"More Musings About Having Been Born in the Wrong Decade" or "How to Raise Your Consciousness"

For those of you who read my Born in the Wrong Decade series that I posted last month, I have some more thoughts about an incident I wrote about in the first installment of the series. 

If you recall, I talked about being very self-conscious about my focused interest in Back to the Future, which started when I was nine years old, and how my childhood efforts to hide it backfired spectacularly. I then related a story from when I was ten, in which Back to the Future Part III was released on video on the same weekend of the Bar Mitzvah of the son of a family friend. I wanted to leave the after-gathering at the boy's family's house so that I could go home and watch the movie, but I felt guilty for even thinking this way. Ultimately, a war broke out in my head between the Whims of My Mind and Doing What was Right, but this time the Whims won: I told my parents that I needed to do my Sunday School homework, which was a lie; I simply wanted to watch the movie. But then I was, once again, wracked with guilt. From the original post:

I've always hated lying, and I realized that I needed to confess my true motives. Following my mother upstairs... I told her the truth. She made a noise of disgust. Already ashamed of myself, I wasn't sure how to react, so I said, "You're angry?", but in a tone that made the question sound more like a statement. The next two seconds, where I looked aimlessly around the room, seemed much longer. Finally, she broke the awkward silence and said, "I'm disappointed. I can't believe you would give up someone's good time just for a movie." I was already self-conscious about my hyperfocus on Back to the Future, and hearing the disapproval from my own mother further cemented the idea in my head that it was wrong.

I then commented on how I think there might have been some unconscious bias on my mother's part, pointing out that it's not uncommon for little boys-- neurotypical little boys-- at gatherings that they find boring to say things like, "This sucks! I wanna go home and play video games!" Despite the fact that what I said to my mother was essentially a guilt-ridden confession of my "thoughtcrime" rather than an unconsidered demand, she still reprimanded me as if what I had said contained the subtext of the latter. And thanks to emerging efforts in the twenty-first century to encourage others to check their implicit attitudes, I am sure I am not the only one who would note the gender bias. Focused interests are more tolerated in boys, and there is also the expectation of girls to always consider others' wants and needs. An appropriate response from my mother at the house gathering would have been understanding, coupled with a reminder about how I needed to be patient and that a Bar Mitzvah is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, whereas you can watch a movie at any time.

However, I strongly suspect that had the circumstances been slightly different, my then-40-year-old, early-'90s-era mother would have been more understanding, once again, due to unconscious bias: there is one type of focused interest that is historically tolerated well in girls, and that is having a crush on a male celebrity. Mom now knows that I love the Back to the Future series because of the time travel element and, not insignificantly, that I find Doc Brown to be a strangely relatable character (as a kid I had no idea why, but as an adult it became clear when I eventually "headcanoned" him as autistic, but that's another quirky in-depth discussion for another day). I don't know if she knew about this back then, or even if she even questioned why I loved these movies so much, but I guarantee she wasn't laboring under the delusion that I had a crush on Michael J. Fox-- or any of the other actors for that matter. 

But what if I had had a crush on Michael J. Fox, and Mom knew that I wanted to go home and watch Back to the Future Part III so that I could ogle over Fox dressed as a cowboy? Or what if, like a lot of the girls in my fourth-grade class, I was into the then-popular boy band, The New Kids on the Block? What if a new NKOTB album had been released that weekend and I wanted to go home and listen to it because I had a crush on one (or more) of the members and listening to them was like a siren song for my on-the-verge-of-adolescence girl brain? I hate to say it, but in both cases I think Mom would have been more understanding, and her response, sans the disgusted edge to her voice, would have been more along the lines of what it should have been: that I needed to be patient. Similarly, also when I was ten, I relentlessly begged for a remote-controlled hovercraft. Why? Because it reminded me of the flying DeLorean in Back to the Future Part II. One day, after what was likely dozens of requests and audible brainstorming about how I could find a way to get this expensive toy, Mom told me that my "obsession" with getting the hovercraft was "obscene." But again, what if the thing that I had wanted so badly was related to a teen idol that I had a crush on? What if I had had a crush on the New Kids on the Block and there was a $129 statue of one of the members that I wanted so badly?* 

It is cliché for adolescent girls to have crushes on male celebrities, and back then plenty of girls were intensely infatuated with the members of The New Kids on the Block. One girl in my class-- I'll call her Karen-- swore the she was going to marry Joe McIntyre when she grew up. I suspect most parents wouldn't have been "concerned", let alone thought it was "obscene," which is strange because I would think a ten-year-old girl's repeated declarations that she would one day marry a male celebrity almost twice her age could be unnerving: what if she eventually developed a similarly-hyperfocused crush on a teacher or another adult male in her life, and it turned out one of those men was a pervert who would take advantage of her feelings and sexually abuse her? I don't think most parents of that era were cognizant of the disturbingly prevalent occurrence of adult male child groomers, but I suppose that's another illustration of how much more ignorant society was back then. 

As I keep reiterating, I was born in the wrong decade. I was born into an era in which phenomena like unconscious bias weren't discussed like they are now, and in which priorities were skewed. It was an era in which atypical behaviors were, at best, seen as superficial actions and, at worst, the result of brattiness, bad parenting, lack of discipline, take your pick. What they weren't seen as were the manifestations of a brain that was wired differently and was doing its best to get through life. As a result, I took many severe blows, even from well-meaning people like my mother who honestly and sincerely thought they were helping me learn to "get along" in society, not aware of the emotional cost of these lessons. My therapist has told me that he's heard countless similar stories from autistic people who grew up in my generation and earlier.  

If nothing else, I hope I have raised your consciousness here. Please go and think about it, especially if you are raising an autistic girl. You will save her a lot of emotional turmoil.

