Let’s talk more about my brain, how I think, and the difficulty I’m having with sleep. In my last post, I talked quite a bit about how I never really thought I could have autism because the stereotype of it did not feel like it fit me–at all.
I didn’t want to go on a thousand-word rant about the patriarchy because I’ve done it many times before, and it wasn’t the point of the post. But let’s all acknowledge that we know that the patriarchy has a long reach.
It’s not often than I say plainly that the patriarchy is the reason I reacted in a certain way (or didn’t), but it’s completely true in this case. I had no idea I could have autism because the image of it in my head up until maybe four years ago was of a boy (probably white, but not necessarily) between five and fifteen. Someone who fidgeted and stimmed constantly, and, of course, someone who was awkward in social interactions and could not make (or sustain) eye contact.
None of that fits me. Except maybe the last. I don’t make eye contact, but I can do the ‘look at their nose’ thing.
When my autistic friend told me to take an online autism test unmasked as much as possible, that was eye-opening. The test itself talked about masking and how so many autistic people did it automatically. They wanted you to take the test as unmasked as possible, and they even padded the scores to include masking.
Knowing all that, I still struggled taking the test without automatically masking. I have been doing it most of my life–for fifty-years plus. I don’t know how to be unmasked any longer. It had a Likert scale and would make statements like, “I feel comfortabel with my social skills in a crowd”. Then, of course, you had to pick a number. 1 was like highly agree, 2 agree, 3 neutral, 4 disagree, 5 highly disagree or something like that.
The instructions explicitly said to put down the number that described you before you put on your mask–and I had no idea. As I said, my mask was installed in me at such a young age and so firmly, I just could not imagine myself without it. I tried. I knocked a point off here and there, but I honestly had no idea what to score myself. That’s how ingrained the mask is on my face. Er, on me.
I scored in the low range (meaning the very bottom of I could possibly be autistic). The thing that was important, though, was that it opened my eyes to the idea that I might be autistic. It might be harder for me to find my way to what the actual truth is (and I don’t know if I’ll get tested or not), but just knowing it’s possible that I have autism has lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.
The thing is that even if it’s not autism per se, it helped me realize that I definitely have some kind of neurodivergence. I’m pretty sure it’s autism–just heavily masked. When I look at a list of the traits, I fit most of them–at least in my heart. Oh, and there have been studdies that suggest that transgender and nonbinary people have a higher rate of autism. Which is very interesting to me.
One study suggested that women and AFAB people did have focused interests, but they were in more…palatable areas, for lack of a better word. Autistic boys were stereotypically joked about fixating on things like train timetables and bus stops. Girls might talk for hours on fashion or makeup, but that would be dismissed as evidence that they might be autiistic.
Ok. I wasn’t going to talk about the patriarchy, but I have to in order to expand on why female interests aren’t considered in the same light as male ones. Patriarchy. The end. No, that’s just the beginning.
If a hobby/passion is that of a woman’s, especially a young woman, then it’s dismissed as frivolous. If a man/boy has the passion, then it’s considered serious and real. Look at fashion versus sports. Or even in music, music done by men is considered morce serious and more artistic as music done by women–especially in certain genres. When I see people talk about music, especially men, they usually name white dudes. Maybe black dudes if they’re into hip hop or R&B, but they may mention one woman at the most. (Let’s not even talk about nonbinary/agender artists. In part because they are so few and far between.)
By the way, Stray Kids dropped their new album a few days ago, and it’s fire. It’s the first comeback I’ve been around for, and this album is one of my favorite of theirs. Am I biased because it’s the first I’m experiencing in real time? Maybe. I’m fine with that. I included the music video for the title track, This & That. It’s funny because when I heard snippets of it, I was skeptical. I thought it was fine, but I liked other tracks better. When I watched the above video for the first time, I realized I was so, so wrong about the song. It’s a banger, and it quickly became one of my favorite by the time I was ten seconds in. The Festival Version might be even better.
Anyway, they are my current obsession, though I do not talk about them much. I have listened to every album they have and heard every song (I think. They have over a hundred songs released and others that aren’t officially released. They are self-produced (three of the eight members call themselves 3RACHA, and they write the lyrics and music, and produce the songs. Not by themselves, but they do the vast majority of it).
They are a shining example of how I do obsessions. I spend a huge amont of time on the obsession, but I don’t necessarily talk about them because I am self-aware and understand that people may nott want to hear me yammer on and on about them.
This is how I differ–I do understand social constructs, but it’s anything but natural to me. It’s only because it’s been drummed into my head relentlessly since I was a kid to think of other people rather than me–at all times! This is another reason that I never thought I was neurodivergent–how could I be when I was painfully aware of other people’s emotions at all time? While I knew jack and shit about my own emotions, I could read others like a book with 100-point font.
That’s all for now. I will write more about it tomorrow.