*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy
People tell me all the time that I am very self aware, that I am very introspective, and that I am capable of deep reflection. They tell me it's a rare and positive thing. Rare, maybe. But positive? Sure, it's good to engage in sober reflection once in a while. The problem is, is that I am capable of doing so not so much because it's a natural inclination. Rather, it's mostly because I've been repeatedly forced to do so since adolescence, due to being repeatedly socially punished for things that were honest mistakes. Meanwhile my neurotypical peers did not seem to have to do this, even when their actions were also extreme and, in some cases, malicious.
I think about during COVID when I reconnected with Chuck, a counselor from my 1997 summer trip to Israel, via video conferencing. He was a guy I'd I chased around all summer like I was Pepe LePew, rarely giving him any space. When I first reconnected with him, we talked about this. I sheepishly admitted the obvious, that yes, back then I'd had a huge crush on him. He shrugged and said, "You were a teenage girl." I told him that not long after the trip ended, I realized what a pain in the ass I had been, and I engaged in sober reflection over the following year. Confused, he asked why I had thought I needed to do that. I explained that it was because of the backlash from the counselors from Camp Negev, which was affiliated with this trip. When I returned to camp for the CIT program in 1998, they didn't allow me to work with kids. In fact, they almost didn't even let me return to camp. They cited a lot of reasons for this, and the one that came up the most was that I had been "too dependent" on Chuck, and getting "dependent" on people could interfere with my ability to work with kids. It was also largely for this reason that I wasn't allowed to go on the post-high school gap-year program in Israel.
Did I act stupid in the summer of 1997? Sure. In my case, I was an undiagnosed neurodivergent 16-year-old kid, trying to figure out how to handle new, confusing, and overwhelming feelings. And let's be real: teenagers are stupid. Maybe autistic teenagers are a different kind of stupid, but not in a worse way, and certainly not a malicious way.
But what about other kids on the trip who were difficult, but just in ways more familiar to neurotypical people? What about the girls who were struggling with eating disorders and making themselves throw up? Did they spend a year in sober reflection about how their difficult behavior could have led to something life threatening, and the counselors in charge of them would have been held liable? What about the kids who managed to get their hands on alcohol and drugs that summer? Did they also have to engage in sober reflection about their dangerous-- not to mention illegal-- behavior?
I think about the bullshit that happened in my friend group in middle school, as I discussed in recent posts. When my joke about "old people smell" fell the wrong way and my friend Kat was convinced I'd insulted her grandmother, I had to engage in sober reflection about my behavior; my parents and psychologist all told me that my behavior was extremely inappropriate and immature. My parents even said that they didn't blame Kat for ending the friendship.
But was Kat expected to engage in sober reflection about thinking that an appropriate response to my joke was to spend days on a revenge tour, saying humiliating things about me to anyone who would listen? Did her parents tell her it was immature and inappropriate to tell a group of kids that my lack of interest in dating must have meant that I was gay, hormone deficient, and hadn't yet gotten my period?
What about in 9th grade, when my former friend, Torey, kicked me out of the lunch table, saying that I was "the most annoying person" she had "ever met?" My parents seemed to expect me to engage in sober reflection about how annoying I was. But did Torey's parents make her reflect on shunning a friend in the most humiliating way possible, including shouting taunts at me in gym class on that same day?
What about Ivy, who just 18 months before had declared me her best friend? Did she engage in sober reflection about not standing up for me that day? What about later that year when she came up to me at lunch at the table I'd been exiled to and said, "Everyone wants to beat you up-- because you're you?" Did Ivy reflect on how cruel it was to tell someone everyone wanted to physically abuse them?
What about the nightmare I endured in ceramics class, where girls threw chunks of clay at me every day? I engaged in sober reflection, believing I deserved to be treated that way because I was odd and annoying. Did the ringleader, Kay, ever reflect about how horrific her actions were after I left the room-- and school-- in tears one day? What about Miss Mitch, the teacher in that class who had told me to ignore clay being thrown at me? Did she engage in sober reflection about how she had failed to protect a vulnerable student from abuse? I doubt it, because even when another student reported the behavior, she asked what my role in the "conflict" was.
What about the teacher I had in a Saturday morning art class during my senior year of high school, who saw me have a meltdown, threw me out of the class, and screamed at me, "You are going to fuck yourself over if you think you can go through life acting like this?" Did she engage in sober reflection about how cruel it is to talk to a kid that way? I, on the other hand, had to reflect on how my behavior must have led to such an extreme response from her.
Did any of my aforementioned peers and teachers engage in sober reflection about any of the incidents I mentioned? The answer is, Probably not. You see, people are more influenced by social status in judging someone's behavior than their actual actions. A joke that fell the wrong way is egregiously inappropriate and immature, but the deliberate humiliation of a classmate at the bottom of the food chain is seen as just a "normal part of growing up." Even behaviors that are concerning-- like binging and purging or doing drugs-- are seen as less harmful than a confused kid chasing her counselor around like Pepe LePew. These other kids were given credit for being kids, for their prefrontal cortexes still being in development. I wasn't. Anything short of social perfection was deemed a failure on my part. With this constant feedback, I was in a constant state of sober reflection. People to this day even ask me, "Why are you so hard on yourself?" Well, now you know how I learned it.
There is a lot of bias that autistic people, whether or not they are diagnosed, regularly face. We are disproportionately punished socially for honest missteps while neurotypical people get away with all kinds of deliberate and egregious shit. As for me, even today I have to ask myself, "Is that person being a jerk to me because of their own issues, or did I push them to it? Do I need to reflect deeply on this?" I shouldn't have to ask this question.
No one should.