*This is roughly what the hovercraft cost-- in 1991. After adjusting for inflation, this translates to about $295 in 2023.

Born in the Wrong Decade Part 3: The Naked Emperor

In the first and second installments of this series, I talked about the perverse level of awareness I had by the age of nine as to how different I was, particularly as it pertained to my focused interest in Back to the Future, and the pathologizing word "obsession" that was often associated with it. These posts illustrated that I was born in the wrong decade because of the lack of acceptance of brains that operate differently; even I didn't accept my own brain, and I made fitful and fruitless attempts to change it and hide my focused interests, which felt "wrong". Had I been born in the 21st century, I would have been spared this self-criticism, as well as criticism from the adults in my life. But what about my own differences that I didn't try to hide, ones that I continually asserted that I shouldn't have to hide? 

Let's segue a little bit: As a rabid fan of the Back to the Future series growing up, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the 21st century, imagining a world of hoverboards, flying cars, and other advanced technology. Deep down, I didn't believe these particular things would be invented, but I anticipated some incredible technology that I couldn't wait to see. I wasn't disappointed; the me of the 1990s would have been thrilled to learn about the technological innovations of the 21st century, and the me of today is thrilled to witness it. But I don't associate the 21st century with advanced technology as much as I do with something else: a more open and accepting society, one in which people are owning up to their mental quirks that the social sin of thoughtcrime would have silenced them about in the 1990s and earlier. And, in contrast to my "thoughtcrime" about focused interests that I tried to hide, this "thoughtcrime" was something I didn't shut up about-- the thoughtcrime of rejecting the concept of expected gender norms.

As a gender-nonconforming girl in the '90s-- a tomboy, as was the common parlance-- I was expected by many of the adults in my life to be going through a "phase" that I would have to outgrow. Many movies of the era seemed to reflect this expectation: a 12-year-old tomboy gets her first crush on a boy, and by the end of the movie she looks, dresses, and acts more feminine; her sudden conformity a symbol of her maturity. Although I didn't question my mother's condemnation of the concept of "obsession", I vehemently questioned the orthodoxy of the concept of "tomboy" being a characteristic that I was expected to leave behind with the onset of adolescence. I also didn't understand why people even cared: I wasn't hurting anybody; why on earth should it matter to them if I dressed and acted more traditionally masculine than other girls? Sometimes my mother would comment that if I dressed and wore my hair a certain way, people wouldn't be able to tell if I was a boy or a girl. At least once, I said, "So the problem is people won't know what's in my pants? Why is it anybody's business? So they know if they can potentially reproduce with me?" And no, this isn't me retrospectively analyzing the situation as an adult. I was thinking and saying stuff like this by the time I was seventeen. Around then, I also said it shouldn't matter if a boy wants to wear a dress, which was seen as even more radical than the idea of a girl being a tomboy past the age of twelve. And, of course, all of these things that I said were dismissed by adults as the whims of a young, idealistic teenager, one who just didn't understand at all how the world worked. 

But guess what? I was just stating the obvious, that the emperor was naked.

Born in the wrong decade indeed! All these things I was vocal about and that fell largely on deaf ears are now talking points on the mainstream left, particularly as they pertain to transgender and nonbinary people. To suggest among your fellow liberals that being a tomboy at fifteen is a sign of "immaturity" won't go over very well today. Saying that your daughter should wear certain clothes so that people know that she's a girl? You would be laughed out of the room, after being told to get into the habit of asking people-- at the very least when you're not sure what gender they're presenting-- "What are your pronouns?" with the understanding that "they/them" could possibly be the correct answer to that question. 

After years of being told that, no, the emperor was not naked, and that I was the only one who thought that he was, more and more people are admitting that they, too, knew what they saw, but feared they were the only ones and so did not come forward about it. Today, hundreds of thousands-- if not millions-- of people are declaring the emperor naked, and others in their lives have to accept that, yes, he is. He's stark naked, and his nudity can be understood in many ways. It can be understood in the sense that you are someone who has weird focused interests-- or focused interests of any kind. It can be understood in the sense that you are gay, bisexual, transgender or gender nonconforming, or nonbinary. It can be understood in all of the above, or any other form of nonconformity. A lot more people than you realize always understood this.

Welcome to the 21st century. It's great to be here.

The emperor is naked.

Born in the Wrong Decade Part 2: Thoughtcrime

In the previous installment of this series, I talked about how by the age of nine I realized just how different my internal experiences were from the people around me. This was crystalized in my mind when Back to the Future became a focused interest and I felt a strong sense of shame and "wrongness" from the intensity of it. As my childhood continued, I developed focused interests in other movies and television shows, such as The Simpsons and The Addams Family. The shame gradually became less intense as I became more familiar with this pattern, but it was still there. Whenever a new focused interest grabbed my attention, I felt an impending sense of dread-- dread that I was becoming obsessed with something. 

I was aware of the term "obsession" by the time I was eleven, and I even recall how I learned it. My mother had made a passing comment about someone being "obsessed" with something. When I asked her what it meant, she said, "It means it's all the person thinks about or talks about." The negative subtext inherent in her explanation was clear: what could possibly be acceptable about someone thinking about and talking about only one thing? Growing up, I questioned a lot of the common wisdom inherent in society-- such as that it's somehow worse when a girl tells a dirty joke than when a boy does-- but for some reason I did not question the idea that "obsession" was a bad thing. Perhaps if I hadn't already felt a sense of shame before others began commenting on my propensity to hyperfocus on certain movies and television shows, I would have questioned it.

