Underneath my yellow skin

More about labels and why I fucking hate them, part two

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In my last post, I was going to talk about why I didn’t like labels, but pretty much only talked about Guess vs. Ask culture and sexism. Both of those are very important and related to the topic at hand, but they weren’t what I wanted to focus on; I’m going to try again. Oh, and I wanted to include why labels are important, but I never even got close to that.

Here are the lablels I have reluctantly chosen for myself: Asian/Taiwanese American; PoC; bisexual/queer; agender; areligious; and ENM. I would also say I’m aromantic, but that’s not something I consider a necessary part of my identity. Let’s add neurospicy to that list.

I don’t like PoC. I don’t know what I would use instead, though, as I have not liked any of the other terms for minorities. Multicultural was fine, but not really an apt description. Plus, I don’t feel an alliance with other PoC because when people use that term, they usually just mean Black people. Taiwanese American is the best fit here.

Sexual identity: queer is my first choice. But, again, unfortunately most people assume it means gay. We leave in such a binary world; it’s really disheartening to me. I still call myself queer, but if I need to be more specific, I will reluctantly use bi. I’m not happy about it, and I’ve never really liked it. Especially now that there are more than two genders, it’s not the best. I and other bi people tend to use it as ‘people like me and people not like me’, but that’s a lot of explaining to do when talking with nonqueers about it. I used to joke that I would rather just call myself sexual and be done with it.

Also, when I first came out thirty years ago, there was a strong push to emphasize that bis didn’t want to fuck everyone just because we could, in theory, do so. I get it. Respectability was a big issue back then (still is, but in a different way). Queer people really wanted to emphasisze being just like straight people except for who we loved.

Which, yeah, I get it. Racial minorities also have that strong impulse. It makes sensre to a certain extent. You want to emphasize the similarities because that’s a good way to create bonds. This has always been the tension within a minority group–to try to be as like the majority as possible or outright rebel.

There are people who can pass and people who can’t. There are people who could pass, but choose not to. It’s a spectrum, really, and I fall more on the ‘can pass’ side as long as I don’t act up. Heh. This is in gender identity. People assume I’m a woman because of my big boobs and long hair. At this point because of the terrible mess that is my country, I’m just going to leave it at that.


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Let’s talk about labels (and why I hate them)

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Subtitle: But why they are necessary

Yes, I want that all in one tittle, but I’m not a monster. If I want three titles in one, that’s my business!

I’ve talked about labels often before, but I feel it’s important to bring it up again. Why? Because I really wish there was a way to get rid of them, and not in a “No Labels” kind of way. I know they are important in order to talk with each other because you simply cannot talk about each individual situation without a common knowledge bond between you and the person you’re talking to. In fact, that’s the basis for many miscommunications–cultureal differences. A basic example is Ask v. Guess culture. I live in a Guess culture with another Guess culture as my heritage.

Guess culture is where you never say anything directly to each other. There’s an elaborate dance you have to do in order to get your point across. You have to be alert to nuance and know the language before you go into any encounter. I have an example that I always give.

Many moons ago, I had a Taiji classmate who was from the South. She was also a pastor’s wife. One day in class, she was complaining because she had planned some kind of dinner or party (probably at church), and several people said they would go. Only one person showed up, and she was so miffed.

I listened to her for a few minutes and then asked what the parishioners acutally said when she invited them to the party/dinner event. I asked how many of them literally said they would come. She said one. The rest said things like, “I need to check my calendar”; “I need to ask my husband”; “It sounds like fun; I’ll get back to you”, etc. In Midwest speak, all of those are soft noes. I told her that if they didn’t unequivocally say yes, it was a no.

I get how that can beconfusing if you’re not from the culture. But, if you are part of the culture, then it’s clear as day. While I’m from that culture, I tend to be more direct in some ways. But, I can play the game when need be.

In Ask culture, the motto is, “Just ask. The worst they can say is no.” It’s clear and direct, and it can be refreshing when everyone is on the same page. There is no guessing or trying to read the room, looking for nuance in every exchange. You know where you stand. And, again, as long as everyone is on the same page, there is a lower chance for misunderstanding.

I’m sure you noticed how much I qualified the latter because everyone invoved has to really be on the same page for it to work. I said that I’m more Ask than Guess, but I think it really depends on the situation. With friends, I’m pretty straightforward because I trust them to not take me the wrong way. But with people I don’t know, I am much more cautious.

Ok. That went for much longer than I wanted, but whatever.


