I'm not crying 😢 you're crying 😿
I am 47 years old and I didn't figure out into 2023 that I am more than likely AuDHD ✨ which for those of you who are new to neurodiversity means that I have an ADHD brain mixed in with my autism.
Like many other parts of my existence, *you can't make me choose one!* 😜 (Not that I got to choose either of those) BUT being a lifelong bisexual means I've got a little more rebellion than some. And I see if everywhere in my personality.
-- On the subject of bisexuality! I came out to my mother and my 'friends' (loose term for teenage me) when I was 16. If you do that math, that means it was 1995. Imagine that.
Do you know how many celebrities or other notably figures were {{out}} as bisexual?? How many tv shows or movies do you think focused on bisexual characters or even acknowledged they existed beyond being hypersexual villains.
According to my cursory search, representation was less than sparse in the 90s. The tv show "Roseanne" had a character, Nancy, come out as bisexual in 1995. One of the very first media depictions of non heteronormative people being "normal" and acting just like the "rest of us."
This was possibly my first exposure to bisexuality in a regulated, sane way. Prior to that character on Roseanne, "Basic Instinct" was one of the few movies with a bisexual character. Unfortunately she fit the villainous, hypersexual trope that would (and still does) plague bisexual culture. That means that if Basic Instinct was released in theaters in 1992, I was only 13 when I first heard the term bisexual in the news/media. Because the movie (Basic Instinct) was the center of major protests by LGBTQ+ activists because it reinforced the common trope of the bisexual person as manipulative, hypersexual, and potentially murderous.
By 1992-93, I definitely knew that I was attracted to boys/men and terrified of my attraction to girls. 12 year old me had lost the most important person in the world to a sudden heart attack while my hormones were raging. Impulsively, I started to seek attention from boys {not men} [they were dangerous].
Tell them what they want to hear long enough and they will start to give you what you want [even if they hide it from everyone else...]
{{Problematic behavior begins}}
I learned early on that girls were mean and said things that were supposed to be private in public just to hurt people. So I told myself as a child that being hidden was the only safe way to be.
But when I discovered in my teenage years that there were people who embraced being bisexual and were loud about it?!!!
And it had a label I could adopt??
I came out to everyone. And I mean everyone.
If you listened long enough, I would somehow mention my "depraved" nature (mostly to get your attention).
For some background, I lived in a very, very small town: Cameron, LA. You may have heard about it in the news in 2005. You know the town that was devastated by a major hurricane?
You haven't heard of Cameron, Louisiana and Lake Charles, Louisiana?
Oh, that must be because it landed approximately three weeks after Hurricane Katrina tried to wipe out New Orleans and we were, as a population, pretty much forgotten about in the news.
Anyway! (Not to get too sidetracked from my sidetrack)
I will put things into some perspective about the era I came out in.
In the 90s, Louisiana as a state had a population of roughly 4.3 million people. The parish (county to every other state) I lived in contained 0.2% of the state population. Approximately 9,200 people in about 1,200 square miles of marshes, prairies, and coastline.
Cameron Parish (1,285 sq mi) is about the same size as the entire state of Rhode Island (1,214 sq mi of land). Giving Cameron Parish a population density of only about 7 people per square mile. For comparison, Louisiana averaged about 100 people per square mile around that time and the Seattle area today has well over 8,000 people per square mile in many neighborhoods.
Keep in mind that nearly 1/3rd of the parish is water, consisting of marshes, bays, lakes, and coastal beaches. In Cameron parish alone there are over 26 miles of beachfront/accessible shoreline in the over 100 miles of total Gulf coastline.
The particular town I lived in, Cameron, was a population of about 1,900 people. It's not just rural. It's expansive, with long distances between communities and a strong connection to the Gulf. Many families had known each other for generations, and reputations traveled quickly.
By 16, I had also cut my hair kinda of short and started wearing my bangs in my face. I listened to Marilyn Manson and Korn and Rage Against the Machine. I scream/sang emotional lyrics that said what I couldn't. I wrote poetry inspired by the emotions the songs evoked. I wore jnco jeans and wrote down the song lyrics of the tracks I obsessively listened to over and over again.
I fell in love too fast and was infatuated daily. I talked too much and never really said anything because of fear, fear of being discovered...
I had a similar, internalized fear about adhd and neurodivergence in general. I thought anything less than perfection meant I was dumb. Stupid. Unable to achieve. So I pushed away the voices and plowed through the work. Learning how to use caffeine, procrastination and sleep deprivation to achieve my goals as first a young mother, then later as a college student and full time registered nurse. I got a college degree and worked in hospital nursing for 10 years before I discovered that adhd and later autism were probably the basis of the crippling anxiety I have faced for 30+ years and the source of my complete and total burnout.
But now I am working towards a diagnosis and learning what helps me, not just makes me anxious.