In an assignment for my English class during my Freshman year of college, I wrote about the overwhelm of emotions I felt the day after my introduction to the Back to the Future films at age nine, the urgent feeling of wanting to watch them again so badly. It was my first time writing about this moment in my past, which I looked back on with a lot of self-criticism: liberally using the word "obsession," which I described as "ludicrous." I wrote about my brother growing tired of my watching the films so often, and the undertone in my piece clearly implied that I had been responsible for his irritated reaction. Not once did it occur to me that if he was so put off by my viewing habits he could have just left the room instead of making it about me. I accepted that I was the Problem, and my obsession was the root. When I wrote this essay in 1999, I believed that I had overcome this "Problem". After all, if I hadn't, it meant I was immature, out of control, and perhaps even, somehow, unethical. Only recently has it occurred to me that it was fair to describe my brother's reaction as "immature"-- after all, he was a child, too.

The real Problem is that inherent in everything I describe is a lot of question begging: that is, I began with the conclusion that what other people called "obsession" was wrong and that it was something I needed to learn not to do, that it somehow violated them in an egregious manner. If someone told me I was "obsessed" with something, it meant I had failed in some way and I had to figure out how to fix the Problem. It honestly occurred to me only a few years ago that I was looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope. Ironically, it was because of a conversation I had with my mother, who has evolved in her thinking over the years, especially in light of how autism and its quirks are understood in the more-enlightened 21st century. She admitted that it simply took her a long time to understand my internal experience as a fan geek, and that there is nothing wrong with enjoying something with such an intense focus. While it is, of course, important to be mindful about whether the other person you are talking to is interested in the topic, that is a completely different issue than whether it is "wrong" for someone to be hyperfocused on something. More recently, I have realized that the only thing I was guilty of was the social "sin" of thoughtcrime. It is now clear to me just how pervasive societal shaming of "thoughtcrime" is.

Take being LGBTQIA+, for example. Up until very recently LGBTQIA+ people were expected by an overwhelming majority of society to hide their thoughts about same-sex attraction, feeling like they were a different gender than what the world perceived them as, and even a lack of interest in dating and sex. Yes, thoughts that people didn't have, or at least had less frequently than most of the world, were something to be hidden. This type of "thoughtcrime" can at least easily be explained by the fundamentalist Christian-based attitude that has shaped many parts of the world, including the United States, for centuries: any sex act other than the missionary position between one cis man and one cis woman is a sin against God. 

But what, then, of other "thoughtcrime," such as a focused interest on a movie? I think what it comes down to is people being unable to acknowledge their own discomfort around something they don't understand, even if it is not rooted in a social taboo such as non-hetero-cis-normative sexuality or gender identity. A lot of autistic fan geeks know this and, like me, have expressed frustration about people angrily telling them, "You're obsessed with that!" Additionally, I have observed a lot of quirks in other fan geeks (many of which I suspect are on the spectrum) that I don't understand, and I realize I need to be okay with not understanding. 

For example, a lot of fan fiction writers create stories where the main focus is graphic sex acts between their favorite characters. One popular "shipping"-- as such relationship-creating for these characters is called-- is Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. I don't have an issue with someone writing about one or both of these characters coming out as gay, but why would they want to pair characters that hate each other? Why on earth is scene after scene of graphic sex the focus of these stories? A friend of mine, a fellow Back to the Future fan-- who is, incidentally, a phenomenal writer-- wrote a graphic story about Marty and Doc going at it (thankfully, Marty was written to be eighteen, the age of consent). I told this person, "I just read it. That was HILARIOUS!" and they said, "It wasn't meant to be funny." Well, I don't get it, and that's okay.

I don't know why so many fan fiction writers focus on stuff like this, and out of curiosity, I asked my friend about it. My friend said that they aren't "getting off" on it, but rather it's some type of "curiosity" for them, like they're watching to see where the scene will go. I suspect that other people actually are "getting off" on it, but I guess everyone is different. With the exception of a few sporadic and unremarkable attempts to write "how-Marty-met-Doc" origin stories, I don't write fan fiction. But even if I did, I can't imagine a time or a place where I would have written something like this. I've also come to realize that if I'm uncomfortable with others writing it, that's my problem. To make it about them is akin to policing thoughtcrime. Why do so many fan fiction writers create stuff like this? Does it matter? As long as they're not, say, stalking the actors who portrayed the characters, they're not hurting anybody. 

I guess what I've learned over the years is that people are just weirder and more complicated than we've historically acknowledged. More people are opening up about their quirks, essentially declaring that the emperor is naked. 

And the emperor IS naked.

Born in the Wrong Decade Part 1: Tears of a Baby Fan Geek

I have long told people that I was born in the wrong decade. 

I'd even go so far as to say the wrong century because, ideally, I wouldn't have been born any earlier than 2005.

Unfortunately, I was born in 1980, and the final two decades of my native century were not a welcoming era for autistic people, who were largely unidentified.

The world has come a long way since then, and the 21st century is far more enlightened. Today, autistic children of a variety of presentations are routinely identified, and adults who spent years thinking that they were "defective" are also able to find answers. I am one of those adults, diagnosed in spring of 2003 at age twenty-two.

I always knew there was something different about me, and between being a little kid and being a little kid in the 1980s, I didn't have the vocabulary or even the point of reference to describe what was somehow also excruciatingly clear. I constantly found myself feeling like I didn't belong, realizing that not only did people perceive me as "different" but also that my internal experiences diverged vastly from that of my family, my (few) friends, and my peers.

