The Importance of Found Family

 As a child of divorce, I’ve always known that family is a strange thing. Society teaches us that its the most important bond we can have with other people, while also reserving it almost exclusively for those we’re biologically related to. “Blood is thicker than water,” some say, while others espouse that “family is forever” or some similarly contrived platitude. Certainly, those connections can be important. I’m very close to my biological family, in my own way. We’re the very definition of a tight-knit clan, and even though I’m caught squarely in the middle of two families that don’t really exist to the other because of divorce shenanigans, I like to think of myself as having a good relationship with both halves of my genetic material.

That’s not what I want to talk about today though. Because the thing of it is? There’s another kind of family that I’ve come to cherish as much as – if not more than – my biological one. Found family. It’s a concept that has its roots in the LGBTQ community, where oppression and stigma would often push unrelated people together for mutual support and connection in a world where their biological relations wanted nothing to do with them (or at best, didn’t understand them).

I may not be gay, but I do understand this super well in my own way. And I think that’s true for a lot of people. My parents, bless their hearts, are upper-middle class, and my family as a whole cares a lot more about keeping up appearances than I ever have. They also don’t tend to understand my intense interest in nerdy things, my love of the simple life, and my tendency to not care about clothing and fashion. I’m almost certain that these things all stem from the fact that I’m multiply neurodivergent, but even still, I’ve always felt that there’s a whole side of me that my bio fam just doesn’t get. That’s not to say they don’t get me in their own way – of course they do – its just…different?

My found family understands me in a way no one else does. Part of that is because life circumstances have brought us together and made our bonds stronger through countless trials and tribulations (in some cases stretching back decades). I suspect in some other way, though, its because we’re all outcasts in our own ways. My favourite people in the world are poly, LGBTQ, neurodivergent, hippy, witchy, or otherwise exist outside the bounds of what society considers ‘normal.’ And you know what? I LOVE that. Because normal is a setting on a dishwasher, not a metric of validity for human life experiences. There’s just something beautiful to me about people with intersecting identities from all of these groups coming together and realizing that they WANT to be family. Making that intentional choice to love and support each other. It makes my heart happy that I get to experience that in this world, and not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on how lucky I am.

My found family includes (but is not limited to) my gay best friend of over 20 years, my poly, witchy, pot-smoking, LGBTQ, neurodivergent sisters from other parental units, their partners, and the various offspring they’ve produced (to whom I get to be Uncle Adam, which is so cool!). It’s a diverse, eclectic group of weirdos I’ve collected over my many years on this planet. They’ve all helped me find my place in this world in ways I can’t even begin to fully express.

And I can’t imagine my life without any of them.

As always, yours in diversity,

Adam Michael

“To Thine Own Self Be True” – Pride Month, Supergirl, Transgender Representation, and Neurodiversity Pride (Oh My!)

Hey all you out there in internet land! As you’re no doubt aware, June is Gay Pride Month, and as such, yours truly wanted to share something that really inspired me in pop culture recently – a certain...er...super powerful moment that occurred on the CW’s hit series ‘Supergirl.’ The adventures of Kara Danvers have been excellent all year, with a story focussing on bigotry and institutionalized oppression at a time when such a message desperately needs to be heard. Of particular note, however, is one of the new characters they brought in – a spunky heroine who goes by ‘Dreamer.’ Born with the given name Nia Nal, Dreamer is a superhero whose power is derived from being able to use dreams to predict future events and gain insights, among other abilities. She is strong, kind, compassionate, caring, and also perhaps most importantly, different. You see, in addition to being half-human and half-alien at a time in the series where anti-alien prejudice is in full swing, Nia is also transgender, and both admits to having struggled because of it, and to it being a source of pride and strength for her. Indeed, she is informed by it, shaped by its challenges and gifts in equal measure, and also more than the circumstances of her birth (Mewtwo from Pokemon would be proud).

Needless to say, as someone with similar experiences (albeit as a spectrum dweller rather than a member of the trans community)? I was extremely inspired. Especially after she delivered a rousing and passionate speech defending differences between people and encouraging everyone to speak their truths. I’ve reprinted it below:

“My parents believed that humans and aliens could co-exist. And I'm living proof of that. But growing up wasn't easy. I am also a trans woman. I'm different, Miss Danvers, but so is everybody. And I don't know when that became such a bad thing. The greatest gift we can give each other is our authentic selves and sharing that. Sharing our truth is what will make us strong. So, here I am. I am both human and alien. And I am a trans woman. S'mores are my favorite dessert. But I will always choose salty over sweet. I broke my nose when I was 15 during a game of kickball. My mother was my heart. And since I lost her, it's felt like a piece of me is missing. But my father is my spine. I'm a Gryffindor. Uh, my Patronus is a Dapple Grey Stallion. I am an INFP. House Stark. I love Thursdays and April. And nerdy boys who think too much. And I am proud of all that I am.”

