Eccentrics United is Moving to Substack!

Thank you so much to everybody who has supported this blog over the past 15 years! Right now, I'm in the process of gradually moving it to Substack. What does that mean? 

One by one, in no particular order, I'm revising the posts and reposting them on Substack. As of May 10, 2026, 24 posts have been revised and moved. In the place of the text of each original post is a link to the new post on Substack.

While most posts will be revised and moved, a few will be combined, and others (ie ones that I don't think really add anything) won't make the cut. And, of course, there will be new content on Substack. Please join me at my new home! When you get there, don't forget to subscribe!

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Masked vs. Masking: The Difference Between Adapting and Performing

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy.

How are these two photos of me different? How are they alike?

In one, I'm on an airplane; in another, I'm in a restaurant. 

In both, I'm not masking.

Yes, you read that correctly: I'm not masking in either of these photos. Unless you're autistic or know someone who is, you're probably confused, since in the photo on the left I'm clearly wearing a mask. That picture was taken during the height of the COVID pandemic when we were expected to wear masks on airplanes to protect ourselves and others from infection. Like everyone else, I had to adjust significantly throughout 2020 and beyond. For a little over a year-- at least in the state of Massachusetts, where I live-- we were required to wear a mask when entering stores and other businesses. Remembering to grab my mask on the way out the door took some getting used to. Sometimes I forgot, not realizing it until I got to my destination, and I had to bite the bullet and walk back home (I don't have a car; you don't need one in Boston or the immediate suburbs). Inconvenient? A little. Annoying? You betcha. But I accepted it as a necessary precaution to reduce the risk of transmitting a potentially deadly virus while waiting for a vaccine to be developed: that is, I adapted. 

Then there's the kind of masking that has nothing to do with COVID or even adaptation: it has to do with suppressing one's natural inclinations in order to make others comfortable, frequently at the expense of their own. The phenomenon of masking is frequently discussed in autistic spaces, and is often adopted as the result of significant social trauma. In children, said trauma tends to manifest in bullying, exclusion, and ostracization. For many adults, it is largely due to getting fired from one job after another-- not due to poor performance, but because of their atypical social interactions which, while innocent in intent, are often misread as rude and defiant. They have been repeatedly punished by society and ultimately internalized the message that who they are is simply wrong and they must change everything about who they are to be accepted. 

Many autistic people-- particularly women-- have come forward in recent years to talk about how longterm masking has added to their trauma. Many report having developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to constant self-monitoring and the fear of social punishment.  

Right now I can hear people saying, "Well, like it or not, everyone has to adapt to different situations. You can't just go around doing whatever you want. Get over it." Yes, everyone does have to adapt. That's why you tell your child, "You can tell poop jokes with your cousins because that's something all of you laugh about together. But you shouldn't tell them to Grandma and Grandpa because that kind of humor grosses them out." Or you might advise a friend, "Don't talk about religion and politics at work, because that's the best way to create unnecessary conflict in the office." These are all minor adaptations in behavior that are context-dependent and respect others' boundaries. 

And they have nothing to do with masking. 

Masking involves significant, fine-tuned alterations to behavior, to the point where you have to be hypervigilant to maintain the façade. In my late twenties, before "masking" was even named, I wrote about this in a piece in which I recalled navigating social interactions during my middle school years. Borrowing slightly from the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, I wrote, "Every move I make, every action I take, and every word I say must be preceded by a meticulously calculated thought. Otherwise, I will mess up. I will make unforgivable social mistakes that I will never hear the end of. I must not slip, or I will be cast out by friends and punished by other students." 

Unfortunately-- or fortunately, depending on your point of view-- I was terrible at masking and, to be fair, I did not attempt it nearly as much as most autistic women report themselves doing. Still, I accepted without question that I would have to give my personality a major overhaul in order to be accepted, particularly in terms of my gallows sense of humor. It didn't help that my parents regularly told me things like, "You make a joke out of everything," "This constant joking needs to stop" and "Your jokes are bizarre and inappropriate!" A lot of my journal entries during that time period contained declarations of, "Everything about me is wrong, and I want to change it by [insert date here]." Such feelings, of course, were borne out by the loss of multiple friends during that time period. A couple years ago, when I told my parents about my self-deprecating journal entries, my mother said, "It breaks my heart to learn that you wrote those things." 

As I mentioned before, it is mostly women who have come forward about how chronic masking takes a toll on their mental health. Why more women than men?* Because it's been well documented that women mask more. For reasons that are not completely understood, autistic girls and women tend to be more aware that they are different and how they are perceived. Even if it turns out that there is a significant biological component for this increased self-awareness, it also doesn't help that eccentricities and idiosyncrasies are more accepted in boys and men. Boys are allowed to be loud in groups, to be class clowns, to have a twisted and morbid sense of humor, and to talk about their favorite topic ad nauseam. Girls are routinely called out and chastised for these things. 

