Can you really choose the people you surround yourself with?

A common phrase we often hear from NT's is "You cannot choose your biological family, but you can choose the people you surround yourself with..." Which goes to say that you have the ultimate control over who is in your life and who is not. Umm... really? Cause as an autistic adult I have never found any statement to be more wrong, confusing and stressful than this one. And here's why.

Ever since I was little, I didn't really care who is in my life. It didn't really matter and everybody looked the same to me, I could not tell who was different and in which way. I remember distinctly in high school having a black classmate (which is a very rate thing in Greece) and it never dawned me as something noteworthy or even noticeable until somebody else mentioned it. Same thing happened when I met people with physical disabilities, different stylistic choices etc. It's not that I didn't notice or that I didn't care, it's just that it didn't dawn on me that this is something I should care and I should keep in my head under a label called "different", because apparently it's important that this person is in a way different. I always say that back then it was physically impossible for me to be racist, because it just didn't matter to me what everybody else did and looked like.

Having said that, there were also a variety of other things I couldn't (and sometimes still can't for a long time) tell about people. Who was nice. Who was mean. Why is this person considered nice and the other one mean. Who could be my friend and who could hurt me. What to do to make the right choices concerning the people who will surround me and how to get rid of someone that is not good for me. And this, in today's society, is a very dangerous thing to be.

Whenever I am in a social situation, I never know what to do. And it seems like when you don't know what to do, you rarely have a choice on who you are going to surround yourself with. Looking back at my life, all the friendships and relationships that I had was either because a) somebody took me under their wing and "let" me be their friend or b) told me how to be in a relationship/friendship, was my relationship coach if you will. Not only that, but I did not seem to have the ability to get rid of the poeple I didn't want/weren't good for me from my life. No matter how bad a person was, if they were familiar, they automatically became good. I don't know if that makes sense to anybody else but, for me, there were times in my life where hostile familiarity was more appealing that a potential future nice friend that I didn' know/had to get used to.

And somehow like this, I always end up crossing my fingers and wishing that some "cool kid" will talk to me and bother talking to me enough to realise that we could actually be friends. And then the next step is crossing my fingers that that said "cool kid" doesn't turn to be an a****le. And then I end up still crossing my fingers wishing that said cool kid won't get bored of me and want to move on, because then I will have lost my only chance to have a friend.

I know that sounds pathetic and that it makes me sound really passive, when I am really not. I am a really strong person that will fight for what she wants, when it comes to ANYTHING ELSE but personal relationships. And it's not like I don't WANT to be more active in my personal relationships is that I don't know HOW to be, when everything I do to approach people is going to be either awkward, weird, too forward, not forward enough or even inappropriate at times. And I might do the exact same thing an NT will and still do it wrong for some reason... It must have something to do with that darn body language that I can't seem to be able to crack. I think something about me just screams "weird". And I end up either alone, or in the mercy of the people who will bother themselves enough to deal with me.

If you are an NT you cannot possibly know how it's like to live like this every day and to constantly feel threatened and worried about everybody and everything. To be too trusting and open or to be so hurt that you are paranoid and suspicious of everybody and everything. And above all else, you don't really know how it's like to feel that you don't have any control over who gets in and out of your life. But if you are an aspie, then hopefully you know what I am talking about and I can relate. If you do. just know that you are not alone. And let's all hope that the world will soon be a safer and more accepting place for us all...

The right to be and look different

New Year's resolutions is one of the few "trends" I tend to like. I always made lists of resolutions for the new years for things I wanted to do. I always started very passionately doing them in all through January but then life happened, anxiety happened and I always, slowly but surely started prioritising coping over living, because that's where my life seemed to be leading me.

All these were thoughts I had all through the holidays, alongside deciding what my resolutions are going to be this year. I started looking back at my life and trying to find what was missing, what did I need to decide to do in order to keep my anxiety levels low enough so that life is actually "livable". And then it hit me: the answer was shockingly simple, as much as it was obvious.

