adrienmundi

Long return

2025-04-07T12:04:04Z

I hate the bad place (a.k.a. Zuckbook) even as it holds me hostage with contacts who use no other medium. I don't write there meaningfully any more because Fuckerberg has openly aligned with authoritarian fascists in his pursuit of oligarchical power, hoping they don't remember that he's Jewish), but that means I'm not writing, and I think that's bad for me.

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adrienmundi @ 2022-11-17T11:50:00

2022-11-17T15:50:47Z

Twelve to thirteen years ago I decided that the world did not currently have a place for me with regard to my experience of my own gender. I committed to doing the best that I could from my current position, working to make the world better even if I had no expectation of seeing the change I needed/wanted in my lifetime.

A lot has changed in the intervening years, both within me and without. I need to seriously reconsider my position on this, particularly with regard to what might be better than my current state, if still not ideal. Of course capitalism complicates this (I pass as a cis guy for economic reasons), and my social anxiety and intense fear of rejection are also at play, but I shouldn't avoid things just because they are hard and scary.

This is slow going. I'm writing about it to hopefully make myself more accountable.

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adrienmundi @ 2022-08-25T10:42:00

2022-08-25T14:45:14Z

With every death my apartment gets tidier. Oscar died a week and a half ago. I was able to get up his extra food and water bowls, the towels I left around for him to lie on wherever he got tired, and most of the long orange fur he shed everywhere. I also took the last of Janiene's sorted belongings to charity drop off (though there are still caches of her stuff in storage and on shelves; sorting through it takes multiple passes, and I can only do so much at a time).

My cats range from 13-16 years old. Assuming none of them are actually immortal, but the time it's just me I might have a clean place. That will probably be a marker for my own imminent demise.

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adrienmundi @ 2022-07-20T17:03:00

2022-07-20T21:06:20Z

Monday night I dreamed about crying.

In my dream I woke up in bed to notice Janiene was in bed, awake, and trying to figure out what it was that she ate that was making her stomach upset. She settled on "Impossible meat stew".

I remember saying, "I dreamed you were already gone..." (meaning, already dead). Then I put my head on her shoulder and started crying, both from relief and because the knowledge of her death being not very distant.

I woke up in bed, alone, nine months after she'd passed away, and I almost wept.

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dreams of Janiene

2022-04-21T21:35:23Z

I dreamed of Janiene four times in the last week, twice each on two separate nights.

The first was the night of Wednesday, 13 April. Twice in the same night she appeared in a dream initially about other things; both times I was delighted to see her. The feeling was that she'd been away for an extended period on business but was now back. It was Janiene in her prime. The first time I realized she was dead, and woke up sad. After getting back to sleep she appeared again, same sense of returning from an extended business trip. When I remembered she was dead this time, I walked behind her and wrapped myself around her from shoulder to hip, with the intent to protect her from... something. I woke up sad again.

The second night was Monday, 18 April. Strangely I don't remember the details of either dream much. The dreams were about something else, and suddenly she was there. Both dreams I remembered she wasn't supposed to be there and woke up sad, faster.

These didn't feel like a direct visitation, but honestly I've never had a dream visit from a dead person, so I don't know. I've had dream visits from cats, and they very much had a feeling of intentional connection from outside of me. The dreams of Janiene felt like regular dreams for which I was uncharacteristically aware. I'm not sure how to interpret them.

Perhaps relatedly, I asked one of the presences I feel as I'm slipping into sleep (this is a very regular thing for me; they're basically friends at this point), "Am I depressed?" I remember her response was quick, no nonsense, but not unkind: "Oh you're definitely depressed."

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mourning, work, affiliation

2021-10-08T20:25:43Z

My boss, his boss, and his boss (all with whom I'm on a first name basis) sent me gift basket to mark their acknowledgement of the loss of Janiene. My company has been very understanding about my need to be out to care for her during home hospice, and now that she's gone. I've said semi-jokingly that I feel like I'm working for Hank Scorpio; my company may not make the most socially responsible decisions about how they create and broadcast content, but fuck if they don't go out of their way to take care of their people.

