Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: normal

Nanowhatmo? Part three

I have more to say about NaNoWriMo and what I hope to accomplish with it. In yesterday’s post, I talked about my time in the hospital. In part because I wanted to talk about it, but also because I want to write about it. I have toyed with the idea of writing a memoir since my medical crisis.

Side note: In the RKG Discord, there was a spirited debate about whether déjà rêvé was real or not. I did not know what it was when “C” brought it up so I Googled. It’s similar to déjà vu in that it’s the feeling that what you’re experiencing is something you’ve dreamed before. C talked about how he’d experienced it all his life, and a few people immediately dismissed it as not possible and bunk. One in particular, “D” was quite rude about it as was her wont.

I see this happen so often. If someone can’t imagine something, then it can’t be true. I am the opposite because I am so deep in the weeds of being weird, I constantly have to accept that my lived truth is not everyone else’s. I mentioned this about empathy a few posts ago, by the way. People really, really, really don’t like any hint that they are not as empathetic and/or intelligent as other people.

In this case, I easily accepted what C said because I had similar things happen to me. Not in terms of dreaming, but because there are times I can predict what is going to happen. I don’t talk about it because I have nothing to back it up (though my mother firmly believed I could make things happen because I would call them out before they happened.

C made it clear that he would dream things and then they would happen later. D kept saying it wasn’t possible. Someone else insinuated that he (C) just thought it was happening. The way D was so absolute about her belief that it just could not possibly be true was fascinating when viewed from a distance. I know it’s not unusual, but I rarely see it in such a discrete/concrete fashion.

The reason I’m pointing this out is that what happened to me is not possible, either, apparently. Or at least I cannot find someone else it’s happened to. When I tell medical people what happened to me, I inevitably hear that I’m a miracle.

Here’s an example. After I left the hospital, I had a nurse come once a week to check up on me. One time, the nurse could not get the system they use to work. She asked me what happened to me, and I gave her the quick summary (walking non-COVID-related pneumonia, two sudden cardiac arrests, and a stroke). She typed it all in and then went on with the checklist. She quickly read out the symptoms/situations and said no, no, no, and then said heart surgery, yes. I was half-listening, but sat up when I heard that. I said I hadn’t had heart surgery, and she made me repeat that. I said I did not have heart surgery; I just had an angiogram (which turned out fine).


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Living my life as best I can

Labels. It’s not the main thing I want to talk about, but it’s important. Why? Because as much as I’d love to be free of labels, it’s not going to happen any time soon. More importantly, as long as we live in a society that thrives on slapping labels on people. We must know who is in and who is out, musn’t we?

(Which is my issue with the Democrats hammering on the ‘weird’ meme. I get it, but I’m still not happy about it.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had some empathy for my mother when she was younger beacuse she basically was a single parent of three children (the third being my father) in a foreign country when she was in her late twenties. She worked forty hours a week (taking the bus back and forth, which was half an hour to forty-five minutes each way, depending on traffic), then came home to cook for my brother and me. My father was never home before ten p.m. because of the affairs he was having. Yes, that was the reason, and my mother barely kept it from me.

In fact, as I have mentioned, she started using me as an emotional support person when I was eleven.

She did all the chores around the house, too. Except for mowing the lawn and a few other ‘manly’ chores (like taking out the garbage). I’m sure she helped with shoveling the snow, though, because we lived in Minnesota. We got a LOT of snow.

It really wasn’t fair.

My mother worked forty-plus hours a week (plus commute), then had to do the cooking, the cleaning, the sewing, and anything else around the house. Plus, my father had all these unspoken rules that my mother (and my brother and I) had to follow. the biggest one was that no one other than my father was allowed to show any negative emotions. If I got upset, angry, or scared at all, I got yelled at.

I distintcly remember when I was a teenager, my father and I had a huge fight. I don’t remember what it was about, but it was loud and angry. On both sides. I ran to my room and slammed the door. A minute later, my father flung open the door and screamed about how I was not allowed to do that in his house.

