Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: neurospiciness

Me and double empathy, part three

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I have more to say about bias, the double empathy problem, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I have no heart because there is so much hatred in this country right now.

In the Discord I’m in, we were arguing about politics. Well, not politics themselves, exactly, but whether or not America is hopeless. There were those who said though things were bleak right now, there was a brighter day coming. I, on the other hand, was just done. I did not come back from the dead (twice) for this bullshit!

Someone in the Discord was saying that to believe it was hopeless meant ‘they’ won. I knew what they were saying, but at this point, I just couldn’t care. I have been a Democrat since I was old enough to realize what the parties stood for. I was a Democrat by default because I loathed them a little less than I did the Republicans.

Yes, you understand that correctly. I have never been an enthusiastic Democrat because there is just so much wrong with the party. I’m not going to enumerate their faults and flaws here, but suffice to say if I could have found any other party to vote for, I would have. Any other party would have done (except the Republicans, obviously), but that would have been a folly in a two-party system.

I’m also not going to rant about that because I’m not in the mood, but I will say that I have never voted  Republican, and I most certainly will not now. When I was on the dating apps (back in the Stone Ages), I had a bio that said I didn’t care about gender, color, religion, or anything except that I would not date a Republican. This was thirty-some years ago, and I feel it even more now. You cannot be a part of the Republican party right now and not have hate in your heart.

Do I have hope? Honestly, I don’t think that’s a revelant question for me. Hope doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t help people in any tangible way. In fact, I would say unreasonable hope is wores than no hope at all. I get it. You don’t want to take all hope away from people, but I don’t want to hope for something that isn’t going to happen.

There is a very thin line between being hopeful and toxic positivity. America is heavily into the latter, and it’s working my last nerve right now. I do know that people have to have some sliver of hope, but things really are dire right now. And I know we have to keep fighting, but it’s so hard. Where is the good news? Where is the sliver of hope? There is none. I have a hard time even checking the news on the daily because it’s unrelenting grim news.


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Let’s talk more about the double empathy problem, part two

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DEI training is worse than useless if it’s not done well. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I was unwillingly dragged into being a DEI trainer when I was a ‘mere’ admin assistant for a DEI department (or the equivalent thereof before DEI was officially a thing).

I was supposed to just deal with paperwork, more or less, but my boss discovered that I’m really fucking good at other things–like writing and computer-related things that she did not want to do. As I said in yesterday’s post, she was in over her head and really should not have been in the position.

The one thing I learned while doing DEI training was that most of it was shitty. This was thirty years ago, and while it may have gotten better since then, I think it still probably sucks. I mentioned it at the end of the last post that I came up with an idea for a diversity town in which people who are now in the majority (cis het white Christian dudes) expreienced life as the minority for a month.

I want the actual minorities to treat the people in the majority the way they themselves have been treated, no holds barred. It’s nearly impossible to explain to someone what life is like as a minority, especially as a multiple one. There are some people who have empathy, but there are more who do not. And there are a big number of people who haven’t had to be empathetic. The same people who would benefit from diverrsity town.

The reason I dismissed it was because, well, there were several reasons. One, it’s not very ethical to fuck with people like that. Two, it would take an astronomical amount of money. Three, it would be really difficult to govern. Four, crimes would happen. I’m just speculating on the last, but I’m pretty certain that it would happen. Or rather, there would be no way to guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.

Those ore the four off the top of my head. I am sure there are many more that I haven’t thought of–such as not being allowed to do any such thing. Also, people who are in the majority are already afraid of how they’d be treated if they truly were in the minority. This certainly would not help in that area.

I think it would be a good way to really open people’s eyes to prejudice, though. And I would make sure that they got to experience ALL the harrassment, microaggressions, gaslighting, and other delightful bullshit that minorities have to go through. Which, again, is neither ethical nor moral. And probably not legal, either.


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How to solve the double empathy problem

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When I was in my twenties, I was an admin assist for the director of a diversity department. I’m being deliberately vague, but the point is that my job was, on paper, to do typing, editing, and shit like that. It was four hours a day, five days a week. I was there for four years, and over time, job creep happened. My boss was in over her head, and to be fair, she probably wasn’t getting much help from the top, either. It wsa my belief that the powers that be (PTB) really didn’t want to do diversity, but at that time, it was a hot topic–and in the place I was working, they could not afford to look like they didn’t care.

