The saying, "Everyone's Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" is something I've never understood. 🍀 Like many American households, every year on March 17th, my family has corned beef & cabbage for dinner. A dish my mom has forced me to eat on this particular day ever since I was a little girl that I can barely manage to stomach. Corned beef is pretty terrible itself, but the cabbage is even worse because I can't eat it without feeling sick. Autistic people tend to be finicky eaters, often being overly sensitive to the textures & the flavors of the food they eat. This has been an uphill battle that I have been fighting my whole life. I had a disagreement with my mom about my feelings regarding corned beef & cabbage last year. "Why do we have to eat corned beef & cabbage on Saint Patrick's Day if we're NOT Irish?" I said to her. "But, we ARE Irish because everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" my mom exclaimed. "If everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, then how come everyone isn't Asian on the Lunar New Year?" I asked, truly curious. I love the Lunar New Year because it means eating delicious dumplings & noodles, celebrating my Chinese heritage, & dressing my dog up in a fancy silk Chinese jacket. "Because being Asian isn't fun. If you're not Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, you're not American." my mom said to me. I knew my mom was right because most people don't think being Asian is fun. We're discriminated against, too. "Well, then I guess I'm not American," I said glumly. I was hurt by this because I've always been proud to be an American. But, how does being American require me to be Irish on Saint Patrick's Day if I'm not Irish? I'm autistic, which means I am literal & I just don't understand how someone can be Irish on one particular day of the year if (s)he isn't actually Irish. 🤷🏻♀️ When you think of Saint Patrick's Day, you probably think of glittered shamrocks 🍀, green beer 🍻, green rivers, leprechauns, &, of course, corned beef & cabbage. Well, what if I told you that if you were actually in Ireland on Saint Patrick's Day 🇮🇪, you wouldn't see ANY of those things, except for maybe the glittered shamrocks? Yes, this is absolutely true. To begin, leprechauns are not cute, jolly, friendly cereal box characters that we all imagine that they are. But, they are mischievous, nasty little fellows that Irish people do not want partaking in their Saint Patrick's Day festivities. And just as much as the Irish would not pollute their beer or their rivers with green dye, they would not eat corned beef & cabbage, especially on Saint Patrick’s Day.
The History Of Corned Beef & Cabbage: In Ireland 🇮🇪, cows 🐮 have always been a symbol of wealth & were considered a sacred animal. In fact, from early on in Irish history, cattle were not used for their meat, but they were used for milk & dairy production & farming. Because they were so sacred & expensive, cows were only killed for their meat if they were too old to work or to produce milk. So, beef is not part of the diet for the majority of the Irish population & is typically only enjoyed by the very wealthy during a celebration or festival. In both historic & in modern Ireland, pigs are the most prevalent animal bred only to be eaten, so pork is the most eaten meat in Ireland. When the Irish immigrated to the United States, they often faced discrimination & lived in slums with the Jews & the Italians. In contrast to in Ireland, beef was inexpensive in the United States. When the Irish immigrants first tasted corned beef at Jewish delis, they noticed its similarity to Irish bacon. They paired it with cabbage for its cost efficiency. So, eating corned beef & cabbage is NOT an Irish tradition. It is an Irish immigrant tradition that was created right here, in America when Irish immigrants substituted beef for pork & cabbage for potatoes because of its affordability. Some Fun Saint Patrick's Day Facts:
Side Note: Until I sat down to write this blog post, I didn't know any of the above facts with the exception of the corned beef & cabbage one. For YEARS, I have tried to convince my mom to forgo the dreadful corned beef & cabbage meal because it isn't actually an Irish tradition, but sadly, it has never worked. 🤷🏻♀️ So, whether you're Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or you're Irish the whole year through, Happy Saint Patrick's Day! And if you're NOT Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or on any other day of the year, I feel your pain. 💚
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With today being the Lunar New Year (the year of the dragon!), I just wanted spend this blog post telling you about Asian culture & autism. My mom's side of the family is of Chinese descent & while I definitely have had an American upbringing, Asian culture has had great influence over the way I was raised. In the Asian culture, you are taught from a very young age that all of your personal difficulties are to remain inside of the home. In fact, if you were to be open about your challenges in public, you would likely be thought of as a disgrace. Unfortunately, the majority of Asian Americans still have this mindset to this day. One of the times my mom taught me about this was when she talked to me about hiding the bottles of antidepressants that I was taking before my grandparents arrived for a visit (particularly because of my grandpa's background in pharmacology) in order to prevent questioning & criticism. Moments like these are probably why I have always been more comfortable confiding in my dad than my mom, both as a child & as an adult. I have always felt like the fact that I have had lifelong mental health difficulties, & now autism, is something to be ashamed of because in the Asian culture it is. Another example of this occurred many, many years ago when my grandparents took my mom & my aunt on a tour of China. I remember my mom telling me that everyone wanted to take pictures with a person in their tour group who was using crutches. The reason why? If you're using crutches or a wheelchair in China, you generally don't leave your home. So, that's not something you ever see out on public streets. Asian Americans love to pride themselves in (& even brag about) which colleges & universities they got into & their SAT scores & then later on, how successful their careers are. I remember my grandma telling me about a time in school when she cried (something I have never seen her do EVER) because she got a 98 on a test. I can't picture myself ever crying over a 98. In Asia, when students don't do well on a test, even if it was the entire class that didn't do well, it is never the teacher's fault. It is never because the teacher didn't teach the material well enough or the test was written poorly, for example. It is always because the student didn't study hard enough. When a child has a disability that makes achieving the types of academic & professional successes that Asian people strive for much more difficult, such as autism, it poses a very significant problem for the child & her or his family. Asian Americans don't have any issues asking for help when it comes to furthering their child's academics or career, but when it comes to autism, they tend to refuse help & then the child is left to suffer alone, in silence. When children are diagnosed with autism in China, they are often sent to costly private treatment centers for ABA therapy. However, while this type of therapy is the most common type of therapy for autistic children, it is an extremely traumatic type of conversion "therapy" that essentially teaches autistic children to act in ways that make allistic, or non-autistic people more comfortable. Children who have received this type of therapy often develop post traumatic stress disorder by the time they reach adulthood.
