On finding my equilibrium
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April 28, 2023
It is not easy to be neurodivergent. Even more, it is not easy to
understand a neurodivergent human if you're neurotypical. Casual
observers who don't know me well and only come in contact with me
infrequently may find me an enigma; or worse, a dishonest and
deceptive individual who appears to change my beliefs and opinions
so frequently that I give them a whiplash; or, perhaps they think I
lack principles and thus I lack character. Like a chameleon, I
slither into all sorts of places and infiltrate them. There's
something about me that most people seem to find repulsive and
repugnant.
Yet, it's something quite relatable to many autistic folks.
First, there's a self-imposed (or imposed by others) pressure to
fit in; this means masking behaviors -- copying and emulating what
others say and do, hoping to be accepted by them, even though,
doing so would consume a lot of my mental and emotional resources.
Second, it has become almost a cliche that autistic people have a
narrow "special interest." In reality, it's not always true and it
is also common that one could have certain special interests but
then could quickly grow out of them or tire of them -- either
because of frustration or because of boredom.
Third, and this is something I'd like to focus on here: the harsh
realities of autistic burnout.
I tend to go all-in whenever I find a cause or a project that I
believe in. Doing so often gives me a much-needed sense of meaning,
motivation, and purpose. It also helps me transcend my feeling of
inferiority and inadequacy by becoming part of something bigger
than myself.
I've done political activism. I've done community organizing. I've
sat on several nonprofit boards, church councils, and advisory
councils over the past three decades. I've volunteered for several
charities. I've done them all with unparalleled zeal and
dedication.
Yet, inevitably, burnout comes. Usually, I am the last one to
realize I am burned out; everyone else sees telltale signs long
before it.
Then I go through the disgust phase. I get angry at people with
whom I had worked, and I get mad at myself. Then in a quick leap, I
begin resenting and criticizing the "cause" and the beliefs.
Usually, this is followed by a phase in which I quickly pivot to
the polar opposite of what I had just advocated. For example, as I
was burned out from the Occupy Wall Street movement, I jumped right
into Paleoconservatism and Traditionalism, even voraciously reading
the works of Alexander Dugin (fortunately, this bizarre extreme
phase has quickly moderated, and I shifted to the Intercollegiate
Review, the American Conservative, and Imprimis).
This also explains why, after my years of involvement in feminist
spaces and causes as well as spending a few years studying feminist
theology at a postgraduate level, I spent the last three or so
years in a phase where I found myself becoming increasingly
espousing an extremely misogynistic viewpoint. I am coming clean on
this for the sake of transparency.
Here is what happened during the last several years and how it led
me down this path.
Toward the end of the Occupy encampment era, in November 2011, I
was invited by the organizers of the Occupy Women's Caucus to join
its meeting. This meeting ultimately ended up being just a book
study group, heavy on feminist theories, not much on praxis and
action. The caucus fizzled out after a few months. Another group of
women began organizing the "Women's Network," which later became a
"red tent" group that brought a symbolic "women's space" to various
events and demonstrations. Though I was unaware, I was being
indoctrinated into a kind of feminism that was somewhat hostile to
queer people. Soon I left another caucus that I was part of, the
"Queers For Liberation," because I was led to believe that QFL was
giving a cover to a "violent male" under the guise of "trans
rights."
As this group evolved past the life of Occupy, it became even more
of a group that only pushed a cisnormative, heteronormative,
white-centric, and classist kind of feminism even as it paid lip
service to inclusion.
This was happening around the time Donald Trump was campaigning for
the presidency and during the first year of the Trump
Administration. The Alt-Right movement was growing in the Pacific
Northwest. Racism, Islamophobia, ableism, homophobia, and
transphobia became part of acceptable speech in "polite company." I
heard these women in private say all sorts of racist, ableist,
classist, anti-LGBTQ stuff while passing themselves off as
"feminists." Even as the country descended into a hostile place for
BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, and poor folks (as well as the Earth
itself!), these women talked about their New Age woo-woo,
self-actualization, their "online businesses," their husbands and
their kids, and their real estate portfolio, about their vacations
and passion projects.
I was getting burned out by all this. I did not like these women. I
could not relate to them at all. I did not like their lack of
self-awareness around privilege. Yet, I was there working hard to
promote their events and retreats. I tried to ignore the cognitive
dissonance. I tried to engage in some serious mental gymnastics to
convince myself that doing so did not compromise my principles and
values.
I think it was around this time that I seriously began putting
myself out as a nonbinary human, as well. It was mostly a political
statement for me at the time, but also an honest admission that I
really didn't have much in common with these women and no longer
wanted much to do with them (at the time I have not had a lot of
contact with other autistic humans yet, so I was not aware of how
autism and gender intersect in a way that is very different from
the neurotypical people's experiences of gender).
But my resentment toward feminists has escalated astronomically
since 2022. From my knowledge, I knew that a faction of radical
feminists began a coordinated transphobic propaganda campaign
around 2012, primarily through several "feminist" blogs and newly
established organizations. In fact, I was indoctrinated by them as
well. By 2015, it was public knowledge that some of these
anti-trans feminists worked very closely with far-right political
organizations. What you read and hear from the Republicans today in
their crusade against nonbinary and trans rights, was copied
verbatim from the radical feminist discourses a decade ago. Once a
fringe element of obscure feminist thoughts, now this hate has
become mainstream in the halls of legislature across America (and
Britain, most notably) as well as in the mainstream media (not just
FOX News but even the Guardian and the New York Times). The
feminists were literally giving free propaganda materials and a
"bipartisan and moderate" cover to an emerging fascist movement
hellbent on stochastic terrorism and even genocide. Seeing this
unfold over the years, and how the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020
did nothing to stop the rise of "Christian" Nationalism, I became
very angry. First quite subconsciously, then quite consciously, I
began hating feminism -- and all feminists. All this is
unsurprising to my metacognition in retrospect, it follows a very
familiar pattern.
The problem is, I cannot keep doing this. I cannot be on a
permanent ideological rollercoaster ride and maintain my sanity or
keep my friends. For one thing, I cannot make enemies of (the
majority of) feminists when they are almost always the natural
allies of LGBTQ+ rights and many other justice and equity causes. I
need to find my equilibrium.
Burnout will happen (although I have become much better now to
self-regulate and prevent it) sooner or later. But there are only
so many extremist niches I can hide myself in and some of them are
frankly not the kind of place I ought to be. I mean, after having
burned out by all this, would I become a "Christian" Nationalist? A
Neonazi? A Trotskyist? A modern-day Pol Pot? I just don't want to
keep doing this.