"Their people", I suspect, comes with caveats. I don't know how much of this upper management (up to at least the SVP level) affiliation has to do with becoming "one of theirs", one for whom allowances are made and ranks are closed (to an extent). Part of me wonders to what extent it's boosted by the assumption that I'm white/cis/het: it makes me being a manager among managers more understandable, I suspect.

But all that aside, it's nice to have space, even if I decry others not also having space.

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Record keeping

2021-10-05T21:10:12Z

Friday, 1 October, just after 4:30 AM my beloved, Janiene, breathed her last. She was at home and I was holding her hand through it all.

Grief is episodic, not persistent. As a relative pointed out (with uncharacteristic insight), it could be that I mourned parts of Janiene over time, as she got sicker and her world smaller. I still weep, but when the grief pierces me it's a minute or three, and then I'm back to... whatever my current base state is.

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small things

2021-10-05T21:07:22Z

Saturday I did not change out of my comfy, slightly padded bra (to my standard slightly minimizing sports bra) when friends were coming over to check on me. Not a subject of commentary or conversation.

Sunday I went to the same friends' house for dinner, saw another friend, wearing the comfy (not sports) bra and standard clothes. Again no commentary or conversation.

Today, anxious about taking a walk without some degree of minimization rather than accentuation, because strangers on the street are less inclined to be kind to me than my friends.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-09-18T15:53:00

2021-09-18T19:54:29Z

Well, these are not anomalous medical crises.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-09-16T20:58:00

2021-09-17T01:19:30Z

J is back in the hospital, the third time in a month. This time it looks like her pneumonia is back (that was the first overnight visit this month), and she has a blood clot in her lung. All of this is not uncommon for cancer patients, or at least for metastatic patients, I'm told.

I don't know if this is anomalous, or if this is the beginning of a new normal.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-09-05T10:00:00

2021-09-05T14:03:19Z

The most "normal" I've felt in a year and a half was sitting in the hospital with Janiene for five days last week. Even masked all the time, it was the most I've been out of my house and around other people since Covid and its attendant idiots have ruined social gatherings for anyone who pays even the scantest attention.

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How to act on old insight, rather than being frozen by it?

2021-07-24T11:51:28Z

From the bad place, keeping it here long term.

15 or so years ago I had a therapist I was sure was going to be the key to figuring out how to make my life better on many fronts. Based on prior experience with other therapists, I wanted someone who "got it" on a lot of big fronts from the start, and who could keep up with me as I talked my way through my issues by way of philosophy, pop culture, and painfully mixed metaphor. This one hit all of those requirements: theologically trained, trans, queer, quick and clever with a restless mind, and older, with more experience in the world I was hoping to learn from.

We established the groundwork quickly, and at first it seemed to be going swimmingly. While I would have to pause to explain some of my pop cultural references (music, in particular), it wasn't odious, and she was more widely read than I was in Western philosophy as it touched upon, or was used by, progressive theology.

It stopped working around the 18-24 month mark. In retrospect I think it might have been a mix of analyst to analysand transference (something I had never considered until much later) and too long a time in which I set the rules and she eagerly followed along. In relation to our work, it seemed like she collapsed and withdrew, unable or unwilling to challenge my thinking when it wasn't serving me, seemingly lost. She agreed that I described my situation in sharp detail, but had no suggestions for how to change it.

One of the early gems of our time together was the realization that I made about radicalization around the concepts of sex and gender, and how I'd broken the pattern a lot of trans people seemed to have, based on those I knew and read about.

My theory was that many trans people transitioned to something that served them better (almost always something that could be interpreted as a point on the gender binary, at least initially), and then with a mix of relief of that particular trans pressure, plus maybe different personal experience, some (the ones I read obsessively, anyway) went on to realize that the idea of sex and gender being fixed, solid categories was not accurate either personally or systemically.

