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.
The thing that has stuck with me is that my mother put me on my first diet when I was seven, and she harped on my weight relentlessly for the twenty-plus years until I finally put my foot down. I have to say, when I look back at pictures of me from that time, I was not fat. I was solid, yes. I was also chunky. But I was not fat. Not when I was seven.*
I was also hypersensitive as a kid. Or as I was repeatedly told–too sensitive. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was always framed as if I were being willful and purposely doing/being whatever my mother didn’t like.
This was her special power–the ability to unceasingly nag until she got her way. She had the attention of a terrier and was not afraid to use it to get her way. Terrier? Doberman? Whatever dog is exceptionally relentless. K pointed out, though, that she didn’t get what she really wanted in the end.
This is true. My brother and I had learned how to give in on the small things and then to either not talk about the big things or stand firm on them. I learned that I needed to learn when it was better to give in and do the small thing or hold the line and deal with the upfront unpleasantness so I don’t have to deal with something even worse later on.
That came with a lot of tears and pain, though. I can still remember a definitive moment when I gave in on something big, and it made me want to kill myself. Literally, not figuratively. That was the last time I gave in on something big, and I have held that line ever since. Even when my mother is at her most unpleasant.
For example, she wanted the whole family to go on a cruise for her and my father’s fiftieth anniversary. I hate being on the water, crowds, doing activities I don’t like, and eating in front of other people. You can see why I would not like a crowd. Oh, the water thing is because of motion sickness, not because of fear of water. I am a bit afraid of water, yes, but that’s not the main reason I don’t want to do a cruise.
Plus, even though this was before the pandemic, I was still cautious of germs and such because i have such a shitty immune system. the idea of being jammed in like sardines with thousands of other people and their germs did not appeal to me in the least.
Of course my mother pressured me heavily to go. She pulled out every trick in her dirty playbook. She kept pushing it and pushing it even though I stood firm on not going. I finally exploded and said, “I would be miserable if I want and hate every minute. Is that what you really want?”
No answer. For several long seconds. I could hear the ‘yes’ trembling on her lips. I knew that was what she wanted to say, and I gathered my wits to try to figure out what I’d say if she actually said she wanted me to go and be miserable.
She didn’t say it, though. She didn’t say no, either, but at least she didn’t say yes so I did not have to face that. I just had to remind myself that she could not literally make me go if I stuck to my guns. Yes, it was very unpleasant with her pouting and whining, but in the end, I did not go.
This was a big lesson learned for me, and one I kept near to my heart.
*Even if I was, I was still a child who was nowhere near done growing. I was fucking seven. I can’t get over that, really. I know from what it stems, but still. What a way to tell me that I was too much (and, ironically, not enough) and that my very being was wrong.