Sadly, autism is still a relatively new condition in the Asian community, with China first recognizing it as a neurological disability as recently as 2006. In fact, many Asians have heard about autistic non-Asians, but they've never encountered an autistic Asian before. This is because less than one percent of autistic Asians have been evaluated for autism, let alone are receiving support for it. The thought that ninety-nine percent of autistic Asians are undiagnosed is quite staggering. Asians are likely not diagnosed with autism because they are afraid of being a disappointment, something I felt that I was until shortly before my thirty-second birthday, when I learned that I was autistic. I'm going to start this blog post off by saying this: this is the most vulnerable blog post I have written thus far. Some things that are in it are things that I've mentioned before & some things aren't. But, everything in this post is as real & as raw as it gets, is one-thousand percent true, & is something that I felt needed to be said. Growing up, & even now, my life was & is a struggle. I was autistic & I didn't know it for almost thirty-two years because I grew up at a time when girls like me were just not diagnosed with autism. I was living in a world that I didn't fit into, but I had no understanding as to why that was until about a year & a half ago. I was so lucky because my parents did everything they could to give me the BEST childhood ever. And I'm so thankful for that. However, there were certain things that no matter how loving & how supportive my parents were, they just couldn't protect me from. Every autistic person you talk to will have something to tell you about how society treats her or him; about the trauma that (s)he endures on a daily basis. The way neurotypical people treat us does real, long-lasting harm. I never understood why people treated me so poorly because I didn't think I did anything wrong. Were they treating me that way because I simply exist? Probably. The bullying I experienced in elementary school through college was INTENSE, & it only worsened the older I got. From being made fun of for being too quiet to having my feet walked on top of on a daily basis to being barked at & growled at like an angry dog to boys trying to trip me in the hall & slapping my butt when I was at my locker. Freshman year in college, they put me into a quad with another Shrewsbury alum who inserted nasty things about me into the brain of another one of my roommates. They ganged up against me & made my life a living hell for the entire year. A couple years later, a different roommate suddenly gave me the silent treatment & I had no idea why, until one of her friends told me. It was because I was uncomfortable with boys sleeping over in our room, something that I thought was perfectly reasonable, especially for a quiet & a timid girl like myself. I was never given the chance to make any sort of compromise because she never told me why she was so mad. Many years later, I found out that this particular roommate now has an autistic child. What a coincidence! Being treated with such cruelty on a daily basis for so many years is extremely traumatic for us. And it often has the same types of consequences on our brains as going to war, witnessing someone get murdered, or having an abusive spouse would. It just takes a much longer amount of time to do the same amount of damage. More than 40% of autistic individuals struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder & although I have never been diagnosed, I do think I am one of them. I think that the effects of having to endure the type of treatment I described above for so many years is why it takes me such a long time to trust someone, even now, as an adult. I also never really voiced the significant amount of pain I was experiencing to my parents because I didn't want to worry them. So, I didn't get as much support as I probably needed while I was going through that. I knew I have caused them A LOT of worry ever since the day I was born & I didn't want to add to it even more. From a very young age, I wanted to do everything I could to be the best daughter I could be, even if it meant unintentionally harming myself. When I first learned from my physician that the cause of all of my lifelong struggles was due to living with undiagnosed autism, I took a couple of months to process it & to learn more about how autism affects girls & women. But, after I did that, I wanted to do more digging into my past to learn more about how autism affected me as a young child & as an adolescent. I knew that when I was in school, my mom kept a very thick manilla envelope full of documents & letters from various medical professionals & educators. Knowing how organized my mom always was, I asked her if she still had that envelope & she did. This envelope ended up being a treasure box into my past, containing a lot of information, some that I never knew about myself, from when I was less than