Any passages or quotes that stick out to you?

The section on “female” autism really stuck out just because its just so frustrating to see how autism has been looked at within the gender binary. As a CIS man, there are so many of the listed traits for “female” autism that I fit into that it makes me wonder how a psychologist would have approached me if I ever tried getting a diagnosis in the past and maybe even now. It just makes me think of another way that gender norms can be so damaging to society and the need to move on from them in general.

Experiences similar to the ones described in this chapter?

As a POC, the experiences described here of having to put on a “nice and quite” mask. When I was in elementary school I got in trouble a few times because, as my mom described it, I often laughed at my friends’ jokes the wrong time and was causing disturbances in the classroom. There was also another time when I was pull aside by a teacher’s aide when I was playing “knights” with a couple of pencils and she told me I should play such violent games and pay more attention in class. Thankfully overall my experience in elementary school wasn’t all that bad since most teachers and the principle were very nurturing, but it kind of sticks out in my mind reading this book now. Some of my more disruptive behaviors continued into middle school where I would often make sound effects to go along with what we were learning about. I don’t really remember being corrected or called out on that behavior much since I was actually getting good grades, but at some point something kind of just clicked. I stopped making noises in class. Socially I always thought that I was open and friendly with most people, but recently I reconnected with a few of my middle school classmates on social media and they welcomed me into our school group, but also told me about how quite I was. I never really thought of it, but I also remember being bullied a bit for being a slow talker. I did have to take speech therapy while I was in elementary school, but I don’t remember the exact reason though. But it probably contributed to my being so quite in social settings.

I continued with my “well behaved” persona in class into high school and through my time in college. I would still have outbursts of loudness and quirkiness whenever I was around friends, but I also started to isolate to a greater extreme starting in my sophomore year of HS. Even now I’m not entirely sure what triggered this. Maybe it was autistic burnout and I didn’t really realize it. My friends would often tell me to stop being alone so much and invite me over to eat with them. The rest of my time in high school was a constant cycle of being comfortable enough to hang out with my friends during lunch and isolating myself. But everyone that I talked to during graduation and after always tells me I was such a nice and sweet guy even though I was a bit of a ghost, which got some people to nickname me Casper.

I kind of lost track a bit there lol, but kind of going back to POC specific examples, code-switching and its similarity to masking stuck out to me. I’ve kind of blended the way I speak in informal and formal setting to where often in social settings other POC comment on how “proper” I speak much in the same way Timotheus described. I clean up my language a bit more when I have to speak to higher-ups at work, but I feel like there isn’t a ton of difference. At least when I speak English. When I speak Spanish its a bit more extreme. I still don’t really quite speak like most people from my ancestral country, but at my old job my coworkers would point out how I spoke such proper Spanish when I was helping customers. I never really thought much about it. Growing up in the US bilingual I always felt my Spanish was a bit “broken” so I think I subconsciously made more of an effort to pronounce things well enough so that customers understood me better. Sometimes I even do it within the same conversation. Like most recently someone pointed out how quickly I switched from a more localized accent to a more formal accent within the span of a couple of sentences. It was kind of funny, but it also got me to realize about how it just happens without really having to think about code-switching.

What hit you the hardest here?

Anand’s relationship experiences. I realize that while there are people that I open up to to an extent, I’m never really fully myself with them. I think about all the friendships that I’ve let slip by and it pains me that I haven’t been able to maintain friendships beyond settings I’m around people the most, the workplace. The friends I do still communicate with still feel like they are so distant. And I realize that a lot of it comes from the fact that I feel like I’m more of a burden or annoyance to them. I struggle with romantic relationships as well. Even now there’s this great fight I have within my mind of do I open up to my crush and risk showing a side of myself that I feel they wouldn’t like?

And feels so destructive. In recent times I’ve felt that mental strain imposing itself physically where I feel so tense just overthinking my relationships with people. I recently chatted with a friend on Discord. He told me to get a mic so I could have a voice chat with him. I eventually got it and its been sitting on my desk since. Every time I think about hitting him up to chat I just freeze from all the thoughts I have in my head. Similarly with my crush, who’s shown me affection. Whether or not its romantic or platonic, it doesn’t matter. Anytime I think of replicating it I just freeze up and end up thinking about it so much that I start to feel physically tense. There’s nothing more that I’d like to do than to open up to the people in my life who have opened up to me, but its just so hard.

Was there anything about the communities featured in this chapter that you got new insight on? New things to relate to?

A lot about the trans and genderqueer community was eye opening. Especially in relation with how conservatives usually speak of them and the prevalence of autism in the community. As Dr.Price wrote about JK Rowling, I often hear the whole “trans people are just mentally ill or confused” from online conservative personalities and from my coworkers, both of whom are conservative. I also hope that as a whole the community of mental health professionals can move beyond such a limited way of thinking for trans and genderqueer people, much in the same way I hope they can change the way they treat POC and women.

Anything clarified in this chapter that relates to the last one for you?

The autism with comorbidity section furthered my understanding of how much overlapping there is in autistic traits with other mental health conditions and how its best not to approach autism with a “yes or no” way of thinking about it. Just talking with others and their life experiences can do so much to bring more clarity to what you may be feeling.