That was the day I knew that I could never ever have an honest moment with my father. Should I have yelled at him? No. Should I have slammed the door to my room? Also, no. But I was a teenager. Acting out is a very teenaged thing to do. What he should have done, I don’t know. but acting like a more out-of-control teenager in return was not it.


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A letter to my younger self

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.


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If I ruled the world, part three

I have more to say about my ideal world because of course I do. In the last post, I was talking about From games, cishet white dudes assuming they’re the norm, and a bunch of other things.

Side note (yes, this early): That’s the way my brain works. I have discovered this is a neurodiversity thing, which makes sense. People get very exasperated with me because I can’t keep from going off on a tangent. In my writing, I love a side note, a footnote, an aside, and just anything that takes me down a different road.

Everything is interconnected to me. I can’t compartmentalize, which is to my detriment. I find it funny that I was talking about interconnectedness about a decade before it came a thing. I did not understand looking at, say, race without including gender. Things have an impact on most or all aspects of my life in different ways, and it isn’t as if I could turn off, say, being Taiwanese for a day.

There are some things about me that you wouldn’t know right off the bat just by looking at me. And there are some that you would. In the latter category, the following are included: fat, Taiwanese (Asian) American, AFAB, and old (although I look younger than my actual age).Included in the former are: neurogivergent, agender, and bisexual.

Even though I listed them separately here, I feel them all at the same time to varying extents. Each is a piece of the puzzle that makes up me, and if any one of those pieces is missing–well, it’s just not me.

There are other pieces, of course, including me being a writer, Taiji (especially the weapons) and now Bagua, my passion for FromSoft games, and others.

In my ideal world, I would be able to talk about any of these with ease. I would not feel like I had to hide any aspect of my personality/being. Not to say that I would talk about any or all of them all the time because there’s a time and place for everything, but ideally, I would not feel I could not talk about any of them at all.

I did not begin to suspect I had a neurodivergency until I was in my thirties. Even then, it was just a whisper of a hint of an idea. I have mentioned that the fact that I was talking about ADHD on Twitter with a friend and I said that I didn’t think I could have it because I was able to focus on one thing –sometimes, for a very long time.

He told me that hyperfocus was actually an indication of ADHD, which was news to me. I didn’t pursue it at the time, but I filed it away for further reference. Then I didn’t pull it out again for at least a decade.


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Hidden disabilities and me, part three

I want to talk more about being a weirdo and slowly finding out that it’s not me. In the last post, I mentioned  that I had a rough childhood/teenage years/early twenties because I did not realize that it wasn’t just me. To clarify: I am weird. I am odd. I don’t fit in the mainstream for many reasons. I don’t like most of the popular culture popular things, which I have made my peace with at this late date in my life. But there were things that tripped me up (literally) that I figured was my own fault.

Like being clumsy.

It’s something I’ve dealt with all my life. I have run into things, fallen over things, tripped on things, etc., ever since I can remember. These are incidents that have happened to me: When I was two, I jumped off the bed (following my brother, apparently) and hit my head against the headboard. I had to go to the hospital to get stitches; I got my fingers slammed in the car door by my mother. Miraculously, no lasting damage; I broke the garage door window by hitting it to kill a mosquito (I maintain that this wasn’t completely my fault because the glass should not have broken that easily). Those were the big ones, but there have been countless incidents of me burning myself on the oven, running into the wall, stubbing my toe, etc. Oh! There’s one more incident–I dropped a weight on my big toe (a free weight). That’s another. Probably a 10 or 12-pounder.

Since I started learning Taiji, I have fallen off a ladder twice. Another thing. Driving, I have had several mini-issues with things like knocking the side mirror as I’m pulling into my garage, scraping the door against a mailbox, etc.

I have had bruises on almost every bit of my body. In fact, I would say that it’s a rare day when I don’t have a bruise. Oh, and I am keloid so I scar/bruise more visibly than other people. Currently, on my arms, I have five or so scratches/burns whatever that atre very visible.

I have called myself clumsy since I was little. As I wrote before, it doesn’t help that I am dreamy and don’t really pay attention to my surroundings because I am always in my thoughts. That’s why I think that it’s mostly me–because I am not in the present very often. Even when I’m practicing Taiji, my mind tends to wander a great deal.