I began to realize with greater clarity just how unusual my internal experiences were when I was nine years old and saw the first two Back to the Future films for the first time, just after Back to the Future Part II was released. I saw both movies on the same day, and I was immediately hooked; it became my "focused interest"*. I was extremely fascinated with the idea of time travel, with the hoverboards in Part II, and with the wonderfully bizarre character of Doc Brown. Throughout my childhood, I had gotten very single-minded about other movies and television shows, so this was nothing new. But for some reason, my focus on Back to the Future was more intense than any I had ever experienced before. I recall the day after seeing the first two movies in the series that I wanted to watch them both again so badly that it practically hurt. It also saddened me somewhat that I would have to wait several months for Back to the Future Part II's release on video as well as the theatrical release of the already-promised Part III, a trailer for which was teased at the end of Part II. Although I was only nine, I knew that what I was experiencing was strange. I was aware that my parents and brother were no longer thinking about these movies and the fact that I was, let alone so intensely, was odd. It didn't take long before I began to feel like there was something wrong with me, and I quickly grew self-conscious about this unknown weird thing that was going on in my head. 

My self-consciousness about my focus on Back to the Future reached the point that I would break out into a sweat if I overheard someone talking about it. I was acutely aware, too, that this physiological reaction was abnormal. To this day, I don't know why it happened. When I tell people about this, I often end up saying, "I can't even explain it; it's like trying to describe what the 5th dimension looks like." However, my suspicion is that I felt like I had been "found out," for lack of a better way of putting it. The more this internal turmoil unfolded, the more I felt like I was harboring a shameful secret that I shouldn't reveal to anybody. I hate the word "obsession," but even then I didn't at least have that word to describe what I was feeling.

My self-consciousness about this Weird Thing in My Head reached a point where I was waging war against my own brain: One part of my brain "wanted" to think about, talk about -- and watch-- Back to the Future all the time, but another part of my brain said, "No, this isn't right. You need to hide this." Back then I managed to rarely bring it up in conversation, probably because my self-consciousness stopped me from doing so (This would sound strange to people who know me today, as I have since mostly stopped caring what people think, and talk openly about whatever interests me-- Back to the Future or otherwise-- no matter how intense the focused interest is.**). I ultimately made a compromise with the two conflicting parts of my brain: I would only watch movies in the Back to the Future series every three months. In my nine-year-old mind, that was infrequent enough not to arouse suspicion of my family, lest they think there was something wrong with me. Of course, three-month intervals seemed a lot longer to me than to other people, and my older brother had no problem drawing attention to this reality when walking in on me watching the films: "This again?" he'd quip with a pronounced roll of his eyes. 

After Back to the Future Part III at last arrived in theaters, I was once again in the position of having to wait several months for it to come out on video. The eventual video release was, unfortunately, on the weekend of the Bar Mitzvah of the son of a family friend. I recall asking my mother if we could rent the movie after the Bar Mitzvah. "We'll see," she had said. At the service and the party that followed, it was all I could think about. Once again, I was engaged in warfare with dueling mindsets: the one that wanted so badly to watch this movie again, and the one that was aware that I was at an important event and that wanting to leave was inappropriate. During the party, I asked Mom if we were going back to the house of the Bar Mitzvah boy's family. I felt that it was wrong to want to leave just to watch a movie, so when I repeatedly asked my mom if we were going back to the family's house-- we hadn't decided yet-- I made it sound like I wanted to go. I think part of me also wanted to convince myself that this was true. I also recall repeatedly finding one of my parents and asking what time it was so that I could have an idea of how long it would be until I could finally watch Back to the Future Part III again; I normally wore a watch, but as it was a digital sports watch, it was deemed too casual for this event.  

We did end up going back to the family's house after the Bar Mitzvah party. I was acutely aware of the passing time, knowing that the video store could close before we got home. I suppose by then I had surrendered to the whims of the part of my brain that I tried unsuccessfully to silence, because I told my parents I needed to get home and do my Sunday School homework for the next day. It wasn't entirely a lie; it wasn't done, but I rarely did my Sunday School homework anyway. My intent, of course, was to be able to go home and rent Back to the Future Part III. I think at some point one of my parents commented that I should have thought about that during the week. Eventually, I was frustrated that my ploy didn't work and wracked with guilt for lying to them-- I was also wracked with guilt about my hyperfocus. I've always hated lying, and I realized that I needed to confess my true motives. Following my mother upstairs (I have no recollection of why she was going up there), I told her the truth. She made a noise of disgust. Already ashamed of myself, I wasn't sure how to react, so I said, "You're angry?", but in a tone that made the question sound more like a statement. The next two seconds, where I looked aimlessly around the room, seemed much longer. Finally, she broke the awkward silence and said, "I'm disappointed. I can't believe you would give up someone's good time just for a movie." I was already self-conscious about my hyperfocus on Back to the Future, and hearing the disapproval from my own mother further cemented the idea in my head that it was wrong.

Keep in mind that I was nine and ten years old when I was going through all of this. Was my focus on Back to the Future a bit extreme? Sure. Was it out of the realm of some of the weird things kids do? Not if they're autistic. But I think the level of self-awareness and self-consciousness I felt about it-- especially to the point of the mental warfare and guilt coursing through my mind-- is unusual for a kid that age. I had absolutely no point of reference for what was going on, and, as all of this happened between 1989 and 1990, neither did my parents. Had I grown up in the 21st century, I could have avoided this inner turmoil, these feelings of having committed some protracted abstract thoughtcrime. In terms of the situation at the Bar Mitzvah, a parent raising an identified autistic kid today would have responded to my confession with something like, "I understand that you're disappointed. But you will watch the movie again. You just have to be patient. Let's make a family movie night of it next week and we'll all watch it together," rather than reprimanding me for something that, unbeknownst to my mother, I was trying in vain to control. A parent today might even say to the kid, "I know it's hard to wait, and I know that this gathering here might be overwhelming for you. Why don't you go off in another room and draw the characters, or write a story about them? Won't that be a fun thing to do before you can see the movie again?"

