Autistic Bottom-up thinking my way to body confidence: How research gave me style
Originally published on Medium
I like to research. “Bottom-up” thinking, the process of taking in a lot of information, processing it, and finding patterns is fun for me. And sometimes, I use those skills to solve a seemingly simple problem, like figuring out why I look weird in pictures.
The issue
Years ago, a friend took a photo of me standing in line at the Social Security office. When I saw it, I cringed at my curved posture, sharp elbows and shrunken hair out of proportion to the rest of my body. This shock at seeing myself in photos happened often. I accept my awkwardness; this shock was about something else. Why don’t candid shots match the mental image I have of myself?
And I don’t mean candid photos like “caught me off guard talking with my mouth wide open”. I mean photos when I really tried to look nice. After scrutinizing many of these photos over the years, I noticed a big part of the problem, besides my hair, was my clothes.
The problem with my clothes
Take a little black girl who matured too fast for girls’ clothing but was still too young for the women’s section. Make her grow up with skinny-is-in 90s/Noughties fashion. Throw in a body with top and bottom halves of different sizes. Sprinkle in skin with a warm undertone when pastel and cool colors are the popular choice for girls and a personal dislike for “girly style” as the cherry on top.
The result? Cute clothes became awkward on me.
What to do? I didn’t want to become a fashionista. But I also didn’t want to look terrible all the time. I wanted to be comfortable. I just wanted to look like me. Why was that so hard?
So I did what I do best: research. I went to the library and the internet to learn about body types, color theory, capsule wardrobes, petite style tips, bloggers, whatever I could find to try. But the advice never quite worked. Tips contradicted each other and what seemed to work for me was sometimes a Don’t. And why did some tips work one day but not the next?
I felt like a doll assembled from different factories. If only I could exchange the mismatched parts for ones that actually made sense together.
Even worse? The common advice didn’t fit my style. I did not want to wear layers and cardigans when the weather was 90+ degrees. I did not want to wear loud heels to look taller. I did not want to “suffer in the name of beauty”. To comfortably accommodate my body’s 2 different sizes, I tended to buy clothes a size too big. But then my clothes were always too large and baggy and that wasn’t my style either. And ugh, the sensory discomfort of ill-fitting clothes — pants that gap in the back and need belts that squeeze too tight to keep them up, shirts that won’t sit straight on the shoulders, fabric that’s too stiff or not structured enough or feels too plastic-y, etc, etc.
Learning to understand my body
A few years ago, my endless internet searches revealed the Kibbe system. For the first time, I discovered a body typing system that wasn’t obviously in love with the hourglass shape, with a goal to approach the body as it was and not to alter its silhouette.
Lightbulb moment. Was that why style advice never quite fit? Why I always felt like a random collection of body parts from my parents? This was the missing piece of the internal style map I’d been building. My body’s random collection of soft and hard lines wasn’t a bad thing. It just was. When my clothes followed my lines, they looked right on me. And when they didn’t look right, now I had the vocabulary and basic principles for what went wrong and how to fix it.
Another piece of the style puzzle? Contrast. I read about how my facial features and skin have a natural contrast that I could mirror in my outfits. Now I had what I needed to figure out an everyday uniform to wear to look put together with little brain power.
Learning to like my body
Learning to like my body required one more element: sewing.
Sewing is one of my life-long interests. As a kid, I used fabric scraps to handsew clothes for my dolls. Over the years, I picked up basic skills out of necessity, like hemming too-long pants shorter to fit. My most ambitious amateur project was adding width to a thrifted little black dress using Velcro, a strip of black fabric and sloppy interior handstitches.
During the pandemic, I took an online sewing course by Evelyn Wood who explained the WHYs behind sewing and, specifically, altering existing clothes to fit better. One common theme was how to troubleshoot problems with fit. The advice was not “alter the body to fit our clothing” like popular culture suggests. Instead, we alter the clothes to fit the body.
My body wasn’t the enemy. Clothes weren’t the enemy either once I learned to make them work with me and not against me.
