Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The great global redistributor we never hear about: money sent or brought back by migrants (January 13, via) "According to the UN, migrant workers send back about 15% of their earnings on average. But even a little money from rich countries can make a big difference in poorer ones. For example, 15% of the average annual income in the United States is nearly twice the average annual income in Colombia."

2. The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing (January, via) "But I think a second, larger reason is that misophonia is weird. It’s hard to explain and difficult to understand and doesn’t make any intuitive sense. After all, everyone hates the sound of chewing."

3. Democrats unveil legislation raising federal minimum wage to $17 an hour (April 8) It's a good idea. I'm skeptical about its chances of passing though.

4. Pulling Out The Big Guns For Needle Phobia In An Insane World Where Nobody Seems To Take It Seriously (February 20) I'm linking this because, I don't have needle phobia but I have similar things... This post takes it seriously and gives extremely practical suggestions, which is really rare to see. Usually people just treat you like you're being silly and making a big deal for no reason, and everything would be fine if you would just "relax."

5. Tidy Profit: Camera Captures the Cleaners Changing Lives (April 16) An article about women in China working as domestic workers (they are called "ayis" in China). We have an ayi who works for us, to take care of our baby while we're at work. (This is common in China because there aren't really daycares for infants.) She also does housework. In China if you can afford it, it really helps a lot to have an ayi.

6. Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America’s Taxpayers (April 17) "Instead, it continued cajoling lawmakers and the White House into forcing millions of Americans to shell out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to file with expensive and confusing tax prep software."

7. Holy Saturday (April 17) "And now it’s Saturday and Jesus is dead and we’re all going to die and everything I’ve told you about him turns out to be in vain and everything I’ve staked my life on turns out to be in vain. Our faith is futile and we’re still hopeless in our sins. Jesus is dead and we are of all people most to be pitied."

8. Life and Living Not Death and Dying (April 17) "Christian theologians from multiple marginalized communities have spent years critiquing a theology that centers the good news on Jesus’ suffering rather than how life triumphed over suffering by undoing, overturning, and reversing that death."

Related to that: Good Friday Without Divine Violence (April 17) 

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. The Trump Administration Threat To Transgender Adult Care Is Growing At Lightning Speed (April 16) 

Also from Erin in the Morning: Washington State Passes Bill To Cover Some 12-Month Hormone Therapy Stockpiles (April 17) This is good news for trans people in Washington state. The thing that really surprised me was, it says actually hormone replacement therapy is usually for other health issues (menopause, etc)- trans people are only a small fraction of the people who need this kind of medical care.

2. THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST (April 3) "Figure out what your lane is. Then figure out who is local to you and already doing some of that work. How can you be useful? How can you extend existing efforts? How can you show up and raise hell? Do something."

3. 'Homegrowns are next': Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad (April 16) WTF. And remember, he sent immigrants there without showing any proof that they were "gang members." He also wants to send US citizens there without showing any such evidence.

4. Trump exploiting antisemitism fears to undermine rule of law, warns Jewish coalition (April 16) "'Our safety as Jews has always been tied to the rule of law, to the safety of others, to the strength of civil society, and to the protection of rights and liberties for all,' reads the statement."

5. In the middle of a hepatitis outbreak, U.S. shutters the one CDC lab that could help (April 16)

6. Confusion reigns as asylum seekers who used CBP One receive notices to leave U.S. within 7 days (April 16) "'We have families who said ‘well, I’m just going to hide, because I can’t go back to my home country, I will be killed, so I prefer to hide,’' she said."

7. U.S.-born American citizen under ICE hold in Florida is released (April 18)

8. Exclusive: Senator Chris Van Hollen talks with Rachel Maddow live from El Salvador (April 17)

And: A Maryland senator visits his wrongfully deported constituent in El Salvador (April 17) "'I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,' Van Hollen wrote on X. 'Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.'"

Top 20 Posts From 2018

A cat happily standing on a laptop keyboard. Image source.

Happy 2019, everyone! It's a new year! So here's my round-up of the top posts from 2018, here on Tell Me Why The World Is Weird.

Top 5 posts by pageviews:

1. Globophobia "In reality, the efforts to 'desensitize' me to loud sounds communicated to me that my pain didn't matter. That I would just have to accept it when something hurts me, and I shouldn't react or expect other people to care."

And part 2: "But in college I finally surrendered all to Jesus, and I accepted what everyone else had been telling me for my whole life: It's wrong for me to protect myself. It's wrong for me to expect people to care about my pain. It's wrong for me to claim I have needs different from those of a 'normal person.'"

2. Dr. Strange's Ways Are Higher Than Our Ways "It’s too easy. Too convenient. This line of thinking can be used to excuse any kind of atrocity."

3. Feminism 101: Toxic Masculinity and Fragile Masculinity "Really? Masculinity, which is supposedly so strong and tough, can be destroyed by the mere act of holding a purse?"

4. Asexual and "Impure" "Worked so hard fighting my desires, couldn't even let my guard down enough to actually feel those desires and realize none of them were sexual attraction."

5. They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie. "Better to just pretend that my vulva doesn't exist- that's what a good, pure girl does, right?"

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And here are a few other good posts from the year:

1. "How Far Is Too Far?" My Story, And What I Wish I'd Known "Like... the idea that I could write you a few lists of all the physical things we did in each of these relationships, and that you could learn anything meaningful from that information alone... that's absurd. It's laughable. But that's the entire focus of purity culture. How far? How far?"

2. From "Virtues Morality" To "Boundaries Morality" "Virtues morality isn't able to diagnose situations where it's not worth your time and effort to 'help others' because you already tried to help but they refused to cooperate, or where your attempts to 'help' aren't going to work anyway, or where people aren't treating you right and therefore they don't deserve your help, or where it comes at such a huge personal cost to you that it's not healthy."

3. Reading US History Inerrantly "And just as I had trained myself to read about the Canaanite genocide without ever thinking 'hey, maybe this was a bad thing that God commanded here', I read about the kidnapping, sale, torture, beating, and murder of African people without ever thinking 'hey, maybe it's actually NOT true that this country was founded on principles of liberty and justice for all.'"

4. This Is Exactly the Martyr Fairy Tale We Aspired To "Furthermore, it is DISGUSTING to pray that God would violate these people's wishes."

5. In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic) "Yes, he knew- in an abstract way- that his sin had killed Jesus, that every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God, that his sinful nature was a dangerous thing that shouldn't be taken lightly, that it meant he deserved nothing good, he deserved to die and go to hell... but today his sin had literally turned him into a huge green monster."

6. Great Wall (Qinhuangdao, China) "I know what you're thinking. 'Perfect Number, you've been living in China 5 years, and you haven't shown us pictures of the Great Wall! What gives? Cough 'em up!'"

7. Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales (Master Post) "In November 2017, I decided to do a rewatch and analysis of all the VeggieTales movies, because they were an important part of my childhood in Christian culture."

8. Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual. "I never had the desire to have sex, but I lived in fear that my romantic desires were an indication that I could potentially be so sinful as to desire sex."

9. "You Don't Want Justice": Here Are the Receipts "Living in a constant state of anxiety because you truly do believe that God would be well within their rights to just kill you at any moment."

10. Don't Invite Anybody From 'Desiring God' to Your Funeral "You call this 'good news'? No- If you think it's a good thing that someone stood up at a funeral and announced that the dead person is in hell, then you are FOREVER DISQUALIFIED from telling us what is or isn't 'good news.'"

11. A Post About Masturbation "Just because we're in love and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with him, why on earth would that mean that he needs to be present every time I stimulate my genitals?"