a year old until I was eighteen years old. One of the things that really stuck out to me was meeting notes from my seventh grade language arts teacher, Peggy. Better expression in written vs. verbal. More sophisticated style of writing. Not good with being caught off guard. Interacts better with adults. Gets frustrated in groups since they are fooling around and she is so concerned with her grades. Kids aren't patient waiting for her to respond. Struggles with reading comprehension. Getting a bit better advocating for herself. ALL autistic traits. Thinking back to seventh grade, I had always thought very highly of Peggy. I wondered if she remembered anything else about me that would be helpful for me to know, going into an autism evaluation. I knew that she no longer worked in the Shrewsbury schools, but teachers' contact information is usually readily available online. I looked Peggy up & I wrote her an email explaining my lifelong difficulties & how they led to an impending autism diagnosis. I attached a scanned copy of the meeting notes to the email, as well. However, since at this time, I had been a student in her classroom just over eighteen years ago & I hadn't seen or spoken to her in at least fifteen years, I had this underlying fear that she wouldn't remember who I was. I felt like I was a fly on the wall in school, barely saying a word & blending in with the background. I knew she'd had a lot of students since then & I thought I was easy to forget. Spilling my guts out to her only for her to not remember me would've been SO utterly embarrassing. This was in early August of 2022, by the way. It was only a couple of days before I heard back from Peggy & I was beyond relieved to know that she absolutely did remember me. Peggy sounded so delighted to hear from me, too. She described me as a very kind, shy, reserved student (with black-framed glasses if I recall correctly), but she admitted that she didn't think she had much more detail to give me. However, she did offer to chat by phone. And I eagerly took her up on that. If we chatted on the phone, I might be able to foster another connection with a caring & a supportive person & I really felt like that was exactly what I needed because like many autistic people, my life was extremely isolating. This blog post is about my interactions with Peggy & how her kindness & her compassion have changed my life. Peggy didn't know this going in, but I had a lot going on in my life at the time I reached out to her, most of it not even having to do with autism. Back in 2015, my maternal grandpa had a debilitating stroke that left one side of his body without feeling & completely took away his ability to process language (this is known as global aphasia). I unfortunately did not grieve the stroke properly & still to this day, I am in denial that it ever happened in the first place. Now that I know I'm autistic, this makes total sense as we do not grieve in the same way that neurotypicals do. My grandma was his devoted caregiver ever since. The year prior to when I connected with Peggy, my grandparents relocated to Shrewsbury from California because my grandma was dying from tongue cancer. She lived here in Shrewsbury for just two & a half months before succumbing to the disease (six months earlier than expected). While I never had much of a relationship with my grandma, watching my grandpa grieve the love of his life for over sixty years & worrying everyday that he would die of a broken heart was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. At the time I had reached out to Peggy, we had recently passed the one-year mark of my grandma's passing. I was also still getting into the groove of being a secondary caregiver to my grandpa. Due to the brain damage caused by his stroke, my grandpa would often say & do things that hurt me tremendously. No matter how much I tried to remind myself that my able-minded grandpa would never say or do such things, I just couldn't get the hurt to go away. This was particularly difficult for me to deal with because my grandpa & I have always been incredibly close. His hurtful actions were a complete one-eighty from how he'd treated me for the first twenty-five years of my life. All of these things would be difficult for anyone to cope with, but when you're autistic, you're handed a plethora of challenges in life that allistic, or non-autistic people have the privilege of never having to experience. And it's those challenges that make dealing with things like this significantly more difficult. Keep in mind that I didn't know that I was autistic when all of the above events actually happened, so I didn't understand why I reacted like this, why I reacted completely differently from the rest of my family. Ever since I was a young child; I have yearned for my grandparents to live close by & I was so, SO happy to finally have that; but now that I did, my life had become a complete circus. It's something you can't understand without living it.