But they really didn’t.

My boss checked out mentally fairly soon after I started working. To be honest, she was not equipped to do the job, but, again, that wasn’t really her fault. She was tasked to do something that none of the PTB really wanted to do.

She was in charge of the diversity training for the department. We’re talking five-hundred or so employees. When I started, the catalog was a single sheet of paper. My boss never said what she  wanted me to do with it, exactly, but I was an overachiever. I had never used Windows…Publisher? Was that the booklet-making tool? I don’t remember, but let’s just assume that’s what it was. I had never used it before, so I had to teach it to myself.

I took that one page and turned it into a thirty-plus page catalogue. All by my damn self, thank you very much. The head of a smaller diversity department within our umbrella department began insisting that I give my template to her admin assist to do her (the department head) catalogue as well. There was no asking; there was no requesting; there was just the demand. Even worse, she wanted me to teach her admin assist how to make the catalogue. How about no and no?

I asked my boss, and she most emphatically said it was not my job and she did not want me to do that. She had beef with the other woman for several reasons, and I did not want to do anything to get in the middle of all that. Also, to be honest, I didn’t have the time nor the desire to want to teach her admin assist to do that. I mean, I taught myself; the admin assist could do the same if she so chose. And I did it in four hours a day!


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Safer spaces and thee, part seven

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Let’s talk more about safer spaces. In yesterday’s post, I talked about reasons why it’s necessary to clearly spell out acceptable behavior in a group situation. I also mused about how people protested about it and about enthusiastic consent because….? Well, with the latter, they said it would take the spontaneity out of sex (ummmmmmm), and in the case of the former, I think it falls under the “people should just know this” umbrella.

Side note: It’s tiring. Being told that this or that is just something people should intuit. And as much as normies like to talk about how anyone can learn soft/social skills, it really isn’t as easy as that. And that’s part of ableism. It doesn’t help that it’s been so indoctrinated in people, many neurodivergent people feel the need to make themselves smaller, mask harder, and apologize for being different.

It’s not uncommon, by the way, for minorities to do this. Or to be one of the good ones. I have seen it time and time again, and I have been one to do this as well. When I was in college, I mostly hung out with guys. It really wasn’t a ‘I want to be the cool chick’ thing, but it ended up being that. In order to hang with the guys, I had to (or at least felt like I had to) rag on the women they did. I was well aware that my status as ‘cool girl’ was hanging by a thread that could be snipped at any time.

It’s hard. The world is made for the normies. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. So while we’re worknig to change that, we also have to teach minorities how to cope and funciton in the real world.

I’ve talked about the double empathy problem, but I want to talk about it again. Before autism was really a thing, anyone who was autistic was pretty much expected to conform to normal society. Parents would basically force their autistic children to behave in a way that was deemed normal. If that wasn’t possible, then it was getting as close as possible.

Oftentimes, this was done through abusve/coercion. Be it emotional or physical or both. In my case, it was a heavy and constant dose of emotional manipulation–or maybe it’s more accuarate to say I was emotionally beaten down daily until I just crumbled.

I was told I was too sensitive, that I laughed too loudly, that I could not read while waiting for an event to start (Taiwanese event. Always started at least forty-five minutes late),and that I could not show any emotions other than happiness and gratitude. I know the latter is not an emotion, but it’s close enough.


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What a safe space is and isn’t, part six

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I’ve been talking at length about what a safe(r) space is and what it isn’t. The reason I put (r) at the end of safe is because no space can truly be safe, and I’m not sure that should be the ultimate goal, anyway.

We all live in the real world. No one can be protected by everything that happens unless they are completely wrapped in bubbles. Which, honestly, sounds like a nightmare. Being wrapped in bubbles, I mean. *shudders because of sensory issues* But I do think we can try to be empathetic and understanding of other people. This is where my rant is probably going to start, so be forewarned.

Oh, and in yesterday’s post, I talked about how hard it is to make a space safe(r) for many reasons. The one I want to expand on is how most people are invested in a version of themselves that may or may not be accurate, especially when it comes to prejudices. The more we are invested in seeing ourserves in a certain way, the harder it is to accept even the gentlest of criticsm.

Here’s the thing, though. As hard as it is to hear that, say, something you said was sexist–it’s even harder to be on the receiving end of sexist behavior/comments.But in our society, it has become (in the last decade or so) worse to call someone a racist than to be actually racist (substitute in any ist for racist). Because people hear any carefully crafted criticism of something they said or did as if the critique is saying they are utter shit and should self-flagellate for a hundred days.