And after all that work, now that I look in the mirror, I see myself. Not clothes. Just awkward me.
Which is all I ever wanted in the first place.
Time used to be my enemy: Until I stopped trying to do everything
Originally published on Medium
Before my journey to emotional intelligence and autism diagnosis, Time was my enemy.
A visit to family that happened a month ago felt like a day ago. I still had vivid memories of events while trying to recover my pre-visit energy. During the visit, I thought the agreed upon 2 hour time limit had been completed but no, only 10 minutes had passed…then 15…30… I watched the time on my phone while reading subreddit posts to make sure Time wasn’t playing tricks on me.
According to the clock, a new project used 5 hours of my day. But I was certain that only 5 minutes ago, I’d turned the computer on to begin. And did I really ignore both my alarms to take a break?
As a kid, adults confidently proclaimed “When you’re young, time goes slow but it speeds up as you get older.” And before my autism diagnosis, when I tried to keep pace with everyone else, this prophecy was fulfilled. Time moved too fast and too slow at all the wrong times.
I was too stubborn for Time to be my friend.
And now that I stopped doing “all the things”?
When I miscalculate the length of an activity, Time mercifully adds on only an extra hour or two so I don’t mourn the loss of a whole afternoon. Unpleasant activities now have an end that I feel coming. Mornings feel like beginnings and not the beginning of the end. Time gifts me comfy afternoons that feel three times longer and even bonuses like Saturdays that feel like whole weekends.
And the days I get a late start but stick to my morning routine, I accomplish more than when I scrap health in pursuit of productivity. I still get everything done with extra time to spare…somehow.
I think Time is my friend now.
What’s so familiar about the phrase “You don’t look autistic”: And why it doesn’t bother me (much)
Originally published on Medium
When I first dove into the online autistic community, one phrase kept popping up as other people’s typical response to being diagnosed as autistic later in life: “ You don’t seem autistic.”
Well, I didn’t get this response very often.
True, I got some awkward pauses or a mention of an autistic young nephew but it wasn’t always said using this particular set of words. But I do understand the irritation and offense this phrase causes because I have heard another similar phrase said to and about me: “You don’t act black.”
Like “You don’t look autistic,” this phrase comes in different flavors like being called an “Oreo” or overhearing a black beautician tell my mom her daughters “talk white”.
But I don’t get offended by these phrases. I just wish people would explicitly say what they mean instead of using this too-broad generalization.
As a kid, I used to think the phrase “You don’t act black” was a compliment. I thought the person meant “You don’t act like the black people I see on mid-90s to 2000s TV.” Because it was true, I didn’t act like those characters. Those shows weren’t my reality. (I mean, who actually acts like the people on TV?)
But then I later realized those people weren’t using the same definitions I was. What they meant was “I think all black people act a certain way and you don’t act that way”. The phrase “You don’t act [insert a group of people here]” implies there is a limited definition to define members of that group. Only one way to be black. Only one way to be autistic.
But that’s not true.
I am black because I am black. My skin doesn’t have to be a certain color. My hair doesn’t have to be a certain texture. My speech or clothes or music taste doesn’t have to be a certain way.
I am autistic because I am. Because I fit a range of characteristics that leave room for a wide variety of individuals. (Interestingly, this is likely the reason I talk differently. The way my autism and being black interact with each other is fun to try and untangle.)
So if you haven’t learned this handy phrase yet, I’ll share it now: If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.
Apply this to any group of people. And when in doubt, ask a genuinely curious question instead of making a sweeping assumption. I will not be offended if you ask if I like fried chicken or trains as long as you listen to the detailed answer.
Not every weekend has to be exciting: The danger of the question “Anything exciting happen?”
Originally published on Medium
As an ASL interpreter for college classes, I watched multiple professors interact with students and noticed they often used words like “exciting” when asking about how students spent their free time. This story is inspired by the ones who replied “Nothing.”
The professor opens the evening college class with a chipper “How was your weekend?” A student in the bottom left corner of the Zoom gallery screen smiles, remembering Saturday’s long walk through the local park, warm sun shining, feeling good for the first time in a long while with no homework to worry about.