12. A Little Story About a Mission Trip and Money "Nobody ever said the reason I got to go to China is because I knew a lot of rich Christians. Even though that's the truth."

13. What Sex Is Like (According to Purity Culture) "You may be asexual if you don't get why everyone says it's THE BEST FEELING EVER to do things with their partner's genitals, but you assume it will be self-explanatory once you try it. Yeah, turns out it's not self-explanatory."

14. Cut Out the Middleman (or, why I am the master and commander of my own life) "Because if it's actually me picking which god to follow, then doing what that god tells me to do, why not just cut out the middleman and do what I think is right in the first place?"

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Happy new year everyone! I've got some good stuff planned for 2019 on the blog~

Globophobia part 2: God Didn't Help

Photo of a mountain. Image text: "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. NIV Matthew 17:20." Image source.

[content note: this is a post about the intersection of autism/phobias/mental health with the Christian teaching of "dying to self"]

"From my point of view, telling someone "I'm afraid of balloons" made as much sense as saying "I don't like it when people kick me." Like, isn't that obvious? If you really believe that it's something you need to actually say out loud, that means you accept that your preference not to be kicked is something unusual. As a little kid, I refused to accept that. On some level, even though I didn't have the words for it, I truly believed my reactions were right, completely justified and reasonable based on the incredible pain caused by a balloon pop. (And please note: I was right, even though none of the adults understood.)"
(from last week's post, Globophobia)

I was right. When I was a little kid, I knew I was right- I stubbornly refused to believe that I was the weird one for reacting the way I did to balloons. The sound is overwhelmingly scary and bad, and I am the only one whose reaction makes any sense.

What I didn't know was that other people are actually hearing the sound in a different way than I was. But I was right about myself, when none of the adults were.

So this is the story of how I accepted that I was wrong about myself.

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When I was a little kid, maybe in middle school, I remember going to a family reunion or some kind of party like that. Somebody had bought a package of balloons- and I took it and hid it. Then when it was time to set up for the party, people were all looking around like "where are those balloons?"

My mom knew it was me that had taken it. She tried to get me to tell where it was. But I didn't. I refused. I never told anyone.

I look back on that story, and my first thought is, "Wow, that was definitely before I devoted my life to Jesus." Because if that had taken place after I made the decision to devote every single bit of everything 100% to God, then I would have told them where the balloons were. Because stealing is a sin and because I need to put others first- if other people want to have balloons and I don't, the correct Christian thing to do is to submit and die to self and let them have the balloons without saying anything about it.

If this was after I devoted my life to Jesus, then I could have been guilted into "doing the right thing" with a bit of talk about sin and selfishness and trusting God and obeying even when it's scary. It would have been framed as a choice between the "sinful" thing (hiding the balloons) and the "Christian" thing (submitting to other people's choice to have balloons at the party).

In that ideology, there's no way to recognize what's really going on: That loud sounds are unbearably painful for me and so I have a 100% legitimate NEED to not be at a party with balloons. I was never taught to get to know myself and my needs, I was never taught that it's okay if my needs are different from other people's, I was never taught that I should insist that my needs be respected even if other people didn't think that was important.

It was wrong to take the balloons and hide them (ideally I should communicate my needs to other people and be free to not attend the party if those needs aren't met) but I don't regret it one bit. It was the only way I had to protect myself back then. It would be another 10 to 15 years before I had access to concepts like "sensory pain" and "advocating for myself." (And autism.)

I don't think my parents ever punished me for that. Then again, I can't imagine any punishments that would be worse than enduring a party where people are touching balloons.

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When I was a freshman in college, I devoted my life 100% to Jesus. Before this, I was a Christian of course, but, as I used to say in my testimony, "God was the most important thing in my life, overall, but in certain parts of my life or certain situations, it wasn't always clear if God was the most important thing or not." But this all changed- I devoted every single part of my life to Jesus, 100%. When I woke up early every day to read the bible, it wasn't because that's what good Christians are supposed to do- it was because I loved God so much, I was so overwhelmed by how amazing God is, that I wanted to sacrifice my sleep time for God. I prayed constantly. I was so full of God's love that I just wanted to share it with everyone. I was so happy all the time, full of energy, loving my life, so free because of God.

And then one day, I went to a party, walked in the door, saw balloons on the floor, and turned around and left.

And I felt so bad. So terrible. Because I had been living so completely happy and free, like I can do anything through Christ, and then suddenly I couldn't go to that fun party which I wanted to go to, because of balloons. I decided that night that God didn't want me to live like that, with the phobia- God wanted me to be free; "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

I was so committed to God, and this was what God wanted me to do. I believed it was possible; God would work a miracle and cure my phobia. And then I would react- or rather, not react- to balloons like a "normal person."

So I got to work. I told a bunch of friends I was planning to go through the steps to get myself "desensitized"- the same idea that the doctor had taught me all those years before. I got a group of friends to support me ("accountability"), and I wrote emails to them on a weekly basis about the progress I was making. I made a list of scary balloon-related things, in order of scariness, and scheduled when I would do them- the plan was to get "desensitized" to each one, and work up to the scariest ones.

I had so much faith. The idea that I could be "like a normal person" seemed impossible, but this time I believed God would do it.

See, when I was a little kid, I was "stubborn." I resisted the term "phobia." I was a good kid who followed the rules, so I probably never said this out loud, but I was very much NOT in agreement that my avoidance of balloons was an "irrational fear." I believed that balloons were just self-evidently terrible, and I hated how people wanted me to explain what the problem was, as if it wasn't OBVIOUS that the sound was unbearably, inhumanely loud. My mom took me to therapy for globophobia, and I went along with it like a good kid, obeyed what the doctor said, but on a big-picture level, I wasn't really on board with it. I didn't truly believe there was anything wrong with me avoiding balloons; I was baffled about why everyone else wasn't reacting the same way I did.

Please note: Little-kid Perfect Number was right. Right about myself, wrong about everyone else being unfeeling and heartless. But right about myself. The missing piece of the puzzle was the concept that different people can experience the same sensory input in extremely different ways. (Like the age-old question: When I look at something and say it's "red", and you look at the same thing and say it's "red", are we actually both seeing the same color? There's no way to ever know.)

But college-student-totally-devoted-to-Jesus Perfect Number decided that little-kid Perfect Number was wrong. I looked for information about phobias online; everything I read said they can be completely cured through therapy. And even though it felt impossible, I chose to have faith. I decided that the reason therapy hadn't "worked" back in middle school was that I was never truly committed to it on a big-picture level. But this time, I decided to believe it.

To believe that I was the one being unreasonable. To believe that the way "normal people" acted around balloons was the right way, and that God would make me that way too. To say the words "I'm afraid of balloons"- labelling myself as the weird one, rather than insisting that my response was appropriate to the reality I experience.

My whole life, everyone told me- either directly or indirectly- that I "overreacted" to balloons and to loud sounds, that it's "not that bad", that my reaction is unreasonable and wrong. But I never believed them. I knew- even though I couldn't put it in words- that I wasn't "overreacting." That all changed when I totally devoted my life to Jesus. Now I was 100% surrendered to God, and I couldn't go on insisting that my reaction was right when everybody else said it was wrong. That was my stubbornness, my selfishness, my sinful nature. It was a belief I would need to "let go of" so God could do amazing things in my life. All this time, I had been so sure of what I needed (ie to avoid balloons), but it was time to give that up and trust that God would take care of me.

Surrender. Die to self. Take up my cross.

I followed a Christianity which very much did NOT believe that people are experts on their own lives and their own needs. Instead, I believed we are fundamentally selfish and sinful, and we will have all sorts of desires for things that are actually bad for us. We think we need them, but we really don't- and giving them up and realizing God is all we need is the only way to be truly free.

