Autism runs in my family. My tbrother has it (undiagnosed). My nephew has it (undiagnosed). My other nibling sa it (diagnosed). My mother suspects she has it (iffy). I never thought I had it because I have a freakishly high EQ/ability to empathize, etc. I read social cues extremely well (whether I follow them or not is another question), and I don’t have any of the stereotypical symptoms.
On the outside.
So I’m sure you’re asking yourself why the title of this post, then, if I’m so far from autism. It’s because of this. I was talking to a friend about autism in non-male people. How it presents in men and boys, typically, is drastically different than it can present in non-men. Same with ADHD, which was something else I wondered if I had.
Here’s the thing. I have other things that I have to deal with when it comes to my traits. One. I was Asian. Tat’s just a fact. I am a second-generation Taiwanese American, which played havoc on my brain. I’m not Asian. At all. Well, maybe five percent. I am, for better or worse, American. but I definitely look Asian, which has it’s own issues. And, the fact that Asians are ignored when it comes to race? Yeah, I feel some sort of way about that. And the fact thta the pandemic was blamed on us.
Then, there was the fact that I’m bi. that’s another invisible category that people just blithely ignore. It’s also the identity trait that is least bothersome to me. I have no worries about being bi–at all. And this ties into the whole gender identity thing that I’m still grappling with. It’s not that I don’t see gender. I do. It’s not that I think that gender is irrelevant. I don’t (for the masses. It is for me). It’s more that I don’t see why I should let gender tell me who I’m attracted to. I am instantly physically attracted to a specific type–basicall Alan Rickman/kd lang/Rachel Maddow/Michelle Yeoh with short hair. That’s my prediliction, but not the only type of person I’m attracted to.
And it’s never based on gender. Or looks, really. It’s personality and brain. So I don’t care about gender. But I don’t believe that gender doesn’t matter at all. It’s part of the package, and I appreciate it as much as I appreciate other aspects of people. It’s hard for me to oxplain because gender is so diffierent for everyone. I don’t want to be ‘no labels’ because that’s just utter bullshit. but I don’t understand, and I mean this with no snark, why I should treat people of different genders (or no gender at all) differently.
There were other things. But wehn it came to autism, I just assumed I couldn’t be because I was so excruciatingly aware of other peoplee’s emotions. I could feel them, which was unpleasant. But, and this is the point of this post, i didn’t know if it was innate or something that I had made myself become aware of. I mean, I knew I had worked on it because my mother made me her emotional support person, but I didn’t know if I had the proclivity in the first place.