I hit everything mind first. It's both a blessing and a curse, but it's my mind and I've come to accept that. For me, part of studying transness became picking at the threads around sex, gender, attraction, manifestation, change over time, change by culture, the structural limits of binarism, and multitude of plateaus possible to either visit or inhabit. The seed of this great unwinding was well planted and germinating before I ever engaged with endocrinological shift, greymarket, OTC, or medically supervised.

One of the consequences for me was that the idea of "transition" seemed a bad investment; why would I work rigorously to seemingly reinforce concepts I found both anathematic and incredibly painful? As an AMAB person, the incline is steep (because of the sociocultural distortions of patriarchy and its dependent misogyny). Having realized the foundations are all bullshit, even if the power consequences are quite real, I had/have no appetite for standard transition work.

And now I'm in my 50s, still unhappy with my place in the world, still radicalized, still seeing no way forward. I keep remembering my therapist saying, "What you describe sounds accurate, and I don't know what to say."

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adrienmundi @ 2021-06-27T16:14:00

2021-06-27T20:29:21Z

Despite all my exposure to queer theory and applied philosophy, I still struggle with feeling guilty for not finding more men attractive. In very broad strokes, I like people who are not men*, and a small subset of those who are men.

In a case of situational irony, it was a sly, comedic internet headline that really helped solidify my attraction (and subsequent guilt. From Reductress, "5 Doc Marten Looks That Say "I'm Attracted to All Women and Two Men".

*including, but not limited to: women of all origins, nonbinary, gender fluid, genderqueer, genderfuckers(!), border crossers, the liminal, the alien, the conflicted, and the problematic)

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small trans updates

2021-06-14T16:17:40Z

I've been back on the estrogen patch and progesterone capsules for just over a month, and I can see a difference, primarily in my breasts. The are back to bouncing slightly when I do my morning workout without support, and that's pleasant.

Straightening up recently I found a holiday gift card that I'd misplaced and overlooked. Today I used it to buy a test pair of pants and shorts from American Tall. Being 6'3" (1.905 m) and shopping for boy clothing is a challenge, but nothing like shopping for girl clothing. I'm cautiously hopeful that American Tall can help.

Yesterday I consciously decided not to change into a minimizing sports bra for a social visit (with a friend who's known me for decades, and known I was trans for almost as long). It feels small and vulnerable, bordering on suspicious to even mention it, but also felt like something of a milestone.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-06-02T09:53:00

2021-06-02T14:24:50Z

It's day two of pride month and I'm already exhausted.

I am so envious of people who can fit within the parameters of existing definitions and proximity to the binaries that fuel them. I don't think I want the lives of binary trans people, of LGB people (cis or transbian), but fuck if I don't wish sometimes I had access to the social embrace of using the common terms, of finding a place within them that give me access to the acceptance of known categories and support from sincere friends and allies who have never had to learn the languages of the wilds and the darknesses away from the light and heat of settled territory.

I've had a friend recently come out as a trans woman, weeks after confiding in me that she was nonbinary and seeking only androgen blockers. She's larger than me in every way, and is already posting passing images that are both glorious and conventionally attractive and acceptable, and I am sick with envy while also being very happy for her. The bitter voice of disappointment in me wonders how long until she moves into a happier space and moves at least arm's reach from me as mot binary trans people I know/have known have done because the space I inhabit feels like a transitory space for those who move from, to.

I wonder sometimes if it's worth settling, worth trying to find a home within the categories that grant more acceptance. If only I were younger, cleverer, more beautiful, I tell myself, maybe I could make that work. I don't necessarily think that's true, but since I'm not sure, that keeps coming up as lost opportunities, measures in which I fall short and fail myself.

