herbal tea, warm bath? Nope, nope, and nope. Exercise before bed? Nope. Exercise during the day? Nope. Valerian? Fuck no! Reading before bed? Nope. Napping earlier? Also nope.

Side note: I have this thing about not trying the last and desperate option because–and I admit, this is screwy logic–then I’ll have nothing left. When I was deep in my depression and had tried so many meds, my therapist suggested EKG. I demurred because I felt that was the last option. If it didn’t work, I would be totally bereft.

I know it’s faulty logic, but it’s the way my brain works. It’s the same with the end of things. I hate the last in any series because it means the end of that series. I really liked a British series called Prime Suspect, based on the books. It’s about a female cop (detective? I think?) who had to fight sexism as much as she did the baddies. By series I mean there was a movie every year or so–looking it up, it spanned 15 years, had 7 series and 15 episodes. So I was basically right. The last series, series 7 had 2 episodes. I could not bring myself to watch them, and I still haven’t. I just could not bear to see the series end.

Now, I could go back and watch the whole series (if I can find them to stream. I don’t have any of the streaming services that offer the series, apparently. Sigh), but I’m not sure I want to do that. I adored Helen Mirren back then and for decades to come. Fairly recently, though, she’s said some things that make me like her less. Also, I don’t know how well the series will hold up. But it was incredible at the time.


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Sleep is as sleep does, (my brain), part seven

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Let’s talk more about burnout, sleep, and how the hell I can do better with both. I’m pretty sure the lack of the middle one is causing the first one, but I feel helpless to do anything about it. My sleep is wild these days. I had to get up before noon for my class, and I went to bed fairly early for me (5 a.m.), and I planned on getting up a quarter to twelve. Instead, I fell asleep, snoozed, and got up several times. At eleven or so, I woke up and just could not go back to sleep.

I have a weird thing in which if I have to get up at a certain time, then I’ll wake up early and keep on waking up until I give up and get up for good. It’s so frustrating because I could get an extra hour of sleep if  Iwould just stay asleep, but my anxiety does me in every time.

When I used to fly frequently, I would often get an early morning flight because it was the cheapest. If i had to be at the airport at, say, four in the morning, I just was not going to sleep that night. Even as I’m writing this, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. I’ve nodded off, slept for a few minutes, started awake, and repeated the cycle.

There’s no reason I couldn’t just go to bed now, but I won’t for whatever reason. I know what will happen, though. If I stay awake for ten more minutes, I’ll be up until five or six. This is just the way my brain works for whatever reason.

I’m exhausted, and then I can’t sleep. This cycle is the worst, and I know that I don’t help myself. I think the thing I need to do if I can is take out the self-judgment. I was talking to A about how hard it is not to be negative about oneself in addition to the actual problem. After all, we’ve been told all our lives that we’re lazy; that our brains were broken; that we just needed to try harder.

I can’t tell you how many different things I have tried to get better sleep. In fact, I listed several ways I tried to get better sleep in my post from yesterday. Every time, I had hope in my heart that this would be the answer, it wasn’t. There is nothing that has worked–except Taiji. And that took several years before it helped in the sleep department. Before I studied Taiji, I got four to five hours of sleep a night. Afterwards, I pushed it up to six, maybe six-and-a-half, inch by inch. Now, I get six to eight, depending, and it’s mostly on me if it’s less because I set my alarm for the same time no matter when I go to sleep (unless I have to get up earlier).

Why? Because I’m hoping in vain that it’ll spur me to go to bed earlier. I have mentioned that I would like to go to bed by 3 a.m. Now, it’s more than  half hour past that. 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. is my ideal schedule, but I have rarely been able to stay on that schedule. After I got out of the hospital (after my medical crisis), I was sleeping 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. I never did that even when I was a kid. I have never gone to bed before midnight–even when I had a 7:45 a.m. class in college. In fact, during that time, I rarely went to bed before 3:30 a.m.


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The importance of sleep (and braiiiiins), part six

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Let’s talk about sleep. Again. Forever. I struggle so much with it on so many level. Before I get into it, here’s my post from yesterday about how autism and ‘socially awkward’ are often used as an excuse for creepiness.

I’m mad thinking about it again. Why are we so quick to excuse bad behavior from men*? Or to say “that’s just the way he is”? Or, even worse when little boys pulled the hair of little girls, “He’s just showing that he likes you”?

By the way, stop that bullshit. Seriously. Stop it the fuck right now. We do not need to be teaching little girls that abuse is acceptable. And, no, I don’t think that’s being hyperbolic. A boy hurts a girl, and she’s just supposed to accept it because he “likes” her? No. Not appropriate and not acceptable.

In the same vein, don’t make kids accept hug or force them to hug anybody. Bodily autonomy is important. I have heard because it excuse it because faaaaaamily. But family can do bad things, too. The vast majority of abuse of children is by family members.

