Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: polite society

What I think versus what I say

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I have spent a lifetime figuring out what is ok to say in polite society and what isn’t. That doesn’t mean I always say the safe and bland thing, though. Sometimes, I say the ruder/more honest thing on purpose, and sometimes, it’s because I did not draw the right line. And, sometimes, I’m so tense about saying/doing the right thing that I just blurt out the first thing that enters my mind. Or do whatever my brain tells me to do. Thankfully, it’s never inappropriate–it’s just sometimes very awkward. And embarrassing. But I’m used to that.

I have a running track in my head that tells me what I’m saying is wrong, stupid, and I should just shut the hell up. That’s on a bad day. On a good day, the voice is calmer and not saying the mean words, but it’s basically the same message. “Dear, is that really what you want to say?”, “Maybe you should say that in a different way.”, and the like.

The track was installed by my parents when I was very young, and while I’m getting better at dampening it, it’s still there. It doesn’t help that I’m hard to understand when I’m not styling myself for normies to listen to me.

There are several reasons for this. One is that I think very differently than others do. And I think in very complex and, yes, convoluted ways. That’s part and parcel in having a broken brain. I see connections that other people don’t, and I can’t explain them to my satisfaction. I’ve told this story over and over again.

I once was talking to my then-therapist about how frustrating it was when I could not explain something to someone to make them understand what I was trying to say. In my mind, it was my fault because I could not find the right words. She said, “It’s because you think at a level five while they think at a level one or two.” She told me that they literally could not understand what I was saying, and that it wasn’t because I could not find the right words.

It was a relief to be released from the burden of trying to find the right words. I still tend to err on the side of me thinking I’m not saying the right words, but I have found some relief in the idea that maybe it’s not me.

See, this is one of the issues with being neurodivergent–I always assume it’s my fault. Before I knew I was neurodivergent, I just assumed that my brain was broken, and I was a weirdo. I mean, the latter is true, but the former is…not true in the way I used to think it was. It doesn’t mean I monitor what I say any less, but at least I’m cognizant of why I’m doing it.

It felt treacherous when I was younger to say what I really thought. I’ve done a lot of work to figure out what the ‘right’ thing to say is and what the ‘wrong’ thing to say is. In addition, I have been programmed to always put others feelings first, which makes it difficult for me to voice my opinion.


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Not fit for polite society

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I’m back to talk about being a weirdo. Here was my last post on it. I was listening to MPR on the way to and home from Cubs (I’ve gotten into Lactaid cottage cheese and lentil chips lately), and the topic was on having kids in the current US climate. The hypothesis was that people in their twenties and thirties were much more hesitant to have kids for reasons outside of themselves than in the past. I was interested in this because as someone who does not have children and never wanted them, I feel like society is still very child-heavy in general.

There were a few comments from people on the reasons why they chose not to have kids (or were waffling on them). The two who were played on the show said they were concerned about bringing children into this world. The first, a man, said that he wondered about bringing a daughter into a society that was increasingly limiting choice and the second, a woman, said she could not bring a child into a world that sanctioned genocide.

The section on the way howe was talking with a woman about the shift in society about having children in general. She was in her early thirties (I think) and was seven months pregnant. She said that it felt like society had shifted much more to ‘don’t have children unless you’re absolutely sure you want them/can raise them right’. She said in the past, if you were on the fence, it was more, ‘have them and deal with whatever comes up. It’ll be fine.’

My immediate thought was that the former was the correct way to think and why the hell would you want the latter to be the norm? I have always believed that it’s better to really think about why you want to have children than just to have them because you think you should.

The woman went on to say that in her circle, no one was having children so it was isolating. I’m not discounting any of that because I don’t have any reason to think that’s not true in her circle. However, her broader assertions about society in general made me skeptical. To my eye, it looked like the pressure to have children, especially on young women, was the same as before. Then again, she wasn’t exactly contradicting that–just that people were also expecting that you be in the ideal position to have children.

That I can believe. People are irrational at their core. I could see the mentality being, “Yes, you have to have children, but not until you ________________” (fill in the blank with ‘have been is a loving relationship for five years; enough money to use a day care center/nanny/au pair; have your career in a stable place, etc.”


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No common ground

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Back when the country was debating marriage equality (called same-sex marriageat the time), there was a meta-debate raging about the ‘tone’ of queers as we argued for our basic civil rights. And, yes, I am framing it in a deliberate way beacause I rail against the notion of neutrality when it comes to the issue. I remember Matt Birk, ex-Vikings (maybe current at the time) center bleating about how we can be cvil as we disagree.

So many of the anti-equality people wanted to control the WAY we debated the issue along with debating the issue itself because it behooved them to strip out anything emotional from the discussion.

The ywanted to make it simply about two differing points of views. Both equally valid, reasonable minds agreeing to disagree, etc., etc., etc. ‘Civil’ was repeated over and over and over yet again.

“We can disagree without being disagreeable” was another saying I heard way too many times.

I’ was reminded of this because on NPR, they were touting a town meeting with four diverse thiners as a way to come together as a society. ‘HELL NO!’ is what I said out loud in my car. Because I don’t want distasteful ideas such as white supremacy, monitoring the genitalia of trans kids, and a federal ban on abortionto be made palatable. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the NPR tow hall had in mind, but it was what I immediately thought of.

See, in order to have this kind of discussion, you have to have some ground rules. As someone who is a minority in so many ways, I’ve lost count, my first would be my civil rights as an American on several levels. As a queer person. As an agender person. As someone who could still theoretically have a child but most emphatically does not want one. As an areligious person.

My ground rules would be that a person’s gender identity is not up for debate–nor is their sexual identity. I was listening to the radio in the car the other day, and the co-hosts were going on and on and about the ‘alphabet soup’ that is queer identity. They were begrudgingly accepting of gays, but started pooh-poohing trans and everything else. “The founding fathers got their ideas from church!” one of them declared. Which…was an interesting interpretation.


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