So I did. I swallowed my pride. I surrendered. I told people "I am afraid of balloons." And then I told people, "Jesus said, if you have faith, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."

I really believed God would heal me. I believed God would make me like a "normal person." I believed- even though it made no sense to me- that my reaction to loud sounds was wrong and that God would teach me to react in the "correct" way. I told one of my best friends, "Someday I'll be able to say, 'I used to be afraid of balloons.'" And she said, "Maybe you'll be the balloon-animal expert in our group!" We had so much faith.

Little-kid Perfect Number knew she was being reasonable, even when everyone else said she wasn't. She was stubborn; when the whole world reacted in a completely different way than she did, she still refused to believe her reaction was wrong. But totally-devoted-to-Jesus Perfect Number died to self and accepted what all those other people said.

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Even as I write this, it's mind-blowing to remind myself of the fact that other people hear sounds so much differently than I do. Other people experience the sound of a balloon popping not as overwhelming, unbearable sensory pain, but as a minor annoyance, maybe like being poked or hearing the sound of fingers snapping. (I guess?) All these years, this has been one giant miscommunication. I thought they were telling me I needed to learn to be okay with suffering massive sensory pain. They thought they were telling me I should calm down because it's not a big deal when something makes me a tiny bit startled. 

They were wrong about me. But back then, I thought the first step to healing was to accept that they were all right about me.

It made no sense to me. How could other people have so little reaction to something so monstrously loud? But I "had faith"- I accepted the premise that other people's reaction (or lack thereof) was right, and I need to learn to be like them. (Gaslighting.)

The rationalization I came up with was that the sound only lasts for a moment, then it's gone, so no matter how bad the sound is, it doesn't really justify the amount of anxiety I felt and the lengths I went to to avoid balloons. Which is partly true- to a certain extent, this is a phobia- but that doesn't mean the solution is to "be like a normal person" and pretend the pain doesn't exist at all. (The solution is to recognize the very real pain that loud sounds cause me, to treat it as a serious thing that people need to care about, and decide on appropriate measures to take to protect myself from the pain. It's the same as a food allergy.)

Because I was willing to surrender everything to God, I accepted that my reaction to balloons was wrong. To use analogy about physical pain, I understood it in this way: "Everybody else is fine with it if someone just comes up out of the blue and whacks them- and refuses to apologize or acknowledge that the whacking even happened. The pain only lasts for a second, so it's not a big deal. Why can't you be fine with it too?"

I believed God would teach me to be fine with it.

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So I had faith. I believed God would heal me, even though it seemed impossible. I believed that God would help me have the same (lack of) reaction to balloons as a "normal person" did, even though for my entire life I had been completely, utterly unable to fathom what the heck is wrong with people to make them (not) react the way they do. Again, please note: I was right about myself. My inability to understand why everyone else didn't hate balloons in the same way I did meant that there was some crucial piece of information I was missing, NOT that I'm being selfish and God wants me to just give up my sinful desire to have people notice and care about my pain.

I started my DIY desensitization. I watched videos of balloons, inflated balloons and hung them in my dorm room, and watched other people (who had promised to be very careful and not pop any) inflate balloons. These are all things I actually can become desensitized too; these are things totally in the realm of the phobia- no sensory pain at all. While experiencing these things, I listened to Christian music and read bible verses. I told myself over and over to trust God and that God would heal me.

Meanwhile, I began encountering balloons at an astonishingly high frequency as I went about my regular life. Saw them hanging as decorations in various places. There was even a physics class where we were talking about how the fabric of spacetime expands, and the professor gave everyone a balloon we were supposed to inflate as a hands-on way to understand the concept. Another time, I was at a restaurant, and a guy came around from table to table making balloon animals for customers- and I was so shaky and nervous, and my friends wanted to help me but I said no we can't tell him not to come to our table, I can't go out of my way to avoid balloons, that's how the phobia becomes worse (the "pretend to be a normal person" strategy that I had learned from the therapist all those years before). But one of my friends went and told the balloon man not to come to our table anyway.

I believed that God was causing all these balloons to appear in my life unexpectedly- maybe God was trying to help me with my therapy, or God was showing me how important it is that I do the work to get "healed" because "you can't avoid them forever."

Seriously, I swear to you, from the time I started "working on" my phobia and trying to get "desensitized," I encountered balloons at an abnormally high rate, and I was sure it was God's doing. (It was maybe about once per day.) It's okay if you don't believe me- I probably wouldn't believe someone who said that. I'm a math nerd, I know what confirmation bias is. You guys, I made graphs. I sorted the balloons encounters into different categories- an offhand mention of balloons gets less weight than an actual sighting- and made graphs of the frequency at which they occurred. It was a lot.

But it's okay if you don't believe me. I no longer believe in a God who would do something like that anyway. If God really wanted to help me, maybe God could have caused the words, "Some people experience loud sounds (like balloons popping or fireworks) as intense pain- if you think that hearing a balloon pop and getting slapped hard are about equally bad, maybe this describes you, and in that case, your pain is a real thing and it's totally reasonable to avoid balloons" to appear somewhere, perhaps in an article I read as I researched globophobia online. (Followed by "Also maybe check into getting an autism diagnosis." Yeah that would have been nice.)

(And actually, there was an awards dinner I was invited to, for having a high GPA or something, and I was SO SURE there would be balloons there. Because God was causing balloons to be in all sorts of unexpected places, so surely the awards dinner would also be decorated with balloons, right? I told people, "I'm going to this thing, I'm sure there will be balloons there, pray for me." And then no balloons there. Make of that what you will.)

Anyway, I got desensitized to all the things that don't involve popping. Because, wow, it makes so much sense now- of course I can get desensitized to those. The popping sound will always be unbearable pain for me, but in addition to that I have globophobia, where I associate balloons with "people don't care about me", which is indeed an irrational association. (But very understandable how it came about- over and over again experiencing overwhelming sensory pain, and having everyone tell me "you're overreacting, it's not that bad.") That part truly is a phobia, and it can be completely cured. But the part where loud sounds are painful isn't going to change. So of course I can get desensitized to everything about balloons except for the popping sound.

So I worked my way up the list of scary things, and became desensitized to all the items on the list that did not involve loud sounds. All that was left was hearing real-life popping. At that point, my DIY therapy kind of lost momentum and stopped. And now it's obvious why, but at the time I didn't really understand. Of course, to me it felt obvious that anything involving popping sounds would be orders of magnitude harder to get "desensitized" to, but remember, I had "died to self" and accepted other people's opinions on what should and shouldn't be hard.

I don't even remember noticing that I had stopped doing the therapy. I thought I had made a lot of progress, and I felt good about it- at one point I literally did say the words, "I used to be afraid of balloons." And I guess I didn't encounter any balloons for a while after that. Until this one time, I was at a party, and somebody starting making balloons, and I suddenly felt really guilty because the previous few weeks I had been thinking a lot about attractive boys, and I prayed, "Oh God I'm so sorry I've been so interested in boys and I'm acting like I don't need you but oh help, you gotta help me, you gotta take me back, you gotta help me be brave and be okay with these balloons." And I believed God had sent the balloons like the famine in the story of the prodigal son. So. In case you were interested in examples of the intersection of purity culture and autism.

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I want you to know that I believed in a God who thought it was wrong for me to advocate for myself. From the time I was a little kid, I believed that the sound of balloons popping is unbearable and it's reasonable for me to avoid it, and everybody told me- directly or indirectly- that I was wrong. When I finally devoted my life 100% to Jesus, I knew that it meant I would have to swallow my pride and accept that I was wrong and everyone else was right about me. Die to self. Even though the concept of not really reacting much to balloons popping had always been an unfathomable mystery to me, I put my faith in it. Because of God. Because it was sinful to keep insisting that I had a need that everyone else said wasn't real. I had to accept that they were right about me.