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Me and my temper, part seven

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I’m back to talk more about anger and my difficulty in controlling it since my medical crisis. I do have to consider that some of it is purely biological. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve found out that it’s a common side effect of having as stroke. And the war I had in my brain and body the last time I was arguing with my mother felt almost physically impossible to stop. I wrote about it at length in my last post, but I want to talk more about it in this one.

When you’re a weirdo as I am (neurodivergent), it’s difficult to know what is a flaw and what is just partof my personality and does not need to be changed.

For example. When I was younger, I had a really hard time going anywhere because I felt like all my senses were being assaulted all the time. Smells, sounds, and sights that I couldn’t just mute. If someone had told me that I wasn’t being oversensitive or too fussy, but that my brain was just wired differently, that would have helped a great deal. I got scolded often by my mother when I would protest about my environment.

She told me a story about how when I was two or three and my brother was five or six and upwards, she would take us to the State Fair every year. She told me I would be crying and screaming, and I asked why she continued to do it. She said because my brother loved it, and she could not afford a babysitter.

That was my standing in the family in a nutshell.  My brother was always more important than I was for several reasons. The first and biggest reason is beacuse he’s the son. Boys were much better than girls. girls were less than useless, and their only worth was to be married off to procreate. Oh, and in my case, to be my mother’s therapist. That’s it. I had no use as a person in and of myself, and I was treated accordingly.

Two. My brother was/is on the spectrum. He was never diagnosed with it (hell, it was barely acknowledged back in the eighties), but he has the classic symptoms. I was the one who clued him into the fact that he was on the spectrum, and this was a few months before I had my medical crisis. He said it changed his life, and it made so many things make sense. My only regret was that I didn’t tell him earlier because I knew decades earlier. It’s just that he displayed such stereotypical behavior for an autistic person, and he knew his son was autistic that I assumed he knew it about himself.

One of the most strenuous arguments K and I have ever (and it was really mild, but we don’t argue0 was about how talking about mental health was so much more open now than when we were younger. Neither of us was saying we should go back to the old days of not talking about it at all, but she was concerned that there was too heavy a reliance on medication. But, also, was there a need to label everything? Both she and her husband deal/have dealt with mental health issues. She pointed out that they got through it with some therapy, yes (on her part), but that was it.


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The upside to anger, part six

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I thought I was done with the topic of anger, but it seems I have one more post within me. Here’s my post from yesterday. I know that many people say that anger is bad, blah, blah, blah. And, yes, you don’t want it to explode all over the place, but as I said, I think in measured and controlled doses, it can be helpful. That and its relative, spite. Maybe the latter even more than the former. And I find that a general spite is more fortifying than one that is pointed at a specific person. Or at society at large–that’s really motivating as well.

I have said that I don’t think I’m contrarian in that I don’t think/say/do the opposing thing just to be a jerk. I do it because it’s how I truly feel. I can lie and give in on certain things like small talk. Do not care in the least about that. I do struggle with when someone is trying to move out of small talk or not, but if I know that we’re firmly in small talk territory, then, yeah. I can do that fairly easily (though I tend to ramble when I’m tense or uptight).

The thing is, my brain is so weird and fucked. It’s not me putting on an act. In fact, I do whatever I can to shave off the sharp edges except with my close friends because I just don’t need the aggro that comes when I let the real me out in gen pub. It’s funny because in America, there are two contrasting messages that get pushed simultaneously. One is individualism. We’re a country of individuals! Do what you want and fuck society! Yeah, no. That’s a complete lie, especially now.

There’s a stronger message of follow the crowd, don’t stick up, and don’t you dare be any kind of minority in public. I spent almost two months in an occupied city where I had to seriously  ask myself if I needed my passport when I left my neighborhood. In America. As a citizen of said country. We had to brush up on our civil rights while realizing that they didn’t really matter because the current administration was going to do what it wanted to do, anyway.

It’s really sobering to realize that your home country wanted you dead or at least shipped out of the country. I mean, I’ve known it for most of my life that I’ve been barely tolerated as a “deviant” in so many ways, but to have it brutally pushed into my face the way it has been since this current administration has taken over can really fuck with your mind.

Ok. I take it back. During that occupation, I had spite towards one specific person, even though he wasn’t the one doing the most damage by far. And when he was demoted and kicked out of the state, not to mention he had his social media access taken away. I’m pretty sure it was the last that really hurt him. I can’t tell you how gleeful I was when I read/heard that; it made my day. As did when whassernamewhowashavingtheaffairwithwhashisname was fired. That was delicious, too, indeed. In fact, I’m going to be so damn spiteful any time something bad happens to one of the main players of this debacle, I’m spitefully glad.