On the autism forefront, just a couple months ago, I had learned that the reason why I have struggled so much throughout my life was because I was living with undiagnosed autism. It was the reason why:
That first phone conversation I had with Peggy was a breath of fresh air. Back when I was her student, I remember her being really easy to talk to & that was still the case. I filled her in on a lot of things, many of those things being things that hardly anyone knows about me, things that I'm ashamed of. The fact that I even felt comfortable enough to fill her in on those things, after all this time, speaks volumes about Peggy's character, the person she is; especially since I've always felt like I need to protect myself from people; I've always been afraid to show the real me. The way Peggy reacted to the things I told her was really, really comforting. She really took the time to stop & to listen to what I had to say & she didn't make me feel judged, guilty, or like I had done anything wrong. Every time I mentioned how something made me feel, whether it was a positive or a negative emotion, she validated it. And if she suggested something that I didn't think would work, I would explain why, & that was totally okay with her, too. She also told me how much she admired my courage in reaching out to her & that she was here for me. Having that conversation with Peggy gave me the courage to reach out to many of my other former teachers, as well. And while some of those other teachers gave me much more detailed insight than what Peggy could offer me; a few even telling me that an autism diagnosis would absolutely not surprise them; it was Peggy's kindness, support, time, & most of all, her compassion that made the biggest difference to me. That was what I needed more than anything else in the world. As I had other conversations with Peggy later on, she felt that she could no longer offer me the kind of support I needed. Her experience was with adolescents & I was an adult with adult problems looking into adult resources (which I now know are scarce). However, I can tell you that this is absolutely NOT the case at all. I have gone my entire life feeling like when I talk, NO ONE hears me & my feelings don't matter. Sadly, these are commonalities among autistic people. Peggy was the first person I talked to in many, many, many YEARS who really made me feel like she heard what I had to say & she valued my opinion. Plus, she was so, so, SO kind. And she was so incredibly compassionate, too. I have lived a lifetime of people being unkind to me; being critical of everything I do or say, everything I don't do or say, every facial expression I make or don't make. So, it's extra noticeable when someone IS kind; when someone accepts me as I am; when someone ISN'T judgmental; when someone really, truly CARES. When I looked Peggy up to make that first contact & I discovered that she was no longer a language arts teacher, but she was a special education teacher, I wasn't surprised. The notes that she made about me were much more insightful & helpful than the notes I came across from every single one of my other former teachers. Every single one of Peggy's notes was so SPOT ON, about me, AND about an autistic middle school girl. However, after having the interactions with Peggy that I had, I really, truly feel that special education was what she was meant to do with her life; it was her calling. The kids in her classroom are SO lucky to have her. I know she's changing their lives because she's changed mine & it's been twenty years now since I've been her student. (Typing that out makes me feel so old!) More recently, a couple weeks ago, Peggy's mom passed away. When I found out about her family's loss, I knew I needed to go to the visitation. While I've tried to thank Peggy for what she's done for me numerous times before, I didn't think I got my message across effectively enough. There was no better way to thank her, to tell her how much I appreciate her than by going to the visitation to support her & her family during their time of grief. While I was still waiting in line, Peggy caught my eye & gave me a reassuring smile, totally calming my nerves. I knew that the only reason she recognized me was because I had sent her a recent photo of myself back when I originally connected with her. (I look A LOT different now than I did when she knew me in middle school.) That day, during what had to have been one of the most difficult times in Peggy's life, between small actions she was taking & things she said, Peggy was still blowing me away with her kindness & her compassion. When I spoke with her in the receiving line, Peggy asked me about how things were progressing. The fact that she continued to show me so much care & concern while she was grieving the loss of her mom, once again spoke volumes about the absolutely wonderful person Peggy is. As much as I wanted to express the great frustration I was feeling due to things moving slower than molasses, as well as some of the resource people I was working with not only not seeming to know how to help a late-diagnosed autistic woman like myself, but actually making things worse; I didn't. There was a line of people a mile long behind me, all waiting to talk to Peggy & her siblings. Plus, I wasn't there to talk about my personal difficulties. I was there to give her my condolences, my love, my compassion, & my support; things that she had given me a couple years earlier that meant so, SO much to me. I really, REALLY hope that I'll have the chance to fill her in on those things & more one day, at a much quieter time, when I'm not feeling like I need to give her MY support. A few days earlier, when I mentioned to my mom that I was going to go to this visitation, she told me I was very brave for going alone. (This was the first time I had ever been to, or even thought about going to visiting hours by myself-- the couple other times I had been to visiting hours, my family was with me.) In my mind though, I had no choice other than to go to this. I knew that Peggy would never expect me to be there, but Peggy made such a big impact on me recently that I really felt like I needed to go. I am SO quiet; I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to social situations, especially with people I don't know; & I'm someone who really struggles with coming out of my comfort zone. But, when I feel this strongly about something, I do it. And I was SO glad I did. When I talked to Peggy about why I wanted to be there to support her & her family & what an impact she'd made on me, I knew she was really touched by my presence. And that really warmed my heart. So, as I wrap up this very long blog post, why am I telling you all of this? Well, it's because I think you can learn a lot from what Peggy did. What she did is a very good illustration of how doing something so simple can really turn someone's whole life around. When I reached out to Peggy, I was hoping for a little bit of insight, but I got something so much more meaningful instead. She was so unbelievably kind & compassionate, giving me her time & a listening ear. Things that I so desperately needed. And that made such an enormous difference to me in the lonely world that I was living in. 