Other ways that my parents unwittingly pressured me to mask were to implore me to stop dressing like a tomboy and present more feminine; to talk about what the other kids were interested in even if these things bored me (and meanwhile not expect them to talk with me about my own idiosyncratic interests); and to lie and say, "Nobody right now" instead of "I'm not interested in boys yet" when other girls would ask, "Who do you like?" To be clear, I am not gay, and my parents wouldn't have had a problem with it if I was. But in the '90s, being perceived as gay in middle school was a social death sentence. And back then, the possibility of being asexual or demisexual-- the latter of which I turned out to be-- wasn't even on the table. 

And yes, hiding your sexual orientation is a form of masking, one which I refused to do, even though "demisexual" was not yet in the lexicon. I feel for the closeted adolescent gay girl at a sleepover playing Truth or Dare who, when asked, "Who do you have a crush on?" answers with the name of a popular boy in her class so that she's not ostracized. I feel for the closeted gay boy in the locker room after high school gym class who won't look anywhere other than the floor while changing because he's scared to death the other boys might think that he's leering at them. 

Masking behaviors aren't adaptations. They're performances to prevent people's lives from being made a living hell. And people who mask are usually not happier-- they're miserable. They're not living; they're merely surviving. When I did occasionally attempt to mask, it felt inauthentic. I recall at the beginning of eighth grade, my mom advised me, "Don't talk about cartoons with your friends. Talk about your new teachers. Say something like, 'And what do you think of this teacher? Isn't he funny?'" At lunch I did just that. I said, "How about Mr. Henn? Isn't he funny? It was so funny when he said, 'You can chew gum in class, but don't crack it' and then he made this funny cracking noise." I remember very clearly feeling like I was reading off a script and performing, and I'm certain it came across that way. It felt unnatural and awkward, and I'd bet money that the other kids saw right through me. 

What really frustrates the hell out of me is the practically cliché idea that autistic people are defined as "rigid," all while many of them-- especially girls and women-- contort themselves into pretzels to become more palatable to neurotypical people. And yet, you rarely hear comments that neurotypical people are rigid when they don't try to understand their autistic peers, simply because they're the majority. If they're uncomfortable with something an autistic person says or does-- even when it's not harming anybody-- that alone is treated as proof that the autistic person was in the wrong. 

If there's any lingering doubt that neurotypical people can be every bit as rigid as autistic people are accused of being, let's return to the topic of COVID masking. After public mask mandates were implemented, a huge portion of the American population-- presumably mostly neurotypical people-- raised indignant hell about their liberties being violated. It didn't matter that the science indicated that masking reduced the risk of infection. Nor did it matter that hospitals were becoming overwhelmed with death and that countless bodies were being shipped out in refrigerated trucks. Even assurances that mask mandates were temporary until a vaccine could get the spread under control did not assure these people who were convinced they were being oppressed. The way they reacted, an outsider might have thought that governments were requiring people to get major surgery instead of covering their noses and mouths.

In fact, one time early in the pandemic, when I was getting a sandwich at Dunkin' Donuts, I noticed one guy's nose was hanging over his mask. Despite knowing I was stepping in a minefield, I told the man that he should cover his nose. I was very careful to keep my tone diplomatic, but it didn't matter. He started yelling and screaming at me, and he ended his tirade by telling me to go fuck myself. And, yes, I know I shouldn't have stooped to his level, but I responded in kind (hey, I spent the first half of my adult life in Brooklyn, so why not?). Imagine if autistic people reacted this way when being told to perform social masking.

As you might have surmised, even as an adult I don't mask. I still have a twisted sense of humor, and my parents have learned to live with it. And as you can see in the pictures that opened this post, I'm every bit as tomboyish as the teenager that I described. In both photos, I have short hair, don't wear makeup, and sport androgynous shirts. The photo on the right was taken when my parents were visiting for my birthday this past October. I'm not really smiling there-- I was a little annoyed that my mom insisted on taking a picture while I was trying to eat. And that's why I posted it.

It's a lot more authentic than a staged photo with a forced smile, isn't it? 

*I realize that this has a cis-normative bias and doesn't account for trans and nonbinary people. Trans and nonbinary people certainly have been pressured to mask, in the form of pretending to be a gender that feels wrong to them. It would probably be more accurate to say "cis boys and men and people perceived as cis boys and men" and "cis girls and women and people perceived as cis girls and women."

Lunch, Thirty Years Later

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy.

According to my journal, the last time my middle school friend, Ivy, came to my house was on Sunday, April 14, 1996. 