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More about the anger inside, part five

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Let’s talk one more time about anger. I had my private lesson today, and I mentioned the argument with my mother that I recently had to my teacher. I was still upset with myself for letting it get as far as it did, but I totally did not see the trap in time. That’s what made me mad at myself, though. I’m usually really good at seeing the traps in time and neatly side-stepping them or jumping over them completely. Here’s my post on the subject from yesterday.

It’s been a lifelong study in patience when talking with my parents. I really hate when I lose my temper because what’s the point? In addition, I just don’t want to unleash it willy-nilly. I do believe in the power of anger, but I don’t want to let it run unleashed.

When I used to spend an inordinate amount of energy keeping it tamped down, it was so tiring. I was really afraid that if I let it out, it would just  explode everywhere. It was self-defeating behavior, but understandable. My therapist at the time asked me what I thought would actually happen if I let it out. I didn’t know for sure, but I did know that it would destroy the whole world.

I knew I wasn’t important at all, but I also was made to feel by my parents that every little mistake I made was the end of the world. They had no sense of proportion, which is one reason I don’t either. Another reason is because of my broken neuroatypical brain.

When I was a teenager, I was a hot mess–and deeply miserable. My parents were very much into saving face and maknig sure that we never appeared ‘wrong’ from the outside . We weren’t supposed to hint at anything other than a perfect family. One example that was seared in my brain happened when I was a teenager. My parents were out playing tennis with a few of their church friends. Another of their church friends (a woman) called, wanting to speak to my father. I told her that he was out playing tennis.

When my parents returned, I told them their friend called and that I told her they were out playing tennis. My father got mad at me for that. He said I shouldn’t have said it because it was family business. I didn’t understand that. Why was it such a big deal that he was out playing tennis with his friends? He did elaborate that she might feel bad because she wasn’t invited, but that didn’t feel like the whole reason.

It wasn’t until many years later that I figured it out. My father had a series of affairs since I was very little. I don’t know when I realized it, but he always had at least one sidechick–from the very conservative and sexist Taiwanese church we belong to. Everyone knew about it, and I was amazed that he didn’t get his teeth punched in. I guess that wasn’t the Taiwanese/Christian way. Anyway, the woman they were playing tennis with was a longtime side chick of my father’s. The woman who called from him was probably an ex or a future sidechick. That made much more sense to me than any of my father’s explanations. Yes, he was a highly secretive man, but that wasn’t an explanation in and of itself.

I try to be as compassionate as I can, but there’s a coldness at the very core of my heart/soul that I can’t quite explain. I’ve always known it’s there, and I’ve always tried to make sure that it stays where it belongs. I’ve been ashamed of it and thought it was my failing for so long.


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Taming the anger inside, part four

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Let’s talk more about the anger I have in my heart. I don’t want to have it, but I’m not trying to tamp it down any longer, either. Anger can be a useful tool as long as it’s used well and judiciously. It’s something I’ve had to learn to embrace rather than try to stuff it way down or pretend I wasn’t feeling. Here’s the post I wrote yesterday about my anger.

I have quoted Dr. Bruce Banner on several occasions, the same quote, because it fits me so well. “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.” Right before he seamlessly turns into the Hulk. This was after Captain America told him that now might be the time to get angry.

That’s how I am in my heart, too. I’m always angry. Always. Even when I’m happy or at peace, there is a kernel of anger in my heart. When I talk about how I’m still alive, I mention three things–luck, love, and Taiji. But, I think I have to add that little grain of anger, too. And spite. Just the smallest hint of spite. You think I’m a freak and a weirdo, and you wish that I were dead? Well, fuck you. I died twice, bitch, and I came back. Twice!

I don’t think spite should be a huge part of what keeps you going, but just a soupcon of it? Hell, yeah! It should be about 1% with anger being about 4%. The remaining 95% would probably be better off as positive emotions, but that’s not easy to do. Especially for someone like me who suffers from both depression and anxiety.

When I was in the hospital and after I got home, my depression went down 90% and my anxiety around 60%. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t waking up wanting to go back to sleep forever. I wasn’t up and at ’em, either, but that was just beacuse of my physical limitations–not my mental ones. Again, after dying twice, my body was tired and deserved a little break.

It’s weird. It was the first time in my life I was going to bed by 10 p.m. and getting up at 6 a.m. It was the first time I was actually  getting eight hours of sleep and feeling rested when I woke up. It’s funny what sleep will do for a body, isn’t it? (Yes, I know it’s a proven fact that getting eight hours of a sleep a nighht does wonders for you.) I will say that being drugged to the gills with sedatives, barbs, and opiates were very helpful for my sleep. I would not recommend it on a regular basis, however.