I remember how my mom decided to take me to therapy, all those years ago when I was in middle school, because of an incident at a school carnival. There were tons of carnival games in the school gymnasium, and I was with my family, playing games and having fun. Except that whoever was in charge of the helium balloon tank was really really bad at it, and over and over balloons exploded. You know how sound gets trapped in a school gym? It was loud, overwhelmingly loud. It happened again and again, and I ended up outside the school refusing to go in. And apparently my mom thought, "this phobia has gotten so bad, now she can't even participate in fun things like the carnival" and that's when she decided I really need to go to therapy.

And now I think back on that, and I'm struck by how incredibly reasonable my behavior was. It wasn't safe for me in the gym. Over and over, with no warning, there were moments of huge, unbearable pain. How can you expect anyone to stay and play ring toss in that kind of environment? I couldn't put it into words back then, but my behavior was right, even though everyone else thought it was wrong.

And through all those therapy appointments when I was in middle school, I did what the adults said, but I never really accepted their claim that there was something wrong with the way I protected myself from balloons. I don't even know if I was fully aware that the adults all believed my behavior- refusing to go in the gym- was wrong and that they were trying to "help" me change. To the extent that I was aware, I COMPLETELY DISAGREED. Because I'm "stubborn."

But in college I finally surrendered all to Jesus, and I accepted what everyone else had been telling me for my whole life: It's wrong for me to protect myself. It's wrong for me to expect people to care about my pain. It's wrong for me to claim I have needs different from those of a "normal person."

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Related: "Seek First God's Kingdom" Doesn't Work If You Have Autism

Comment policy: I don't really have any patience for any comments along the lines of "oh you misunderstood the verse about faith moving mountains, here let me explain it to you" or "I've never met you, but here is my baseless speculation about what God was actually doing in your life."

Globophobia

Scared little girl. Image source.

[content note: this is a post about when I was in therapy as a child and it was extremely harmful, for reasons related to undiagnosed autism]

I was planning on never blogging about the time I was in therapy for globophobia. Because I don't want my mom to feel bad. My parents and the doctor really cared about me a lot, and were doing their best to help me, but actually that therapy ended up being very damaging for me. I'm just now realizing the long-term effects. I don't blame my parents at all, because they didn't know, so please don't feel bad. But I want to write about this in case it can help someone else in a similar situation.

So here's the deal: From the time I was a little kid, I have had globophobia, which is a phobia of balloons. When people asked "why is she afraid of balloons?" my mom used to answer "she's sensitive to loud sounds" and eventually that was the answer I too would give when people asked.

But the problem is that that explanation completely misses the point. Here's what's actually going on: I hear sounds much louder than other people do, and sounds like balloons popping, fireworks, explosions, etc cause overwhelming, unbearable sensory pain for me. Saying "she is sensitive to loud sounds" makes it sound like it's just some silly emotional quirk that's not really a real thing, that I'm weak and if I tried harder I could "get over it." No, what's actually happening is the actual reality I am experiencing is different from what other people experience. And my reactions- avoiding balloons, covering my ears- are totally reasonable in the context of that reality.

Back when I was a little kid, we didn't know that I hear the sounds louder than other people. Who would have suspected such a thing was possible? My parents didn't know, and I didn't know. I always hated how I had to tell people what the problem was- like, how was it not obvious? Did they not notice that huge, overwhelming, unbearable sound that had just exploded through the whole room? I spent my whole childhood utterly confused about how seemingly kind and compassionate people could be so unfeeling and unaffected. And I never said the words "I'm afraid of balloons" until I was in college. Because to say "I'm afraid of balloons" implies that my fear was an abnormal thing that other people shouldn't be expected to just know automatically. It would be like admitting that I was the weird one and there was something wrong with the way I reacted. From my point of view, telling someone "I'm afraid of balloons" made as much sense as saying "I don't like it when people kick me." Like, isn't that obvious? If you really believe that it's something you need to actually say out loud, that means you accept that your preference not to be kicked is something unusual. As a little kid, I refused to accept that. On some level, even though I didn't have the words for it, I truly believed my reactions were right, completely justified and reasonable based on the incredible pain caused by a balloon pop. (And please note: I was right, even though none of the adults understood.)

But anyway, when I was in middle school (maybe 12 years old), my mom took me to therapy for globophobia. I read about phobias online, read about how, with therapy, a phobia can be totally 100% cured. So that was the goal of the therapy. The doctor told me to make a list of scary balloon-related things, in increasing order of scariness, and we would slowly work our way up the list, becoming "desensitized" to each one.

And that treatment model was really really bad for me. Because what none of us knew at the time was, this wasn't just a phobia. It was not just in the realm of emotions, which can be totally cured. No, I experience unbearable sensory pain because of those loud sounds, and that's never going to change.

Unfortunately, the goal of the therapy was for me to "become normal." And it didn't really make sense to me, didn't seem possible, but I was a good kid so I went along with what the adults told me to do. But when I saw "normal" people barely react at all to the sound of a balloon popping- as I said, it baffled me. Totally, utterly baffled. (What's wrong with everyone???!!!) Like an unexplainable scientific phemomenon- we can observe it over and over, so it must be real, but it just makes no sense at all. I didn't really believe I could ever become like that. But my mom told me I need to believe it's possible, or else the whole thing is doomed from the start. And in the bible, God did miracles, and the recipients of those miracles probably could have never imagined it beforehand. The walls of Jericho fell down just because the Israelites walked around them- like, how? And so maybe, by following the steps the therapist gave me, trying to "desensitize" myself, I would become "normal."

In reality, the efforts to "desensitize" me to loud sounds communicated to me that my pain didn't matter. That I would just have to accept it when something hurts me, and I shouldn't react or expect other people to care. That's what the therapy was for me- though I'm sure the adults involved didn't know it. It was "sit here, relax, try to act like a normal person, and then absorb and suffer the overwhelming, unbearable sensory pain without bothering anyone else or making any visible attempt to protect yourself."

We didn't know that. I didn't know that, and I didn't have the words to communicate what was gonig on. I never would have thought to use the word "pain" to describe what I was feeling. Because sensory pain doesn't feel anything like the pain you feel when you fall down or hit your head or someone steps on your foot. How can you describe what a sound feels like? A sound feels like a sound; it's completely different from any other sensory input.

It wasn't until I was 23, that I went to a therapist (for a different problem) and mentioned how I'd been in therapy in the past for globophobia, and she said "that doesn't really sound like a phobia, sounds more like a response to pain from sensory overload, possibly related to autism." She was the one who diagnosed me with autism, and she was the first one to ever use the word "pain" to describe how I felt about balloons.

And at first I didn't believe it really was pain- because, as I said, it's different from all the other experiences that I've heard people describe as pain. But then I realized, if I had to choose between getting slapped, hard, in the back of the head, and suddenly hearing fireworks, well gosh, I don't know which is less bad. They are about the same. And it blew my mind to realize that for other people, those wouldn't be the same.

So let me make an analogy. Let's say someone steps on your foot, really hard. Everyone sees it happen.

And you say "OWW!!!!"

And then everyone stares at you, and they ask, "What? What happened?"

And you know that they saw this person step on your foot. You can't understand how they can be so dense as to not know the reason you're crying out in pain. But you say, "You stepped on my foot!"

And then everyone continues to stare, with a very confused expression, and they're like "... and? What's the problem?"

And you say, "That hurt!"