That day, along with our friend Aviva, Ivy and I got together to work on a group project, an ongoing endeavor that had spanned ten weeks. I was not looking forward to this meeting, as my friendships with both girls had been heavily strained all year and were clearly ending. This project had caused an even greater rift between us, as I was constantly bickering with Ivy and Aviva, and they were constantly bickering with me. However, to my great surprise, I actually got along great with them that day. My mom ordered in lunch for us (hoagies, if memory serves me correctly), and we had fun while getting a lot of work done. Perhaps there was hope for repair.

The next day at school, we were fighting again. 

As you saw in a series of posts that I began in the fall of 2024 and completed in the spring and summer of 2025, middle school was pure hell for me, rife with bullying and ultimately being ostracized from my friend group. Ivy, who had once been the closest of these friends, stood by while another once-close friend, Torey, kicked me out of the lunch table in the beginning of 9th grade (part of the middle school in our district). By the end of the year, none of my friendships survived.

However, something interesting happened when I was writing the series: I friend requested Ivy and Torey on Facebook. Long story short, Ivy followed a link I had posted to this piece and commented on it, apologizing for ending our friendship. She admitted what I had suspected for years, that she felt if she continued to be seen with me, she would be bullied as relentlessly as I was. I eventually messaged Torey, and she and I had a similar discussion, which also resulted in her apologizing. Reconnecting with both women and clearing the air proved to be therapeutic: I realized that the school had failed Ivy and Torey almost as much as it had failed me. Talking about those years also helped me truly put a traumatic part of my life in the past where it belonged. It also taught me that it is never too late to patch things up. As I talked to both Ivy and Torey, I learned that I liked the smart, caring adults they had both become.

And finally, on November 30, 2025, Ivy came to my parents' house for the first time since that day in 1996 when we worked on the project together. I was visiting Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving week, and I suggested that she, Torey, and I get together. She drove all the way up from Delaware, her five-year-old daughter, Fern, in tow. After she came inside and exchanged greetings with my parents, we got into Ivy's car and drove to a nearby diner to meet Torey. 

For the first time in almost thirty years, Ivy, Torey, and I ate lunch together. I think what was the most remarkable about this reunion was how unremarkable it was. We were no longer insecure, terrified kids in the pure hell that is middle school. We were calm, well-adjusted adults-- who also had insecurities. In fact, we discussed these insecurities with ease. I talked about my therapist, Oren, who had died suddenly earlier that month. Both Ivy and Torey expressed sympathy for my loss. Torey also talked about a personal anxiety issue she was struggling with, and I offered advice. While it matters that we are adults instead of kids talking about this, being adults in the 21st Century is just as relevant, if not more. In middle school, I wouldn't have even admitted to going to a therapist. I'm not sure adults in the '90s would have discussed such a thing with each other. It was still largely a taboo subject back then.

We also laughed, of course. Torey had a great time getting to know Ivy's daughter, Fern. "Someone's made a friend!" I commented, as Fern sat in Torey's lap and giggled. 

Did we talk about our days in middle school? For about two minutes. I brought my 7th- and 8th-grade yearbooks. Ivy and Torey both laughed at the messages they had written to me. Then, Torey flipped through the book and said, "I don't remember any of these people." I quietly put the yearbooks away.

After lunch, Torey gave me a hug before getting into her car. She said she might bring her kids up to Boston to visit sometime. I promised to show her around the city. Ivy drove me back to my parents' house so that Fern could use the bathroom-- and meet my cat, Neptune, who was also visiting. When Ivy asked where the bathroom was, I said, "The same place it was thirty years ago," and then pointed it out. As Ivy was getting ready to leave, she said, "I'm so glad we did this," to which I said, "Me too. And we'll do it again."

I have no doubt that we will.

What My Pets Taught Me About Mercy

Content note: This post contains discussion of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. If you are in a moment of crisis, please call the suicide hotline at 988 if in the United States or Canada, or the hotline that is available in your country.

Note: Well, I didn't see it coming. One post about grieving the sudden loss of my therapist, Oren, ultimately became the first in a trilogy of entries about death. 

*As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher read our class Tuck Everlasting, a children's novel in which a ten-year-old girl named Winnie befriends the Tuck family, whose members are immortal. Eighty-seven years prior, the Tucks-- Angus, Mae, Jesse, and Miles-- had inadvertently drunk from a spring that made them not only indestructible, but unable to age. Winnie is tempted to drink the water herself, but the Tucks will not allow her to leave until she agrees to keep their secret and not drink it. Although not suffering in the traditional sense, the Tucks have long tired of life and do not see immortality as a blessing.

