I’m back with more about masking, what I consider ‘normal’, and why I’m a social anarchist. And, yes, these are all connected. Maybe just in my mind, but they are connected. Also, this was the last post I wrote.
By the way, I will forever be grateful to Ian for pointing out that he thought I was an anarchist. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me taht I might be one. Probably because of the very negative portrayal of anarchists in the media. I know, I know. Grain of salt and all that, but when a message is constantly pushed in your face (like neurodivergent people are broken/flawed, ahem) , it’s easy to unthinkingly accept that propaganda as truth.
Here’s the thing about rules (to me). I follow them when they make sense. Such as road rules. It makes sense to follow traffic signals, for example. If people driving on the road relied on everyone negotiating who had the right of way, well, there would be a lot more deaths on the road than there already are.
Same with taxes. Grossly simplified, I believe in the collective common good and doing what we can for those among us who have the least. I think everyone should have a roof over their head, food to eat, and the ability to see a doctor when they need to (for a few very basic human rights). I believe it’s our duty to ensure that for everyone in our society. If that means cutting our defense budget, so be it.
Oh, by the way. This observation by Ian happened because I was saying that I was a libertarian with a small l in most situation. He said that I seemed more like an anarchist to him, and something clicked inside me when he said that–with some caveats.
I do believe in government. I don’t think having no government would be an improvement over having one. It’s not even that I don’t believe that individuals will do the right thing (though I don’t), but more that you can’t run a large institution like a country without there being some structure. Even something as basic as roads. How is that going to happen if there isn’t an umbrella organization (government) that makes it happen? There are things that individuals simply can’t do.
Anyway. To veer sharply back to the topic at hand, I think part of the reason I’m an anarchist is because of my neurodivergency. What do I mean by that? I mean that the fact that I don’t see things in the way most people see them is one reason that I can strip away the window dressing (most of the time) and focus on the window.
Side note: I’m also a socialist, but that’s another post altogether. I feel the two go hand-in-hand, actually.
My mother used to get mad at me when I would argue against one tradition or the other. Or she would say something she thought was cute/sweet/cool, and I would point out why it’s not. I need to stress, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk–I was just giving her my opinion on the thing she was sharing with me.
Side note: I was made to keep all my opinions to myself when I was a kid. I rebelled in my twenties by spouting my opinions willy-nilly. I had to learn that there was a time and place, but also that my opinions were not bad/wrong just because very few people agreed with them. It’s a hard lesson to learn. My opinions are valid; I don’t need to share them all the time; I don’t need to swallow them all the time. These are not mutually exclusive. Part of being neurodivergent means I have a hard time knowing when I should speak up and when I should not.
It doesn’t help that I have something else that I learned is common for autistic people–other people’s opinions hold way too much sway over me. It’s been described as if the autistic person doesn’t have a core to ground them, and while I would not put it that way, I have certainly felt that. I think it’s in part because I’m so used to being the minority and that I equate that with being wrong. I’m automatically wrong, I mean. Even if I feel 100% right in my heart, I can be knocked out of that so easily.
It’s one reason I keep it to myself many times. What if I’m wrong? But also, I don’t want to have to constantly defend myself. I have to do that in my head over and over again. It’s hard enough on that level (maybe harder), so I don’t want to do it with others as well. Also, I am a terrible debater. I can’t put into words what I feel so I end up sounding either unhinged or not able to back what I’m saying. Even if I have the stats to back me up, I can’t bring them out on the fly. In part because I don’t want to get them wrong, and I can’t be sure in the moment that I have them exactly right.
This is another thing that I’ve learned is a neurodivergent thing. Getting caught up in the exactness of things and not knowing what needs to be said when/where/why/how, etc. It’s as if I have no filter in my brain or rather nothing to rank what is important in my brain. All information goes in and all information must go out, right? Of course that’s ridiculous, but I didn’t realize it until much later in my life.
On the other hand, I have the ability to look through the bullshit and get to the truth of what other people are saying. I know this sounds contradictory to what I just wrote, and I can’t explain why this is the case. I can give a supposition–it’s because both my parents are truth hiders, but in very different ways. I was able to quickly see through their bullshit and get to the heart of the matter.
I’m not sure it’s completely dysfunction, though. The fact that I can see through the bullshit, I mean. It’s just that I can read someone’s vibe pretty easily because I’m not distracted by external factors. Same with ideas.
For example (and yes, I’ve used this before), when I realized I didn’t want children. This was when I was twenty, and it was as if a lightswitch went on in my head. “Wait. I don’t have to have children.” It sounds so simple when I say it out loud, but it was such a societal expectation (doubly so as a second gen Taiwanese American) (and still is, unfortunately), that it was revolutionary to acknowledge not wanting to have children. Even more so because I refused to apologize for it or act as if I should be ashamed of it.
I did not expect all the pushback I got because to me, my decision not to have children did not affect anyone but me. Not even my hypothetical future kids! Sadly, women around me did not think this, and they let me know very vocally that I was letting down the side. It was Simply Not Done (not having children).
I’m done. More later.