I really wish we colud teach people that learning something they said/did was some kind of ist was taken more calmly. But, again, most people react as if you’re calling them shit on the bottom of your shoes.

The reason this is important when talking about safer spaces is because if you’re going to set limits and have rules, it’s good to name what’s going on. If it’s a comic con, for example, there is going to be sexism abound. And probably racism as well. It does no good to shy away from it or pretend it doesn’t exist. In fact, that attitude is why for so long, many women, genderqueer, PoC, etc., people who were minorities did not attend such cons. Not only were they not safe spaces (or even safer spaces), they were actively hostile to minorities.

It took a conscious effort on the part of con organizers to come up with actionable policies that made it much better for minorities to attend these cons. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, of course. It took many iterations to come up with something decent, but they kept at it.
I have never had to hammer out a policy like this, but I would start at the top with the broadest rules. The obvious ones. No racist/homophobic/sexist/ableist, etc. shit. I know that seems like an obvious one, but people are people, and obvious to most people will miss the ones that really need to hear it. Also, take that fig leaf of plausible deniability away. Clearly spell everything out so people can’t wave their hands and say, “But I didn’t knooooooooow I couldn’t call a woman whom I was pestering  a fucking c*** when she told me to leave her alone!”


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A true safe space, part five

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I have more to say about safe spaces. In part four of this series,  I was talking about how creepers are endlessly excused as just being socially awkward–if they are a white cishetguy. That’s not what I want to talk about today, though. I want to focus more on what a safe space would actually look like. Not in the context of being free of creepers, but more in general of forums/groups being more welcoming of people from diverse (read, minority) backgrounds.

Side note: There is a difference between being against something and being pro something else. What I mean is it’s one thing to say that you are against sexism, for example, but a different thing to say you’re pro-feminism. The first is good, of course, but the second is better.

It’s hard to describe the difference, but I’ll try.

Most people are not going to say they are pro-treating people differently based on race, gender, sexual identity–well, on the last one, I’m less sure about that, but we’ll let it slide for now. Even people who are explicitly sexist, racist, homophobic, etc., will rationalize why they’re saying what they said. It’s not because they’re racist, but because Asian people really are sly, for example. And it’s really hard to deconstruct statements like that without giving a twenty-minute lecture about history, stereotypes, biases, and so forth.

I’ve seen spaces claim that they are against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., but then don’t actually do anything about it when casual isms are tossed around in the chats. (I’m talking about online spaces for now.) It’s not enough to claim you’re against isms. I mean, that’s the absolute base level for the rules of engagement.

The problem is that you can’t just state it without actually enforcing it. And you can’t enforce it if you don’t have actual rules past the statement above. That’s one of the problems I see with communities that aren’t focused on minorities. They mean well (truly), and their hearts are in the right place (I mean it!), but they don’t really put much thought into what it means to be inclusive.

Side note to the side note: This is what I meant by being for something versus being against something. Saying you’re anti-isms is great, but it’s the first step. Unfortunately, so many groups treat it as the last or only step. They post signs or tags in chat that they are against isms.

In 2026, that should go without saying. I mean, granted, we have a president who is about as close to being openly pro-racism, pro-sexism, and pro-queerphobic as one can be without actually saying the literal words. And we have so many anti-LGBTQ+ folks being passed, especially ones against queer folks.

Now I’m actually depressing myself once again by thinking about the state of the (ha) United States of America. It just still astounds me that minorities are losing their civil rights left and, er, right these days. I have mourned that I had more rights when I was in my twenties than my niblings do now.


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The (sleep) struggle continues to be real

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My struggles with sleep continue. It’s not just sleep; it’s me having trouble going to bed at a decent time. Right now, it’s five in the mornning. I should be in bed, but I’m not. I got four hours of sleep last night–which was better than I expected because I thought I’d go to bed at seven as I have been doing, and I had to get up at nine-thirty. Well, not had, but it was ideal. So you would think that I’d had tumbled into bed two or three hours ago, but nope. I did nap on and off for about two hours around one in the morning, but that was very fitful. Or rather, it was sleep for fifteen minutes; be awake for ten minutes, etc. I probably got about an hour’s worth of sleep overall, but chopped up.

