I'm A Marginal Person

I live on the margins. I’m a marginal, a shadow creature, one of those who most people don’t even know exist, or are only vaguely aware of. I identify with all the other marginal – and marginalised - beings, who inhabit the world that lies beyond the harsh glare of nine-to-five, two-point-five mortgages, two-point-five kids and the house in the burbs. You know – the ‘normal’ world, inhabited by the straight white, cis, hetero, able-bodied, neurotypical, married, everyday people. Like you see on TV, in ads and programs and movies and so on. Normal people.

Please understand, I have nothing against them, I don’t dislike them or anything, in fact I find many of them fine people. I just don’t identify with them, and I can barely comprehend what it might be like to be them. And I guess they don’t really understand people like me either.

Us, that is. The not-so-normal ones. The socially rejected or scorned or ignored. The outsiders and the strangers and the simply ‘strange’. The autistics, the ADHDers, the dyslexic and the dyspraxic and the whole shebang of neurological ‘difference’. The gays and the dykes, the bis and the pans, the trans men and women, the aces and the aros and the happy-to-be-singles, the demis and greys and enbies and queers and all the rest. Or, for that matter, those who are not whiter than whitey-white, the immigrants, the disabled and chronically ill, the poor, the welfare beneficiaries, the homeless, the addicts and the mentally ill, not to mention the writers and artists and musicians and other creative types, and hell, even the hippies and nomads and rebels of all stripes, in fact pretty much anyone who finds their reality is not included in this supposedly wonderful ‘Norm’.

I don’t mean that I, personally, am all of these things (though I am quite a few of them), or that I know what it’s like to be all of these things. I mean that I most emphatically know the experience of being ‘not mainstream’, of being outside that norm, and so I empathise far more with these groups, collectively, than I do with the ‘normals’.

I also understand that many fall outside the norm in only one way, and wouldn’t consider themselves ‘marginal’ or even perhaps ‘marginalised’, and possibly are fighting to be included in the mainstream. How much any given individual feels marginalised tends to vary according to how many non-mainstream attributes you have. One, and you may reject any idea of being ‘marginal’. Lots, and you’ve usually given up on normal. Some don’t even care about it anymore, and some positively relish their marginal status. While if you have just a few attributes, you could be anywhere in-between. It’s a very individual thing, and no-one has the right to tell another how they should see themselves, or who they should identify with, or how they should live their life.

But all of us on the margins - beyond the boundaries of ‘normal’, in one way or another, and sometimes in multiple ways, being pushed further and further out beyond the back of beyond, in the eyes of ‘normals’ anyway - we inhabit our own universe. In that universe (or perhaps it’s a variety of different universes?), we connect, sometimes, with each other, and fail to at other times. We network, and fight, and disagree, and fall apart, and carry on anyway.

And our lives, our universes, are all too often invisible to the ‘normals’.  If they do encounter us, they sometimes refuse to acknowledge that our lives are actually different to theirs. “But everyone feels like that sometimes.” “Aren’t we all a little bit autistic?” “What do you mean, you don’t like sex/romance? Everybody wants a partner!” “I’d kill myself if I had your life.” “He/she’s just making a joke, it’s not really racism/sexism/homophobia.” “Non-binary? That’s not even a thing!” “But you’re in our country now, you should speak English.” And so on, and so forth.

But we know. We know our own truths. We live them. We know our day to day struggles are real – everything from wheelchair access to sensory overwhelm to pain management, from the lack of services to the lack of acceptance to the many micro-aggressions. And sometimes not-so-micro aggressions. We know it. Does it make us better people? Maybe. Sometimes. And sometimes not. All too many of us are simply left bitter, angry, hurt, sad and reeling away from the world. And even if we are stronger for it, I think most of us would still rather go without all the stuff we went through to get there.

Because we’re stressed out. It’s not fun to feel excluded, to never or rarely see our lives depicted in movies or on TV or in books or even just in a damn ad. (And why are so many movies and TV shows, even now, about The White Male Experience, especially the whole white-male-saving-the-day thing? I could write a whole book on this one, and no doubt someone already has. But do the movie and TV people ever think that even many of those who are white, might like to see something, y’know, different?)

Anyway, all this feeling invisible, ignored, overlooked, not valued or recognised, being the recipient of all sorts of bad treatment - prejudice, stereotypes, belittling, rejection, misunderstanding, mocking, ridicule or even outright violence – none of it is fun. But it happens. And it happens so often, and even if we complain about it, it’s obvious that the ‘normals’ don’t much care, really.

And that’s what cuts.

It’s not being different that’s the problem. It’s how others respond to us. We are what we are. Whether we hate it, love it, simply accept it or just wish we weren’t in a particular category, we are these things. And can’t be anything else. So why shouldn’t we feel pride in what we are? Why shouldn’t there be gay pride, indigenous rights movements, multi-cultural celebrations, autistic pride? Why should we not campaign for recognition, for human rights, for acceptance, and so on?

And what’s wrong with being different? Why are so many insistent we all be the same? What’s so great about being all alike? Why do the normals get to decide what we should aspire to, and why do they think they’re so wonderful that we should all be copying them anyhow? Did it ever occur to them that we just wanna be our own goddam selves, and not copies of them?

And I can’t help wondering, in the midst of this Covid crisis, whether it’s going to change anything for us. For most of my life, when I’ve looked around, I’ve seen a world increasingly skewed towards the superficial, the self-serving, the frenetically materialistic, and all too often the simply nonsensical. But this crisis has forced a change in many (apart from the usual idiots of course), it might even be that some serious changes will happen.