The more I learn about autism, ADHD, and now dyspraxia, the more I think that maybe it’s not just all in my head. Or even if it’s in my head, that there’s a physical reason for so many things that I thought were just flaws. One of the problems with sexism (trust me, this is related) is that most of the known symptoms for these are more commonly found in men. Some of them are across the board, of course, but the ones that are not emphasized are more often found in non-men.

That’s not surprising. Eevrything medical is related to men. Men are the subjects of all the studies, even for pregnancy, and the recommended treatments are based on the average white dude. This is changing, but not fast enough. As an Asian non-male person who is twice as effective by mids as a wihte dude, it’s frustrating. Apparently, when i was in my coma, my mom kept telling my brother to bring up the fact that I was sensitive to medicines when I wouldn’t wake up and the docs were calibrating how much sedation to give me.


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I can’t eat the sandwiches

Today, Alison from Ask A Manager wrote a post about why you need to attend your company’s holiday party even if you really, really don’t  want to. She gave advice as to how to deal with it, and it was solid as always. She makes good points, and if I worked in an actual office, I would–still not go.

Here’s why. One, the title of this post is based on another AAM post. If I remember correctly, it was about how to plan food for the office in a thoughtful manner. Someone suggested sandwiches, and someone said not everyone can eat sandwiches. Which people took great umbrage at because they thought the person was just being difficult. I think that person was being difficult, but in general, I actually cannot eat the sandwiches. Unless there is gluten-free bread.

Another tihng Alison has doen in the past is mention that most people want money for their Christmas gift (from the company). By far. Money. You would be surprised how many people push back on that because it’s not really a gift in the sense of it’s legal tender.

Look. Give. Me. Money. People are terrible at getting me gifts for more that one reason. One, I’m just a freak who is not interested in normal people things. Plus, with all my allergies, I can’t eat many things. This is related to the gift-giving thing that Alison writes about. There are many people in the comments who think that it’s the thought that counts. Well, yes, but if the thought is ‘you don’t count’, then what’s the point? Every suggestion people had, I could not use. Well, almost every. Chocolate? Has milk. cheese platter? All dairy. Cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pie? Gluten. Foodwise, I can eat meat and I can eat nuts, and I can eat fruits. So give me any or all of those.

Candles? Allergic. Soap/lotion? Same. Clothing? Also probably allergic. Well, depending on the material. Wool is bad. Feathers are bad. Synthetic is fine.

As for alcohol, I don’t drink it–and I’m allergic to alcohol, anyway. I don’t contribute to these convos because it’s so tiring, but someone defended alcohol saying people could give it away if they didn’t  want it. One, why should I have to give away a gift for me? And nothing says I’m valued like a gift I can’t use. Two, some people can’t have alcohol in the house. I can, but I would prefer not to. Three, it’s a pain in the ass to pass it on. I don’t have anyone nearby who drinks wine (which is what’s usually given away). Beer I could pass on, but it’s still something I have to do that I would prefer not to do.

So. Let’s take this to an office party. I can’t eat anything there. Miss me with asking for special food because I have read enough AAM to know that even if you ask, the chances of getting exactly what you want is slim to none. I have a Kind bar in my purse for that reason, but it’s not enough to last a whole night.


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Being normal

I can usually pass for fairly normal if I keep my comments fairly bland. I’m talking about in the gen pop.  I know I’m a weirdo, but I am always finding new ways in which I’m the outlier.

For example, there was a question on Ask A Manager today in which the letter writer (LW) had in enteraction with their colleague that left a sour taste in the LW’s mouth. The way they wrote the question made it seem like it was a matter of business jargon of their company (and they were new). Alison and most of the commenters fixated on this. Alison did address another part of the question (the colleague said he wished the LW treated their colleagues the way they did external customers. When the LW gave an admittedly terrible answer about learning about using a customer voice at business school (sigh), the colleauge said to think of them as internal customers. The LW got stuck on the term, saying they learned ‘internal stakeholders’ and replied, “I’m good, thanks.”