And everyone says, "No it didn't. You're overreacting." And they kind of roll their eyes, like "ah she got us all worried that there was an actual problem, but really she's just weird and overreacting to some harmless thing," and go back to whatever they were doing.

That's what it's been like, throughout my entire life, every time a balloon popped. And I haven't been able to put it into words until now.

Let's talk about gaslighting. Gaslighting means telling someone that their actual lived experiences, memories, or emotions aren't real. Like "you think you feel that way, but you're wrong" or "no, that thing that you said you experienced never actually happened." It's a tactic that can be used by abusers to get a victim to doubt their own mind. I wasn't abused; people did this to me because they really thought it would help. But it is gaslighting. My whole life, everyone has been telling me that the pain I feel from loud sounds isn't real. I'm "overreacting." I need to "get over it." It's "not that bad." And I'm just now realizing how much psychological damage this gaslighting caused.

(People with autism are not "overreacting" to sensory stimuli. We experience them much more intensely than other people do, and our reactions are appropriate for what we are experiencing.)

The therapist I saw in middle school asked me, "What's the first time you were afraid of balloons?" I said I didn't remember the first time, but one particularly early example I remembered was at Hannah's birthday party [names have been changed]. I didn't know why the therapist was asking me; it didn't seem like it would matter what the first time was. But I was a good little kid, always obeyed the adults, so I told her the whole story.

But now I know. There were assumptions behind her question. She was thinking about how a phobia is often caused by some traumatic experience involving some certain object, and then the person associates the emotions and the object and develops an irrational fear of the object itself- even though the object is pretty harmless. That's why she was asking- she wanted to find one traumatic thing in my past that had caused me to illogically believe that balloons could hurt me.

Nobody understood that balloons actually do hurt me, and that every single time it happens and nobody seems to care about my pain is a traumatic experience. Every. Single. Time. Is a traumatic experience. Even the "therapy" itself was just more of that- "relax, it can't hurt you" *pop* "see, that wasn't so bad." Gaslighting.

They wanted me to take deep breaths and learn to relax my body- not to cover my ears or brace myself against the pain. If I could hear the pop without covering my ears, that would be success, then I would be "brave." But I covered my ears and hid in the couch cushions, and they said okay that's fine for this time, we'll work up to it. And after I heard it pop, then I relaxed. Of course. Because the danger was gone.

It was just the same as if the doctor had hit me and told me I was "bad" for tensing up, putting my head down, trying to protect myself, and I needed to be "good" by sitting there "relaxed" with barely any reaction.

And then there was one time, where the doctor did pop a balloon in front of me and I reacted in a more "correct" way, probably I just sat there, looked a little startled, didn't say much or try to hide in the couch. And then in the car on the way home, my mom (who had been there too when it happened) really wanted me to tell her about how I felt. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to think about it. At the time, I couldn't understand why. But now I know. My whole life, I've been looking for someone to acknowledge and care about my sensory pain. But "success" in the therapy meant accepting that no one cares, and being okay with that. On some level, I didn't want "success," and I was very uncomfortable with how I had apparently had the "correct" reaction and the adults thought it was so great that I had hid my pain and not asked anyone to care about me. I didn't have the word "pain" back then; there's no way I could have even understood what I was feeling or explained it to anyone. Especially because it sounds really bad to say I don't want to "get better."

(As I write this, it occurs to me that people who have a phobia of heights probably aren't told that they need to "face their fear" by jumping off a building.)

Let me tell you what would have happened if that therapy had "worked." (After a while we stopped the therapy, so it never got to this point.) It would mean me accepting the idea that nobody wants to hear about my pain, that I'm being bad if I scream or run away. My reactions are causing trouble for other people and it would be better if I could just shut up about it and accept that no one cares. Accepting that no one will protect me, and they will think I'm bad if I do what I need to do to protect myself. It would mean withdrawing into myself if I'm in a situation with balloons, not willing to speak- because what's the use of going along with the rules of socialization if none of these people care about me? What's the use of pretending everything is fine- I can't keep up appearances like that when I know they won't protect me, I need to protect myself. It would mean staring at the ground, emotionless, no smile, because the emotional trauma is so great, I'm not able to show it on my face without breaking down- and what does it matter if I follow the social rules about facial expressions and eye contact, it's not worth the trouble, no one cares about me anyway. I'm alone. Like a zombie; shuffle along, follow the rules, don't make trouble, suffer pain and accept the fact that no one cares.

But even though that therapy was just for a short period of time when I was in middle school, it did long-term damage to me. There were many, many occasions after that where I would go to a party, discover there were balloons there, and either leave immediately or leave after people started touching the balloons and I just couldn't handle it anymore. And every time I left, I felt like a failure. I thought, "It's so awful that this phobia has so much control over my life, I miss out on fun things because of it, if I went to therapy and worked on this, I could get better- so it's my fault." Every time, I told myself those things. I'm such a failure, it's my fault, I'm letting the balloons control my life.

And I internalized the idea that it's wrong for me to advocate for myself- to specifically take steps which a "normal person" wouldn't, just because of my sensory issues (for example, letting the host of a birthday party know beforehand that I wouldn't be okay if there were balloons). The whole entire reason behind that therapy was "you can't avoid them forever"- that it was bad for me to be active in protecting myself and communicating about my needs. Avoidance makes a phobia worse, the doctor said. Instead, I was supposed to "face my fear" because "you don't want to have this problem for your whole life, do you?"

If I didn't even make an attempt to "be normal," then I was "letting the phobia control my life." My desire to avoid balloons wasn't seen as a real need that should be taken seriously, but as a sign that I was weak and was inconveniencing other people because I wasn't willing to go to therapy and do the work to "get over it."

So that meant for as long as I could, I would pretend to "be normal." Go to a birthday party, notice that there are balloons there, pretend I'm okay with it, be jumpy and nervous the entire time, constantly looking around to see if anyone is touching the balloons, unable to focus on what's actually happening at the party or people trying to make conversation with me, just waiting for it to be over... until there comes a point where the stress is too great, where I can't keep up the "normal person" facade anymore, and I "freak out", which usually looks like suddenly running from the room. And everyone is confused about what's wrong with me.

What would it have been like, if I had known "loud sounds cause real pain for me, so I am not able to be near balloons" and treat that like an unchangeable fact of the universe? (The same way that people let you know they have a food allergy.) Not to be like "I have a phobia, and it's my fault so it's unreasonable for me to bother or inconvenience anyone because of it." What would it have been like if I could have communicated with people who were throwing parties, if I could have told them "Loud sounds are extremely painful for me, so if the party has balloons I won't be able to come"? But of course I couldn't do that. The doctor said avoiding the object of your phobia only makes the phobia worse.

What would it have been like if I didn't try to "be normal"?

The strategy I use now is to be very clear about what my needs are and communicate them to the people who need to know. And accept that it's okay if people don't know balloons are a problem- because, as it turns out, they are literally hearing the sound in a different way than I do. Tell them I can't be near balloons, use the word "pain" instead of "phobia", and be confident- not apologetic- because I have the right to have my needs respected, and I have the right to leave if I am in a situation that is not safe for me. When Hendrix and I are out in public and I see a balloon, I talk to him and make a plan about what to do. Usually "let's walk past it really fast." And I'm able to stay calm because I have a plan which takes my needs seriously, and because Hendrix supports me 100%.

My globophobia is caused by the unchangeable reality that loud sounds are extremely painful for me. I can never "be a normal person" around balloons. But the phobia part- the irrational fear- is because I associate loud sounds with "people don't care about me." And that's something that's completely in the realm of emotions, and can be completely healed through therapy. But healing doesn't look like "be a normal person." Healing from the phobia component means taking my sensory needs very seriously, and communicating clearly about my needs. It means knowing that I don't need to be afraid because I can rely on people who care about me to help me avoid balloons.