I don't know how to celebrate inclusion for those who find a home within it while at the same time acknowledging the pain and loss of continued loneliness and comparative lack. I keep trying to give up on the idea of finding the company of like minded individuals, but hope is persistent and annoying. Another pride in which I remain an outsider, felt even more acutely than the other eleven months of the year.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-05-06T19:57:00

2021-05-07T00:03:33Z

Autism is a subject that won't go away, and/or I'm having trouble avoiding. I don't know if this is a combination of media saturation, my own embarrassing low grade hypochondria, a desperate need for inclusion, and fear of rejection. The idea that I might be autistic pisses me off, and right behind that is fear. I don't understand either, yet, and not knowing only increases my anger and fear.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-03-28T07:23:00

2021-03-28T12:25:21Z

There's a scene in Lizzie Borden's excellent 1986 film "Working Girls" in which an older male professor (I think, or maybe just classically educated) is talking with our MC, also academically trained ("She went to a good school", the madam explained to the client) after a heavy session of d/s sex where he kept repeating "I am completely in your power".

Molly (our MC) says, "That was a little Oedipal, don't you think?". The well-educated, patrician john replies something to the effect of, "One thing I can tell you, my dear: never let your education get in the way of a good fuck." The movie itself is smart, feminist, sex positive and capitalist negative in all the right ways. That scene sticks with me as separate and distinct, because I don't know how to do that.

I often say that grad school permanently changed my mind (which it did), by implication that the always on, always analyzing, always thinking part of me was formed there. I don't actually think that's true; I think that part of me got a giant set of tools to which it took with great engagement: names, ideas, structures, methods, and the knowledge that everything is potentially a valid subject for analysis, up to and including/especially the self.

I get in my own way so much, particularly around sex. Structuralism and applied philosophy (combined no doubt with some degree of early childhood maladaption,using the self as test lab for skills and ideas, and a persistent desire to chase things down to as close to the root as possible makes in me a mess of recrimination, judgment, timidity and lack of agency).Intellectually I know that purity doesn't exist, that we are all coopted by the forces and structures in play around us at all times, that cultures are both pervasive and invasive, and that we are of where we are, not separate. I know all of this, and tend not to judge others who exhibit even the tiniest hint of self-awareness and willingness to look deeper.

But that's for *other* people, apparently. I am responsible for all the toxic connections and implications I track into even the thought of sexy times, and would be able to decouple those links if only I was a better... philosopher? thinker? human? Structural analysis can absolutely ruin a moment, even a fantasy. Intrusive thoughts like "you know what this means in larger social context, and where it comes from, right? how do you feel about propagating something you hate in pursuit of getting off?"

I worry that this could become Ouroborean; shame and self-judgment becoming the frisson of crossing borders that can sometimes jumpstart the engines. Add in degrees of closeting, repression, traumatic history and it becomes a funnel of quicksand in which I find myself.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-03-14T15:21:00

2021-03-14T19:27:27Z

I have a first cousin once removed who, by all appearances, is under the trans umbrella (gender non-conforming, nonbinary, genderfluid, or something else: I'm not 100% sure). This person is the grandchild of the aunt and uncle who were most rigid in enforcing rigid, assigned at birth gender roles on me well into my twenties.

I'm not close to my family, in large part because of the fraught history and lack of accounting of the cruel and inflexible rules they imposed upon me. I was a problem discussed when not present, and one that the "adults" collectively acted like wasn't a problem in company.

I'm both genuinely pleased that a family member a generation down the line doesn't have to deal with the pain and bullshit I did, and simultaneously bitter and resentful that they and their grandparents benefit from my still quite raw vanguard experience.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-03-13T17:11:00

2021-03-13T22:18:31Z

I (re?)realized today that I feel obligated to shut down my own emotions if someone else is feeling a related emotion. I haven't run a full inventory through history, but this is very definitely the case for sadness, depression, loneliness (anger is erratic: if it's someone about whom I care, I shut down to deal with their anger most of the time; if it's not someone important to me, my response is often escalated anger).

There are times that this happens in which I feel resentful of the person allowed/able to express their emotions, whose handling I feel compelled to prioritize over my own emotional expression.