This moved me in a way I can’t even describe. All of us who are different have at one time or another experienced exactly what Dreamer described, and so I’ve decided to take her up on her challenge and speak my own truth through an adaptation of her speech for my own lived reality. Because speaking our truths is important:

I'm a child of a divorced home. I've struggled with that in one form or another my whole life. I've felt pangs of anger at my parents, resented things not going as they were 'supposed to', and sensed the awkwardness as my step mom, mom, and dad sat around the same dinner table at events like my Confirmation (since my family is Catholic). I always felt as though I was being torn between two worlds...and you couldn't cut the tension with a knife! But growing up was difficult for me on an additional level too - I am also an Aspie. A person with Asperger's Disorder. A spectrum dweller. Autistic...with probable (though unofficial) ADHD. I'm different...but so is everybody. When did that become such a bad thing? After all, the greatest, most wonderful gift any of us can give each other is that of our true, authentic selves. Our truths - unfiltered, unsanitized, uncompromising. So here I am - a kid from a divorced family, an Aspie, an ADD-er. Human. Pizza is one of my favourite foods. I love science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular. I'm an all around nerd and an introvert, but I love being around my chosen friend family...if only for defined periods. When I was 14, I almost got suspended from school for standing up for myself against my bully, and later when I was in Grade 12, I led our school newspaper on strike for freedom of the press after we got censored by the principal. My Nona Olga and Aunt Judy were two of the dearest women to me in life, and I strive to live according to the values of honesty, compassion, tolerance, and love that they taught me. I'm an optimist. A lover, not a fighter...though I can certainly be fierce and outspoken when I need to be. My step mom and birth mother are the ones who instilled in me that sense of resilience and courage though, and my gentle, wonderful father taught me how to be a good man. I'm a Gryffindor at heart, and if I were to be any animal, it would be a Golden Retriever, because while I love cats, I identify with dogs. I am an INFP. Vulcan follower of the V'Tosh Katur path. Jedi Knight. I live for lazy rainy Saturday mornings, and I'm a big fan of nerdy girls with glasses. And most importantly? I am proud of all that I am. I wouldn't be me without any of it.

We all need to speak our truths and be true to them. Otherwise, the world will never change for the better.

Thank you, Dreamer, for inspiring me to continue speaking mine.

Happy Pride everyone!

Yours in diversity,

Adam Michael

I Suck As An Advocate

I suck as an advocate. I’m not always patient. I don’t always hold space in my heart for understanding and compassion. I don’t always follow my own advice, and practice what I preach. The truth is, sometimes I’m a hypocrite. Sometimes I get frustrated just as much by my own fellow spectrum dwellers as I do by all the anti-vaxxers and autism warrior moms out there. Sometimes, I’m even impatient with those who need my patience most; my family…several of whom are on the spectrum or otherwise equally as Neurodivergent as I am. I want so badly to help, to speak out, and to make the world a better place, that sometimes, I fail to live up to my own standards.

I’m sorry for that…I really, truly am.

I can’t promise I will never fail – to fail is human after all. What I can promise, however, is to always pick myself back up. I promise to always listen, to always try, and to always learn from my moments of failure. I promise to use them to inform my activism, and to let them show me the way towards being a better human. I promise that I DO in fact understand that each of our struggles are unique, and that I will always be here if you need someone to talk to or support you. I can’t promise I will be able to do so with money…but that’s millennial living for you.

Most importantly, I promise to never give up the fight. To never stop trying to be the best advocate I possibly can be, and to never allow the failure to win.

So yes, I suck as an advocate – but I will never stop learning how to be a better one.

Yours in Diversity,

Adam Michael

'Outing': A Reflection On Why Its Scary

Hey all! I’m sorry I haven’t updated this blog in well over a year – it’s been a really challenging one, filled with ups and downs, and to be honest I’ve needed far more self care and centering time than I thought I would. I have been getting back into this blog and its associated Facebook page more and more though, and I hope you’ll all forgive me for my absence! I promise it was spent on good causes – like finally finishing the second draft of the book I’ve been working on based on both this site and my own life experiences as an Aspie! When I have more information for you about that development, I’ll be sure to pass it along!