One day, after reading a chapter from the book, the teacher began a discussion that I cannot imagine happening today in a classroom of fifth graders: she asked us if we would want to live forever. I remember being very surprised that most of the other kids gave an emphatic no. One boy said, "I would just want to get it over with," an answer I clearly recall finding disturbing. The teacher also said that she imagined that life would eventually get boring. I couldn't understand it. Why would death be preferable to life-- ever? 

I have since changed my views on this issue, with the caveat that my position is that I would like to live indefinitely-- so long as I'm not suffering-- but I would not like to be indestructible. If futurist Ray Kurzweil's predictions about scientific advances are to be believed, this very well might be possible one day. Scientists have already found a way to reverse aging in mice. If this is eventually transferred to humans, then you could theoretically live indefinitely and decide on your own terms when to stop the clock. Of course, there are practical and ethical implications for this, but that's another discussion for another day. 

So when did I change my mind about death ever being preferable to life? The events that forced me to rethink my position happened about six months later when my dog, a Doberman mix named Smoky, died a protracted and horrific death.

One evening when I was twelve, Smoky, who was prone to epilepsy, had a seizure, his body thrashing about violently. I didn't witness it, but my parents told me it was especially intense. He couldn't stand up, so I urged my parents to take him to the vet. They thought he was just exhausted from the seizure, so they decided to wait it out. After a couple days, Smoky was both vomiting and defecating blood. To this day, I can still vividly recall the putrid, fetid smell. 

Now that the situation was clearly an emergency, my parents brought Smoky to the vet. 

I was terrified as my dad drove the car, my brother and me in tow. Immediately, I feared the worst, that the vet was going to put Smoky to sleep. I knew what euthanasia was, and I had always found it disturbing that people would ever have their pet killed. Instead, the vet kept him at the office for a few nights to run tests and attempt treatments. He later told us that Smoky had acidosis, a condition in which there is too much acid in relation to base in his system, and it might have been caused by a bacterial infection. At first, treatment seemed to be working. But it was not without its setbacks-- at one point during Smoky's stay, he went into a coma. However, he woke up, started to improve, and we brought him home to recover.

My dog was never the same.

Smoky's behavior proved erratic. We had to confine him to the garage because his instinct to avoid sitting in his own waste was apparently gone. The vet wasn't sure if this issue would resolve. Smoky would tremble violently when approached, and sometimes he would even bite. Most disturbingly, over the next two-and-a-half months, he began to rapidly lose weight and was constantly hungry, devouring a month's worth of dog food in a week and constantly defecating. One time, when left alone in the garage while my brother and I were at school and my parents at work, he was so desperately hungry that he tried to eat a wrench. 

Once again, Dad consulted the vet. During the course of those couple months, there were one or two more overnight stays at the veterinary office for monitoring and attempts at treatment. The vet suspected that Smoky had brain damage. As for the weight loss, he said it was possible that Smoky's intestines-- injured from his illness-- might have healed in scar tissue and would never be able to absorb food again. Another possibility was that his pancreas wasn't working properly. Finally, he said that he would try one more treatment that would target pancreatic function. If there was no improvement within two weeks, it would mean that the problem was in his intestines and we would have to put him to sleep.

Smoky was suffering horrifically. I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to be literally starving to death, and the terror he must have felt was likely exacerbated due to the brain damage. But I was suffering too. I loved that dog. The two of us were very close. We spent a lot of time playing together, and he slept on my bed every night. He also was a very loving and compassionate dog. If he saw me crying, he jumped in my lap and licked my face. We had had him for a little over five years, and when you're a kid, five years is a long time. I couldn't fathom losing him.

The ambiguity throughout this ordeal was the worst. Some days, it seemed like Smoky was getting better. Other days, he clearly wasn't. I was constantly plagued with the question as to whether my dog would ever recover and if things would get back to normal. I cried several times a week during those couple months. I recall one evening, during one of those crying episodes, being in the car with Dad, who was desperately trying to get me to understand why euthanasia would be the humane and compassionate choice if treatment didn't work. He finally said, "If you really love that dog, you will let him go if the vet says that there's nothing he can do." I remember nodding in reluctant resignation, even as I cried. I was starting to get it-- sort of. 

One Tuesday afternoon, after only a week of treatment, I came home from school to find Smoky gone. Dad explained that that morning, Smoky's back legs weren't working and he couldn't get up, so he took him to the vet and left him there for another overnight stay. Because Smoky had stayed overnight at the vet before, I didn't question it.

A few days later, on Saturday morning, it was over. My parents called my brother and me to the living room to break the news. "I just got off the phone with the vet," Dad said softly. "Smoky died last night." As my eyes widened in horror, I asked what happened. Dad said, "A blood vessel burst in his brain."

Inconsolable, I ran upstairs to my room, locked the door, and once again collapsed into tears. It was one of the longest days of my life. I remember my parents taking my brother and me to the arcade to give us something to distract us from the grief we were both feeling. I played video games on autopilot, not really enjoying them as much as my parents probably hoped I would. 