I would also like to point out that I think my mother might have been reacting to my confession with some level of unconscious bias. How many times do ten-year-old boys-- ten year old neurotypical boys-- complain about how boring some event is that their parents dragged them to and say they want to go home and play video games? I think that people expect girls, even little girls, to be sensitive to the needs of others in social situations. I feel like things such as focused interests typical of autistic people are largely more tolerated in boys, just as are social imperfections. It is true now, and it certainly was truer back then.

What it really comes down to is that I was an undiagnosed autistic who, like a lot of kids on the spectrum-- especially girls-- was in the process of growing up to be a fan geek. Just so there's no confusion, my distress over my focused interest in Back to the Future wasn't caused by the interest itself, or even its intensity, but rather by my own perception that it was wrong, which was compounded by people's reactions to me. Unfortunately, to this day I still am occasionally at the receiving end of aggressive and dismissive accusations to the tune of, "Julie, you're obsessed with that!", and my childhood self-consciousness resurfaces. Some people in my generation still don't yet understand the reality of what it is to be autistic and thus react with 20th century sensibilities.

I was truly born in the wrong decade, the wrong century. Even being born in 1990 instead of 1980 would've been an improvement in terms of the kind of childhood I would've had, but what a universe of difference it would've been had I been born in or around 2005. Experiences like mine are no longer unheard of, and are less frequently ones that people believe they have to feel shame about. In fact, thanks to the Internet, highly-focused autistic fan geeks regularly find each other online and have in-depth discussions about their favorite books, movies, and television shows. They post fan art, write fan fiction, and intensely debate how to interpret certain scenes of their favorite stories. Had I grown up in this more enlightened and open era, I would've been spared accusations-- from others and from my own tormented brain-- of what amounts to the absurd social sin of "thoughtcrime."

"Thoughtcrime" will be the subject of the next post in this series.

*I find the oft-used term, "special interest" for the subjects of intense focus of autistic people to be patronizing and infantilizing. I also abhor the word "obsession." I would like to propose the term "focused interest" as an alternative to both of these.

**Yes, I realize that I should be mindful about whether the other person is interested in talking about any of my focused interests, and if the person tells me that they aren't interested, I'm happy to change the subject.

Ass-Backwards

I've been thinking lately about how how often society gets things ass-backwards.

Everyday people, such as parents, teachers, and peers come to conclusions about invisible differences and disabilities for ridiculous-- sometimes backwards-- reasons. That is, they mistake genetics for environment, or even effect for cause. Even psychologists and other experts have done it as well. 

Mistaking Genetics for Environment

In the earlier part of the 20th century, psychologists "blamed" autism on "refrigerator parents", particularly mothers. These mothers who were perceived as cold and distant were implicated in making their children cold and distant-- a description that is, of course, rooted in profound ignorance and narrow-mindedness of what is considered "normal." 

We now know that autism has a strong genetic component, and that whatever traits these kids might have are not the result of failing to bond with their parents. In fact, the bond between autistic kids and their parents might be strong. It's just that autistic parents tend to produce autistic kids-- because of genetics. And putting most or all of the blame of the mother is clearly rooted in sexism. Women in particular are expected to be what I call a "charismatic, eight-armed woman", happily tending to multiple people's needs. In my experience, people don't expect this of men. So if a woman is not acting like the social octopus that people expect, she might be more likely to be seen as "cold" and "distant"-- the mythological "refrigerator mother." Even if the father has the same traits, he might not be labeled as a "refrigerator parent."

Mistaking Effect for Cause

I also remember reading somewhere* about the infamous "distant fathers" and "overbearing mothers" of effeminate boys who grew up to be gay. Back when psychologists pathologized homosexuality, many believed that the father was not spending enough time with his son and the mother was spending too much time with him, thus making these boys more effeminate. There have been many cases of "distant fathers" and "overbearing mothers" in the cases of effeminate young boys who grew up to be gay (though I suspect this is less true today), but it is not the cause but the effect. If I remember what I read correctly, it seems that these fathers counted on raising a son with whom they'd bond over football or mechanics, but instead had a son who liked to play with dolls. In a world that puts strong emphasis on masculinity in boys and men, disappointed fathers didn't know how to bond with their son and ended up not spending much time with them. The mothers ended up essentially filling the role of both parents.

I have experience with the ass-backwards mistaking effect for cause in my own life. When I was growing up, I hardly watched anything that was animated until I saw the first two Back to the Future films at age nine. Even then, I still preferred watching animation and that is what I almost always settled on while flipping through the channels. Between my social difficulties and my problems comprehending some live-action movies and plays-- that is, to the point where sometimes I literally had no idea what the story was about-- my parents (especially my mother) blamed my preference for animation. They believed that I was not challenging my brain enough and so my comprehension of social situations and movies was underdeveloped.

They got it ass-backwards.

As it turns out, many people on the autism spectrum, as well as people with prosopagnosia-- kids and adults-- have a strong preference for animation. Why? Well, it's simple. You get more information about a character and his motivation when he is a brightly-colored individual who makes broad gestures and is easier to differentiate from others. This is especially critical when you, like me, are a prosopagnosiac in addition to being autistic and have a hard time learning new faces. To someone on the autism spectrum-- especially if that person has prosopagnosia-- characters in live-action movies might seem like faceless naked mole rats in drab clothing. Is it any wonder then that Back to the Future was what made me more open to watching live-action movies? Doc Brown, with his wild hair, brightly colored clothing, and broad gestures is much easier to read than many movie characters.

