I never learned the art of masking, because I resisted it growing up

And that is okay. I never should have have been forced to appear “normal” without having other options to cope with ableism. I should have been allowed to judge for myself if and when fitting in was worth it. My peers who ostracized me should have also been held accountable.

Many #ActuallyAutistic folks talk about their experiences faking neurotypical in public, and the toll it has taken on their mental health. They have spent many years trying to fit in, only to find that it is not sustainable in the long run. Meanwhile, I had the opposite problem; I made being the weird kid my identity and I exaggerated my quirks for attention. As a child of the ’90s and early ’00s, the cartoons I watched encouraged viewers to be themselves, and I took that message to heart. I also had one great special ed teacher who set my expectations of others high. She fostered a positive environment for my classmates and me – no matter how different we were, no matter what supports we needed.

But things were about to change as soon as I was transferred into a “regular ed” classroom. My family’s expectations of me were changing, too. They felt it was time that I start toning down my imaginative world so that others don’t label me the weird kid. I hated that advice right away. They were basically asking me to keep the things I enjoyed and loved hidden for the sake of being more like everyone else. But no matter how upset it made me, they continued to argue. Soon our relationship was about to go downhill. It made me feel as though their acceptance of me was conditional.

During my first few years of regular ed, none of the kids were particularly mean to me, but they never fully included me in their activities either. We only said “hi” to each other and talked for a few minutes, then I went off to play alone at recess. I saw no problem with that. I still hung out with my special ed friends while I continued to take the short bus. Because I rarely hung out with “regular” kids, my family was concerned that I was missing out on learning important social skills.

They were not completely wrong. Due to the segregation between mainstream and “special needs” children, neither group knew how to interact with each other. I continued to act in ways that were expected for special education students, and had no concept of why NT children would find it weird. I never had any problems making friends while I was still segregated in those classrooms; in fact, many of the students there loved my company and we had great times together. It did not occur to me why neurotypical students would not be able to enjoy my company the same way. It took two years of mainstream inclusion before I learned how fickle my peers truly were. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks as I entered junior high. Every interaction with my peers triggered a fight or flight response. But I stuck to my values, and there were a small number of teachers and students who supported me for who I was. But even as I transitioned to a more accepting high school, the trauma of severe bullying never left me. It took me a long time to regain the confidence to talk to crushes, thinking I would never have a chance with anyone I wanted to be with. I fooled myself into believing that it was actually my thing to assign numbers to people, rather than others pinning that role onto me. I loved the attention anyway, so I continued to do it just to feel like I was a part of something. But the idiosyncrasy did not last in college – while it made me stand out to my peers, it never helped me accomplish what I was truly after, which was connection.

So I withdrew for many years, convinced that I would never make any friends unless I learned to master the art of normalcy. I may have been right the whole time. But I sure hope the next generations of college students have better options.

Resenting neurotypicals is a trauma response

Being autistic in a world run by NTs is rarely ever a walk in the park, even with a proper support system. I can’t name a single autistic who hasn’t experienced unfair treatment in communities dominated by neurotypicals (family included). I was no exception. As soon as I was moved from special ed to inclusion, my friendships would never be the same as before. Even when NTs tolerated me, very few ever liked me enough to include me in their activities outside class. I also felt as though I was constantly competing with them growing up, and barely stood a chance when it came to dating, academics, or finding my dream job.

I especially did not like female NTs. The most damaging bullying I received was that of mean girls. There were so many mean girls where I grew up, that it became my frame of reference for who’s considered a “normal” girl. If they happened to be the sisters or mothers of autistic people, I felt sorry for what their autistic relatives had to put up with. The women in my family (who may not even be NT after all) were particularly critical of my differences and saw me as a sick child who needed to be fixed for her own good. They nitpicked everything I did, and I lashed out in protest. There was nothing I looked forward to more than leaving my childhood home and being in charge of my own life. I could not imagine how any other autistic person could have a positive relationship with their NT family members, or love them unconditionally despite treating them badly.

I’ve seen autistics get shamed for not trusting NTs, getting told that they are no different from the NTs who rejected them first. After all, prejudice against NTs is still prejudice. But there are two things are going on. The power dynamics are not the same. Autistics are systematically discriminated against by NTs on a regular basis and risk losing everything simply for existing as they are. Secondly, it is common to feel uncomfortable around people who remind someone of their abuser(s), and this will include any general group of people. It’s not justified, it but needs to be handled differently from learned hatred.

“Reverse ableism” is not a thing. NTs are not losing out on big opportunities because a small number of autistics dislike them with a passion. But it is still unhealthy on the individual level to hold grudges against the majority of people. Though it is hard to believe at times, most NTs are willing to improve themselves if given the right education. And most female NTs are not mean girls like I thought. Even if they were, most of them regret it as adults. They are not the elephant in the room; in fact many of them have faced similar battles as me because of their gender alone.

