For the first twenty-plus years of my life, I was a deeply depressed kid who didn’t want to be alive. I wasn’t suicidal, exactly, but I would not have cared if I died. I thought I was a waste of space and a blight on humanity. There are many reasons for this, but that’s not the point of this post. Suffice to say, that was not a great time in my life. I rarely like to think of it because it was so painful.
I hated myself back then. With the fiery passion of a thousand suns. No one could have been as mean to me (and believe me, they were very mean. I was a fat, neurodivergent, unhappy Asian kid in a very white suburb in the seventies and eighties) as I was to myself.
I look back at little me and have nothing but compassion for her. She was just trying her best in a world that was actively hostile to her. She had no idea how to be normal. She did find, through trial and error, mostly, a way to pass for normal. Ish. If you squint. From a very far distance. But it never matched how she felt inside.
There is talk of masking in the neurodivergent world.
Side note: I did not even have a whiff of a hint that I might be neurodivergent until I was in my thirties. Mid-to-late thirties. This is a shame. A BIG shame.
Masking is when a neuroatypical person acts like ‘normal’ in public so in order to get along with the normies. It’s exhausting when you have to be very careful of everything you say or do in order not to raise suspicion. It’s not only things such as fidgeting and being unaware of time (I don’t have either of those, by the way), but also things like having sensory issues and not liking things that are popular. I have both of these.
It toook me some time to figure out that racism existed. Same with sexism, and then homophobia/biphobia (once I realized I was queer). This is life in that we rarely have all the revelations at one time. But. I realized that I was of a different race and gender (well, the first time) when I was in my twenties. I wish I had realized more about myself at the same time. Plus, I also wish that I didn’t have it smashed into my face over and over again that I was a weirdo and what’s more, that I was a massive loser for being such a weirdo at a young age.
I first realized I was going to die when I was seven. Simultaneously, that was when I first wanted to die. Or rather, as I’ve said before, not wanted to be alive. Here is the letter I would write to that younger me.
Dear Mini-Minna,
First of all, just breathe. I know everything hurts and there’s a tightness in your chest that never loosens. I know that you are miserable every moment of the day and wish you weren’t born.
I hold you in my arms, tenderly, because you are ok just the way you are. I know you won’t believe me for decades, but you can exhale and stop trying to fit in. Or you can make your peace with the masking you have to do to fit in as best you can. You can decide what is worth it for you to bring up that isn’t normal (like loving Taiji weapons) and what isn’t (like loving the cold).
As you grow older, you’ll question everything you thought you knew about yourself. As well as everything that people tell you you ‘should’ be/do/think/act like/feel. You will have to claim things for yourself over and over again. Those tihngs include being Taiwanese American, fat, a woman and then, much later on, agender, areligious, bisexual, aromantic, and neurodivergent. The last contains a multitude including, but not restricted to: sensory issues; hyperfocus; trouble with reflexes/dexterity/peripheral vision/and more; not liking to be touched, especially by surprise; taking things too literally; making connections in my head that other people can’t see; and so much more.
You will be making a life-changing realization once a decade, if not more. There are several in your early twenties, probably to make up for being so clueless for the first two decades of your life. You will realize that there is both racism and sexism in society when you are in your late teens/early twenties. This will enrage you, which is a normal and reasonable response to making this discovery.
Around the same time, you will also realize that you don’t want to have children. I can’t tell you what a relief this will be for you, but I also can’t emphasize enough not to talk about it with people who aren’t friends. And by people, I mean women. They do not care about you as a person–they just want you to uphold the status quo. You will be much happier if you just shine them on in this case.
This goes double for your mother. I will tell you that the earlier you learn to tell her nothing, the better. For your mental health, I mean. It may seem like the honorable thing to do to tell her that you don’t want children, but she’ll make your life miserable for letting that slip. What would be better is if you equivocate and tell her that you’re thinking about it. Ad nauseam. Gray rock the hell out of her until you time out of being a prime candidate for motherhood (which is forty, by the way. That’s when she’ll stop bugging you about having children and move to bugging you about getting married).
Around the same time, you’ll discover that you are attracted to women as well as men (the binary being all I knew at the time), but you’ll shelve that for about half a decade because you have enough to deal with. You’ll explore it with a vengeance in your late twenties, and you’ll confirm that, yes, indeed, you are attracted to more than just men.
In your early thirties, you’ll admit to yourself that you do not want to get married. You’ve known it for some time, but it wasn’t something you felt comfortable saying out loud. The time you mentioned it to a partner, he was not happy about it.
I’m done for now. Will pick it up again tomorrow.