I Love Who We Are

Can you shrug it off?

by Sam

Someone interested in learning about the effect that microaggressions have on neurodiverse people asked me if microaggressions impact how I feel later in the day and if I can shrug them off. This was my thoughts about that.

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Since I am autistic and have multiple mental disabilities, my life is a carefully constructed series of systems that I need to abide by to keep myself happy, healthy, and able to function. When micro-aggressions and discrimination happen, it takes my beautifully set up house of cards and just flicks it off the table. Because it’s just a house of cards. I can build another one! No big deal. And that constant dismantling and need to rebuild is invisible, too. So people tend to expect you to take the hit and just keep going, with no regard for the deeply cyclical burden it puts on you.

These things are compounding. I just don’t feel it later that day, I feel it cumulatively throughout life. I feel it the next time I’m in a similar situation, and sometimes I have trauma activated by it. I feel it as a persistent thing that just keeps happening. Sometimes, it can feel like fighting off a bunch of enemies like a Marvel movie and being like, wow that was ridiculous, but I did pretty good, okay. Sometimes it can feel like being in a room slowly being filled with water and trying to shovel it out by the bucket-full. The fill is slow so if you keep up on your bucket work, you’ll be allright. But if you rest too long or stop being vigilant, you’re back to an emergency situation. And it just never ends. Your entire life becomes about strategically planning when and how you’ll do everything else while still planning for this whole “I’m at constant risk of drowning” situation. And the response if you ask for help? Well, you seem to be doing good with that bucket! Well, you can swim. Okay, not the point. And besides, my ankle is chained to this floor, if you cared to look.

There’s a real The Body Keeps Score kind of thing going on, if that makes sense. It’s not just about the moment that it happens. It’s about how you wish that moment was really just a moment. But it’s not. It’s a symptom of a larger societal issue, and it’s exhausting. It’s rare that I can shrug it off. I can move on, sure. I can cope all right. But I’d like to have real rest, and, the emotional toll of ableism and constant micro-aggressions is you remain constantly reminded of the fact that rest is not available and rescue is not coming for you. There are those days that you feel on top of it or like you accomplished something, but you look over and see you’ve navigated through maze 2 out of 58,687,942.

And then someone has the audacity to say to you that you’re, “doing great” or that you’re “really an inspiration” and you just think. Allright. That’s 2 out of 58,687,944.

You realize you’re just never getting out of it. And then you just have to find a way to like where you are. Make it a home. Like. Decorating a prison cell. It’s still a prison cell, yeah, but at least I embroidered something. It becomes less about finding a way to “overcome” the ableism and, more so, just deciding that the barriers designed to keep you down just aren’t relevant or worth depleting yourself over. Because you have a limited life! Don’t you deserve joy? Why stress yourself fighting a system that you really can’t beat? That mindset can be really, really hard to escape. And I don’t think I’m at all alone in feeling that way.

Focus on what you can control, isn’t that what the advice says?

But, who wants to live in a prison cell?

I don’t.

And in truth, I’m not in a prison cell, right? Like I’ve decided to not put myself there and not play the above game. But, emotionally, that’s what it feels like. It’s pervasive, compounding, and lasting. Small actions via micro-aggressions aren’t small and don’t have just a day-of impact when they’re your entire life. I think this is one of the things that people really don’t understand about micro-aggressions. They say, well, it was just one sentence. How bad can it be? But that one sentence reminds you of how the world sees you. And you hear that one sentence thousands of times. And it just starts to feel like well, this is the world. This is where I’m stuck and it will never change.

So, when you do find those people who don’t say those sentences to you, it’s a wonderful experience. And it reminds you when that happens that oh yeah, actually, people don’t have to be bigoted. They don’t have to say those sentences. They’re choosing to. Choosing to not be thoughtful. Choosing to not care. Choosing to not listen. And, well, in that case, I can choose to not give them the time of day or power over my life.