So the short answer is that my preference for animation was the result, rather than the cause, of my social problems and difficulties following certain movies. 

I think this type of ass-backwards reasoning is finally starting to change and is being seen for the nonsense that it is. Please keep this in mind when trying to understand your autistic kids-- or adult friends.

If anybody has a similar story about this type of ass-backwards reasoning, particularly as it relates to autism, let me know in the comments!

*I thought it was in Judith Rich Harris's The Nurture Assumption, but I can't seem to find the reference in the book. Maybe it was in something that Steven Pinker wrote. If anybody knows what I'm talking about, please leave a comment.

As Nature Made Me: The Aspie Who Was Raised as a Neurotypical: Part I- Fixing Me

...Brenda [Reimer] was now living a life in which every instinct had to be denied, repressed, hidden: at dances, at parties, in the classroom, and on the street. "I was like a robot," he [Brenda, now David Reimer] says, describing the playacting that his day-to-day, moment-to-moment survival now entailed. "You're so careful to look normal, but you don't want to go overboard. You're saying to yourself, This looks like an appropriate time to smile. So you smile. This looks like an appropriate time to cross your legs. So you cross your legs. You're always thinking one step ahead, like in a chess game."
It was a chess game Brenda was losing.

This passage is from the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto. This book tells the true story of David Reimer, a genetic male who was reassigned and raised as female named Brenda after a botched circumcision destroyed his penis. Dr. John Money, who championed the idea that gender identity is learned, not innate, supervised then-Brenda's sex reassignment and trumpeted this grand experiment as a success. It was, however, a terrific failure. Despite the fact that Brenda was reared as a girl from just under two years of age, "she" never felt like a girl. Even when "she" tried to fit in as a girl, "she" failed miserably. When Brenda learned that "she" was biologically male, at age fourteen, "she" immediately reverted to living as a boy. 

The point of today's post is not gender identity specifically (but that will be addressed somewhat) but rather something in the above passage that resonates with me: "Brenda was living a life in which every instinct had to be repressed, denied, hidden..." This has been my life with Asperger's Syndrome, particularly growing up. By the time I was a teenager, I got the message that who I was was not okay. I tried so very hard to be socially appropriate, but each time I failed miserably. People told me that I joked around too much, so I tried to be serious. But then if I tried to be serious I would inevitably say something that "makes no sense" and end up making people uncomfortable. In the best case scenario, I would do neither and end up being a total stiff, doing my best to keep the real me hidden so I wouldn't put people off. But I put people off anyway: who wants to be around a stiff?

Every day in school, no matter what I did, I was shunned, taunted, and sometimes even physically attacked. Telling my parents made the situation worse. They tried to fix me. That is, they nitpicked every little thing about me because, hey, every little thing about me somehow rubbed people the wrong way. Often, my mother in particular told me what not to do:

"Don't talk about Alan Arkin movies. You can't expect the other girls to be interested in Alan Arkin." So? The girls can't expect me to be interested in makeup.

"Don't talk about cartoons. That's not what kids your age are interested in. It's juvenile! You're fourteen years old!" But that's what I'm passionately interested in. I'm going to be an animator when I grow up. I'm going to make the kind of weird, absurdist cartoons that you aren't thrilled that I enjoy watching.

"You can't go to school dressed like that. You look like a boy!" But I want to look like a boy. Well, more like a tomboy, because that's what I am. But girls are expected to outgrow that stage by age twelve, so I'd better keep my mouth shut about it and pretend I have no idea what Mom means by that. I'd better not tell anybody that I know this is never going to change.

Then came my mother's advice of what to do:

"Why can't you talk about what the other girls talk about?" Because the other girls talk about boys, clothes, and makeup. They flip through Teen magazines going, "And he's cute. And he's cute. And he's cute. And he's cute..." Snore. 

"You need to learn how to make small talk. Talk about the teachers and ask what the other kids think of them." So on the first day of 8th grade I asked some other girls, "What do you think of Mr. Henry? It was so funny today when he went on about chewing gum in class and made those noises like he was cracking gum." But it felt so phony coming out of me, like I was reading from a script. And I think the other kids knew it.

"You need to learn to wear what's in style." What's in style are low-cut shirts and super-tight jeans. Wearing those things makes me feel very mortified and self-conscious. I like T-shirts and looser-fitting jeans.

From both of my parents came this gem:

"You have such a great figure and such beautiful hair. Girls would kill to look like you." I'm glad that I'm skinny, but not for reasons that you think. Skinnier people live longer. And it fits the tomboy image I have of myself. As for my hair, I hate it. It sticks out like Doc from Back to the Future. It takes me an hour to wash it and dry it. I want to cut it off and get a more tomboyish looking haircut. But I'm not allowed to because as a fourteen-year-old girl, I should love my hair and do my best to look like a model, because that is the normal psychology of a fourteen-year-old girl.

My parents tried their best to fix me, and when I resisted, they called me stubborn. They chalked up my resistance not to strength and self-awareness but to my being a teenager who thought she "knew everything". And it wasn't that I didn't try. I tried out Teen magazine in fifth grade. I couldn't get into the articles about the latest teen hunks and fashion tips. As I said, I tried the small talk about the teachers, but it was phony. And it was exhausting. In some ways this isn't terribly different than what poor David Reimer went through when he was growing up. How can you live your life when everything you say and do is subject to scrutiny and judgment?

Or how about what you think? Stay tuned for "Part II- Thoughtcrime". 

Coming Out

Whoa, it's been almost 6 months since my last blog post! Sorry about that! They will be more regular from now on, promise!