I will note that I felt like a god when I was drugged. A very tired god, yes, but a god, nonetheless. I experienced no pain, and for the first time in my life, I felt as if I could do anything. Honestly, I understood why people did drugs because my god. They were wonderful. Plus my beloved oxygen tube. I wanted to take that thing home with me when I left, but the nurses wouldn’t let me.


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Taming the anger inside, part three

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Let’s talk more about rage. I could soften it and talk about it in the socially polite way. “I was having difficulty reining in my anger, and I needed to focus on my breathing to do so.” Here is  my post from yesterday in which I discuss all my struggles with my temper. I had it under control for the first twenty years of my life because I had to. It was psychological damaging, but I did what I had to do to get through it.

I had less of a grip on it through my thirties, and Taiji hepled me tap into my anger. Not in a bad way, but in a healthy way. It’s not healthy to hold back your temper to the point where you’re dead inside. Believe me, it isn’t.

For the majority of my life, I was numb. I could feel emotions way down deep, but they were very subdued–as if I was feeling them through a thick layer or twenty of gauze. This was positive emotions as well as negative ones–though I will admit that there were ten times the latter than the former.

I will point out that it’s also probably because I’m neuroatypical, which means I don’t feel things in the same way that other people do. However, I know it was more because of the emotional abuse I got whenever I showed any negative emotion in my family (I’ve mentioned more than once that only my parents were allowed to show their displeasure in any way).

Still. I felt I had a decent handle on it. With my parents, it was avoiding any topic that had the chance to go really wrong, and I could usually spot those within seconds. In general, I’m pretty good at spotting the pitfalls that will out me as a weirdo, alien, and/or freak. Or in the case of my family, just someone who’s completely wrong. Wrong at what? Everything. My mother wanted a daughter-shaped person who embodied the feminine ideals (even though she hated them herself) in order to repair her fractured relationship with her mother (don’t ask).

Somewhere in myy forties, I gave up on my relationship with my mother. (I knew there was no hope with my father and didn’t care at a much earlier age.) I knew that she was not going to change, and I knew that I wasn’t going to ever be the person she wanted me to be.

Side note: My father has dementia. It’s gotten progressively worse (as dementia does). When it first started, I was in a very difficult place with my parents. I have struggled with my relationship with them all my life. I did not know what to do. I mean, Taiji helped me a lot when I first started studying it, but there were limits to it.


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Trying to tame the rage inside, part two

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I’ve been writing about trying to control my temper beacuse I had an episode with my mother last night. It’s been a while beacuse normally, I’m really good at avoiding sensitive topics because normally, I just have to listen to her talk about my father for twenty minutes to a half hour and tell her I’m doing fine. I learned a long time agoo that it’s better not to talk about anything of substance with her.Most of the time, it’s easy beacuse she wants to talk obsessively about my father with an occasional complaint about her own health thrown in for good measure. Or what a tough time she is having with the live-in aide. (For helping with my father with his dementia.)

This was something my brother and I learned a long time ago. Not to tell our mother anything of real importance because one, she would worry about it; two, she would want to talk about it; and three, most likely, she would disapprove of it.

One time when my brother was traveling, he ran into a minor issue with his credentials (well, his girlfriend’s), and he had to go ahead of her. That meant that he spent one day alone in London. London, where, as you know, (most) people speak English as their first language. Where there are signs and everything in English. My mother told me she was really worried about him and prayed for him to be ok.

I told her that he would be just fine (mentioning all the English that happens there). I said I admired him for doing so much traveling and basically whatever he wanted. He’s an adventurer, and I really appreciate that about him.

Another thing my brother and I had agreed upon was that we would not tell our mother anything about each other. I have half-joked with him that I wished he hadn’t told them about my medical crisis. I wasn’t blaming him because I understand why he did it, but it would have been so much easier overall if they hadn’t been here. The only thing I really needed her for was to towel off after a shower, and I could have managed it myself if I had to.

It was really stressful, and I think I would have done better overall on my own. I told my brother he should have just told my parents I was visiting Ian for two weeks. I was joking, but I really wasn’t. I really prefer living on my own, and it was hard to hav ethem around 24/7 for three months. About a month-and-half into it, I was messaging with Ian and saying that I could not do it. I was so stressed and tense, and I was actually thinking I would rather have died than come back for this shit.

I was in a very dark place is what I’m trying to say. He had been in the army when he was younger, and he told me something I’ll never forget. When he was in basic training, he had a drill sergeant who told him, “Don’t think of how long you have to go. Just think of today. You can do one day. Anyone can do one day.”