I'll always need to avoid balloons, but that doesn't mean I'll always have globophobia. Maybe someday I can avoid them without thinking "no one cares about me."

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Related: 
The Sound [strong trigger warning for globophobia]
How Are Autistics Supposed To Know Which of Our Pain is Socially Acceptable To Express?

Next week there will be a post on the intersection of globophobia and evangelical Christianity.

Blogaround

A photo of a cat and a mountain lion staring at each other through a glass door. The cat is thinking, "This mirror makes me look ripped." Image source.

1. Yes, you hate me: Christians and homophobia (posted June 15) "They’re just so very confused when they look at me and say 'I disagree with your very existence because of my pet biblical interpretation, but that clearly can’t be hate.'"

2. The 'Trump Effect' in Schools: How Trump's Hate Speech Is Traumatizing America's Children (posted April 14) "Another educator from a Tennessee school says a Latino kindergartener was told by his peers that he will be deported and barricaded behind a wall. “Is the wall here yet?” he asks daily."

3. A Renegade Kitten Survived A Cross-Country Road Trip By Clinging To A Car (posted June 15) YOU GUYS this kitten is adorable.

4. Baylor University’s culture of sexual assault is real and it doesn’t surprise me. (posted May 27) "But cultivating a culture in which consensual sex is a punishable offense and students who do have sex are too ashamed to talk makes it extremely difficult to simultaneously cultivate a culture that exposes and punishes sexual abuses."

5. 'Star Trek' actor Anton Yelchin dies in freak car accident (posted June 20) NOOOOOOOO

6. We’ve gotten better at mourning. That’s a sick form of ‘progress’ (posted June 14) [content note: anti-LGBT violence] "And knowing the role they have played, it’s a wonder that all of these steadfastly anti-gay church leaders didn’t choke on their own words as they all, in turn, offered their lovely, duplicitous statements of grief and sorrow."

7. These Social Media Posts Offer an Important Reminder (posted June 15) "I crossed two streets, by myself, while cars rushed by, and I didn’t panic."

8. Needed: A New Conversation on LGBT in the Church (posted June 22) "This is why we have to have a different conversation about gay people in the Church. Because even the ones who are there–who are doing their best to live faithfully to the scriptures as your church understands them–don’t feel welcome, loved, or safe in your community."

9. Terrorist Attack, Mass Shooting, or Anti-Gay Hate Crime? How We Talk about Orlando Is Important (posted June 16)

10. You Are Better Than Fred Phelps (and that’s why he was so dangerous) (posted 2014) "I’ve heard people insist on using the word “homosexual” to refer to all LGBTQ people, because calling gays and lesbians “gays and lesbians” allows them to normalize their perverted lifestyle, and because bi and transgender people don’t really exist anyway. But they would never say “God hates fags.”"

How NOT To Write About Phobias

Fear, a character from the movie "Inside Out." Image source.

So I came across this article: One Felinophobe Describes Life With One of the Rarest Phobias In the World. It features some quotes from a Reddit AMA ("ask me anything") from 3 years ago, where a user named panicbreakfast talks about what it's like having ailurophobia (also known as felinophobia- fear of cats).

Plus a bunch of images of cats.

Umm... does anyone see anything wrong here?

You have an article about ailurophobia- a real psychological condition in which a person may experience distress in the following situations (according to wikipedia): "hearing purring, seeing a cat in real life, imagining the possibility of a cat touching or rubbing against one, the thought of meeting a cat in the dark, seeing the staring eyes of a cat (cats have the tendency to stare at passers-by) cats in pictures and on television, and cat-like toys and cat-like fur." And your article is accompanied by several photos of cats.

What the hell.

Are you serious?

Society just wants to gawk at people with phobias. Whoever put this article together doesn't care about people with ailurophobia at all. Actually, the text itself is pretty good- quotes from a person who actually has the condition, information about possible causes from a doctor who has studied phobias- presented in a fairly factual way, without that "wow look how completely WEIRD these people are" tone. This leads me to believe that the writer did not choose the images for this article. So I don't blame the writer- the writer did a good job. Somebody else really screwed this article up, though, by adding the cat photos.

It's an article about a phobia of cats, set up in such a way that people who actually HAVE a phobia of cats would experience distress even looking at the web page. (Or at least, some proportion would be. Others experience distress when there's a real cat but don't mind a picture.)

I mean, is it not obvious how completely wrong this is? I don't even know what to say, it's just so completely wrong. It's like you wrote an article that said "Did you know that some people are bothered by swear words? Fuck them." No, it's worse than that. Having a phobia is way worse than being "bothered" by something.

But this is how phobias are treated in popular culture. People just want to gawk at it. Wow, so weird, how could someone be afraid of that? Let's laugh at them! Click here to read a list called "Top 10 Weirdest Phobias" then point and laugh and share it with your friends!

An article about cat phobia, and somehow someone thinks "What images can we add to make this article more interesting? How about some cats? And let's write captions about how they're totally plotting something evil!" Yeah! Haha, cats are evil! Look at the way they stare! LOLOLOLOL!

Are you serious. You really think having a phobia of cats is at all similar to the way people joke about how their cats are always scheming and making trouble?

But that's the status of phobias in our society. And it is not okay.

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Related posts about my experiences having phobias:
About My Phobia (this post has a cat picture, FYI)
Phobiettes And That Time I Panicked (this post has a cat picture too)
"Homophobia" is an Ableist Term. Stop Using It.

"Homophobia" is an Ableist Term. Stop Using It.

Fear, a character from the movie "Inside Out." Image source.

Within feminist/social justice discussions about oppression and discrimination faced by various groups, you hear about a lot of "phobias." Most of the ones I've heard are related to LGBT identities- homophobia, biphobia, transphobia- but I've also heard of Islamophobia, fatphobia, etc. For pretty much any demographic, you can slap the suffix "phobia" on, and there's your term to describe opposition to the rights of those in that demographic.

This is not okay. This is ableist.

How do I know? Because I have phobias (which I have written about here and here) and I do not appreciate having my very real mental health issues being compared to hate and discrimination.

Let's back up for a second: What is ableism? Ableism is discrimination against people who have disabilities- or, in this case, mental health problems. It's prejudice against people who have limitations such that they can't do things that able-bodied people can do.

The use of terms like "homophobia" is ableist because it uses the negative stigma attached to having a phobia as a weapon against those who would like to deny rights to gay people. Rather than, you know, fighting against that anti-phobia stigma existing in the first place.

Not cool, guys.

So, about phobias. Wikipedia defines "phobia" as "a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational." The key words here are "disproportional" and "irrational," and that's why people who suffer from phobias are so misunderstood in society. You see someone freak out over something that's (to you) totally harmless, and it's hard to empathize with them. You can't imagine why they're so scared and why they can't just "get over it."

I've seen those clickbait lists of "the weirdest phobias." People read them for laughs- "haha, how could anyone be scared of that?" Honestly, I think a lot of the supposed phobias on those lists don't really exist- people just like to play around with Latin words. But if they do exist, if there really are people who suffer from them, those people deserve our compassion and sympathy. Can you imagine how hard it would be to live your life if you were terrified of a common everyday object or situation? (If you're in that situation, go to therapy. Things can get better. Your phobia doesn't have to control your life.)

I saw a talk show once, where the host was interviewing a woman who had a phobia, and then the host actually brought out the object of her phobia, and she got up and ran, and the audience laughed.

This is the way that our culture sees phobias. People don't understand how serious it is. They don't understand how the fear is so very real. They think it's funny to show you the stimulus and see your reaction.

