TW: descriptions of panic attack and hypoglycemia-related issues
So it was a good day today.
Last Saturday, my friend accidentally triggered a panic attack (without knowing about my autism) and handled the situation kind of craptastically - and so did I, really. The result was me shoving her because I was freaking out and she was right in my face and I couldn't think rationally, her crying, me crying, me rocking back and forth while curled into a ball, a mutual friend overhearing and worrying about both of us, two adults (that we've known for years and trust) coming to find us and intervening, me being nauseous, me crying uncontrollably in public because I hadn't had a chance to recover and couldn't control myself, me laying lethargically on my bed (we were at youth group retreat) for maybe an hour because I had no energy, and both of us being awkward and irritable and trying to avoid one another.
I'd never had a panic attack in front of any friends before - except for maybe Ella, but I'm not even friends with her anymore so she doesn't count. It was the first time any of them had really ever seen me display any obvious signs of being disabled, let alone any that none of us were able to handle.
But we talked today, if briefly. We were civil and it wasn't horrible. We're making progress.
I had first lunch, which means I ate right after my third class. This is always a good thing for me, because my hypoglycemia gets really bad around 10 AM on school days (Don't tell me to eat breakfast, like my mom has done repeatedly. I know about metabolism. I had an A in biology last year. And I already eat breakfast). That can make the second half of third hour excruciating, and usually by 11 o'clock I feel like I'm about to pass out. 11 o'clock is about fifteen minutes before I usually have a chance to eat...let's just say I'm surprised I've never been sent to the office for falling asleep in class.
But today was different. Today, I had lunch more than half an hour early. For me, having first lunch is always a cause for happiness.
And it became even more of a cause for happiness when I sat down near my fellow geeks - we all kind of band together - and realized that none of my close friends were talking about anything that interested me.
When you're autistic, that can make things really tense and awkward. Especially when you're autistic and one of the people there had recently seen you during a particularly bad panic attack. To try to distract myself, I decided to eavesdrop...and overheard one of the other geeks who was sitting a few yards away talking to their friend.
Practically the first thing I heard was the queer acronym. They included the A. My letter (well, one of them anyway). Cishet kids don't remember the A. Most cishet kids, if they even know it exists, think it stands for ally.
The A does not stand for ally. This is not up for debate. A is for asexual, aromantic, and agender. When someone pretends that A stands for ally, they are erasing asexual, aromantic, and agender people. Even pretending that A stands for ally in addition to asexual, aromantic, and agender is unacceptable because allies choose to be allies and are not oppressed for it, while queer people do not choose to be queer (except for those horrid human beings who choose to be queer for 'political' reasons) and are oppressed for that; claiming that A is for ally trivializes queer experiences. Supporting LGBTQIA+ rights is simply being a decent human being and should be expected. You don't get a cookie for not being awful.
Queer kids remember the A. I wanted to meet these queer kids.
The kid in question, Carla, presents androgynous and I'd assumed (correctly) that they were nonbinary. So I went over to them and their friend, Stephanie, who is also an enby and also uses they/their/them pronouns, and joined the conversation.
It turned out Carla and Stephanie were trying to start up our school's Gay-Straight Alliance (we call it Spectrum Club, but they're basically the same thing) again, which thrilled me to no end. I'd first heard about Spectrum Club last May, a few months after I came out to myself as bi and a few weeks after I'd started questioning if I was also gray-ace (which I was so totally right about), and had wanted desperately to join but figured it was too late in the school year. I'd been dreaming over the summer about signing up this year, only to find out it was canceled.
Now, though...now I have my chance. Yes, I have queer friends already. Yes, I have Skittlr and the rather awesome genderqueer-based group I belong to on Facebook. But even with all the queer positivity I've found since coming out to my dad at age five, I still live my life in this weird world where 'straight until proven otherwise' is somehow logical and accepted, where queer identity and queer humanity are up for debate, where cishets think I'm going through a phase or that my queerness somehow comes from the devil, where I don't always feel free to be myself because sometimes, being myself means that I risk being made to feel embarrassed for aspects of myself that don't fit into the kyriarchy's bigoted idea of normal and acceptable.