Today I want to talk about coming out of the closet, and I don't mean as gay: I'm not gay and there is already plenty published on that subject. No, instead I want to talk about coming out about the "thoughts" that I had growing up that I felt were somehow wrong; these thoughts were generally related to my obsessions. In fact, they were usually my obsessions themselves that I felt were wrong. My parents didn't openly question the obsessions I tended to have with movies and television shows until I hit adolescence, but long before that I was aware that such persistent and constant thoughts about one thing were not "normal."

For example, when I first saw Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II at age 9, I was hooked immediately. Obsessed. Couldn't get my mind off the movies. The day after seeing them, I just wanted to talk about them non-stop. But because I was so aware of how strong and unrelenting this desire was to intensely revisit these movies the day after seeing them-- and how odd such a desire was-- I barely spoke two words about them. 

As another example, when I first saw The Addams Family movie at age 11 I became obsessed with it, much in the same way I was with the BTTF movies. Uncle Fester was my favorite character (Doc Brown was my favorite in the BTTF movies; I think Christopher Lloyd's frenetic characters just appealed to me!). On a children's radio show that I was listening to, a girl who called in mentioned in passing that she did not like The Addams Family. (For those of you not familiar with the plot, please read this article in Wikipedia before continuing reading the blog entry). The girl stated that the Uncle Fester that was in the movie turned out to be an impostor. Instead of laughing it off, I obsessed over this for several months until my older cousin cleared it up for me. I think it bothered me because I felt that the "parallel universe" in which my obsessions lived was at least in my control, but this girl's statement threatened that control. The idea of my being that grossly wrong in my comprehension of the movie was unacceptable. 

My next obsession, from ages 12-14, was the Cold War comedy The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! I always greatly enjoyed the background music composed for the film, particularly the scene in which the Russians first come ashore. Of course, the soundtrack was not available. One day, when I was 13, I set up a tapedeck next to the television to record when scenes with the soundtrack came on. I did this one day when I was home alone. Why? Even though my parents wouldn't have given it a second thought, I thought it was weird that I wanted the music from a film so obscure to my generation. Let's not forget the fact that I knew that being obsessed with this movie was bizarre. Whenever I listened to the music, I did so on my Walkman so my parents wouldn't hear it and ask what it was. 

If I, as the person experiencing them, had a hard time accepting these weird thoughts as "normal," why in the world should I have confided in my parents about them? Eventually I did come out of the closet, but very slowly. At age 14, I began talking to my Dad a little about my obsession with The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, but I didn't talk to him about recording the music. At age 16, I began speaking to my parents (usually through tears) about my obsessions in general and how "wrong" I felt they were. They tried to assure me that nothing was wrong but I knew that they were just trying to make me feel better. They had no idea what obsession meant, at least as I defined it.

When did I finally come out about my obsession over Uncle Fester's authenticity? At age 18, nearly SEVEN YEARS after the incident occurred. I was THAT embarrassed about it! Keep in mind how long seven years is when you were a kid. In tears, I confessed to my dad about how long this weird concern had, well, festered inside me and how I knew that it was "abnormal." My dad asked me, "Why didn't you just ask us if it was the real Uncle Fester or not?" Why? Let's put it this way: My parents were concerned about my obsessions in general. They-- especially my mother-- would have been freaked out had I asked them 3 months or so after seeing The Addams Family whether or not it was the real Uncle Fester. And I'm not being paranoid. Even as a kid, I was fully aware that they thought there was something psychologically wrong with me. Years later, Dad may have thought that my asking the question was a non-issue, but I guarantee in the context of my 11-year-old self he would have wondered why I needed to ask that question.

Well, that's coming out, Aspie style. I suspect these stories are more common than one would think. Anybody who has similar anecdotes, please tell them!

P.S. I have since obtained from eBay a tape of the soundtrack from The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! My parents are not only aware that I have it but that I also imported it into my computer so I can listen to it on my iPod.

...It's Just Common Sense!

One quirk of mine is that I sometimes latch on to memorable lines in movies or music and use them to illustrate frustrating aspects of my life (or life in general). For example, one time when I seriously regretted something, I cynically said, quoting Doc Brown in Back to the Future Part II: "The only way to repair the present is in the past." Another time in the late '90s (when I was in high school), I was waiting obsessively for a reply to an email about something that was really important to me from a friend living overseas. Quoting the song Endless Night from the Broadway version of The Lion King, I commented, "One word, just a word will do to end this nightmare." "They don't have meetings about rainbows," from The Sixth Sense, is a quote I've employed numerous times to illustrate why my deranged drawings and stories drew "concern" from adults while most kids' drawings did not.

Lately, a quote that has been floating around in my mind comes from You Don't Know Jack, the HBO biopic about Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Okay, I know I have mentioned him a lot on this blog, but I am an Aspie, am I not? Anyway, the quote comes from a scene in which Dr. Kevorkian wins in court after being tried (again) for murder. A reporter asks Kevorkian how it feels to be victorious. He replies, "Victorious? I never feel victorious. I just go ahead and do what I do. This isn't a victory to me; it [the right to die]'s just common sense!" Lately, I've found myself using a modified version of that quote, usually in the form of, "This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!" I find myself saying it after I point out to friends and family what I think ought to be common sense in understanding people with Asperger's Syndrome, or just people in general (quirky or not). And just in case people assume that I'm making this assertion with 20/20 hindsight, ALL of the following examples were based on situations I analyzed as a kid, in some cases as young as eleven:

• When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. I remember the doctor being cold and clinical and that this poor bedside manner made me cry. What I don't remember was that he said that I had a "deformity." Apparently that was "the end" for me. I don't remember it, but I'm sure it happened. My mother seemed to think that my reaction was a bit on the hypersensitive side. Well, let me say this. If you're an eleven-year-old kid who already feels like a freak and next you are told you have a deformity, how could you possibly let that roll off your back? When do you hear the word "deformity?" In medical shows about conjoined twins, or about people with extra fingers or missing limbs, what is colloquially known as a freak. A child who already feels like a freak getting upset about being told she has a deformity? How can that be surprising? This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• My mother and grandmother often reacted to my off-color jokes and even my drawings by telling me that such things weren't ladylike. After a while, I began confiding in my cousin (with whom I'm close) that I hated being a girl.By the time I was twelve, I analyzed this and saw very clearly how absurd it was that a child's genitals, which she does not ask for, apparently ought to determine her behavior instead of her brain. This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• My parents told me that I wouldn't be bullied as much and would have more friends if I only dressed and acted more feminine. I thought this was absurd, not just because such fakery would have made me uncomfortable but also because such friendships would have been phony. At age fifteen I saw this with great clarity. This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• I hugged the dog and told her that I loved her but I never behaved this way around other people. My mom thought it was odd and was concerned. My dad commented, "I don't see what's so hard to understand. The dog's soft, furry, and cute, and people aren't." This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• I ignored my shrink, Dr. Klein, at the synagogue because I was worried that if I said, "hello" to him, other kids would know I was in psychotherapy, which was taboo in the early '90s. Dr. Klein often expressed bewilderment at this behavior, as if it were so unusual (I have told my friends this story, and they said they probably would have done the same thing when they were kids). A kid feels like a freak, and the last thing she wants is for her peers to know she's seeing a shrink. This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• At age fifteen I saw the hypocrisy of my being sent to guidance for "help" after kids bullied me relentlessly. Kids who cannot stop themselves from bullying others are not sent to guidance. Why not? Bullying is a destructive behavior. Shouldn't the teachers be concerned? This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• I drew very deranged drawings in early adolescence (as alluded to in my "They don't have meetings about rainbows," remark). My dad was concerned; Mom was freaked out. Kids who draw rainbows won't draw the concern of their parents, but they also generally aren't nearly as creative as I was. I understood this to be the case by the time I was about thirteen. This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• My parents couldn't understand why I got so upset when they offered me "advice" after I came home from school. Well, think about it. I spent seven hours in school being criticized only to be criticized again when I got home. The fact that my parents' motives were different from those of my peers is irrelevant. At age fifteen I understood that this was why "advice" was upsetting to me. This isn't a brillant insight; it's just common sense!
• The "advice" my parents gave me was painful to hear because it often started with phrases like, "If you would just..." I stopped telling them about the bullying in school and did my best to pretend that everything was okay. They couldn't understand why I wouldn't come to them any longer. I think it's pretty obvious that I didn't need to hear yet another round of criticisms. This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!
• Everybody told me to "just ignore" the bullies, even when physical violence-- such as throwing clay-- was involved. Nobody would tell an adult to "just ignore" someone throwing things at her as she walked down the street each day. It would be called assault. I knew that ignoring wouldn't work because it would just make kids try that much harder to get a rise out of me. Only now is the conventional wisdom of "just ignore them" being overturned. Really? How could anybody think that this is an effective way to deal with bullies? This isn't a brilliant insight; it's just common sense!

Parents, caregivers, teachers, friends, etc. of Aspies... please use your common sense!

"I Admire You For Being Able to Live Alone!"

Sorry for the lag in posting. Life has been pretty stressful. I'm getting laid off and the blog just hasn't been my first priority lately...


Anyway, I find it amusing when I tell people that the only roommate I have is my cat and they say that they admire me for being able to live alone. There they have made an assumption: that the norm is to want to have a roommate and that I am "strong" for being able to live alone. I think this assumption may be especially true with women. Even if just subconsciously, we think of men who live alone as "bachelors" and women who live alone as "lonely." 


Unless I were in a situation in which I had a boyfriend, I cannot see myself living in any way but alone. At summer camp group living was fun, but that's another situation entirely. When living with a roommate in an apartment, both parties inevitably have their own habits that annoy the other person. When I live alone, I can watch Back to the Future over and over. I can say stupid things to my cat. True, I can get an apartment in which I have my own room and nobody can get annoyed by my odd habits, but sharing a bathroom is never fun. It's through the bathroom that you learn how even people you like very much can gross you out.


So what it comes down to is this: Like many Aspies, it would only make sense to admire me for having a roommate, not living alone. 

List Your Obsessions!

Since the past couple posts have been a bit dark, I figured this week's post ought to have more levity. I invite you to list the things you've been obsessed with over the years. Now, one important thing to realize is that everybody defines "obsession" differently. I personally have a very extreme definition of what constitutes obsession. By the way I define it, I stopped getting obsessed with things in the summer of 1995 when I was about to turn fifteen. After that, I got obsessed with people on whom I had a crush (that will be the topic of next week's post). That can be a royal pain, so let's focus on the obsessions that have been mostly fun and harmless.


Here is my list!

• Fall 1986- late 1987 (age 6-7): Sesame Street
• Fall 1986- late 1988 (age 6-8): Tom & Jerry
• Winter 1986 (age 6): Santa Claus: The Movie and anything related to Santa Claus.
• Late 1988- Late 1989 (age 8-9): DuckTales
• Late 1989- Spring 1991 (age 9-10): Back to the Future trilogy
• Spring-Fall 1991 (age 10): The Simpsons
• Fall 1991-Summer 1993 (age 11-12): The Addams Family movie
• Summer 1993-Summer 1995 (age 12-14): The Russians are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!/Anything related to actor Alan Arkin
• Summer 1994 (age 13): The Rocketeer (another movie with Alan Arkin)