How fucked up must my childhood have been to so deeply ingrain responses like this? I don't remember overt signs of capital 'A' Abuse, but emotional neglect, dismissal, and enforced closeting are things I recall. Based on the symptoms alone signs point to erratic and unpredictable parents whose emotional state I had to manage for a sense of survival and security. I don't remember that, exactly, which leads me to question the validity of my memories an sich, particularly as they would have been made when my cognitive toolkit was much less developed.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-03-03T06:35:00

2021-03-03T11:39:02Z

Long, involved, interconnected dreams last night about identity, transformation (both mental and physical), and minds/selves becoming more than solitary (dual in one case, well beyond thousands in another). Magic was heavily, heavily features as an assumed core.

I woke from one dream in which I'd become a POV character, a tall woman in a short red dress, sobbing in deep, heartrending way because she/I couldn't sing, couldn't get past all the self-doubt, hesitation, and all the history of gendered bullshit around voice and meaning.

What woke me was realizing it as a dream; I realized it was a dream because I rarely cry in the waking world, and almost never loudly or unselfconsciously.

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a reflection on anger and the Lovecraft Country series

2021-02-27T19:44:07Z

I get angry when Lovecraft Country shows up in my list of recommendations. That anger is complicated.

The core of my anger is rooted in the treatment of the (invented for the show) intersex indigenous character Yahima. While I think Misha Green has been too readily given a pass for her tweet acknowledging "failing Yahima", that's the only place of which I'm aware she even discussed the issue.

Part of my anger lies in the "invented for the show", then summarily murdered and tossed aside less than an hour running time later. It was a conscious choice for the showrunner (Green) to add an intersex character to serve as a lightning rod for anti-trans* bigotry and dehumanization. The book, which I loved, worked very hard to address discrimination, specifically racism and sexism, both of which were prominent features of Lovecraft's works. The show added anti-intersex, anti-trans acts and deeds to show "hey, oppressed people can be oppressors, too!". Every member of an oppressed community already knows this, often times intimately; this decision, to sacrifice intersex/transness to make a point about male gayness, is clearly aimed at the majoritarian perspectives, and tracks in "kill your trans" to something I very much enjoyed (the book).

More anger is rooted in my relationship with the horror/dark fantasy/SF community, of which I consider myself a member, but it's a far from comfortable relationship. It's an overwhelmintly cishet, dude-centric community, and while this is changing, it's a slow fight against those whose only issue with mainstream hierarchy is that they aren't on top**. While there has been more coverage of this mistreatment of Yahima than I expected, the general reviews of the Lovecraft Country series have been overwhelmingly positive: in mainstream press, industry and subculture press, and among my own friends and acquaintances who partake in and identify with this subculture. Unsurprisingly, it's that last part that causes me the most heartache.

The idea that something only matters if it affects the viewer is a cold experience of exclusion for anyone not safely in the majority everywhere, all the time. It's a disappointing lack of empathy for everyone who knows more than 167 people***. Much like being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or in other ways sexually non-normative, transness isn't always or often visible. Every person who uncritically extols the merits of Lovecraft Country the show runs the very real risk of reminding a trans person they know where they stand: less important than "a good story".

I'm pretty open with friends and acquaintances about being both queer and trans, and I *still* see the brushing aside of the treatment of Yahima, of the intersex and transgender dehumanization, from some people known to me. People can like what they like, but for fuck's sake, at least acknowledge that the media you consume has implications and consequences, often for people you know.

Seeing the Lovecraft Country series keep showing up in my recommendations list reminds me that a book I thoroughly enjoyed has been tainted with bigotry, and that the community of which I consider myself a member considers me incidental at best, less than human at worst, and that sometimes it's people I know who share these views.

