Tag: Confusion

Ableism kills

On By KaelenRhyIn Blog, Culture, Uncategorized, Who is Kaelan?

I found myself rather sad last night. Not that the feeling has gone away.

If there’s any truth to the saw of ‘the lesson replays itself until you learn it’, I can definitively say I’ve learnt my lesson.

It’s a human need to interact with others, to socialize, to be an integral part of a group. To belong, to have acceptance. https://www.universalclass.com/articles/self-help/a-brief-history-of-our-need-to-be-social.htm

But when you’re autistic or ADHD or often another form of neurodivergent, you may easily live your life without something allistics and other types of neurotypical people take for granted. Simple social acceptance. A group to belong in.

I highly doubt I’m the only autistic/ADHDer who’s lived a life like mine.

I’m late diagnosed, so in elementary school, I didn’t understand why people didn’t like me. In high-school, the bullying in school and the abuse at home just made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out again. I ended up in an abusive relationship where I was pressured into sex far too young because being in the back seat of my boyfriend’s car (whether I actually wanted to be or not, I didn’t) was safer than anywhere else I could go. It’s one of the reasons it’s imperative to talk frankly with ND kids about our differences, we’re heavily at risk of every kind of abuse.

NT = Neurotypical ND = Neurodivergent

Because we’re sadly still human. We desperately just want to feel like we belong somewhere. That some people on this cursed planet actually want us around.

The things we’re capable of doing to ourselves in the mistaken hope that we’ll eventually find acceptance is pretty awful, to be honest. Humans are social creatures and when you’re prevented from being social… it hurts and harms in so many ways.

I had a brief period of acceptance in university for around 2 years. I joined the SCA and found a lot of other weirdos like me. I had a ttrpg group. I had a coven to practice with. I had people who acted (and were) pleased to see me. I’m no longer in the SCA because of what it’s become, so that time period didn’t last long.

I lost my coven and ttrpg groups when we all graduated over the course of a few years, moved away, and I’ve never found a group to practice my faith or my enjoyment of ttrpg with again. Solitary is lonely. Several of us are still in touch, in a haphazard fashion… but me loathing Facebook makes it harder for me to stay in touch with uni friends.

2 years out of 46. That’s a pretty terrible ratio no matter how you slice it.

It’s common these days in publishing to need to be good at social media to get anywhere. Or so that’s what everyone says. After my experience being harassed off social media, excluded from groups both professional and social repeatedly, I can say I don’t think they mean the advice for people like me.

Social media gave me a voice I’d never had before. It was nice. But it’s always my ‘voice’, my ‘me’, that people end up getting sick of, complaining about, and eventually excluding me over. It’s not like I misrepresent myself. I’m out as autistic/ADHD/mentally ill everywhere online. I’m too… worn out… I guess, to try to hide everything from everyone anymore. There are things I choose not to talk about, due to stigma, but everything I share online is authentic.

I can say with complete honesty that I’ve tried so many times to make friends, to find a group of people who would give a shit if I died. I’ve finally reached the point where I accept that I can’t have that. I can’t have a thing humans need to thrive because of ableism.

Because the intense, lifelong experience and pain of loneliness is better than the painful exclusions, the bullying, the ableism… it gets to the point where we just don’t have it in us to keep trying. I don’t have it in me anymore. I’m scraped clean. This latest exclusion has been not only horrifically painful for me, but it’s also rock-bottom. I can’t do it anymore. Excluding people and freezing them out is a form of bullying, y’know. In this case, it’s a form of cyberbullying.

So many autistic and ADHD folks have similar experiences. We try, and try, and give it far too many ‘last tries’ before we just… realize, I guess, that it’s just a grossly repetitive pattern and we stop trying.

I trusted a friend that the groups they were in were largely made of decent people who were accepting of differences. I don’t blame my friend, they’re a wonderful person and perhaps those groups were accepting of them (friend is ND too). So I tried again. I thought I was accepted too. But in hindsight, I can see I was barely tolerated. Y’know, it would be super helpful to be able to read social context in the moment. But that’s one of the reasons autistic and ADHD people are disabled. Many of us can’t pick up on social clues and we often completely miss social context.

It’s not that we’re trying to be the sand in the oyster. I actually tried to be as unobtrusive as possible in that group while still having a presence there. It didn’t change the fact that people complained about the way I ‘talk’. That is so, so ableist.