I got one night of nine hours, which felt luxurious. I was hoping it would be a springboard to better sleep, but no. It was not. In fact, I got worse sleep after that. And, last night, around three in the morning, I realized it was Tuesday night and not Monday night. That’s why I had to wake up at nine-thirty. I have a standing appointment every Wednesday that should be in the early afternoon, but it can actually happen any time from early morning to late afternoon. Which means getting up way earlier than I normally do.

I keep thinking that I’ll change my habits without actually doing anything to change them. I know that’s part of my neurodivergence, but I don’t want to start using that as an excuse not to work on my issues. It’s interesting. In the Discord I’m in, there has been discussion about how more people are claiming to be autistic than before. The general tone to the discussion wast that too many people were claiming to be autistic because it’s trendy.

And, I just sighed internally. This is the same thing people always say about ‘trends’–meaning more awareness of an issue. Back when people were more aware of gluten as a thing, suddenly, so many people were supposedly going gluten-free (without really knowing what it meant). Then other people started griping on people jumping on the gluten-free train, especially servers (complaining about it). And people who were gluten-free for legit reasons were griping about it because it made them look bad/made servers not take them seriously.

The former, well, that’s just not somethin I give a shit about. It’s always been something a minority is cognizant of, but I simply don’t care. It’s not my responsibility to be the representative of all _____ (fill in the blank with anything). There have always been people in the minority who strive to be perfect so the majority can’t take any issue with them. First-gen Asians, especially, had that mind set. BLending in and getting along. That’s why we were the invisible minority for so long.

Ahem. My friend, A, suggests that I give myself a curfew for getting off the computer. She is right, and it’s a good suggestion, but my god. I am so resistant to doing that. I don’t even quite know why. I have always had a hard time going to bed, but I am unsure as to why the strong resistance to setting a curfew.

let’s see if I can tease it out.


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The hidden costs of my way of braining, part…two/six

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I want to talk more about my brain and how it works, but also how I have to constantly monitor what I say. In the prior post about the former, I was talking about how fringe I am, even in places where I feel mostly welcome. In the latter category, in yesterday’s post, I mentioned how I have to constantly figure out what Ican say to normies and what I can’t.

Side note: Because I’m usually extremely good at reading the room, it really bugs me when I fuck  up. Quite plainly, it’s part of my anxiety and how I try to control my environment.

Side note to the side note: I see it in my mother, and it’s so clear how she tries to control her anxiety by endlessly spinning out over what might happen. She tries to plan for every little thing that could possibly happen in a vain attempt to make sure nothing bad happened. I do the same, but iI do it inwardly and not outwardly. That’s one reason it’s so hard for me to listen to her–it echoes the voice in my head.

I know that other people aren’t thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about myself. However. I also know that people notice me because I stand out like a sore thumb. I’m Asian an a very white area, and I just have a distinct look. I wear all black, have a funky pair of glasses, and my hair (that I wear up in a high pony and halfway braid) reaches my waist (when done up). And I have huge boobs. Believe me–I don’t fade into the background.

You know that The Hulk quote, “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.” That’s me. I’m always angry. Before my medical crisis, I was able to keep in in control except on rare occasion. Now, I have a much harder time modulating it. I would add, “I’m always anxious” to that. Anxious about being outed as a weirdo. Or rather, as being super weird. I thin kit’s fairly obvious just by looking at me that I’m not normal.

You know what? I’m not sure that’s true any longer. Now that I’m middle-aged, maybe I can get more of a pass. I still have huge tits, though. And I still have people talking to me when there’s no need for that.

*Restrains urge to go off on a thousand-word rant about charisma*

This is how my brain works, by the way. Me going on tangent after tangent until there’s no main path any longer. I’m used to it by now, but I’m still slightly amused when I start veering wildly off path. I promise you that I fully intend to write what I initially thought about in my mind. It’s just that so many things are interconnected to me, I can’t stick with just one.

At least now I know why that is rather than when I was a kid and just thought my mind was haywired. Well, to be fair, at first, I thought everyone thought the way I did. I mean, it was so clear in my head, why wouldn’t it be clear to others as well?


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Thinking about thinking (and my brain), part four

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Let’s talk more about my brain and how I think. In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how the stereotypical depiction of autism prevented me from recognizing that I might be autistic until just a few years ago.