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Trying to tame the rage inside

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I’ve always had a temper; it’s just in my younger years, I was really good at reining it in. Like, inhumanly good. I had to be beacuse I was punished for not doing so. Not physically, but emotionally shamed/chastised for it. I was not allowed to show any negative emotion. If I did, I would be screamed at by my father or my mother would give me the “I’m eating a very sour lemon” face while drawing her lips tight.

Only my parents were allowed to show their displeasure. My father either by shouting or being silent for hours whereas my mother would either cry or pull faces while she complained to me about my father (her marriage). It was during these times that I learned to keep a tight lid on my emotions and all my reactions.

It was so bad, that I had to unlearn a lot of coping mechanisms later in life. In Taiji, my teacher taught us chin-na (joint locks) techniques. We would practice them on each other and tap out when the pain was too much. Except, because I had such control over my reactions, I did not react to the techniques. At all. Now, I’m  sure you can see why this might be a problem. The chin-na did not do permanent damage if you let go quickly or before you went past the point of reasonable.

Since I could not tell what that point was, I was in danger of having something broken. I wasn’t trying to be tough or to flex; I truly did not feel anything. There’s one where you grab the thumb and jerk it downwards toward the wrist. I can already almost touch my wrist with my thumb, and I would not notice if someone pushed it a few inches further.

My teacher declared that I could only do it with her and even then she had to tell me to tap out when I thought it was a reasonable point of pain.

Additionally, when I got my tattoos, I would fall asleep much of the time. Or I would find it erotic. The only time the pain was more prevalent was when the tattooist was doing my collarbone. That was excruciating. The rest though? Not a problem. I have four tats. One large one on my left boob. One small one above my stomach. One band of thorns and flames on my left forearm. One rather large band of waves and flames around my right upper arm–with a yin-yang as the medallion joining the two sides.

I want to get another, but the tattooist I used to go to left the state a few decades ago. I’m not sure I want to go through the trouble of finding another one. I don’t go out much because of my incredibly shitty immune system, and I’m not sure I really want another tattoo. Or rather, I do, but I’m not sure I want to go through the bother to get one.


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More musing about martial arts

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Let’s talk about martial arts some more. Why? Because I’ve been thinking about the obsessions I have in my life. I have the type of personality neuroatypical brain that latches onto something and won’t let go–for a given amount of time. It can be a few months like black “diamonds”, jigsaw puzzles, musical soundtracks (like Moulin Rouge and Rent), and cheesecake. I used to bake back in the day, and cheesecake was my obsession for a hot second. Yes, I even made one. It was pretty good!

These obsessions are fast and fleeting. They last a month or three, but when I’m done with them, I’m done. This is me in general, though. I run through things and people, and once I’m finished–I’m finished. This can be books, websites, games, or people. My last therapist (about two decades ago) told me somewhat acerbically that it wasn’t a good thing. I knew that, but that didn’t mean it was easy to change.

Part of the probelm was that I poured everything I had into that one thing/person. Once I reached the end of it or felt I wasn’t getting reciprocated love, I was D-O-N-E. And I very rarely changed my mind. VERY rarely.

When I was younger (in my twenties), I felt bad that I was like this. I felt it meant I was fickle or not serious about my interests. It wasn’t until after my medical crisis that I felt more at peace with the fact that if I liked something intensely for a month and then never wanted to think of it again, it was ok. It’s also when I realized that I was neuroatypical.

There’s another kind of obsession that is sustaining, but more lowkey. Meaning, I don’t think about it all the time, but it comes up occasionally, and then I’m very much into it. I would put Poirot novels in that category. I loved them when I was younger, and I’ve read every one at least three times and some of them up to several dozen times. I’ve seen the David Suchet series several times as well. in fact, I may be up for another watch–except I have to sub-subscribe to two different British producers in order to watch the whole series, which makes me VERY cranky.

These are things that make me instantly happy when I think of them, which isn’t often. I think the fact that I can be absorbed with them for a very short period of time and then put them down again makes it easier for my interest to sustain itself. I think the way to describe my casual interests (as it were) is that I have a finite amount of time for them. If I stuff myself to the gills with them for a month, then I’m done. If I ration it out for obsessing a week at a time or so, then I can sustain my interest for longer.

Here’s the thing. I know my brain works this way; I really do. I know that if I like something, I am going to be obsessed with it to a certain extent. It’s the same with people. I will give and give and get really into someone–and then, at some point, I’ll lose complete interest. This isn’t with everyone, but it happens often.


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