Unconditional Love

Tw: painful truths, toxic relationship

Excerpt from The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, 44-45:

“I knew, for instance, that I had often become angry when “unconditional love” was discussed in the group meetings. I was apparently supposed to perceive and appreciate that all the members were giving me unconditional love. I was supposed to learn to trust them, and I felt guilty if I couldn’t. It was explained to me that I could not trust and believe that love existed at all because I hadn’t received love in my dysfunctional family of origin. I took these explanations for granted because I was longing so much for love and wanted to believe that I actually was loved. I was unable to question what I was told, because hypocrisy had been the food I was fed daily by my mother – it was so familiar to me, though never questionable. But today I do question things that do not make sense to me.

Today I would say: Only a child needs (and absolutely needs) unconditional love. We must give it to the children who are entrusted to us. We must be able to love and accept them whatever they do, not only when they smile charmingly but also when they cry and scream. But to pretend to love an adult unconditionally — that is, independently of his or her deeds — would mean that we should love even a cold serial murderer or notorious liar if only he joins our group. Can we do that? should we even try? Why? For whose sake? If we say that we love an adult unconditionally, we only prove our blindness and/or dishonesty. Nothing else.

This is the only one of many glimpses through the fog of religious heritage I tolerated in those meetings for much too long. I owe these insights to my lonely work. This ability to reason developed in me as I talked to my parents in my inner dialogue. It never occurred to me to have any conscious doubts when I was sitting in the meetings. I so desperately wanted to be loved — and that meant, of course, to comply, to be obedient. It was actually a very, very conditional “love” that was being offered there.”

Vera is right. As adults we don’t need unconditional love, not even from our therapists. This is a childhood need, one that can never be fulfilled later in life, and we are playing with illusions if we never have mourned this lost opportunity. But there are other things we can get from good therapists: reliability, honesty, respect, trust, empathy, understanding, and an ability to clarify their emotions so that they need not bother us with them. If a therapist promises unconditional love, we must protect ourselves from him, from his hypocrisy and lack of awareness.

This was the most difficult lesson that I ever had to learn; unconditional love is one of many things that is only meant to be received during childhood yet is essential for proper development. However, not everyone was fortunate enough to have received it as a child, and not everyone has had the chance to grieve that lost opportunity. Instead, they will try to seek it as adults – this leads them both vulnerable to abuse and at risk of becoming abusive themselves, using the “excuse” that they grew up with a bad childhood. Once I crossed the other side of the fence, I had to face some harsh truths that no romantic partner ever owes it to me to fulfill what my family-of-origin could not give me. I had to work on this myself with the help of professionals. It continues to be challenging, but I have made significant progress.

Seeing others experience unconditional love while I never did, brought out the worst in me. I had no idea how much resentment was brewing when I felt uncomfortable around a former partner’s family, especially his sister. It felt so taboo to talk about, I couldn’t even admit to myself that I was jealous – feeling as though he will always love his blood relatives more than he’ll ever love me. And that something was wrong with me if I didn’t also love my own blood relatives more than I love him. At the time, I never realized that my family of origin abused me, or that the ways they treated each other was never actually normal or okay. I assumed his family didn’t treat him much better, because most of them were neurotypical and he was autistic, and there were bound to be lots of misunderstandings.

One could say my former partner just felt a “different kind of love” for his relatives. But the bonds he had for them were much stronger and harder to break. After all, they’ve all known each other since he was a baby, while I only knew him for a few years. Naturally, he wanted me to love his family too, because they meant the world to him. But it was so hard for me to even get to know them when I only saw them all at once in large family gatherings (which were not introvert-friendly). He wouldn’t stop telling me how much his family adored me, even though I rarely talked to them. I (irrationally) wanted them to hate me. Until one day, I lashed out at him in front of his mother and sister, for “allowing” them all to attend dinner without me while I was stuck in long traffic from my other event. His sister was so livid that she unfriended me on FB and never spoke to me again. There were no words to describe how devastated I was, and how much I regret staying with him for any time after that. Letting him go was the only way to show him that I was truly sorry for how I treated him.

It went both ways. He made me feel as though I was required to love his family unconditionally despite not sharing his bonds with them. That was a tall order on his part. I never felt I had the space for any critical thoughts about them, and that was why my anger bottled up for so long. It is never reasonable to ask someone to love adults unconditionally, no matter what one’s family values are. I had every right to see them more objectively than he did. His sister was never very warm towards me, despite being as extroverted as she is. She said things that triggered me, including off-color remarks about an autistic woman at her internship. He never called her out, even though he admitted it bothered him, too. His mother was overbearing and overprotective. Her intentions may have been good, but she did a poor teaching him how to become an independent adult. He had a difficult time standing up to her when she asked him to do things he did not want to. It was fully reasonable of me to be disappointed in him for that. He put his blood relatives up on a pedestal. He made sure I knew that he will always have different standards for them than he did for me. He was never as securely attached as he presented himself to be.

If anyone else ever felt similarly, they deserve to know that they are not alone, and to express their thoughts without judgment. Just because they never had unconditional love as children, doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that can restore secure attachment in adulthood. The Drama of The Gifted Child put it in words so beautifully – “reliability, honesty, respect, trust, empathy, understanding, and an ability to clarify their emotions so that they need not bother us with them.” (45) My current partner has also given me all of these. I have also told him about my past early on in our relationship, and he never thought less of me for it. That is pretty close to unconditional love, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.