So if you clicked on the links I posted above, where I talked about my own experiences having phobias, because you were curious about what kind of silly thing I could possibly be afraid of, well tough luck. I'm not telling. I don't write this so that people can laugh. I write because I want you to know what it's like. People need to be more educated about mental health. Mental health problems are legitimate health problems, not something we should just "get over."

Currently, my phobias are not a huge deal in my life. I very rarely encounter the things I'm afraid of, so usually I just don't think about them and I'm fine. Sometimes, though, I go through phases when I worry about the scary things a lot, and I regularly look around to verify that there are none near me. Maybe I even feel like I don't want to go to certain places because what if I encounter the scary thing? But I know I have to keep going places and doing things and living a normal life- I can't let the phobia win.

And then, if I actually do encounter the stimulus, sometimes if it's not that intense, I can take deep breaths and be okay. But more often, I get really tense- my body is stiff, my heart races, I can't concentrate on anything else except imagining all the horrible ways this thing could hurt me. I can't enjoy myself, I just have to get out of there as soon as I can.

If you think this is in any way similar to dehumanizing entire groups of people, saying and believing offensive things about them, and fighting against their rights, I don't know what to tell you.

Ah, but wait. Somebody's going to say, "But homophobes actually are afraid!" Okay, yeah, I agree with that. A significant amount of "homophobia" is rooted in fear. Maybe people are afraid of how society will change if we treat gay people are human beings deserving of full equality. Maybe people are afraid that granting rights to others will cause them to lose some of their own power. Maybe people are afraid that God will send them to hell if they don't take a stand against LGB rights.

So yes, I totally buy that argument. "Homophobia" can be thought of as a fear of gay people/ gay rights/ gay equality.

Okay, so it's a fear.

It is NOT a phobia.

A phobia is a very specific type of fear. It happens when the mind takes negative emotions, past trauma, abstract fears, etc, and irrationally attaches them to a very specific object or situation. Then, when the person comes into contact with that object or situation, all of that negativity and distress comes out.

For example, one of my phobias is very much associated with the feeling that other people don't care about me. And unfortunately, this is self-reinforcing: if someone has the object I'm afraid of, and they are happy about it, it comes across like they don't care about me, like they're getting pleasure from hurting me.

It's really not about that object at all. The actual object is totally not dangerous. But for me, it's a symbol of my belief that other people don't care about me.

In other words, a phobia manifests itself as an irrational fear of a specific object, but if you dig deeper you find there are reasons behind it. "Homophobia" and other such "phobias" are the exact opposite: they present as well-thought-out arguments about why we should not extend these rights to this specific group, but if you dig deeper, you find the fear behind them.

"Homophobia" is not a phobia.

(And, I'd like to point out- people who oppose gay rights really hate being called "homophobic" precisely because of the negative stigma that phobias have in our society. This is exactly my point.)

If there was such a thing as homophobia, it would mean taking all those abstract fears about the future of society and associating them with the actual physical bodies of actual gay people, such that you feel- illogically- as if you're in immediate danger just being in the physical presence of a gay person. It would look like this:

So, you're at a restaurant with your friends. Just relaxing. Everything is normal. Then two guys walk in. Oh my goodness, I think they were holding hands. Were they? They're not anymore... Oh my goodness, were they? WERE THEY??!!! Wait, wait, don't panic, calm down, breathe. They probably weren't. Don't make a big deal out of this. Yeah, they don't look gay, right? Everything is okay. Try to think about something else. OH MY GOD look at how he just leaned closer to the other guy, oh my goodness are they about to kiss? OH I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! WHERE IS THE DOOR? No, no no no don't freak out like last time.

And all this time, you're not even aware of the fact that you're very obviously staring, with the most incredibly worried look on your face. Your friend says, "Hey... are you okay?" and you say "yeah, I'm fine."

Then someone happens to brush against you as they walk by, and you just about jump out of your skin.

And you say, "no I'm fine I'm fine."

And you continue to sit there, trying to ignore the fear and enjoy yourself, but you're still watching the two guys, and every move they make, you imagine it's the first step in initiating a kiss. Even though, why would people randomly kiss when they're at a restaurant? Nobody does that. But that doesn't matter- it's an irrational fear. And if they did kiss, oh my goodness, that would be the worst thing in the world. Why would it be the worst thing in the world? To you, it's obvious, but it's impossible to explain to other people.

And you become more and more nervous, more and more jumpy, until finally you've built this thing up so big in your imagination that your mind seizes upon one particular motion that one of the guys makes, you decide this is it, this is definitely gonna be a kiss, and you grab your phone and fake like you just got a call, and say "sorry" to your friends as you rush outside.

And then you sit there alone, so incredibly relieved to be out of that situation, but at the same time, you want to cry because the phobia destroyed what was supposed to be a fun, relaxing evening.

I really doubt that anyone actually has homophobia, but I just want to say, if you did have it, you would probably know it was an irrational fear and you wouldn't try to actually stop gay people from having rights. See, when the stimulus is present, sometimes the fight-or-flight response can be so overwhelming it's literally out of your control, but when you're not experiencing the stimulus, you probably recognize it's not really logical to be so afraid of it.

Okay now someone is going to say, "But you're not gay [or bi or trans or whatever word you want to tack "phobia" onto], you can't tell us what words we're allowed to use to describe the oppression we face!"

All right, so if you make that argument, you're saying that gay people [or whichever group we're talking about] are more oppressed than people with phobias, so people with phobias don't have the right to tell gay people what to do. So... you want to play oppression olympics? As if we have to figure out which issue is a bigger injustice, and we're only allowed to care about that one?

I mean, mental health issues and LGBT issues are so incredibly different. Both groups face oppression and aren't fully accepted by society, but how could you possibly compare them and decide which is worse? The prejudice and negative stereotypes manifest in completely different ways.

It has to be possible to advocate for LGBT rights without throwing people with phobias under the bus.

Okay, and now someone is going to say, "Umm hello, don't you realize that a word can have more than one meaning? So 'phobia' sometimes means a psychological condition, and sometimes it means prejudice."

All right then, would you like it if I said "that's so gay" to describe something I disliked, and then claimed that "gay" has two different meanings, and using the word "gay" to express my negative view of something does not at all contribute to negative attitudes towards actual gay people?

When people use the word "homophobia", it's obvious that the "phobia" there means something very very negative. It means the "homophobic" person is doing something that is NOT OKAY. It means they are making a choice- A CHOICE- to treat people badly.

I have phobias, and that is not at all a reflection of my character or my ability to treat people as full human beings deserving of 100% acceptance and equality. And IT IS NOT A CHOICE.

And I have a big problem with the term "phobia" used as shorthand for "being a bad person."

If you want to tell me that "phobia" has two different meanings, and one does not affect the other at all, I will believe it when society stops laughing at phobias.

Because all I hear is "people who don't support gay rights are as ridiculous as those silly people who are afraid of harmless stuff for no reason, haha."

All right, so what word should we use instead?

[September 2019 update: At the time this post was published, I didn't have a good alterative, but now I do! Use the suffix "misia." It means hate. Homomisia, transmisia, queermisia, etc. The adjective would be "homomisic."]

Unfortunately, I have to admit that the word "phobia" is very grammatically versatile- it can be a noun ("whateverphobia"), an adjective ("whateverphobic"), and even can be a noun that refer to a person ("whateverphobe"). My ideas for alternatives aren't quite as easy, but I think fighting against ableism is worth it.

So, we can use "anti." Anti-gay, anti-bi, etc.

