❝I know it's hard for you to be friends with a girl without objectifying her - but lucky me, not everyone's you!❞
❝Oh yeah. 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨. The lady goth protest too much.❞
❝𝘿𝙤𝙩𝙝, Gavin. Doth.❞
→ From Van Zandt family disappointment and Grade 8...
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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 about neurodivergence is, well, all of it, but mostly the time before you know you have it — because in a lot of situations, mine included, you already have it. It's already there, and so are the signs. Your neural pathways are so ingrained, you travel through them with your eyes closed.
So when my mom who practiced "holistic healing", couldn't afford doctor bills, and ignored her own neuroses since before I was born told me things like 'trust your intuition', I did. How could I possibly know it was my generalized anxiety or panic disorder leaning into intrusive thoughts? How could I know that the meanest girl in school could sniff out how different I really was before I even knew what Autism was? How could I know about my ADHD hyper-fixations if the people I relied on didn't take me to a doctor to be diagnosed?
The answer is I didn't — not for a long while.
I stared into the mirror the next morning far longer than I should've.
I hated my clothes. I hated that they were tight and scratchy and ill fitting, and I especially hated that they came in every over-saturated color under the sun. I hated how every pair of jeans were so low, I spent all day pulling them up, meanwhile the shirts barely rested past my belly button. Meaning that first day, I spent not so discreetly pulling up my pants and pulling down my shirt—which led to yet another issue. I hated how the denim dragged and stained if I didn't roll them up.
I didn't know why it bothered me this much, though. To the point where I felt confined.
These complaints were met with a change of subject when my mom got home last night, still smelling of deli meat and store brand macaroni salad. Her day job, the one at the pharmaceutical plant, had a way of taking over the conversation in the superficial way. Her coworkers said this, her boss said that, and on, and on.
The second job, the night job at the supermarket always had her talking about anything but her day, or money, or things that cost money.
And god forbid we shopped at thrift stores again. There was an unspoken ban on anything that reminded her of dad, as if she had the luxury to forget even for a second.
Instead, she spent money we didn't have on clothes I didn't want from discount department stores.
Sometimes, I got so frustrated and combative that I contemplated telling her how I was pretty sure my cousin Liberty also had her clothes picked out for her. How she, Melinda Newsted, still bore evidence of being a Van Zandt, but the amount of trouble that'd put me in wouldn't be worth it. Since the restraining order, we become a team, a two person front, looking for signs of danger around every corner.
How could I know her reliance on me wasn't okay? It's easy to look back and see it and judge, but when you're in it, you can't understand the control complex forming or the desperation to be a kid again growing.