I didn’t complain about the many, many times I was hurt, harmed, or insulted in that group. I just did the professional thing and quietly blocked anyone I didn’t want to see.

But people didn’t have the decency to extend to me the same courtesy. Being ND is hard enough without gleeking ill-nurtured ableist coxcombs being utterly nasty. And trust me, if you’ve complained about the way any non-allistic talks/types, or if you’ve penalized one of us for it, (as long as it’s not obviously harmful IE racist, misogynistic etc.) that’s exactly what you are.

Years of supporting others, and of being as professional as I know how to be (I’ve worked fortune 500 corporate, I know how to act professionally even with people I don’t like). I extended them the same professional courtesy I’d hope people would extend to me… all of it gone in a flash with no warning. The reason given was the way I talk (communicate via text). The words used were both inaccurate (I’m an editor and that word was used incorrectly) and deeply insulting. Please understand that judging how a disabled person communicates, and complaining about it, is deeply, wretchedly ableist. I lost people I thought of as friendly acquaintances, professional contacts, and just… other weirdos who do this writing thing. I lost a place I mistakenly thought was a place where I was welcome. People I’d spoken to or read almost every day for years gone. I also lost any opportunities that being part of that group would’ve offered. And no, I can’t reach out to people in the group because I don’t know who or how many were complaining about me. I have a few guesses. Probably pretty accurate ones given my training in psychological forensics (it’s not all dead bodies, y’know). But I don’t have facts.

Those who I term ‘baby NDs’ or ‘unhatched autistics/ADHDers’ are people who may or may not know they’re ND, but who still cling to neurotypical social expectations and behaviors like some sort of ropy, gooey Turner and Hooch-esque slime trail.

I can’t blame them really, I clung to the same concepts for far too long myself. We’re raised, whether we’re NT or ND, to feel that following the social ‘norms’ will work for us.

Except it doesn’t work for autistics and ADHDers. The unhatched often (and full disclosure, I’ve been guilty of it myself… in my 20s when I didn’t know better) harm other ND people (including their own children) in their mistaken belief that if they just try hard enough, if they mask enough, if they entertain enough, if they get rid of the disabled person who talks funny… if they… if they… if they…

Trying to change the unchangeable and masking (autistic masking) has never done me an ounce of long-term good. All its done is break my heart, over and over again. I developed the habit of masking to survive. I used to be so good at masking that people didn’t believe me when I told them I’m autistic/ADHD/mentally ill.

I probably missed a good career as an actor. It’s what I did every second of every day and I paid the cost for it.

I’m not sure if it’s the fact I’ve been a SAHM for 15 years, the pandemic and the required quarantine my immunocompromised family still lives under so we don’t die, or whatever having covid did to my brain, but I can’t mask hardly at all anymore. I can manage it for brief interactions like buying groceries, but even that is just… utterly exhausting.

It’s nigh impossible for me to mask online. I have a social media persona, everyone does. I’m a little more outspoken online than I am in real life. I’ve always communicated better in writing so you’d really think it wouldn’t be an issue for me to find spaces where people like me are accepted, would you?

Except, online groups and social media have turned out to be just as cruel to me as people tend to be IRL.

Any sort of change, but especially unexpected change, is incredibly difficult for autistics. That’s got to be one of the world’s most understated facts.

I don’t know if I can even describe it. It’s similar to the feeling of overwhelm, it has some similarities to how someone feels when everything they’re comfortable with is suddenly gone.

It wrecks our routine, our reality, (routine is so, so, so necessary for many autists). That feels like your world shakes like an 8.0 earthquake and has its resulting destruction.

It’s a bit like how it feels to be gaslit, the questioning of everything you’ve done, said, experienced because obviously, you hadn’t picked up on some social thing that someone else felt was important enough to hurt someone (badly) over.

I’m not entirely sure if this thing autistics/ADHDers do when something goes wrong is innate or a trauma response from a world that makes it very clear we aren’t wanted.

But we tend to replay memories, which are often crystal clear for many of us due to how autistic memory works, trying to figure out what exactly we did wrong and when, so that we don’t do it again.

It’s an exhausting morass of circling, intrusive thoughts and please trust me when I say you don’t want to experience it. It’s certainly not a voluntary process. Things others can brush off as no big deal will often scar an autistic person for life.

I’m still involuntarily replaying memories of when I was 4 years old, for fuck’s sake, so can you imagine what it must be like in our brains?