*I include intersex people in the transgender label, as is common practice.
**This includes, but is not limited to: sad/rabid puppies, "true victim" white het dudes, geek libertarian dudes, gamergaters, "fake geek girl" propagandists, cosplay creepers, false past nostalgia afficianados, and anyone who thinks straight white geek boys should dominate geek culture.
***Trans people are regularly reported by self-identification in survey as 0.6% of the US population.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-02-07T16:29:00

2021-02-07T21:46:31Z

I want to write about depression, sadness, grief, anguish: all active things. I have a very large, notched axe to grind around the marketing of "depression" as something one has, rather than the adjectival form of the verb "to be depressed" (I have similar axes for "anxiety" and "gender disorder").

I am prone to sadness, a sense of loss, of what could have been fading into the lowest common denominator shades of what is, what others allow because they think they're alone in wanting something different, something better, something more. I live in my head more than most, based on some decades of experience and connection. I still maintain that at heart I'm an optimist, but one that is burdened by seeing what is possible, if only... people cared, were less selfish, saw outside of themselves, carried through on what they said they believed... if only.

Depression isn't something that I have. It's not a state of being for me, and it pisses me off like someone trying to take away my agency when the frame is "Oh, you have depression" rather than "Oh, you are understandably hurt and angry at the unfairness and injustice in the world, and the alienation that prevents friends and loved ones from realizing their connection to one another as a part of the solution to so many of life's problems".

I do not "have depression"; I have what I think are a conscious, thinking, feeling person's reaction to a world made intentionally cold and lonely so a few sociopaths can have a little more than the sociopath in the next mansion. It's a fury without outlet, matched with the constant ache of seeing so much possibility, so much hope, buried in the quotidian defense strategies of people for whom the core impulse is to help, to make better, to pull together and elevate.

The medicalization under capitalism of state of mind is a crime against humanity. Rather than focusing on the sources of disconnection, alienation, feelings of powerless and loss of meaning, it's easier and more profitable to externalize the symptoms to individuals by way of inherent capacity. We are a social, meaning making, collaborative species. Contemporary life under capitalism robs us of the very things that give us survival advantages; is it any wonder we are collectively depressed and miserable?

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adrienmundi @ 2021-02-06T17:15:00

2021-02-06T22:33:49Z

I'm struggling recently with the idea that I've lost ground on a lot of important issues, or that I've backslid into territory that would be familiar to me 20-30 years ago. A more rational part of my mind suggests that unresolved issues lying dormant/unaddressed don't count as "progress", so it can't be backsliding so much as coming back to the unfinished to-do list, but the feeling of being disappointed in myself remains.

I'm sure there is a COVID vector to this. Being removed from easy social connection for going on a year now does feel like being a late teen spending most time in my bedroom with my door closed, hiding who I am and how I am different (though arguably not well; only to the point of deniability-by-convention).

Since COVID and J's cancer recurrence, we've been sleeping separately to minimize her potential exposure: she sleeps downstairs, I sleep and work (and use my non-work computer) upstairs. It's a second level of separation that makes sense, but adds to the feeling of alienation.

I am more aware of my cognitive differences with relation to others; even more, I'm aware of the differences of my self-awareness and adaptive strategies in comparison to others. The experiential gap is... notable. Some of this may well be age (plus nigh obsessive self-awareness( but it does not lessen the gap between myself and others.

And the gender thing. Age plus ongoing gender issues is not a happy place, at least for me. The social aspect of gender (acceptance, awareness, expression, identity reinforcement by targeted community) is gone. Nothing gender related is even remotely comfortable to me, and hasn't been since... June of last year? There was a cessation of external pressure from March-June that felt like it created a space/potential, but in the eight months since, there has been the slow removal of social oxygen that diminishes any potential gains.

I'm not writing productively. Hell, I'm barely writing. Maybe try again later.

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adrienmundi @ 2021-01-17T15:25:00

2021-01-17T20:53:51Z

I am really, really bad at being vulnerable to others (I'm surprisingly good at receiving the vulnerability of others, and fostering a sense that I am someone with whom to be vulnerable).

Some of this is pain I've carried for decades, and only really excavated through the lens of applied philosophy and intellect, which limits potential audiences dramatically; who wants to submit a CV prior to meaningful conversation? And the frustrations of being only explicable to exceedingly narrow specialists is well documented in my online history.