Which, ouch. They go on to say their boss had overheard the whole exchange and how could they make sure their boss didn’t think they were entitled? They added they had gone to college and their boss and colleauges hadn’t (as a reason they think their boss might think they’re entitled). They also said at the beginning of their letter that all their colleagues and boss had worked at the same company together prior to this job.

As I said, Alison focused on the terminology and the fact that the LW was a new person trying to school her colleagues. And the LW got excoriated in the comments. Which surprised the hell out of me.

Now, let me be clear. I don’t think the LW handled the situation well, but I had a radically different interpretation of the events. A few people touched on it in the comments, but they were ignored or shouted down.

First, I will admit that I had no idea about internal customers and internal stakeholders (which I kept thinking was ‘shareholders’ as a German commenter said in the comments–I mean that she kept thinking that, too), so the whole letter was hard to follow. But once I wrapped my head around that, this was my thoughts.

Oh, by the way, it’s amusing to me how mnay people in the comments were so quick to decry college (and higher education) while simultaneously making it very clear that they had the same degrees. But it meant nothing! It didn’t help them at all! Which is probably true for some of them, but they still made sure to mention they had the education.

Side tangent: It’s like in the letters about people getting colleagues to interview their kids for jobs. The people making these comments are so careful to point out that all they do is tell their colleagues about their kids, but their kids do everything else so it’s not that huge a leg up!

Sure. If that’s the case, then don’t do it. I mean, if it’s not really a privilege, then you can take it away with no problem, right? I’m not saying they shouldn’t give their kids a leg up. Why the hell wouldn’t you? I just hate that they’re being disingenuous about it. Same with the college thing. Oh, it doesn’t mean you’re better or that it’s worth anything–but let me be very clear that I, too, have it!


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Not quite disability and frustration because of it

One of the things that frustrates me in the RKG Discord is how people keep saying that the From games aren’t hard. This has become the new mantra: The games aren’t hard; you just have to be thoughtful when you play them.

I want to say right up front that this may be true for some people. There are people who are naturally good at these games. There is one guy in the Discord who rarely dies to a boss. He’s also nineteen or twenty with lightning-fast reflexes. I think he died to the Guardian Ape 8 times in Sekiro and that may be the most times he died to a From boss. When I was doing the plat for Bloodborne, he decided to do the DLC once and for all. The game came out when he was 12 and he could not get past Ludwig, the first boss in the DLC.

He chose the Hunter Axe in honor of me chasing the plat. He was taking notes of how and when he died as he went. They were really funny because they were like ‘guy with big head knocked me off the staircase’. Accurate and hilarious. He one-shot all the bosses in the DLC except the last one–which he two-shot. All in all, he died something like fourteen times in a brutal DLC. I probably died that many times to the first boss–or would have if I hadn’t summoned Valter (NPC) to help me out.

It was cool that he used the Hunter Axe in honor of my plat run, but it was also a bit deflating that he did it so easily with a weapon he’d never used before. And the fact that he decimated the DLC was mind-blowing to me. It turns out, though, that this was just par the fourse for him. He was a legend in the Discord for how easily he romped through all the previous games.

There are a couple other people in the Discord who are nearly as good as him at these games. Then, there are those who are very good, but not god tier. Then there are those who are decent at the games. Then, several rungs down, there is me.

I am terrible at the games. Ian and I have had this argument many times. He thinks the games are made for people like me–because I have to work to beat them. I disagree. I say that I am not the target demo because most people in my position would have given up long before I did. I don’t know why I kept going when it was so damn hard every step of the way. Probably because I’m a stubborn bitch and contrary to boot.


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Free your mind…if you can

I have talked before about how I reach the end of things and then decide that I need to move on. It’s not a good or a bad thing; it’s just the way I am. Meaning that I get bored with things if they don’t change.

I had a Taiji class today (Zoom), and we were going over a movement that is in the first section of the Solo (Long) Form. In other words, the very beginning of the my studies. It has been refined and tweaked, but I’ve been doing it for fifteen years. Back before the pandemic, I was teaching myself the left side of the Solo Form, and made it to roughly two-thirds into the third section. In other words, one-third from the end. My teacher’s teacher was tinkering with the form, and he was changing so much at that point that I decided to put it on hold until he finished.