As the months passed, Smoky's death proved to be a crystallizing event in my life. Losing him was intense, but in hindsight, after I cried it out, there was one emotion that dominated: relief. His suffering was over, as was mine as a result. Several months later, we got a new dog, a yellow Lab named Savannah, who lived to be fourteen and a half, a decent lifespan for a dog that size. She also died via euthanasia when her severe arthritis (common in her breed) was no longer manageable.

It was about a year after Smoky died that I first heard the name "Dr. Kevorkian." I didn't pay attention to the news, but on occasion I heard people mention him and what he was famous for. At the time, I assumed he was just some doctor at a hospital doing his job, and I didn't give it a second thought. By then, I had come to realize that Dad was right: there are things worse than death, and in that time I came to appreciate that it was for the best that Smoky had died. Euthanasia was done for animals, so I assumed it was done for people too. I remember being surprised to learn that this wasn't the case, and after that I strongly supported euthanasia for suffering people with no hope of recovery. Even at that young age, I thought it made absolute sense, and I couldn't understand why it was such a controversial issue. I had learned my lesson at age twelve, so why did so many adults not understand it? It seemed odd in light of my fifth-grade group discussion in which most kids said they would not want to live forever. I felt so strongly about the issue that I wrote a position paper in support of it for my eighth-grade social studies class. My parents supported euthanasia as an option for ending suffering from severe illness, and my dad was especially vocal about it.

In fact, a few years after Smoky died, Dad eventually confessed to me what you probably already guessed from reading this: Smoky didn't die from a brain hemorrhage. Dad had him put to sleep. That morning when he saw that Smoky couldn't stand up, Dad decided that enough was enough, and that it would be cruel to let this continue. On the way to work that morning, he took him to the vet to be euthanized. He and Mom waited until Saturday to tell me that the dog "died last night" so that grief wouldn't interfere with school.

In any case, I appreciate more than ever the horrific-- but humane-- decision my dad had to make. One day when I was twenty-seven and living in Brooklyn, my first cat, Ditmas, who was only two and a half years old, began gasping for air and dragging her back legs along the floor. I brought her to the vet, who took one look at her, listened to her heart, and said, "She's in trouble. Get her to the animal hospital in Manhattan, and don't waste any time." I got into a cab and rushed to the hospital, where the vet said that Ditmas could have bronchitis-- which was treatable-- or she could have heart disease. I left her overnight so that they could run some tests. 

The following evening, the vet called me and said, "Ditmas has severe heart disease." She explained that my cat had dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart fails to pump efficiently and increases in size to try to compensate, which only makes things worse. She also explained that Ditmas was behaving erratically and forming blood clots in her brain. I immediately thought to myself, "I can't in good conscience keep her alive like this," and then I said aloud, "And I have to put her down?" but it came out more like a statement than a question. The vet said, "Yes," and I said, "Okay. Just keep her comfortable. I'll be right there." They told me they would keep her in an oxygen chamber until I arrived. 

If there was any doubt that euthanasia was the right decision, it was torpedoed when I saw Ditmas. This was not the cat I knew. She wasn't herself at all, was clearly terrified, and even something in her eyes looked off. I cradled Ditmas and told her that I loved her as the vet administered the anesthesia, and then the euthanasia. She died in my arms.

My current cat, Neptune, is eighteen years old. He has chronic kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, and elevated liver enzymes. His conditions are somewhat manageable through a prescription diet and medication. However, I know that within a couple years-- or maybe even a couple months (kidney disease is notoriously unpredictable), I am going to have to make a difficult decision. My one consolation is that, unlike Smoky and Ditmas, Neptune will have lived a long life; the average lifespan for a cat is fifteen years. It will be difficult to lose him, but not in the same way as it was with my other two pets that died young. I am glad that this decision will be available, because I would never want Neptune to suffer. I would want that decision available for people too, because I wouldn't want them to suffer.

And it was Smoky that made me understand that.

Another Post About Death

 *As always, names are changed to protect people's privacy

When I was six or seven, I had a subscription to Sesame Street Magazine, a monthly publication based on the children's show that featured games, puzzles, and stories with Big Bird and friends. After reading and doing a few activities, I sometimes looked at the detachable parents' guide that came meshed between the middle pages of the magazine. Because I loved reading, even the parent-aimed insert was fair game for brain food. One article in the guide was about how parents can respond when their children ask difficult questions. I still remember two of the more amusing ones. One such tough question was, "Mommy, what's a dam? Is it like when Daddy says 'God damn?'" Another involved a child asking if her dead pet rabbit that the family had buried in the backyard went to heaven. At least I think it was a rabbit. My brain might be meshing the story with a scene from a Simpsons episode that came out about ten years later. 