I have very few absolute opinions–one of them is that kids should never be made to hug anyone they don’t want to hug. I have read the reasons why people are for it, and none of them make one whit of an impression on me. They just sound like noise in my ears and mere excuses. “You want to make Granny feel welcome!” A warm smile and a “so glad to see you” can do that.

Hm. I just thought of something. I am very much someone who doesn’t are about labels in general. Male, female, Christian, Jew, Muslim, age, etc. I understand that it’s important to most people, and I can respect that. I mean, if those aspects are clearly important to someone, then I’ll be respectful.

I vould add familial labels into that basket. This is heresy as an Asian person, but I don’t think someone should be accorded more respect just because of their position in the family. To make it clear, I think everyone is deserving of a base level of respect as a human being. But I do not and never will agree that someone deserves more respect because they’re a day older or a man.

I think it’s because of my mindset that I am so absolute about not making kids kiss and/or hug anyone they don’t want to, regardless of family connection. And partly my neurodivergence, too. If you would not make your kid hug a total stranger, then why make them hug someone they see once a year? Or even more often than that.

Kids have such little autonomy as it is; they should not be forced to give up even more of it. This is a hill I would die on.


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How my brain works (and doesn’t), part seven

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Sometimes, I just want to give up. Well, lots of times. It’s much less of an impulse now and not nearly as strong, but it’s still there. My brain is tired. I am tired of always trying to be “normal” or anyithing remotely close to it.  Here is my post from yesterday in which I talked about struggling to differentiate between my brain being broken and it working as intended (but just differently than other people’s).

I could just say fuck it and go to bed at six or seven. There’s no real reason I can’t do that–it’s not like I usually have to get up at a specific time. Well, one day a week and two other days every other week I have a set time to get up, but that’s not a big problem. Only one is in the morning and would be a real problem.

I want to be…not normal, per se, but not such a weirdo. I’ve written about this before. I’m not one of those who is slightly odd or just one deviation from normal. I’m a freak. However, not in the way that, say, artists are freaks. I don’t drink or do drugs, so that makes me an outlier for that group of people as well.

In fact, I don’t do groups in general because I will never fit in. That part doesn’t bother me because I’m used to it and I’ve given up the hope that I will find a group that is my people. Not because I don’t think there aren’t people who are my people out there–it’s because groups tend to fall to the lowest common denomination.

Hm. That’s not quite what I wanted to say, either. It’s really hard to explain without making it sound like sour grapes. I’ll try my best. When a group of over, say, ten people (actually, maybe even over five) gather, there has to be a code of conduct, whether it’s verbalized or not. Maybe not so much a code of conduct, but any group needs norms.

The problem is the more people a group has, the less the ability and/or desire to monitor behaviors. And, because groups are microcasms of the world around them, that means that all the things that are wrong in the world at large will always be present in a group.

This is why there needs to be explicit rules and miscreants need to be dealt with swiftly. Conventions learned this the very hard way. Many of the comic/gaming ones are, well, were filled with misogynist bullisht. And racist bullshit. The groups who put on the cons tried to ignore the problem for a long time, but it reached a tipping point, and it exploded messily all over everything.

I don’t know how the tipping point happened, but afterwards, many cons started having posted code of conducts and got more serious about making their minority con attenders feel safer. It’s become a standard, and now it’s weirder not to have a code of conduct than it is to have one.


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Why my brain doesn’t brain, part six

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I want to talk more about how my brain works–or doesn’t. In the last post, I went way off the tracks as is my wont, and I never really made my way back to the main road. Who knows if I’ll do the same thing today? (I will. I always do.)

I was talking to my mother tonight, and she was lamenting that she hadn’t been shopping in a real store in such a long time. Nor does she really feel comfortable shopping online. She was castigating herself for not doing the former, putting it in very negative terms. I was saddened for her because of the huge amount of shame she was carrying because of it. And I understood because I did the same thing to myself more often than not.

She was shaming herself and saying she was getting agoraphobia as a reason for not going shopping. I stopped her and said that she had a lot to deal with, so it made sense that it would be harder for her to go shopping. In other words, it didn’t always have to do with mental health. This was something I had a hard time deciphering. Sometimes, it was my mental health issues acting up. Sometimes it’s something that anyone in the situation would do. And sometimes, it’s just the way my brain works.

In other words, it’s not always a mental health issue–though sometimes it can be, of course. Anwdn it’s not always my particular way of thinking. Sometimes, anyone would react in the same way in the same situation. It’s just hard to tell when I’m used to defaulting to there’s something wrong with me.

One thing I talk about with A is how to decide which flaws I want to actually change and which I’ve accepted. This is getting past the point of shaming myself for everything I think of is wrong with me. For example. I work to the back of a deadline. My mother and I used to have friction over this when I did editing for her. She would give me a date, and I would assume that was the date she wanted it by. It was usually a date far in the future, so I would file it in the back of my brain and move on.