That “professional” group was the last group I had. Apparently, it’s a time of endings. Because I can’t make myself find new groups to repeat the process with. I’m done. Social media will take a much lower rung on my personal ladder going forward. I’ll be in my own discord group, on Twitter until the wheels come off, and one other platform I haven’t figured out yet. At least I won’t be kicked out of my own group. If you’re interested in writing, reading, editing, art, stories, mental health, autism, ADHD, or are simply another lonely ND person, my group is safe space for NDs, feel free to check it out. As I write, it’s small and not very active because it’s new, but I hope it will become more over time. https://discord.gg/cqF4zKSCwK

Over the past 2 years I’ve thought I’d found welcome… or at least mildly concussed acceptance in 3 groups. They’re all gone now. I left one voluntarily when the mods proved to be disgustingly ableist. One imploded thanks to the behavior of one of those mods and someone who acted about as unprofessional as you can get. And this last one where I was unceremoniously ejected because an ableist twatwaffle complained about the way I talk/type. Or more than one, who knows. I certainly don’t.

Please be kind to people different from you.

If you ever have a problem with someone you know is ND, put on your grownup pants and communicate the problem. I guarantee most of us are appalled when we miss a social cue. And we will miss them. Usually, our brains are literally not wired to pick up on social context well. It’s the most affected portion for me on my diagnosis papers. Social skills/awareness ranked pretty close to zero for me.

No wonder I’ve always preferred dead people to live ones. (Forensic bioanthropologist, not serial killer.) Dead people haven’t ever hurt me. I can’t say the same about living ones.

Allistics love to accuse autistics of ‘not using our words’. But from where I sit… it’s incredibly obvious that the autistics/ADHDers/mentally ill aren’t the problem here. Allistics need to communicate better.

It’s also ableism. Pure and simple. And ableism kills people. How? Most autistic people die around age 36. The leading causes of death are heart attack from the stress of living in an ableist world, and suicide, because we never fit in. No matter how hard we try.

If you enjoy my writing, we’re a family of 4 immunocompromised/autistic/ADHD folks, two are kids, any tips/help is deeply appreciated. We live far under the poverty line.

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Perspective

On By KaelenRhyIn Who is Kaelan?

I usually wait ’til something triggers a blog post, I’ve no set schedule, works for me. So, I recently shared a thing from my past with a couple of online friends. I’ll share what it was in a bit.
It brought up the odd dichotomy I have about perspective, just to clarify (since I can’t draw worth beans, really, my stick figures look drunk) I’m talking about definition 2.
My perspective seems skewed, or everyone else’s is. Not sure which, to me, the things that have occurred in my life, are just normal. Possibly even logical. Now, this may very well be a part of my Aspie nature. Remember that logic and knowledge are akin to holy to me (except math, math = bad) and that emotion takes a back seat, until it doesn’t. (Clear as mud, aren’t I?)
Ahem. Definition:

perspective

noun per·spec·tive \pər-ˈspek-tiv\

Definition of perspective

  1. 1 a : the technique or process of representing on a plane or curved surface the spatial relation of objects as they might appear to the eye; specifically : representation in a drawing or painting of parallel lines as converging in order to give the illusion of depth and distanceb : a picture in perspective

  2. 2 a : the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed <places the issues in proper perspective>; also : point of viewb : the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance <trying to maintain my perspective>

  3. 3 a : a visible scene; especially : one giving a distinctive impression of distance : vistab : a mental view or prospect <to gain a broader perspective on the international scene — Current Biography>

  4. 4 : the appearance to the eye of objects in respect to their relative distance and positions

