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.