The professor adds “Anything exciting happen?”
The student frowns and reexamines the memory for any exciting elements.
Is a walk exciting? Possibly. But not a walk through a regular local park. Maybe one in the mountains is.
Is the warm sun shining exciting? Not really. It’s a pretty basic occurrence in the southern states of the USA.
Is feeling good exciting? Maybe if the feeling was great or awesome but not just good.
And anything to do with homework is never exciting, no need to even ask.
One by one the other students offer up a short rendition of an exciting weekend while, for one reason after another, the student in the bottom left corner of the Zoom rejects sharing a fond memory.
It’s their turn now. “What about you?”
The student shrugs and says “No, nothing exciting.”
How my natural hair prepared me for my Autism diagnosis: And taught me that online communities are all the same
Originally published on Medium
I spent most of my life not knowing the most basic thing about myself: my actual hair texture. The decision to change that changed my life.
But back then, standing at the kitchen sink with a bottle of V05 conditioner in one hand, I wondered “Will this help or ruin my hair?”
My mom was uncertain that “white people conditioner” would work on my Black hair. She was definitely sure that not getting relaxers anymore was a sure path to broken hair because that’s what she had learned growing up.
I wasn’t sure if she was right or wrong. I really feared my hair would fall out. But I was so dissatisfied with my hair that something needed to change.
Since elementary school, I struggled to grow my hair. It stayed chin length for years before straggling to barely shoulder-length that a hairdresser traumatically chopped off in the name of Trims just in time for the horrible cut to be immortalized in my high school pictures. (I cried that day and I don’t cry easily.) I tried everything to grow my hair. I massaged my scalp regularly, took vitamins, did hair treatments, even prayed nightly.
Nothing worked until I went to the internet to question the very foundation of what I grew up learning about Black hair care: it needs to be straightened. What if it didn’t?
In those early Internet forums and YouTube videos, I found the early Natural Hair community. I learned so much from what those women shared and spent hours soaking it all in when I should’ve been sleeping to be up early for school the next day. (Thank you, hyperfocus) And I soaked in more than knowledge. People had a LOT of opinions:
You should never straighten your hair. Celebrate natural hair’s versatility; it can be straight and long one day then kinky and short the next! You should style your hair everyday. No, not everyday, that’s damaging. Do it every month and never wear it loose if you want it to grow.
Never let your hair shrink; always stretch it out. Shrinkage is healthy and beautiful; don’t fight it. Black hair is always kinky, not curly. If your hair is straight, it’s damaged. Some Black hair is naturally straight. If your hair doesn’t curl, it’s dehydrated. It never curls unless you’re mixed. Ethnically Black hair can be naturally curly.
So
many
opinions.
I became a “Natural Hair Nazi” based on my research. I viewed relaxers and straightening hair to shampoo commercial silky-smooth as bad and damaging. It was all bad. And if you kept doing it, you were bad, too. I judged them. The J in my INTJ was overactive.
Years passed and what worked for me wasn’t necessarily what the Natural Hair articles recommended. So I stopped listening to them and listened to what worked for me. And I realized I had left one hair belief system (straight hair good, kinky curly unacceptable) for another one. Uh-oh. I mentally apologized to the people I had silently judged so much.
And then about 10 years later, I learned another basic fact about myself: I’m autistic. My brain does not work the way I’d been taught my whole life. I dived deep into the internet world of the Autistic community and, after hours and days of reading, started to notice some similarities.
So
many
opinions.
Experts with their views. Parents with their views. #ActuallyAutistic people with their views.
The J in my INTJ was triggered. There was so much to judge people about!
But I didn’t want to go back to that. I had learned that the world really isn’t black and white. There’s so much gray. And out of that gray, I finally grew my hair longer than I could ever imagine. (Not that it’s obvious because I like my hair’s shrinkage.)
We’re all humans.
We’re at different places in our healing journey.
And thanks to my natural hair journey, I arrived on the other side of obsessive research and dogmatism in one positive piece.