Oh so first off. FUCK MARK ZUCKERBURG you slimy piece of shit. no i will not spell your name correctly. fuck the endless scroll algorithm and fuck meta.

Secondly, since we’ve made autism a meme I forgot that it wasn’t just hehe funny and that this genuinely impacts every aspect of my life.

THIRD fucking ly. Did you know that ONE OUT OF THIRTY ONE CHILDREN IN THE US HAS AUTISM. that’s a lot of fucking people.

Bruh. like all of this makes sense.

people would talk about the feelings of burnout and i’d be like yeah that happens to me every month. and by the end of senior year in high school, every week. and by the end of senior year in college, every day.

and i remember looking into the face of the DUS of architecture after i gave the worst presentation of my academic career. my thesis presentation. on 3 hours of sleep. face caked in makeup to cover my stress-eczema.

and he, who had written his dissertation chapters by hand, looked at me and he saw it. the misery. the exhaustion.

he saw it and he said good job. but the good job wasn’t on the presentation, surely not. the good job was dripping in sadness and it was almost a question.

it was a “hey, you know you’re not stupid right?”

it was a “you’re not going to die are you?”

or mayve it was a “good job at staying alive”.

because he saw that staying alive for me was a manual job. stick shift. changing gears, getting stuck at a light with the car stalling, backsliding by the stop sign at the top of a hill.

so yes i am on the spectrum. i find social interactions challenging. i find that i get very easily overwhelmed but i mask A LOT so i don’t realize until way after and then i crash HARD. and I crash in a way that makes me unable to control anything. it just collapses into a puddle of tears.

and this has put in me in harms way A FUCKING LOT. the assault, the self-harm, the fucking psychological torture is all tied to the fact that at least half of every year from age 8-22 was spent in complete fucking misery, isolation, and confusion.

EVERYTHING FELT FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLE, almost all the time. the only time it didn’t was when people shut the fuck up (gymnastics, dance, listening to music, etc).

New things are confusing and hard to adapt to. And when you have a multicultural family who have absolutely no idea how to interact with you or who you are then life becomes a constant explanation or comparison and you CANNOT LIVE. and then you realize you don’t know how to interact with them either. and your parents can’t help you because you raised yourself in isolation on the internet and inside your house burning sticky notes and listening to melanie martinez.

so then everything feels NEW ALL THE TIME. because there is NO HOME BASE.

nobody gives you a fucking handbook. they just tell you the rules after you fuck up. and you’re expected to adapt to things they never fucking taught you. and you’re expected to perfectly perform social norms that the very people who raised you fucking rejected because THEY L:EFT THEIR OWN HOME.

THE REASON WHY I DON’T KNOW THE FUCKING RULES IS BECAUSE I DIDN’T GROW UP THERE BECAUSE YOU LEFT.

but even if you perfect constant adaptation. 3/4 of your mental energy spent filing away the ever-changing handbook rules. you’re rewarded with a lifetime of tears that no one cares to ask about.

because it’s dramatic. because you could never understand real pain.

NEWS FLASH, if it feels like you’re dying, your body stores that like you are fucking dying.

That’s why you feel like a 65 year old 20-something. that’s why there are days that are debilitating with no explanation.

and now i’m realizing that if the great unmasking has to occur, it will be so lonely. because i am in fact the result of THREE DIFFERENT FUCKING PLACES. the only person that can satisfy my tastes is ME.

so what the fuck am i supposed to do? of course i will never shut up about how immigration and multicultural identities are fucking hard and PAINFUL. they are not something to be glamorized (dare i say it’s only glamorized by people who have money because they have access to mobility which allows them to visit their homes more often)

the globalized world is an apple peeler that is cutting under your skin constantly. and when you think someone has stopped spinning the crank, that your skin will be able to heal, they just switch direction and start cutting into your flesh.

WHEN WILL IT STOP. not through death, i very much want to live, so aggressively sometimes it’s all i think about. Living freely, fully.

i guess i truly just have to make art and help others organize for decolonial socialism. who i am is just what i choose to do now, that makes it easier.