perspectival

play \pər-ˈspek-ti-vəl, ˌpər-(ˌ)spek-ˈtī-vəl\adjective

I shared, what to me, is a perfectly amusing tale of ‘how not to drink.’ Yet, my memory was met with sorrow for the events that occurred. (Yeah, this is totally ’cause I’m Aspie, isn’t it?)
By the time I turned twelve, I’d learned to drink. Yes, really, no I’m not implicating anyone, it just… was the way it was in the time and place I grew up in.
I’d been raped by someone I cared about by the time I turned 17, and I stayed in a relationship with him afterward. I didn’t even ‘know’ it was clearly rape until I’d taken a sexuality class in University, years later.
I’d also been threatened with both physical abuse and having a family member abused, and loss of where I lived if I didn’t recant something I’d accidently shared about a family member sexually abusing me.
I can almost hear the gasps, but… thing is, life and childhood just ain’t pretty for so many people.
It’s why I support, desperately, authentic YA stories (kinda wish I could write them, but… my real life YA is more suited to a memoir I think. I’d never get pubbed, I’m no where near disneyfied enough for the YA market that I’ve seen. My time and energy are limited, I’ll continue writing what I love to write. Also, to clarify, I want to get pubbed only so my stories can reach the most readers, the one’s who really need/want to read them).
The YA stories that are real? The ones that tell the hard truths, the ones that explicitly describe the terrible decisions some kids, a lot of kids, make on a day to day basis, those stories need publication, so they know they aren’t alone!
I could’ve used that, then, you know?
Anyway.
I think I was all of 24 when myself, my husband and a friend were invited to the largest Halloween party in the (Capitol) city we lived in. It was a bit of a social coup to be invited. I didn’t care so much about the social coup, so much as that we had a party that promised to be fun to attend.
My social anxiety being what it is, we arranged for a cab and started the libations while we costumed up. I’ve been a professional costumer, my work is in museums and has graced stages, I’m good, so it took a bit of time. A fun time to be sure.
Lol, yes, we were well on our way to tossed when we got into the cab to go to the party, ebulliently enthused is a good phrase.
We got to the party with our donations, booze and food, of course, as one does (and ourselves).
We mingled, we drank, and since there was a free open bar, and I admit, a hot, shirtless bartender (I’m demi, not blind) well, I figured in the dumb damned way of youth, to try stuff I hadn’t yet.
Tequila shots.
Yep.
I’ll say now, just in case you ask later where my companions were, this was in the late 90’s, we’d hung together for a while then split up and mingled where we willed. (were there orgies, yes, there were, it was a goooood party).
So, by the time the challenge for Tq shots came along, I was mostly sober and alone. (I did know many people at the party, but… I wasn’t with anyone I’d come with.)
Some random person in the group I stood with asked if anyone would do Tq shots with them.
(Even now, it’s just an experience to me).
I offered, he made it to three, I made it to four. After flirting (badly I’m sure, no one ever looks as good drunk as they think they do) with the bartender, I tried oozo, because I’d never tried that either.
Apparently, I don’t handle liquor well. Too much Native in my ancestry perhaps (I was told that by someone from a rez once, I may be completely off base and smack me with a clue-by-four if I’ve misspoken, please.)
Oh gods, Drunk, with a capital D, and not in the pretty, fun way, and all of the sudden!! We’d been shooting for maybe half an hour. Remember I started this little learning experience mostly sober… well… reasonably, I wouldn’t have driven, but I consciously made decisions knowing their likely repercussions.
lol, no, I didn’t puke but gods I had to pee in the worst way. (I may be weird in liking that the other guy puked, saw him coming out of the john as I went in… only time I’ve ever liked the ‘hail fellow well met back slap’ of ‘victory’.)
By the time I was washing up at the sink, someone in full renaissance garb needed the john, no worries. I went out onto the porch for air.
I watched some poor sap fall down the three flights of wooden stairs. (yeah, the hosts should have blocked them off, they didn’t) Guess who the next poor sap was?
Yup.
I’m lucky I didn’t break my damned neck (the doc’s words the next day, not mine). He said I was lucky I’d been drunk, apparently the muscle relaxants in booze save a lot of college kids lives) I had bruises up and down the left side of my body. Um, by that I mean the whole left side of my body was black, and they gave me tetanus shots and vit-k? I think? There were needles. (In another time and place, fun, but at the time, I had no clue as to my own mortality.)
Fuck, I still remember how badly the bruising hurt.
So, being me, after the zipper ride down the stairs, I stood up and walked around (I swear, I have more than a little ‘cat’ in me) Carlin said it best at about minute 4:43 Fucking Meow