I NEEDED TO BE MORE AUTISTIC.

I realised that over the years I slowly prioritised how other people viewed me, or what they expected of me. And because some of these people were always in my life and in my few everyday interactions, I slowly starting endorsing their views of me and started viewing myself as they viewed me. And that was, sadly, normalising. I started endorsing the view that in order to be successful at my job I have to look and behave a certain way. And that way of behaving was skyrocketing my anxiety levels over the roof before even leaving the house! This could not go on for much longer, if I wanted to maintain my sanity.

And what is even worse, I realised that other people started viewing me as a "normal" person. They started to have expectations of me to behave like everybody else. That I could cope with things that they knew I couldn't in the past, to "grow out" of certain behaviours, to be socially graceful and smiling and polite. And with the holidays being a period of way too many social gatherings, that started slowly sucking me in. I started not only wearing a mask, but becoming the mask I was wearing.

The most ridiculous part of it all is that everything started off of my getting my degree and my future career prospects. My "career" (god I HATE that word!) is based on my being different, which is what inspired it, what's maintaining it and what is going be its fuel for the rest of my life. I want to work with people that are different because I get people that are different and I feel I am my best when interacting with them. That is why I work with people on the autism spectrum and I am certain that, in one way or another, I am going to continue doing something autism related for the rest of my life. Which is why I find the notion of being someone else in order to be successful at something I am good at because I am who I am, utterly ridiculous.

So I started wondering how I could do that, how I could be more autistic. Immediately heaps of "red flags" started popping in my head from things I do or have to do that need a more "autism friendly" makeover. I started making lists, arrangements, decisions, plans. I organised everything and I was very satisfied with the result. And then it hit me... What if my resolution doesn't make it past January this year either? What if "life happens" again and I mess everything up one more time? How can I prevent that from happening, when the reason that it doesn't happen is because people expect me to do things I am simply not capable of? When people expect me to be someone else?

And then the answer was simple: well, I needed to look different too. I obviously can't show my autism, but if I can change something in my appearance so that everybody else thinks "she's not quite like everybody else", maybe then everybody will stop treating me like this "perfect little girl" I am not and start treating me like the messed up awesomeness that I am. Maybe I can get people to be biased into perceiving me as different by the way I look. And if that is indeed so, doesn't it worth the effort?

So I dyed my hair pink and pierced my nose. I know it's not much and it doesn't really scream "autism" (which isn't what I was going for anyway), but hopefully it does send a message to people along the intended lines. And, as I expected, it did to some and I did get told that people are going to take me "less seriously" now. That I am not going to be successfully academically or in my career, just because I mildly altered my style. I laughed at the stereotypes coming up and I realised that what I wanted to do does indeed work. People do indeed treat me differently with my new look (thankfully nobody I work with has shown any negative reactions yet, but I am lucky to work in an environment very respectful of individual differences). My autistic brain finds it completely baffling and ridiculous, but it is a sociological observation nevertheless. 

I don't mind. After all, if people don't think someone with pink hair can produce good quality academic research and do a job she has qualifications on effectively, then there's no hope for anybody slightly different to ever survive in this world. These kinds of stereotypes need to be pushed and questioned. And they need to be questioned for the sake of everyone who is slightly different in whatever way, by choice or not. People need to start looking and behaving more like the way they WANT to and less like clones or copies of something. And those who can assist that societal change in any way, especially if it means they are going to start being more like themselves, I think they have the moral obligation to do so.

Nobody should feel afraid or threatened to accept their individual differences. Nobody should feel that they have to be someone other than who they are in order to do something they want to or they are good at, even more so if that has to do with paid employment (which will grant them financial independence, a crucial step towards somebody's well-being) or personal aspirations and dreams. Not at this day and age... So no, I will not compromise. I will look slightly different so that I can constantly remind people that I AM different, and not slightly. AND THAT'S FINE. In fact in my world, that's freaking celebrated. Peace out.