A week or two later, my mother would ask how it was going, and then  be not happy when I said I hadn’t even started. We did this song and dance for far too long (Midwestern and Taiwanese cultures at work here) until I finally brought it up to her. She said that the date she gave me was the ‘last resort’ date. Secretly, she wanted me to get it to her about a week or two after she sent me the piece to edit.

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My brain and me, part four

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Let’s talk more about how my brain is weird. I’ll give a very recent example. Tonight (last night? About five hours ago), my carbon monoxide detector/smoke alarm went off. I thought it was four quick, sharp (and loud) beeps in rapid succession while the lights flashed green. I looked it up, and four beeps meant CO. Before I go any further, here’s my post from yesterday.

I’ve had one go off before, and it was because it had reached the end of its life. I read a lot of conflicting information about the beeps, but I finally decided that calling 911 and just explaining the situation as I did the last time was probabl yfor the best. Three policemen came, and I explained what happened. We tested the detector/alarm (I had put the two batteries in wrong, so we put them in the riht way and tested it.) It was actually beeping five times. We counted several times. That meant it was at the end of its life, but why is it so close to the actual alert for CO, I don’t know.

They checked the gas levels all over my house, and there was nothing. The lead cop told me to buy a new one (I only had one) and to monitor how I was feeling. I knew the basics–flu-like symptoms, dizziness, etc. The lead cop told me that I really don’t want to turn chherry red.

I’m not overly concerned, but there is a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe there is gas somewhere. And I should have tried harder to get the detectors (I’m getting them tomorrow morning). I don’t think that’s so unusual, but I don’t know.

That’s the worst part of having a weirdo brain. Not knowing what is normal and what isn’t. I don’t think this is that unusual (to be worried even though there’s no real reason to). The higher the stakes, the more the worry explodes. And even though the chance of dying from CO poisoning is minimal, it’s impossible to detect except for with a detector.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting or underreacting. Or maybe just reacting? It’s so hard for me to gauge. Also, I’m tired AF because I only got three-ish hours of sleep last night. So knowing whether I’m fatigued or not is not that possible. I was joking with the lead cop that who wasn’t fatigued these days? He had a girlfriend and a child, so he knew all about tired.

He sent his cohorts back to the cop shop to get the CO monitor, and we chatted while they were gone. I learned about his prior jobs and how he ended up in New Brighton on the night shift. It was a nice little chat, and I proved I can be normal when I need to be. Granted, I had a vested interest in keeping the cops on my good side, but still. I was able to talk like a normal person, and that felt good.


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Me and my brain, part three

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Let’s talk more about me and my broken brain. I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but I still half-believe it. Or rather, I know that I think very differently than most other people. I have accepted that, and I’m mostly ok with it. The hardest part is when I say something that I think it totally vanilla and get an outsized reaction to it. That’s when I completely retreat into myself and shut down. I hate when I’m trying my very best, and it’s still not good enough.

Which, honestly, is how I feel most of the time when I interact with the normies. I’m always calibrating what I should say and what I shouldn’t. And usually erring on the side of not saying something if it’s even close to questionable. That’s why I’m miffed when I say something that I consider safe and then I get shit for it, anyway. Oh, and here is my post from yesterday before I go any further with this post.

You know what’s also frustrating? Neurotypical people saying that everyone has to mask or hide parts of their true selves at work (or other times). While it’s true that everyone has to mask to o certain extent, it’s the extent and amount of effort that matters. And it’s discounting how much more neurodivergent people have to mask than normies.

Side note: I could say that about any minority, by the way. It’s a point I wish normies would truly internalize. Minorities have to go the extra mile-and-a-half past where they (the normies are) just to be considered equal. Plus, we always have to make the calculation of how much of ourselves we can show. In some ways it’s better now than it was when I was in my twenties, but in many ways, it’s much worse.

One of the big ones is queer issues, especially trans issues, obviously. It’s horrifying how quickly and viciously the current administration is attacking civil rights for queer people. Every time I check the news, they are trying something or the other to do harm to me and my kin. It’s reached the point where I don’t want to hear anything on the news because it’s just going to make me angrier.

I was talking in the Discord I’m in about dating. I mentioned that I haven’t dated in quite some time in part because the last two times I thought about dating, rather big events interrupted that train of thought (the pandemic and me dying (twice!), respectively). I know it’s superstition, but I’m worried about trying for a third time.

Also, I’m overwhelmed every time I go on the apps. There is just so much there, I don’t really know what to do. One person in the Discord suggested doing backstage steps first. Such as writing out what I was looking for to make it clearer in my mind. I told her that was what actually worked for me, anyway. Breaking things into micro-steps, I mean.