In any case, after reading the question about the deceased pet-- rabbit or otherwise-- I asked my mother a question of my own: "What do they mean about it going to heaven?" I asked, showing her the article. "Can't they just dig it up to see if it is still there?" Mom smiled and told me that some people believe in a soul. She explained what it meant, saying that they believe the soul leaves the body and goes to heaven. Because I wasn't raised in a particularly religious household, it was the first time I had ever heard about the concept, and I responded by telling my mother exactly what I thought: "That can't happen."

Ah, yes, kids say the darnedest things-- or the damnedest things, in this case. But at age 45, my view on the issue remains unchanged. I don't believe in a soul or an afterlife. Nor do I believe in God. I was raised in the Reform Jewish religion, and since the emphasis is more on culture and tradition than strong faith in God, I was given ample room to explore, question, and come to my own conclusions. The idea of surviving one's death through a soul that leaves the body just never made any sense to me. Most importantly, today I reject the idea based on what scientists now know about how the brain works and that injury to it can drastically alter someone's personality, or even render their personality non-existent. That is, all available evidence strongly indicates that consciousness is a byproduct of complex neurological activity, and that what makes you, you is your brain.

A few people have responded in abject disbelief as to how I can get up in the morning thinking that there is no afterlife. About twenty years ago, this topic somehow came up at the Brooklyn office where I worked at the time. "What about my mother?" one coworker asked me, his voice laced with distress, when I told him what I thought. "And if there's no afterlife, then what's the meaning of life?" Not sure how to balance tact and honesty in responding to him, I did the only thing that made sense in the moment: I resorted to humor. "I don't know," I said. "I'll let you know the answer to that when I'm dead." I don't recall how the rest of the conversation unfolded, but I would hope that this coworker would realize that my feelings-- and his-- are irrelevant. But a lot of people don't seem to understand that, and that's why belief in a soul and an afterlife persists, even among people who aren't religious-- including some of my fellow atheists. 

We humans view death in a very curious way. We understand that it's inevitable, but it's also something we avoid talking honestly about, almost always sugarcoating it with euphemistic language in even some of the most horrific of circumstances. We will just as easily use the term "passed away" to gloss over the protracted and torturous demise of a 40-year-old victim of Lou Gehrig's Disease as we would for the peaceful death of a 100-year-old whose organs have quietly shut down. There is even a level of denial at some funerals, at which the body is injected with formaldehyde and made up to appear merely asleep, a practice that I have always found creepy. Additionally, we often bury bodies in expensive and ornate caskets, as if our loved one is going to reanimate and wake up and appreciate the beautiful lace trim that lines the inside.

I am not saying that people shouldn't have the types of funerals and memorials that are meaningful to them. I can see how a viewing might give people closure, but I wouldn't be caught dead at one. Rather, my larger point is that I prefer to discuss death plainly. This is something I have given a lot of thought to over the years, but especially in the past three months following the death of my longtime therapist, Oren. I realize that thinking so deeply about this issue is beyond scientific fascination: it has been part of my grieving process and that I approach grief, in some ways, differently than most people. I hate not having closure, and having only limited information about how Oren died wasn't something I could easily accept. I've lost count of how many Google searches I ran to try to paint a coherent picture of what brought his life to an abrupt end. But I was only left with more questions that will probably never be answered. Ultimately, what I understand is that a process in Oren's body failed and as a result so did all of the other biological processes necessary to keep him alive-- because that is exactly what death is. 

I found myself thinking about the worst part of the process-- the tragedy that is brain death. The human brain spends decades accumulating knowledge, understanding, and insight. It is shaped by its genetic predispositions that interact with the environment to form a unique personality. And yet, within mere minutes of oxygen depravation, that system-- which many people interpret as a soul-- is irreversibly damaged and ultimately destroyed. As decomposition progresses, that bit of precious biological hardware liquifies to a yogurt-like consistency in a matter of days. To say that my blood runs cold just thinking about that what made Oren, Oren is now in this state is an understatement.

I suppose my form of grieving and the denial that some people have about the finality of death are two sides of the same coin. The idea of simply no longer existing is too much for us to wrap our heads around, not just philosophically but also literally: how does it feel to not be conscious at all, not even in the minimally-conscious state under general anesthesia? It's a nonsense question with no answer. And in the absence of scientific explanation combined with grief, most human societies throughout history have postulated the idea of a soul or something similar. Many people still adhere to the idea to provide a comforting answer to an impossible question and to ease their grief, even while possibly harboring doubts that they don't want to face. I, on the other hand, search for answers to try to get a better understanding of the process of death and its aftermath. I don't think this has anything to do with autism, except perhaps in the sense that I'm more willing to disregard taboo and openly admit to it. 