One thing I  mentioned was how I know not to natter on and on about my obsessions because it annoys other people. I also don’t mention them for another reason–because they are precious to me and talking about them with people who don’t feel the same way can make me feel some kind of way.

One trait of autism is being easily swayed/manipulated. This was another reason I thought I could not be autistic. When it comes to important issues–I am an unmovable force. Take abortion, for example. Once I realized what it was and how important it was for the autonomy of women, I have not wavered in my support of it. And, by “it” I specifiaclly mean abortion. Yes, I am pro-choice, but in this case, I want to emphasize that I specifically support abortion.

Side note: It irks me how pro-choice has been crafted to mean, “Yes, it’s so terrible that some people have to get abortions, but we support them in their difficult moments”. It can be terrible/hard/traumatic, but there are plenty of people who felt it was an easy decision and felt relief/joy when they had it done. That never gets talked about. No, it has to be all about suffering and tragedy–as does most things that traditionally pertain to women.

Side note to the side note: When I decided I did not want to have children and realized I didn’t have to, I felt such a sense of relief and joy. I could not explain it, but I felt as if a million-pound weight fell from my shoulders. I knew deep in my heart that this was the best decision I hahd ever made in my life, and thirty-five years later, I feel it even more strongly.

That’s another thing that at that time, women were apologizing for–not having children, I mean. I looked for anyone who felt the same way (remember, this was before the internet was the behemouth that it is now). I found one anthology from women, writers and not, who decided not to have children. I was so eager to read it, but to my disappointment, every single one of them apologized, excused, or made themselves smaller as they talked about their decision not to have children.

If I were to write for an anthology about my decision not to have children, I would be celebratory and jubilant. I’m not being hyperbolic; if anything, I’m understating my emotions.

The other thing I read that stuck in my brain was an article about mothers. Not because of the article itself, but because of the commenter who was brave enough to say that she regretted having children and why. Other commenters chimed in with similar sentiments, and it was the first time I saw an honest conversation from women who wished they hadn’t had children.


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Celebrities and keeping my chill

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So, in the Discord channel I’ve been talking about in the past few days (because it’s a place I can go and talk about a variety of tihngs I normally wouldn’t), there’s someone who works in a bar/restaurant in LA. He mentioned that he got to meet Mike Ness, the lead singer of Social Distortion when he (Mike Ness walked into his (the person in the Discord) place of employment. The latter, let’s call him Bob,  got to talk to Mike Ness and said that while he (Bob) wasn’t the type to ferak out over celebs, he was pretty stoked to meet Mike Ness.

I chimed in and said I loved Social D, even though I had only heard of them for the first time a few years ago. I did not say this in the Discord, but Mike Ness could still get it. I said that the only person I would get a bit giddy meeting would have been Alan Rickman (yes, still). Other than him, though, I didn’t think I would be at all freaked out.

My brother and I talked about if we ever met Obama, how we would act. I respect him a lot*, and I would enjoy speaknig with him about weighty issues and topics, but I would not be starstruck. There is no one alive I can think of who would make me squeal or freak out. And it’s not because I’m better than other people or anything like that, but it’s because…well, for a few reasons.

One, I believe that everyone is equal in terms of hierarchy when it comes to worth as a human being. I know that’s an incredibly awkward way to phrase that, but it says what I mean the best. I mean that everyone is worthy of a base degree of civility just for being a human being.** I can appreciate someone who shines in their area of expertise/popularity/fame, but I don’t think of them as better than me as a person.

I think this is partly beacuse of my neurodivergence. Not that my way of thinking about hierarchy is necessarily tied to neurodivergence, but that the way I think might be. Or rather, the latter might be influencing the former. It’s true that neurodivergent people don’t necessarily see social constructs in the same way as do ‘normies’.

I mean, that’s kind of our thing–being socially awkward, I mean.*** It’s only with several decades of intense training (by carefully scrutinizing other people) that I can mimic normies to a probably unhealthy degree. In fact, I do it better than many normies do. That doesn’t mean I like it, though. Donig it, I mean. It’s second nature by now, and I would feel uncomfortable not doing it–but that still doesn’t mean I like doing it.

I have a flat affect by nature (and by nurture). When I explained to my autistic friend how I processed information and transformed it into emotion, she said that it was a very autistic way of doing things. Note, she wasn’t saying that it meant I was definitely autistic–just that it might be a reason for it.


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