💙 I love taking care of my grandpa, who I call Gung-Gung. I really, really love it. I wouldn't trade this precious time I'm getting with him for the world. But, caregiving is HARD work & it's even HARDER work for an autistic person, like myself. Let me tell you why. My Gung-Gung has to get a blood test once a month & it's my responsibility to take him. It's an important responsibility, but it also gives me precious time with him. I love that one Thursday a month. This past Thursday was Blood Test Thursday. Going With The Flow: When I arrived at my Gung-Gung's apartment complex last week, I was surprised to find that the visitor parking had completely disappeared. Autistic people, like myself, like to be prepared & don't like surprises, like this one. Not that anyone would like a surprise like this. It's just more of a problem for autistic people. My mom had recently told me that a notice went out that they were reducing the visitor parking & there were now only going to be three visitor parking spaces. (There used to be roughly double that.) But, signs that read Resident Parking Only were posted in equal intervals, in front of the old visitor parking spaces. That included one of the spaces that was supposedly still a visitor parking space. So, I opted to park on the street. I really don't like doing that, since it takes longer to get inside the building. Plus, getting the car to bring to my Gung-Gung who's waiting for me when I need to drive him somewhere takes longer. I don't want him to yell at me for taking too long, which does happen sometimes. When I asked my mom about the parking situation later on that night, she didn't know what I was talking about & said that that sign wasn't there yesterday. 🤷🏻♀️ Also, walking into my Gung-Gung's apartment, whether I'm there for scheduled caregiving duties or I'm there for a surprise visit, gives me heightened anxiety. I never know what I'm going to be walking into. This gives my mom, an allistic, or a non-autistic person anxiety, as well. But, for me, my anxiety about this is on a whole other level. Autistic people need to know what to expect; they don't like surprises. I personally feel like I need time to prepare for whatever situation is about to happen, but not knowing what I'm walking into doesn't allow me to do that. The following questions usually run through my head:
Anyways, we took the elevator downstairs, I ran to get the car as quickly as I could, & off to the blood test we went. The medical building we go for the blood test is right next door to my Gung-Gung's apartment complex, but due to his age & his physical abilities, it is still too far for him to walk. So, I drive. Putting Someone Else's Needs & Wants Ahead Of My Own: I had this idea in my head that I wanted my Gung-Gung to sit outside with me after his blood test. It was an absolutely gorgeous day & now that we are sadly into the month of September, these perfect days are getting to be more limited. I am someone who needs a lot of sunshine in order to function, so I take a vitamin D3 prescription year round. Plus, I shine a happy light on my face for about ten minutes before getting out of bed in the morning during the late-summer through the mid-spring months. Like many people living in this part of the country, I believe I struggle with seasonal affective disorder, although it’s never been diagnosed. Anyways, once my Gung-Gung's blood test was over, I told him that it was a beautiful day & asked him if he wanted to sit with me by the gazebo across the street before going back to his apartment. It's good for him to get fresh air, something he can’t do without accompaniment. It's much easier to convince him to sit outside if he's already outside rather than if he's inside his apartment. Plus, I was giving up time that I would normally be spending out on the back deck in the sun to take care of him. Much to my disappointment, especially since I knew it would likely be much colder when it is time for his October blood test, he didn't want to go to the gazebo. He told me he just wanted to go back to his apartment afterwards. Knowing that he would make a scene if I tried to convince him otherwise, I knew I had to take a step back & let him take the wheel. This is something that's difficult for anyone in the caregiver position, but it is even more difficult for an autistic person. However, he obviously changed his mind between the time we had this conversation & the time we left the medical building. When we left the building, he started heading straight for the gazebo even though I told him I would drive him there. We sat on a park bench in the gazebo park for a short while, side by side, him tapping his hand on my leg to a beat & me with my arm around his shoulders. This right here was my old Gung-Gung. This was what we did together ever since I was a young child, way before he had his devastating stroke. Although, I only started putting my arm around him when I got big enough to do that. 😉 These glimpses of my old Gung-Gung overwhelm me with so much warmth & happiness that it is hard for me to properly convey how I feel. I've always felt so safe, secure, protected, loved, & cared about when his arms were around me. While I still feel some of those same things today, despite him being disabled & me being all grown up, I feel so blessed to now be doing the same thing to him. Giving him the safety, the security, the protection, the love, & the care that he always gave me while also doing something that is good for him. Getting him some fresh air & sunshine. On another note, I wrote more about how being an autistic caregiver affects me in blog posts entitled My Experiences Being A Caregiver With Undiagnosed Autism & Strengths & Weaknesses Of Caregiving With Autism, if you'd like to read those prior blog posts. The Grief We Deal With:
When my Gung-Gung decided that it was time for us to go inside, we went in a nearby door & up the elevator to get to the enclosed bridge that leads to the building that he lives in. This walk is a little far for my Gung-Gung & his favorite sitting spot is on this bridge. So, this is where he likes to take a walking break. You get a perfect view of the nursing home associated with his apartment complex from this bridge. This nursing home was where my grandma, who I called Haw-Bu, passed away. So, he feels a closeness to her when he sits there & looks at the nursing home. He & I sat in two chairs by a window with a view of the nursing home & almost immediately, he was gesturing & asking why did she have to die before him. Why did she have to leave him here on Earth? He then bursted into tears & was sobbing for the love of his life of over sixty years. It's probably been over a year since I've seen him cry like this for his wife. I came around behind the chair he was sitting in & wrapped my arms around him in a loving & a comforting embrace until he was able to collect himself. Once he let me know he was okay, I sat back down in my chair again & wrote in big letters on my whiteboard Kim♥ Gung-Gung. When I showed it to him, he smiled at me with love in his eyes. I mostly communicate with him through simple, written language now, along with some gesturing. Because his stroke caused him to acquire a condition known as global aphasia, he no longer has the ability to communicate using language. So, he can no longer read, write, speak, or understand language, with the exception of simple phrases written on a whiteboard. It is easier for him to understand third-person language rather than first-person language. So, this was why I chose to use my first name rather than a pronoun when talking about myself. Is There Something Wrong With Me?: In times like this, I wonder if there is something wrong with me. When my Haw-Bu passed away, I never grieved. I never even shed a single tear. In fact, all of the sadness I experienced after her passing was caused by my Gung-Gung's sadness & grief. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have experienced any sadness at all. How is it possible that she was my grandma & I don't miss her? There have even been times where I have wondered what it was about my Haw-Bu that my Gung-Gung was attracted to. What did he love about her? Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad for their absolutely incredible love story, for without their love story, I wouldn't exist. But, I could never relate to my Haw-Bu & many of the interactions I had with her were beyond frustrating, leaving me feeling flustered & misunderstood. I spoke at my Haw-Bu's celebration of life that my family held after her passing, but I had a lot of trouble writing the words I was going to say to my family & to my grandparents' friends. Much of the reason I spoke had to do with the fact that my brother & my cousins were speaking, so I felt like I needed to speak also. I was my Haw-Bu's oldest grandchild, as well as her only granddaughter, after all. But, how do you speak about someone who you were supposed to have had a relationship with, but didn't? I feel so guilty that I feel this way. In the end, though, my speech did make it sound like my Haw-Bu & I had a very close relationship. Many of her friends came up to me afterwards & made comments about how great it was that I had such a close relationship with my Haw-Bu. I felt like I had just lied to almost everyone in that room though, which was crushing. One thing that differentiated my celebration of life speech from the speeches of my Haw-Bu's daughters & grandsons was my speech didn't mention cooking or food. At all. My Haw-Bu loved cooking & the way she showed love was by feeding you. Food wasn't my love language. In fact, the amount of time she spent in the kitchen & the fact that she was always trying to feed me was quite annoying. This was particularly frustrating because most of the time she tried to feed me, I didn't feel like eating & forcing myself to eat to make her happy was terribly painful. I eat food because I need to in order to continue to be alive. I don't eat food because I enjoy eating it, especially because I almost never have a good appetite. I know that this isn't how most people think about food. I've always felt that if my Haw-Bu had spent a lot less time in the kitchen during visits, I would've been able to have a relationship with her. For one of my brother's birthdays when he was younger, he asked our Haw-Bu to cook him & some of his friends a Chinese feast. I wouldn't have ever dreamed of doing such a thing because I always wished she would spend quality time with me, outside of the kitchen. I wanted this from the time I was young child until she passed away & I never got it. I wrote more about how grief affects me & other autistic people in my prior blog post entitled Autism & Grief, if you'd like to read that prior blog post. Conclusion: All in all, this past Thursday was a good day. Everything went almost perfectly. I was impressed by the number of people who walked past my Gung-Gung & me sitting on the bridge who said hello to him using his name. That meant all of those people know his name even though his language abilities are very limited. (I usually spend most of my time inside my Gung-Gung's apartment when I visit.) One of the things that made my Haw-Bu hesitant about moving here was that no one here would've known my Gung-Gung before he had his stroke. But, in a building like this, he's getting much more social interaction than he ever got in his stand alone house in California. In fact, I even explained that Gung-Gung means maternal grandfather in Chinese to one of my Gung-Gung's friends who walked by. This particular friend saw the whiteboard that was lying in my lap that read Kim♥ Gung-Gung & asked me what a Gung-Gung was. Some time ago, my parents' financial guy had made an offer to assist my brother & I if we ever wanted it. My mom took me to see him today because for awhile now, I've had concerns about having too much money in the bank. The reason why? I'm in my thirties now & I have barely spent any money ever since I started earning it when I was a teenager. In simpler terms, I'm really, really, really good at saving money. This Is Why I'm Such A Money Saver: I cannot depend on myself to make money. I became very aware when I was looking for my first "real" job after college that no one wanted to hire me. I don't blame them because if I was someone who was in the hiring position, I wouldn't want to hire myself either, as sad as that is to admit. I really, really, REALLY struggled with this. I was raised in an Asian & a Jewish household. I believe that those two backgrounds expect more from their children than any other background does. I even struggled emotionally that I went to a lowly state school rather than a college that was more highly respected. How many high school seniors get into every single one of the colleges they apply to? 