In yesterday’s post, I went completely off the rails as is my wont. I’m not going to bother justifying it because it’s just how my brain works. In fact, it’s part of my neurospiciness, which I did not realize until just a few years ago. I can’t get past the thought that had I had a more accurate list of symptoms at a younger age, I would have dealt with so many things in a much better way.
Side note: I have loved side notes and footnotes in my writing ever since I was a young one. I will gleefully add them until there are more side notes than actual text. And, as I demonstrated yesterday, I will side note a side note if that’s what it takes to get my point across. I have also put a pair of parentheses in another parenthized statement within another–like nested Russian dolls.
I have learned that this is a trait of neurospicy people. So is having terrible handwriting–which I do. I have such bad handwriting that I gave up trying to make it better when I was in elementary school. I practiced and practiced and practiced–and it still looked like chicken scrawly. It’s even worse now, in part because I never write anything by hand any longer.
In fact, in looking up if this was, indeed, a sympton of autism. And the solution is making the kid do gripping exercises and other things to make their handwriting acceptable. I’m not saying they shouldn’t try to improve their gripping ability, but I do think this is one way of looking at the world through a neurotypical lens. In this day and age, what does it matter how pretty a kid’s handwriting is? It would be better to teach them to type than to waste so much energy on handwriting.
This is something I’ve been thinking of a lot lately, by the way. How the world is so very unkind to neurospicy people. And how we can reimagine a world in which this wasn’t true. I have mentioned in the recent past about my irritation at the fact night owls are now being pathologized. Which can also be a part of neurodivergency, by the way–different sleep patterns, I mean.
I was talking to a friend about how neurotypical people (she’s neurodivergent) cling so desperately to the idea that their way is the right way–not just the normal way. Some get angry at the idea of accommodations–as if it’s cheating somehow. It’s not surprising as it often happens that people of the majority can’t handle the idea that maybe, just maybe, their ‘normal’ way of being, well, wasn’t so normal. Or so healthy. I recently heard Fern Brady* quip about how we don’t talk enough about how much is so wrong with neurotypicals.
I am including a video of her on the podcast, The Imperfects (that I had never heard of before. Really digging it as I listen) above in which she talks openly and at length about being diagnosed with autism. (It’s an hour-and-a-half long, and I’m only ten minutes in.)
Back to my letter to a younger me.
Dear Mini-Minna,
If I could have talked to you when you were a kid or a teen, I would have told you to set down the burden of trying to get your parents’ approval. I say this with love and as much gentleness as I can, “You will never be able to get it.” I know that sounds bad, but at the end of the day, it’s liberating. It means that you can stop trying to please your parents and just….breathe. You can be yourself and not hopelessly try to make them happy.
Which, if you don’t hear this, you’ll do for several decades. Even when you declare that you’re not trying to get their approval, you are. Or rather, you’ll feel your heart constrict whenever your mother radiates her disappointment over the phone, even if she doesn’t vocalize it.
I wish you didn’t have to learn her every flicker of emotion, but you do for your own survival. Or…not. If there’s one thing I really wish I could tell you, it’s to run as soon as you can. When you get the chance to go to college in California, grab it with both hands and RUN. Get as far away from your parents as you can so you don’t have to be suffocated by their desires–especially your mother.
I really want to tell you that you are not a doll or a clone of your mother. She views you as such–well, to be more precise, she views you as a clone of the ideal woman she wished she could be or thought she should be.
Side note: This is another thing I would tell you. You did good in breaknig free from the family dysfunction. I’m so proud of you for realizing at a fairly early age that you did not want children and that you stuck to your guns. I cannot say this loud enough or strongly enough: You were not broken because you didn’t want to have children. You were not a failure as a woman because of this.
YOU WERE NOT A FAILURE.
I had to capslock it because I feel so strongly about this.
You did not need to defend yourself because you were fine the way you were. You did not have to explain why you did not want to have children. I know you did it with the intent to get the others to see your point of view, but I’m here to tell you that this won’t happen. Not because you didn’t explain it well enough, but because they’re not capable of understanding. Or if they’re capable, they’re too wedded to the status quo to do so.
And, to touch the bad tooth again, your mother’s obsession with it for fifteen years is all on her and her inability to accept that what she wants for you (purportedly) is not as important as what you want for you (or at all, really). If I could, I would give you the most important thing I’ve learned about dealing with our mother–never, ever, ever engage with her about anything of importance to you. Even when she throws you a softball that you could smack out of the park–it’ll only end with you feeling deflated.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.
*Scottish bisexual autistic working class comedian who I recently described as brutally funny.