That's not to say I don't also grieve in ways that are typical. Like many people after losing someone they care about, I cried a lot after Oren died. I fought back tears nearly every day for weeks, and had four intense crying episodes in the first month alone. I had moments where I felt a little guilt about certain interactions that I could have handled differently, even though I know Oren, having been my therapist, would not have dwelled on them. After a few days, I came to realize that I had grown to love him, and grappled with understanding why this reality never dawned on me while he was alive. I even use language that the casual observer might misread as religious: recently, I said to someone that while I would never wish death upon anyone, it is just awful that a kind, caring soul like Oren had to die while people who are destroying the country and the planet have already outlived him.* But here I was being poetic, not professing a supernatural belief.

Returning to the incredulity others have expressed as to how I am okay with the finality of death, I should clarify that I am not. But, as I said earlier, my feelings are beside the point. I care about what's true, and all of the available evidence points to death being the literal end of one's existence. Importantly, I see this reality as a call to action, a reminder of the importance of appreciating the one life we know we have and to help make the world a better place. 

In a bit of irony that hasn't escaped me, I end with a quote from the Bible: "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth."

*Do you even need to ask who I'm talking about?

See You Next Week

Thanks for coming! I'm gradually moving my blog to Substack! You can check out this post here!

"The Elephant in the Room" or "The Television in the Bar"

Previous entries in this series about my experiences in middle school:

1. Autism and Boundaries Pt 1: Losing Friends

2. Autism and Boundaries Pt 2: The Double Standard

3. How Did They Not Know?

4. When School is a Systemic Failure

5. Sober Reflection About Sober Reflection

6. Closure Pt 1: Reconnection

7. Closure Pt 2: How School Failed All of Us

8. Closure Pt 3: What Could Have Been Done

9. Running Saved Me Pt 1: A New Support System

10. Running Saved Me Pt 2: How Running Saved My Brain

* As always, names and details have been changed to protect people's privacy.

Over the course of the past few months, I have written ten blog posts in which I revisited painful experiences in middle school, running the gamut from losing friends to being bullied on a minute-by-minute basis; this eleventh post closes the series. The previous two entries discussed how my experience running track at the end of 9th grade gave me new friends, a supportive coach, and the chemical boost in my brain that enabled me to stand up to the bullies. With such a positive resolution and a high self-esteem at the end of the year, how is any of this still relevant-- especially to someone just a week from her forty-fifth birthday? I must have put it completely behind me, right?

Honestly, I thought I did. But let's address that elephant in the room-- or, as a more apt metaphor, that television in the bar. Upon recent reflection, as illustrated in the first post in this series, I hadn't put this nonsense behind me. Not completely. The events of middle school were core memories, created in the formative years of my life when my brain was still developing. As I only recently realized, they impacted how I would think about friendships throughout the rest of my adolescence and well into my adult life and, to a lesser extent, to this day. Even if I wasn't thinking intently about these memories, they were a constant backdrop, akin to a television playing in a bar. When you're at a bar, you are not directly focusing on the television, but you are constantly aware of its presence in your peripheral vision and hearing. My experiences in middle school largely taught me to expect friendships to be tenuous, and that any minute someone who once genuinely liked me could do a mental hairpin turn and abandon me, unless I learned to rein in multiple aspects of myself.

And let me just say this: if life were a Hollywood movie, after running track in 9th grade I would be consistently confident and have tons of good friends for the rest of my life, starting with high school that fall. That is, a perfect movie ending wrapped up in a neat little package. But that isn't how life works. Over the decades, I have gone through multiple cycles of confidence and self-loathing, depending on whatever obstacles and setbacks I encounter. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

When I entered high school in the fall of 1996, fresh off the track team (where I made new friends) and my second rewarding summer at Camp Negev (a progressive and open-minded environment where I felt people really appreciated me for the first time), I was pretty optimistic. Most of the kids from middle school were zoned for the other high school in the district, and the new kids I encountered seemed very nice-- and for the most part, they were. With time, I felt, I would make some new friends. That isn't what happened. I had trouble connecting with people. But why? I had easily made new friends with the 7th- and 8th-graders on the track team the previous year, so why couldn't I make new friends in my high school? Sadly, it was probably because those friends from track were two and three years younger than me. Because I had repeated first grade, I was a year older than all the kids in my grade and, at age fifteen, these new friends were mostly twelve and thirteen years old. Like me, and unlike my agemates, they were still largely into "kid" things-- just like Ivy had been when we first met in 7th grade.