🙋🏻♀️ I didn't have any reach schools & I didn't take any AP classes in high school because I wouldn't have been able to handle the pressure of either one of those things. Ever since I graduated from college ten years ago, I have had an intense amount of pressure put on me by my family & by myself to achieve things that were just not attainable. That really ate away at my self-esteem. My self-esteem wasn't good before this, but this made it a whole lot worse. For many years, my parents would say to me, "Aren't you scared about what's gonna happen to you when we die? Don't you want to make a living?" And for years, I avoided answering that question because I had no answer that would be acceptable to them, no answer that would be acceptable to me. The truth was, I was petrified & I still am. But, until I received my autism diagnosis last year, I had no understanding about why I was never able to reach the types of goals I went to college to achieve, why I am a college-educated person who can't support myself. It was EXTRAORDINARILY frustrating. College & Financial Independence: Achieving financial independence is what everyone strives for & it is a big reason why many high school graduates go on to college, isn't it? Well, let me tell you this. A college education doesn't buy you financial independence. It just doesn't. What a college education buys you is simply that: a college education. Yes, many jobs require a college degree & having a college degree can get you a higher salary than you would've had without one, but having a college degree doesn't get you a job. That was one of the first lessons I learned when my college commencement was upon me. I was an art & graphic design major, so my mom suggested that I call several design firms in the Boston area to see if they were hiring. Trying to be a good daughter, I unhappily obliged. I've always had problems talking to people & making phone calls to people I don't know personally causes anxiety on such a high level that I can't put it into words. None of the design firms I called were hiring, which surprisingly gave me great relief. This was something I never expected, but I knew it was because of the feelings of panic I endured when I thought about life after college. My college experience was absolutely terrible, so the whole four years I was there, I kept thinking that things would get better once I graduated. Well, they didn't. I believe that in general, companies want to hire people who:
I Wasn't Made For The Corporate World!:
Both corporate environments & supervisors, whether I'm interviewing or working at a job, cause me to freeze, become nonverbal, get tongue-tied, panic, act in unexpected ways, & a plethora of other things that give a bad impression. Whenever I try to explain this to people, they just don't get it. Most people work because they have to, not because they want to & they do what they have to do to make a living. But, if all of those things have always happened to me when I'm either interviewing for a job or working for a supervisor, how is that going to work? Job Interview Experiences: I have been told so many times to just practice, practice, practice. But, I believe that in this instance, practice isn't going to help. There's no reasoning with anxiety & until I have reached a specific required comfort level with the person who is interviewing me (something that both takes a very, very long time & isn't possible), everything I've hypothetically practiced will just go out the window at the time I need it most. Plus, that's not even taking into consideration that if I don't actually want the job, I'm not going to be able to convince someone else that I want the job. Now, if you're thinking, "How could you not want the job?!" Wanting the job & wanting money are two totally different things. I have never interviewed for a job that I wanted because every job that I've ever interviewed for was a job that I believed I was better off without. Experiences In The Workforce: I strongly believe that I have never been a good employee, so that in turn makes me not a good employee. I know now that much of this has to do with being an unawarely autistic employee. I have been told the following things from various supervisors:
What I Need In A Job: If I'm not able to be in control of when, how, where, for who, & with who I'm working all of the time, it's not going to work for me. I know that chances are, unless you're self-employed, you don't control all of those things. For an autistic person, not having control of all or at least the most important of those things all the time will cause autistic burnout. This is why many autistic people:
Autistic Burnout Is: The complete physical & mental exhaustion that autistic people experience from trying to live in a neurotypical world &/or from masking their autistic traits too often. This is often a problem for autistic people in the workplace & is often why they often don't have enough sick time or their job performance might be lower than it should be. 💔💔 This is the heartbreaking reality for many autistic people out there & this is why we need more support. 💔💔 My dogs are a breed that requires grooming because they have hair that grows rather than fur that sheds. They typically go to the grooming salon every eight to twelve weeks. Now, those of you who don't have dogs might not be aware of this, but most grooming salons keep dogs in crates for hours until it is his or her turn to get groomed. Because of this, dogs are typically at the salon all day long. I think this is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. I've brought my ten-year-old dog, Teddy to the same grooming salon ever since he was a tiny puppy, so that's how my expectations of dog groomers were set. This particular groomer took dogs by appointment only & Teddy never took longer than an hour to be finished. Once I had two dogs, they took an hour & a half to be finished. Last year, this groomer who was located about thirty minutes away from us ended up relocating to a town that was another thirty minutes away from us. She later had to close down completely due to medical reasons. My Journey Finding A New Grooming Salon: This was no fun task, particularly for an undiagnosed autistic woman like myself who dislikes change & is extraordinarily picky when it comes to her dogs' care. Seriously, NO ONE can do it right. This is also why I rarely travel. I don't trust anyone to take care of my dogs. Grooming Salon #1: We tried this salon a little over a year & seven months ago when our groomer had COVID & our normal salon suggested we give them a call. They also suggested that we stay with them if we like them, but my response was, "No way, we like you too much!" We didn't know our groomer was planning to relocate at this point, but now them making this suggestion makes a lot of sense. The groomer there barely cut their hair even though I gave her a reference photo, so Teddy & Ollie walked out looking almost exactly the way they looked when they walked in. This salon typically keeps dogs there for way longer than I'm comfortable with, but because they knew we had anxious dogs & both my mom & I were stressed over it, they told us that they would get them done as quickly as possible, which they did. It only took two hours. I knew they couldn't do that if we were regular clients, so this salon wasn't an option. Grooming Salon #2: One of my dog sitting clients takes her dogs to this salon & it is run by appointment, like I am used to. I brought my dogs here a few times & while they looked super duper cute after their cuts, there were several things about this salon that made me a little uneasy:
Grooming Salon #3: This salon was a salon that I had preconceived notions about because I know a lot of people who bring their dogs here. I absolutely DID NOT want my dogs to get groomed at this salon because of how uncomfortable it made me. The reason I was so uncomfortable was because one of my neighbors told me that their dog took four & a half hours here. My neighbor's dog is only slightly larger than my boys, so how long it takes to groom her should be comparable. ⭐️⭐️ Once an autistic person has preconceived notions about something, it is absolutely impossible to change her or his mind! Many neurotypical people think this is stubbornness, but I can tell you it is not stubbornness. This is in fact autism at its finest & it makes me just as uncomfortable as it makes you. ⭐️⭐️ I'll never forget the day that my mom called me to tell me that she thinks we should bring the boys here for grooming. She was trying to convince me that this salon was just perfect. It was clean, well-decorated, & obviously very well taken care of. The woman she talked to was nice, friendly, & helpful. I was not convinced, but not only that, I was furiously mad. Remember, you can't change an autistic person's mind once (s)he has preconceived notions about something (see above↑)! My mom told me I should stop by to see it for myself because she was impressed. So, I stopped by on my way to my client's house who lives just down the street from this salon. Stopping by solidified my negative feelings about this salon. When I got there, it was super hectic, which didn't give me a good first impression. Hectic environments are always a turnoff for me (that's my autism speaking again). But, here's what really made me upset:
My Experience Taking My Dogs To Grooming Salon #3:
My experience taking my dogs to this salon was just horrible. I felt like I was the only one who felt this way though because almost everyone else I know who uses them just LOVES them. I'm used to this though & that's another autistic trait— my opinion often differs from everyone else's. I used to look forward to Teddy & Ollie having grooming appointments. They both looked so dapper afterwards! But, now I dreaded grooming days. I usually had knots in my stomach that started anywhere from a week before the appointment to a day before the appointment. I knew my dogs were crated here, which really bothered me. I know that small dogs like mine are safer in a crate, but what I wanted in a grooming salon was for it to be safe for my dogs to not be crated. Plus, I needed predictability & I never knew how long they were going to take. Predictably is very important to autistic people & unpredictability drives us crazy. I couldn't handle the unpredictability of bringing my dogs here. Also, I am so attached to my dogs that if I'm home & my dogs aren’t, I am very distraught. So, I needed a distraction the entire time my dogs were there. That wasn’t possible. I based my tip on how long my dogs took. If they took two hours or less, I gave a 20% tip & if they took any longer than that I gave a lower tip. Since I've always paid for both dogs, my mom has told me how much to tip. We've brought them here several times & they only took less than two hours once. That was the only time I gave the tip my mom suggested. I was always in such a bad mood on grooming days that it caused me to get into these really bad arguments with my mom & I would snap over the most minuscule of things. Thinking back, I think there wasn't a single time my dogs got groomed at this salon where this didn’t happen. I knew I couldn’t continue bringing my dogs here. It just wasn’t good for me, or for anyone. But, it was important to me that both dogs got groomed together & because of that, I had no other choice. I HATED it. This is a very good example of how I feel so unheard & like my opinion & my feelings don't matter. The fact that I downright HATED this salon didn't matter to my mom & that hurt. Finding Grooming Salon #4 😇: My mom called me one morning a little less than a week ago & said to me, "I found a grooming salon you'll LOVE! I know what you like & you'll love both the salon & the groomer here." Unlike the time she called me to tell me about Grooming Salon #3, the vibe I got from her that morning was completely different. I totally trusted my mom this time, so there was absolutely no convincing needed. But, she wanted to bring me & the pups to this salon to see it & to meet the groomer. This salon was perfect. I LOVEd the groomer, too. She also listened to us when we told her that the easiest way to tell our dogs apart is by their tails. The salon was clean & well taken care of. The groomer had her Cavalier with her that day, but also had a Bichon at home that she takes with her sometimes, too. We let Teddy & Ollie run around in the grooming area & they both looked happy. They were probably super confused as to why they were at a grooming salon & left without a haircut though. They both hate getting groomed! Our First Appointment At Grooming Salon #4: We went to visit the salon this past Wednesday & we booked an appointment for this morning, the following Tuesday. We also cancelled yesterday’s appointment we had scheduled for our dogs at Grooming Salon #3. I was beyond excited for that. The groomer brought her Bichon with her today because she remembered that I made a comment last week about how our dogs love other small, white dogs. She also knew which dog was Teddy & which one was Ollie immediately, so she remembered how to tell them apart by their tails. I gave her a reference photo of a haircut they had at our original groomer & they both came out looking super duper cute. Their hair wasn't cut short enough, but it usually isn't on a first visit to a new salon. That can be easily fixed though. How long did it take us to find this salon? Slightly less than a year & seven months. I'm hopeful that we'll continue to be happy here. Did almost no salon fit my needs because I'm autistic? I don't know, but I think that's quite possibly the case. That's also why I told you all this. To show you how being autistic can complicate someone's life & to show you just how frustrating & aggravating it can be. |
AuthorHello! My name is Kim, I didn't know I was autistic until I was in my thirties, & this is my story. Categories
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May 2024
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