So queer safe havens are important. Queer-based clubs in high school are important.
I was delighted to join...and to discuss queer issues with Stephanie and Carla for the duration of lunch time and to celebrate Leelah's Law. I'm surprised the school didn't explode into the colors of a thousand different pride flags.
Then, during art class, I got started on the fantastic new project we're going to be working on with sheet metal. We have to pick out different designs to draw on the metal. We're then going to be turning it into either a key chain or a pendant. I'm making pride art, of course. I love pride art. It's going to be a pendant with the asexual pride flag with an image of a slice of cake on it (cake is a symbol of asexuality because of the joke that if a stripper popped out of a cake, an asexual would be upset that the cake was ruined). And it's going to be awesome.
It was also during this class that I finally acquired a black ring, which I made out of thin, flexible silver wire wrapped in black embroidery thread. I'm wearing it right now and it's hella cute.
The black ring, in case you didn't know, is a symbol of asexuality. There aren't a lot of out asexuals (gray-aces, like myself, are part of the asexual spectrum), partly because many people haven't heard of asexuality or think it's BS and partly because a lot of asexuals hesitate in coming out because of acephobia and widespread societal ignorance surrounding our sexualities. There aren't a lot of ways for asexuals to find one another, whether for romance, friendship, or just to marvel at this incredibly hypersexualized society we live in.
So someone on the online forums of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) decided we needed a way to fix that. Something simple and subtle, that we would get but wasn't widely known to allosexuals. Something affordable. Something that could easily be seen and carried, that wasn't overtly feminine or masculine, that could let us find each other without outing us in a dangerous situation. The solution was a simple black ring around the right middle finger (a black ring on the right hand is also a symbol in swinger culture, which can cause confusion between the two groups; swingers are advised to avoid putting their rings on the middle finger for this reason).
Please note that the black ring is also not a purity ring. Celibate and abstinent people, you already have rings by which to identify each other. They're called chastity rings. Celibacy=/=asexuality. Don't wear the ace ring if you're not on the ace spectrum.
I've wanted a black ring really badly ever since coming out to myself as ace a few weeks ago and decided to make one, which is how I acquire approximately 99.9% of my pride-related things. Christina, who is asexual and not out to her parents, also wants pride stuff and I promised I would get her some. So I made her a black ring too. I'm also making one for our friend Ana, who is gray-ace and also not out to her parents, and some more to give out at Spectrum Club meetings and to sell on Etsy.
I also discovered recently that a very sweet blogger, Betty, who is from Germany, is also bi, and has followed me since the beginning, is now engaged to her boyfriend. I'm happy for her; he makes her happy, he seems like a great guy, and they both deserve life with the people they love.
Also, two former members of my youth group, Stephanie and Mackenzie (a different Stephanie) are getting married this Saturday (and yes, I'm going to the wedding). They were in youth group together in high school and re-met through a mutual friend years later...at which point they started dating. They've been engaged for a few months now, their couple name is either Stephkenzie or MacStephanie (there's been some debate over which one sounds better), and were the ones to introduce the fortune-telling game Kings and Queens to this generation's youth group.
I'll never understand the appeal of romance, but I'm glad these people have found it.
So all in all, it's been a pretty nice day.
), can’t make eye contact, pull my hair, get nauseous, etc. And if I’m forced to talk or interact, I won’t be able to think clearly and will probably say or do something that I’ll later regret. If you get in my face and I feel threatened when I’m overloaded, I can even be physically violent (i.e. pushing, shoving, scratching) and will do whatever is necessary to get you away from me. And I wish that more people understood that I am human. My brain may work like a computer, but that doesn’t make me a robot.