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How my brain works (or not), part two

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For the first forty years of my life, I thought my brain was broken. I didn’t think like other people, and for the first few decades of my life, I thought that meant there was something wrong with me. It didn’t help that I had very old-fashioned Taiwanese parents who were more than willing to criticize every aspect of me. I was too loud, not feminine enough, too fat, just too much in general. Here is the post I wrote yesterday in which I wrote a lot about politics. Which is a side tangent, but also not a side tangent. Which I also said in the post.

I thought I was worthless and broken when I was a kid until I was in my twenties. Hm, scratch that. It was until my mid-thirties. Then, I started taking Taiji, and that helped me feel better about myself in agonizingly tiny incremental steps. It wasn’t until about five years ago after my medical crisis that I realized I was probably autistic (with the help of a friend who was also autistic).

I thought I couldn’t be because of how strong the stereotypical depiction of an autistic person as a young, hapless, white man who stims, can’t look people in the eyes, and makes clueless comments all the time is so pervasive. Oh, and that he has little to no empathy. It’s the last one that made me think I had no chance at being autistic. For several years, I thought that I might have ADHD because that fit better. The lack of focus until I hyperfocus. The scattered attention. Those were the main ones.

I knew there was something wrong with my brain–I just wanted to figure out what it was. This is one of the arguments I’ve had with K. She thinks that there is too much emphasis on…how do I phrase this correctly? We are both proponents of mental health awareness. She’s just less enthused about how much it’s emphasized now. She said we dealt with it as kids and figured things out. I pointed out in a snappish tone that some didn’t figure it out. Like me.

I spent so many years thinking it was me when it mostly wasn’t. I mean, it’s always partly one’s one fault because no one is perfect. However, the way I thought was not my fault–or rather, it wasn’t because my brain was broken or wrong–it was just different. And had I been told this when I was a kid, I would have had a much easier time in life.

You would think that having a psychologist as a mother would have made these things much better for me, but that would only be true if she was a good psychologist. Which, sadly, was not true. Her flaws as a human being interfered with her ability to be an effective psychologist. In fact, she went back to Taiwan so she could escape some of the constraints she faced here in America. Like mentioning religion in a session.

Honestly, the vast majority of my self-esteem issues stem from her constant and persistent criticism of every part of my being. I cannot name a single thing she liked about me when I was a child. I was never enough, and she pushed me to do a wide variety of things I didn’t want to do. Like a typical Asian mom, my brother and I had to take music lessons. I did piano for a few years and then cello for eight or nine years. dance lessons for twelve, and I played ping-pong, volleyball, and softball. Not on a league, but just played them. Oh, and tennis.


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When labels are actually useful, part two

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This is part two about when labels are actually helpful and necessary. Here is my post from yesterday in which I was musing about the times when a label actually helped rather than hurt (or just annoyed me). In general, it’s in the medical field when I find useful. If there’s something wrong  with my body or my brain, it’s a relief to know what that is. It’s easier to treat something if you actually know what that something is (and you don’t think it’s all in the patient’s mind).

It’s also helpful when it’s something like autism that marks me as different (though not ‘defective’ as health issues might). I cannot tell you the relief I felt when I realized that much of what I thought was wrong with my brain was in fact something medical (as autism is). It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have to deal with it (because of course I would still have to do that), but it meant that it was something that was just different–not necessarily wrong.

I think if there’s one thing I could convey to other people who are different for various reasons that have nothing to do with good and bad as defined by Christians, you are glorious the way you are. That’s not to say that you won’t have to mask at times or that you’ll never have to smooth your edges to get along with society, but it is saying that much of that is arbitrary and there may never be a legit reason for it.

One thing I think people who are neurodivergent often have to do is  calculate how much of the weirdness they want to let out and at wwhat cost. This is especially true at work, which, by the way. I have a gripe (because of course I do).

There’s been a movement to bring your whole/authentic self to work. It was supposed to mean that people who were minorities and (including neurodivergent) should be able to be more themselves at work. Meaning that they should not have to heavily mask all the time. Or, as a very basic example, black women should be able to wear hairstyles that are a part of their culture without getting punished for it.

It was not nor has it ever been a way to say that everyone should let it all hang out at work. I am so frustrated that this is what people now think it means. “No one wants to see someone’s ugly side at work!” Well, no, but that’s never what it meant in the first place. It was supposed to be a way for minorities to feel less burdened at work for being so different than the norm.

I know that’s how these things work on the internet, though. The least-generous interpretation of a term (read, the one that the majority fixates on) is the one that eventually wins out and becomes the definition of that term.

Sigh.

Anyway.

I realize it’s still difficult for me to really let my guard down with people because I have had negative reactions to the real me more often than not. I’m not just a little different–I’m a lot different.


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