So. I walked it off (gods, there’s a sports metaphor from my stupid ‘oh, I like sports! years) Look, I don’t judge anyone for legitimately liking sports. But dang, could we just stop shoving it down everyone’s throats? There’s a fecking large percentage of the population who’re faking enjoyment of it, ya know? (Unless there’s armor and swords/axes or MMA involved, in which case I happily throw over my own reasoning.) (Sorta like faking orgasms… regardless of gender, y’all can stop that too.)
Ahem.
So, yeah, I walked it off and hobbled my way back up those fecking stairs. A guy dressed in a sheep suit met me at the top, expressing concern for my well being.
I’m not great at reading social cues, but how many women can tell ahead of time they’re about to have an issue?
I didn’t. He’d been around the whole night (yeah, yeah, alarm bells, I was young and dumb).
He asked me what I needed, when I said my husband or my friend he led me to a room with a phone. (so I could call them, ya know? In the days before frequent cell phones?)
I won’t detail what followed, but anyone who didn’t know how to apply a gooseneck (hapkido) or (yeah, hapkido, sorry) and had the will to apply that and other methods of self defense would have been raped.
I wore bruises from that the next day too.
Nothing was broken. I suppose it says something about my life that that’s the standard by which I approach injury.
So, much disturbed, still sickdrunk (there needs to be a word for that, if you know it, enlighten me, please) I left him to his, um… writhing is good (he survived, and so deserved it) and found my husband and friend. We called a cab and went home.
Except… (you knew there was more, didn’t you?)
Yeah. For the first time in my short and varied life, I puked while drunk and in a moving car.
I’m nothing if not polite. It’s a skill you learn with an Asperger’s brain. You figure out, through trial and error, what is socially acceptable and what isn’t, ’cause let me tell you, it isn’t obvious to some of us.
I got the window down and puked out of it. On the highway. (I still regard this memory as amusing, I learned my lesson, I don’t usually drink liquor and rarely drink anything to excess.) Though I pity whatever cars were behind us.
It occurs to me that this post might lose me followers. Do I care? Nope. If you’ve never, in your entire life, done something stupid when you were young, (or old, learning isn’t a bell curve) feel free to judge (and take the stick out of your ass while you’re at it). Lol, unless it was fun putting it there, then, kink on my friend! Honestly, if you’re doing whatever with a consenting, of legal age partner? Have fun with my blessings (hope you don’t need them).
It also occurs to me to say, damn, kids, if you’re reading this, it totally isn’t worth it. I speak from experience, being raped isn’t fun (please report it, I wish I had, both the successful, and the almost) (report it here) or please, in the US and Canada, call 911 or go to a police station. (I’m not internationally traveled, I’d love to link to international resources for this, email/DM/PM) This applies to male, female and non-binary gendered. If, for whatever reason you can’t (I get it, I do) my DM’s are open, my email is public. I’m here. I can’t help, but I can listen.
The cabbie robbed me. I can’t judge all cabbie’s by that one, but she spun an entertaining (now) yarn about how she had to clean her cab of the puke.
In my drunken state, I didn’t do the math, a carwash cost about 4$ then.
So, she dropped off my friends and took me to the ATM. We had all of 40$ in our account (Still in University, we were so poor then).
She took it all and demanded more. When I told her there wasn’t any, she finally drove me home. Where I found my companions on the lawn of our apartment building. We hadn’t been gone long for such a ‘rich’ experience.
As an older woman, I desperately hope neither of my kids, nor anyone’s kids, ever experience life like this. Except. I know incredibly well how hard life can be. I know that people are as varied as the days on a calendar, and that it can be as simple as a bad day that makes a person do a bad thing. It can be a bad hour, or a bad 5 minutes. Every second, we choose.
You know? I’m still viewing this, with my perspective of age, as being a learning experience. Sure, I was ticked off the next day (I mean, who wouldn’t be?)
Did I consider reporting the guy who learned his lesson? (Hopefully about more than not to wear a sheep costume!) Yeah, I did, but I didn’t know his name, and in my drunken state, had a bad description. (Sheep costume, dark hair, Caucasian, location, that’s not really enough.) I also knew exactly how the cops were likely to respond to an accusation. (Another story, later time, maybe.)
In any case, from my perspective. I learned a deep and abiding lesson and have what *I* think of, as an amusing story. From the perspective of those I blurbed this too, well… that’s where the confusion comes in.
It’s where perspective comes in. If you’ve had a relatively easy life. (I’m obviously no judge of *easy*) then your perspective will be different than mine.
If you are any of the kids I’ve taught in inner city schools, especially if you’re POC of any variety, I bow my head in respect for what you’ve lived through, because I haven’t a blessed clue. If you’re POC at all, I bow my head, because you’ve lived through so much.
… and even now, I’m *still* fecking wondering why my sharing of something someone *asked* me to share is… off? wrong? Elicited-the-response-it-did-that-I-still-don’t-understand? Yeah. That.