Now that I was in 10th grade, I could not find common ground with my peers. The conversations I would start with other kids felt forced and awkward. By the end of the year, it was clear that I wasn't going to make any friends. And when I could see that I was starting to annoy people and weird them out for a variety of reasons, I feared that I would be bullied again. So I did the only thing I could to protect myself: I withdrew and mostly remained quiet-- something people who know me well would find difficult to imagine. My strategy worked: I wasn't bullied in high school, but I didn't make any friends either. I had a few friendly acquaintances, but we we never became close enough to get together outside of school. I was scared to let them in on aspects of me that I had been repeatedly taught to keep hidden. The way high school unfolded suggested to me that my positive end to 9th grade was, like my experiences at Camp Negev, a tiny anomaly in a world that largely rejected me. Looking back, my decision to withdraw socially in high school is the biggest regret of my life. I know now that there had to have been other neurodivergent kids I could have become friends with who, like me, were hiding, because there wasn't yet a word to describe them.

I think of my yearslong friend, Andrea, whom I met in the fall of 1999, during my freshman year of college. Andrea remembers trying to get to know me and feeling like I wanted to be left alone. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was just that I was so afraid of putting her off or coming across as demanding that I forced myself to seem quiet and reserved-- no easy task since when I am comfortable I can be quite uninhibited, for better or for worse. Fortunately, Andrea was undeterred. We were both animation majors-- most of the others who planned to go into animation were guys, and Andrea wanted to get to know me, since I was the only other girl in animation she had encountered so far. 

Even well into adulthood, the proverbial television in the bar is still on in the background. A couple years ago, at a family gathering, a bunch of us were playing with an AI generator. Because of how nonsensical and surreal the resulting images were, I joked that the computer was on drugs. One of my relatives, who had once had a drug problem, got upset and yelled at me in front of everybody. At the time, I thought he was upset because a little kid was in the room (I was unaware, as the kid was behind me). I only learned later that he was upset because the joke touched a personal vulnerability.

When I discussed the situation with my parents a couple weeks later, I lamented, "If this had happened with someone outside of the family, that would have ended the friendship." Mom replied, "Someone who ends a friendship over something like that wasn't your friend to begin with." I realized she was right, but that metaphorical television that played constant reruns of my middle school memories was still in the periphery of my life. Of course, I now also wonder why Mom and Dad didn't say the same thing after the fallout with my middle school friend, Kat, over my joke about old people smell in 8th grade, and when I was kicked out of the lunch table in 9th grade. Unfortunately, my parents don't remember their responses to either incident, or any of the others in which they seemed to blame me for friendships ending. They insist they never intended to blame me when these types of fallouts happened, which is puzzling because that is absolutely the message I absorbed. I guess I'll never know. 

And, of course, most recently, there was my fallout with Lisa over my joke that she should stalk famous actors on her trip to Los Angeles, which she thought I meant as a serious suggestion. Although that situation is different because Lisa is autistic -- the hyper-literal, black-and-white-thinking type-- I still saw and heard that metaphorical television in the background. As you saw in that blog post, my mind reflexively went back thirty years to my fallout with Kat.

It's incidents like the aforementioned that made me realize how much the bullshit I went through in middle school shaped me and how I never completely moved on. It became clear that to truly put it behind me, I would have to radically reframe the past and deconstruct-- similar to the way someone might when leaving a cult or a high-demand religion. Contacting Ivy and Torey and clearing the air with them has helped me to do that, and I wish I would have done it twenty years ago. Perhaps addressing that television in the bar sooner would have made it easier to turn off. Unfortunately, it is still on decades later, and so it is that much harder to silence. 

I want to end by saying that I am honestly glad to have reconnected with Ivy and Torey beyond getting closure. Ivy no longer lives in or near our hometown in Pennsylvania; she has long moved out of state, so I have no idea if I'll see her at any point. However, she has said that she is glad we reconnected. Torey, who for years had been living in the Midwest, recently moved back near our hometown, and we are going to try to get together when I visit my family for Thanksgiving.

Reconnecting with Ivy and Torey also gave me closure in that our discussions helped me realize that none of the kids in our ragtag group of eight were ever truly "bad." As I've discussed, we were all kids in a broken system in a more ignorant time. Ivy said it best: we were perpetually in fight-or-flight mode, constantly reacting and not yet mature enough to take a step back and see the big picture. For years, I thought if any of the girls in the group ever contacted me, I would only be receptive to hearing from Ivy, and possibly Torey, provided that they apologized for turning on me. I always knew that Ivy was a good person at her core and, as I've said, I do recall Torey acting genuinely sorry towards the end of the year after the parents and principal staged an intervention. However, after having talked to both women, I realized I would be open to hearing from the other five kids in the group. I could contact them, but I was honestly never really close to them (one girl, Rosie, I didn't even mention in any of the posts!), so I don't see the point. But, in the off-chance that any of them are reading this, I absolutely would be receptive to hearing from them. 

Onward.