Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your late-in-life realized autistic mask
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your late-in-life realized autistic mask
I built up a tower of resentment for my mother; brick by brick. She did what she thought would be best to allow me to survive in this sexist ableist world. These are the costs…
TW: sexism, ableism, sexual violence, genocide, anti-semitism, blood quantum, intergenerational trauma, sexual shame
From an early age, I was taught my body and movements were wrong in every way.
I built up a tower of resentment for my mother; brick by brick. She did what she thought would be best, allowing me to survive in this sexist ableist world. These are the costs.
Despite our proud gypsy heritage, she didn’t foresee me eventually Rapunzel-ing myself into it. My family held a grudge against me for space I required to recharge and regulate. They didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. For having my own body and demanding it take up space. That the space my body took required time away from their bodies. That no matter what I did my body could not withstand the social requirements they expected of me.
They didn’t know any better. They only knew what they knew. Autism is genetic, ya know. Autism is passed down to children like me by parents who also never received a diagnosis, and were, thus, forced into the applied behavioral therapies of cruel and inequitable normative societies.
Societies built long before any of us got here, that people like us were not human, and had to assimilate or else we were just ugly enough to label, experiment on, and then, murder.
Some of us they labeled with red rectangles before placing us into the gas chambers. Others of us, they simply murdered on sight. We had to become profitable to capitalism.
It was in our blood to learn: survive. To hide our natural selves. We became white, so that we weren’t murdered in cold blood.
For my bloodline, by the late 90s, my mother began scolding me for approaching puberty. I wouldn’t be allowed to run around like a wild Tarzan child in the jungle of our living room without a shirt on anymore. Not in front of my dad. That would be obscene. I was 9. My parents were 51. They only knew what they knew. Everything became normal in repetition.
I built up a tower of resentment for my mother; brick by brick. She did what she thought would be best, allowing me to survive in this sexist ableist world. These are the costs.
Despite our proud gypsy heritage, she didn’t foresee me eventually Rapunzel-ing myself into it. My family held a grudge against me for space. My family held a grudge against me for space I required to recharge and regulate. They didn’t understand. I didn’t understand.
When I was young enough to barely know better, my older sister wrote me a long patronizing email about how I should dress appropriately around her fiancé, our uncle, and my own dad. They were only men, she said. They couldn’t control themselves, she said. I was 10. She was 21. I didn’t know better. She didn’t know better. We only knew what we knew. Anything becomes normal in repetition.
I was taught my kid chest was inappropriate for family company before my first period.
I built up a tower of resentment for my sister; brick by brick. She did what she thought would be best, allowing me to survive in this sexist ableist world. These are the costs.
Despite our proud gypsy heritage, she didn’t foresee me eventually Rapunzel-ing myself into it. My family held a grudge against me for space. My family held a grudge against me for space I required to recharge and regulate. They didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. These are the costs.
These are three instances in a childhood of suppressed vivid memories of only being able to act like who I actually am in private. Special times where I could emote and play. Tap my feet into rhythmically tile patterned geometries, making sure never to step on the cracks. I could sing, and express what I now know was echolalia, only if someone wasn’t home, or nearby me.
Eventually, I was shamed so heavily I ran to my room whenever a parent came home.
They taught me my body was wrong, and home wasn’t home, only for me. I wasn’t allowed to be who I am. I wasn’t allowed to take off my mask anywhere. My bodily natures, hyper-focus, replicating voices and character lines from cartoons in their exact pitch, not sucking in my relaxed belly, farting, all unacceptable for my body to do.
I built up a tower of resentment for my mother; brick by brick. She did what she thought would be best, to allow me to survive in this sexist ableist world. Despite our proud gypsy heritage, she didn’t foresee me eventually Rapunzel-ing myself into it. My family held a grudge against me for making my space. My family held a grudge against me for space I required to recharge and regulate. They didn’t understand. I didn’t understand.
Nine out of every ten autistic feminine folks experiences sexual violence. Technologies have biases built into them as features in explicit and implicit ways. Humans as media, leaking into their creations. The twisted irony here is the only word autocorrect thinks the name “Rapunzel” could possibly be is “rape”.