With that long-winded and thoroughly Aspie-style apology out of the way, I’d actually like to talk today about something that’s been on my mind a lot lately – coming out. ‘But Adam,’ you might begin, ‘aren’t you already out? I mean, you’re a fierce defender of the neurodivergent in internet land and have met other fellow spectrum-dwelling activists in the process over your years of blogging!’ You wouldn’t be wrong for thinking this, and yet I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who is only ‘out’ in certain aspects of my life. Granted, my friends and family all know about my being an Aspie, and I’m not exactly shy about talking about it in public…but it’s always something I’ve kept out of things like my work life. It’s not that I necessarily think anyone would think less of me, or that I feel I’d be oppressed…its just something that I’ve always sensed shouldn’t be brought in to work. With the aforementioned progress I’ve made towards getting my book published however, I’ve recently had to face the very real fact that if and when it gets published, I’ll be outed in every aspect of my life – including work.

So why does being outed at work like this carry with it so much anxiety? To be honest, it’s a bit of a soup of reasons, but if I were to single out two of them, it would be ‘lack of agency’ and ‘engrained fear of ableism.’ Simply put – while I’ve always wanted to get a book published and I’ve never been shy to speak out about being on the spectrum in my adult life, there’s something simultaneously empowering and agency-depriving about a book being published and suddenly everyone knowing your story…including people you might not want to know. It seems silly to be concerned about this – after all, isn’t this the whole point of publishing something of this nature? Isn’t the ‘consenting moment’ the decision to pursue this, after which any and all outing is to be expected? Maybe, but there’s no denying that an act of supreme agency and self advocacy like this also carries with it the side effect of depriving one of their own agency in day-to-day dealings. Where once one could hide from ableist bigotry behind a perceived veil of neurotypicality, now it’s all out there. It’s like being emotionally naked to the world…and to borrow a term from the younger generation, that makes you feel vulnerable ‘AF.’

This brings me to the next reason this whole process has given me all of the nervousness – my engrained fear of ableism. As an older millennial (what some may call an ‘X-ennial’ because being born in 1988 officially places me closer to the Gen X-ers in mentality than to some of my more stereotypical younger millennial cohorts), I was raised during the 1990s, and for every awesome and rightfully nostalgic element that decade had going for it (Sega vs Nintendo! Pokemon! PlayStation 1, Star Trek and Terminator 2 and…I’ll stop…), it often wasn’t the most progressive and forward thinking when it came to various stigmas – specifically those related to mental health. There was always this undercurrent of not taking anything personal into the public eye and the workplace. Work is about work, or so the logic went, don’t give them any reason to look on you differently or they will find an excuse and fire you! Granted this was never STATED as such, but with the prevailing attitude towards mental health care at the time being ‘avoid the crazy farm at all costs,’ and witnessing first hand how the world treated my mentally ill mother, it wasn’t hard for me to internalize some of this and live in fear of being outed in certain contexts. In fact, this was precisely the reason it took me as long as it did to come to terms with my own place on the spectrum. It doesn’t matter that the world is far more accepting of mental health issues now than it’s ever been, or that I’ve been a part of that change through this blog…old habits and insecurities die hard, and for a time in high school I even didn’t want to be associated with the label ‘Aspergers.’ Coming to terms with this has been and will continue to be a journey, and to anyone reading this who has also experienced similar fears – I get it, and you are not alone. Society has imprinted fucked up attitudes on all of us to some degree, and it’s important we constantly challenge them – not only when we come across them in public, but also when we encounter them within ourselves.

Despite all of this fear and anxiety, however, I do remain committed to getting my book published and continuing this blog. It has the potential to do so much good for so many people, and isn’t it my responsibility as someone on the spectrum who is able to communicate to put my voice out there and advocate for both myself and those that can’t? Isn’t every non-cis-het-neurotypical perspective valuable in this day-and-age of opposing oppression wherever it rears its ugly head? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding ‘yes!’ I will always keep fighting for what I believe in, no matter the cost! After all, bravery isn’t defined by the absence of fear, but rather by the overcoming of it. So I may continue to shit bricks about certain aspects of this fight, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep stepping forward into the fray.

After all, there’s a reason the Pottermore sorting hat placed me in Gryffindor… 😊

As always, yours in diversity,

Adam Michael