I am *good* at being available to others (a combination of talent and years of work to refine it). I do not expect others to be available or accessible to me in the ways that I want or need.

In fact, I expect myself to be ineffable, my pain recognizable as pain, but free from context that would ground it in the lives and experiences of others. The idealist in me assumes this failing is my fault; if I were only better at framing, interpreting, translating, I could convey my meaning in a way that could be received. The cynic in me assumes this is a defensive reaction on the part of others; if they recognized my pain as something that touched their own lives, the burden to change would be uncomfortable, and acknowledgement of co-optation and complicity untenable to the ego (I suspect both the idealist and the cynic are on to something).

I carry my distance internally. The story I tell myself is that others don't see all the deflections, the redirections, the turning of attention back on them with questions underwritten by redirected hypervigilance and active kindness (because I do genuinely care about others, even if I think I 'm unworthy or unreachable in return). Hubris is of course at play, too, because I assume that if the power of thought could solve my problems, I would have solved them ages ago.

I tend to be nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing,....tsunami in terms of openness, as intellect fails and only raw emotion remains. Of my few close friends, only some have ever seen me cry (I cry ugly when I cry, and that's an extra painful burden to me). But raw emotion is rarely about synthesis, and catharsis alone is a starvation diet of emotional carbohydrates.

I don't want to be impenetrable, but I've thought myself into a corner long ago, and the work that got me there still seems valid (I check it often, rigourously bordering on brutality). It is possible that I am a problem that cannot be solved, but if that's true, what does it mean about the possibility and transmissibility of effective vulnerability?

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adrienmundi @ 2020-12-16T06:32:00

2020-12-16T11:51:42Z

I find myself lately quite annoyed with how much I have in common with ADD and autism folks, and I don't quite understand it (the annoyance). A fair number of my friends are one or both of these types of people (some with medical diagnostic history, some without), so my data set is based both on personal experience as well as an interested layperson's occasional research.

A cleverly insightful friend has pointed out that it's hard to pick up on my own possibly validating symptoms because my masking game is quite strong (said friend is very aware of much of what I'm masking: my social deception game precedes primary school). A large part of my active personality is made up of layers of overlapping coping strategies.

I don't get annoyed with ADD/autistic/neurodivergent people in general, I don't think. I do get annoyed at the mass media/advertising driven watering down of diagnostic categories to be effectively meaningless (ex. see "migraine" adds for OTC acetaminophen + caffeine "cures) and/or include everyone who ever gets distracted, hyperfocused, or socially awkward. I also get annoyed with people who say "Since I have xxxxx, I can't do yyyy" as a fait accompli, rather than the beginning of a conversation about mitigation and frustrations around it.

Example: driving home from voting yesterday, I decided to stop at a local responsible liquor store to pick up some whiskey and gin. Their pandemic strategy is to block their door, and you tell someone what you want so they ring it up and bring it to you, maintaining social distance. I recited my list over and over in my head, feeling a bit like the Sesame Street kid sent to the store, only my list was "Bunnahabhain scotch, Writer's Tears Irish whiskey, Suntori Toki if one of the first wasn't available, and then either Hendricks Orbium or Drumshanbo Gunpowder gin."

The first thing out of my mouth was, "Drumshanbo scotch..." to which the clerk furrowed their brow and asked for clarification.

I get acutely embarrassed with mental/linguistic faux pas like that. While I don't recall, I was probably pulled into attention and/or made fun of as a child for similar things (which triggers my intense frustration with still being actively impacted by my childhood this many decades later). Many of my autistic friends have assured me recitation of conversation in advance may be symptomatic; for me I think of it as "something that I've often done", a part of normal life.

This isn't to list some symptoms I have in common with neurodivergent folk, because I think the symptoms are things everyone experiences from time to time; it's the frequency and associated distress/dysfunction that carry weight. Rather, I'm not sure why I'm so annoyed by my own overlap, and that makes me more annoyed.

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