Theoretically, I understood that it wasa living form. Theoretically, it was exciuting that he kept changing it. My teacher said that when he was taking lessons from the masters, they  were changing t on the regular and just expected people to keep up. Which, fine, but that’s not the way I work. Especially when I was trying to teach myself the left side.

Then, I became focused on the weapons and then, the pandemic hit. It’s only in the last six months or so that my teacher has been teaching us the new Solo Form. It’s mostly the same, and my brain is not remembering the differences. I’ll need my teacher to go over them with me in my private lessons, but I’m happy that A) It’s been refined and B) It’s settled, more or less.

I’ve been in a rut for the last few months, and I’ve decided to shake things up. Now, I’m focusing on refining the forms I know, but also on working on my upper body strength. I need to keep things spicy enough that I don’t get bored, but comfortabl e enough for me not to feel overwhelmed.

I have a weird way of doing that. I stick with what I know for a bit too long, and then I rush to do ten new things. I do wonder if I have ADHD or at least the traits. I tend to hyper-focus on something until i get bored, and then i move on. This is with groups, hobbies, and, sadly to say, people. Not that i need a person to be constantly evolving because I sure am not, but I do need a person to be at least open to the idea that there is more out there than they know. In other words, that they are willing to learn something.

My brother has an ex-friend who is a dedicated Republican. They became friends back when he was a Republican (in name) and worked at the same place I think. She was really rightwing and said to him straight up that the truth didn’t matter. If the Republicans said it, then she believed it. He did not know what to do with it, and he wanted to talk about it from time to time. He wanted to know why she thought that way because he could not fathom it.


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A harsh reminder

I’ve been gluten-free/dairy-free for….four years? Five? Something like that. I would not suggest you quit both dairy and gluten cold turkey in one day, but that’s just how I roll. Here’s an interesting fact about testing for celiac–you have to actually be eating gluten for six weeks in order to be tested. I asked my doctor about it years after I had gone GF. She said I had to get back on the gluten–and there was no way I was doing that. I decided that me knowing I could not eat gluten without an official diagnosis was good enough for me. To be clear, I don’t think I have celiac because–huh. Wait. I’m reading a list of symptoms and excessive diarrhea (sorry) is one of them. So are cramping and bloating.

I thought it had to be even more severe than that. Oh, there are other things that happen with celiac that doesn’t with gluten intolerance, but I don’t know which I have. More to the point, I’m not going to go back on gluten to get tested. I do fine with just avoiding gluten, so I might as well just do that.

The one restaurant on DoorDash that has GF and/or DF labeled is an Indian restaurant. Their curry is nothing to write home about, but their chicken pakora is great. And they opened another restaurant that has idli and vada, both of which are tasty. However, the last order I got caused me to sit on the toilet, on and off, for seven hours last night. I know it’s the chicken pakora, and it has to be cross-contamination. I always order two portions of it. The first day I ate it, it was a mild burn, but no big deal, so I figured it was just a trace contamination.

The second day (yesterday), however, it was a completely different story. Maybe I ate from the second container? At any rate, I felt it immediately and I was running to the bathroom every fifteen to twenty minutes. And, not to be too graphic (but I’m going to be, anyway), but I was shitting my brains out. I didn’t think I had that much excrement in me.

The last time I accidentally ate gluten was when I wasn’t paying attention at the grocery store. I bought regular macaroni rather than the gluten-free version. Then spent six hours on the toilet (on and off in fifteen minute increments).

This time, it was seven hours, but each episode wasn’t as bad as it was with the macaroni. Which, in a weird way is even more irritating. Here me out. When each episode is big, at least it’s its own thing. When it’s run to the toilet every fifteen minutes for a minute, that’s not enough time to be meaningul, but then it’s hard to get back into whatever I was doing.

The sad part is that now I can’t order from this restaurant any longer. I’m sure some people would say to call the restaurant, but nope. Trust is gone. Eevn if they reassured me that this would never happen again, I would not trust them to hold to that.


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