"Anti" is pretty neutral though. If we want to call someone's character into question and emphasize how unreasonable they are, the way "phobia" does (ugh), we can use "hate" as a suffix. I think "you're a homophobe" and "you're a gay-hater" would be equally insulting to a gay-hater, and only one of them perpetuates negativity about phobias. So this is a good option.

(Any other ideas?)

So, I'd like to conclude by saying if I'm literally the only person who cares about this, then I can't expect everyone to change their language just for me. We need to do further research and find out if other people who've experienced phobias are also bothered by this "phobiaphobic" language.

And if a significant proportion of us are bothered by it? Then you have a responsibility to stop using those words, and stop participating in our oppression.

Phobiettes And That Time I Panicked

I have a phobia, you guys. (A different one from the one I wrote about here.) I'm afraid of some objects we'll refer to as "phobiettes." And recently I had an encounter with some at a party my school did.

Here's my story.

Image source.

Last week I checked with the teacher who was organizing the party, to see if there would be phobiettes there. She said probably yes, and I asked for some details. The way she described it, well it wasn’t as bad as it could be. The arrangement would be such that no phobiettes would be near the area I was assigned to. I very hesitantly said okay. (Well, this party was part of my job- I didn't really have a choice.)

And I was super-nervous about it. Not looking forward to this party at all.

So I got to the party an hour or so early to help with setup. Most of the other teachers were already there, and so were the phobiettes. I kept my distance, and tried to help set up a little, but I felt really really nervous, and eventually I went outside to sit down and try to relax.

I felt so horrible and scared. Thinking about how this fear limits me- I hate that. And trying to figure out what I was gonna do- man, I’m a teacher, I have responsibilities at this party, I’m going to have a group of students and I’ll have to chat with them and encourage them to speak English and participate in the party games.

Eventually, when students started arriving, I decided to go in and check the situation.

As soon as I stepped in the door, I saw them. Oh dear goodness. Phobiettes, and NOT confined to where my coworker said they would be. And ...

I don’t know what happened. Was I trying to take a step forward or back? Or was I frozen? Just then, two other teachers happened to be coming over to the door where I was, and they’re like “Are you okay???”

And I just, you know, look down and try not to cry, and force out the words “I’m afraid of phobiettes.” After all these years, I’ve gotten used to just saying it, without shame, without getting upset with people for being unaware of the horrible scariness that lurks right behind then.

So we went back outside and sat down, and they’re talking about how I should just rest and go home and it’s okay I don’t need to be at the party, and let’s go find our manager and tell her what’s going on, and I’m just crying and trying to breathe, trying to say “but you need me to be here.”

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

It wasn’t until I’d calmed down a bit that I realized my arms and legs were shaky and numb.

So my manager showed up and brought me a water bottle and said I should go home. And actually maybe we should call my boyfriend right now to come get me. So I called him but I didn’t even know how to talk anymore (English or Chinese), so my manager just told him what was going on and to come get me.

I waited there with one other teacher, who talked with me about random small talk things to help me feel better. Students kept walking by, to go in to the party, and some of them were concerned about me, and my colleague would just tell them (usually in Chinese) “she’s okay, she’s afraid of phobiettes” and, whatever, I don’t care anymore who knows.

My boyfriend showed up, and everybody else went to the party and we just sat there together, because my legs still felt all weak and shaky and I needed to rest a little bit before I could go home.

And breathe, breathe, breathe.

We went back to my apartment, and you know, just rested and had dinner, and I was okay. But so confused about what had happened.

I’ve never had such a huge physical response like that. Maybe it was a panic attack- though I’m not exactly sure what counts as a panic attack.

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I feel like I did everything I could have done. Like somehow, this situation is special because I’m not at fault at all. A week before the party, I asked about the phobiettes. And my manager and colleagues already knew I was afraid of phobiettes. And ... then the moment I walked in and saw them, my body had this massive physical response which was clearly out of my control.

Because it’s physical, no one can say I should just “get over it.” No one can say I’m just making a big deal over something, or using it as an excuse not to do my job.

But let me tell you- that whole panic attack thing, it was nothing compared to if I had gone to the party and had to sit there the whole time feeling SO NERVOUS, trying to be in charge of my group of students but constantly distracted and jumpy.

That was nothing. Really, that was nothing.

Just because I was crying and physically COULD NOT GO IN... somehow that carries more weight than the torture of having to sit there for a few hours pretending I was okay.

Somehow it’s more real because it was physical.

Am I talking about other people’s judgment on my phobia and whether I can use it as an excuse? Or am I talking about how I judge myself?

Why do I have this attitude like “this is just a stupid thing, I should just get over it” when I know better than anyone else how hard it is?

I don’t want to be different. I don’t want to go around telling people I’m so special, I have this medical issue and everyone needs to accommodate me.

No, I always believed when I became a real adult, well, then there’s no excuse. Real adults don’t have problems like that. I need to get rid of this in order to be a regular person. I need to act like I’m fine.

Because seriously, how professional is that, to tell my manager I can’t help staff the summer party because of phobiettes?

That’s silly and immature, right?

Is it better to have a small panic attack upon arriving at the party? Is that more professional?

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But what could I have done? What if I had decided, a week before the party, that I couldn’t go if there were phobiettes? What if I set a guideline that says I will not be in any role with any kind of leadership responsibilities at an event with phobiettes?

But see here’s the thing. Then before the party, when all the other teachers were excited and talking about it, I would have felt left out. I hate how this phobia does that to me- there are things which other people think are so fun, but I leave my friends and wait outside because there are phobiettes. And I know everyone is in there having fun without me.

That has happened to me so many times.

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I had no idea I would panic like that. Really, that’s never happened to me before. Maybe it was because of the pressure I felt because I did have responsibilities and I would be a leader- no option to just get out and get some space for a minute if I felt too overwhelmed.

I definitely didn’t think I would panic like that. I thought I would sit there at the party for a few hours and totally totally hate it, except maybe a couple minutes here and there where I would be distracted by the fun going on around me. I thought I’d be constantly looking over my shoulder, and the students would totally notice I wasn’t exactly paying attention and they’d ask if I was okay. I thought I’d be watching the time and keeping an eye on the door, so I could bolt out the moment the party ended.

But I never would have thought I could use that as an excuse to not be at the party. Everyone has to do stuff they don’t like for their jobs sometimes, right?

(Even though I much prefer the whole panic-attack-and-crying-in-front-of-all-the-people-walking-by thing.)

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Should I think of it as a medical condition or something silly I should just “get over”?

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Sometimes feminist blogs talk about things like panic attacks and PTSD, and knowing how to take care of oneself if one is affected by them. And how it’s okay. Apparently these are real things that real adults suffer from, and it’s okay to know one’s limits and set boundaries.

Really? I don’t know. It’s one thing to avoid phobiettes in my own spare time, but to act like that’s a legitimate thing my job should have to accommodate because I can’t handle it... that feels like complaining, making a big deal over nothing. 

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I don't know. Just dumping all my thoughts here.

Release (Five Minute Friday)

Image source.

It's always an adventure living in China, but maybe I don't want it to always be an adventure.

At some point, I get sick of being crowded, sick of being limited by the language, sick of dealing with really bizarre situations that could only happen in China, sick of culture shock. And man, I just want a freakin' chicken salad sandwich.

I love being here, I really do. No chance I want to move back to America. But still, sometimes I feel stuck and I want to be free. I want release.

And my phobia too. I wish I didn't always have to be so cautious, looking around for the objects of my phobia. I wish I could just live life without any awareness of their existence, like I used to.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not free, but I want to be.

And I used to believe God would give me freedom, but now I'm not sure.

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This post is written for Five Minute Friday. The prompt this week is "release."