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda of international fame, has repeatedly urged us to ‘be kind’. And certainly there has been a surge of public-spiritedness evident, along with the Zoom conferences, the gee-we-can-work-efficiently-from-home-after-all, the endless hand washing and the social-distance-at-the-supermarket thing. But has this kindness been extended to real understanding and support for us marginal people? (Was it ever really anyway, except as patronising acts of inspo-porn, or other ‘feel-good’ exercises?) Will there be a wholesale change in how we’re seen? Or will this new-found public milk of human kindness vanish along with the need for hand sanitiser?

Who knows?

But whatever shape the future takes, one thing is certain – that I’m a marginal person, and always will be. The marginalised are my people, my tribe, and I’m happy with that, even if I’m not happy with how we’re treated.

How do you identify?

Things I Don't Understand - Normal

I don’t understand ‘normal’.

I’m thinking of two types of ‘normal’ here, though they blur at the edges.

The first is who or what is largely still assumed to be the social norm, the ‘standard’ for others to live up to, emulate, or to be measured against. And that norm is the white, Western, middle-to-upper class, cis-heterosexual, able bodied, neurologically typical male or, as one commentator calls it, ‘Default Man’.

And yet is this really the ‘average’ person? Just looking at statistics says no. Most of the world’s population is non-white, for starters. Even if you only look at, say, Europe, in most of its countries, more than half the people are female. Even looking at just the men, setting aside those who are gay/bi/trans/gender neutral/etc, those who are not white, not middle or upper class, those who are not of the majority religions, and those who are not able-bodied and neurotypical… I’m betting that what’s left is actually only a very small proportion. (Ten percent, according to the writer of ‘Default Man’.)

So how did this minority become held up as the ‘standard’? The answer to that lies with history. Men have been dominant for millennia. Add in all those colonisers, slave-owners and plunderers of non-European countries who didn’t think non-whites were even truly human, centuries of religious and social condemnation of non-cis-heterosexuals, a power imbalance in favour of the rich, screwed-up attitudes to the disabled coupled with lack of understanding of science… And you have the perfect storm for a narrow slice of the population to be able to hold themselves up as the benchmark group for everyone else to envy, compare themselves to, and wish to belong to – or to made to feel as though they should wish to.

We can’t change history of course. But some of these attitudes are still with us. Witness the bias towards male experience in the diagnosis of autistics, for example, that sees many females not diagnosed because they don’t fit the stereotype. Or how black kids are not allowed to wear their hair in ‘black’ styles in some schools. Or how people react to Muslim women’s head-coverings. Then there’s the pressure to not be ‘obviously’ gay, or to speak ‘standard’ English, or for immigrants to speak English instead of their own language even amongst themselves, or the recent attempt of a certain Australian politician to have a motion passed that it’s ‘okay to be white’ (apparently, if it wasn’t passed, whites would be the ‘victims’ of ‘genocide’, yes, you can roll your eyes now).… You can probably think of more examples, but you get the picture.

So I understand the historical reasons for the current situation, what I don’t understand is this clinging to the old standard, when it’s so obviously not actually ‘standard’, or even ‘average’. I can only assume it’s fear – fear of ‘the other’, fear of change, fear of somehow losing white privilege (which too many of them view as their ‘rights’). They’ve been thinking of themselves as the ‘norm’ for so long, they’ve come to feel they really are it. Or the best thing to be, or however they justify it to themselves. And you can almost watch the scrambles going on in their minds, as they try to do so. The mental blocks and torturous reasonings they have to manoeuvre around, the gaping holes in their arguments and world views that they refuse to look at.

I can tell you that as a person of European ancestry, I don’t feel fearful of ‘white genocide’ any time soon. I am more concerned with the actual genocides and wars and oppressions already going on, the plight of autistics everywhere, of gays in some countries, of immigrants fleeing terrible situations, the effects of climate change, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention all my own day to day difficulties of course. You know, real problems.

So I don’t understand this insistence on a group who never have been the majority, being able to keep their power, their wealth, their privilege, at the expense of those who actually are the majority. I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t understand reactionary people.

The second ‘normal’ I don’t understand, is a category of people I don’t even have a name for. They’re the ones who simply …do things. Like, they get out of bed in the morning, go off to work or school or wherever, come home, eat, relax, and then go to bed and fall asleep. Straight away. And then wake up and do the same over again the next day. Without thinking twice about any of it.

And on their weekends or days off, again, they simply get up and do things like mow lawns, catch up on housework or schoolwork, tinker with their hobbies or take themselves and their loved ones out to places like movies, shows, amusement parks, the beach, and so on. During their holiday breaks, they crowd to places where lots of others go, and don’t seem to mind that at all, or even like it.

And if you ask them, how do you just do these things, they look at you like you’re crazy, or simply say ‘I never thought about it.’ And shrug. And go on doing it.

I get that people do this, I just don’t understand how.

How they do it without stress. Or at least not the kind of overwhelming stress that us ‘not-normal’ people suffer. They never worry about things like sensory challenges, social challenges, transition challenges, executive functioning issues, mental/emotional states and triggers, stairs, wheelchair access, exhaustion, blood sugar levels, allergic reactions, pain issues, will-there-be-food-I-can-eat issues, whether-X-activity-will-make-me-dizzy issues, and all the thousand-and-one other things that those of us with ‘conditions’ stress about. Not to mention those of us who have the anxiety of possible exclusion or even threats to personal safety because of race, class, sexuality, gender identity, religion or lack thereof, etc.

These ‘normal’ people just …do things. Without a second thought. No agonising, no scattered thoughts, no intense pre-planning, no I-did-this-yesterday-so-I-have-no-spoons-to-do-anything-today, no double and triple-checking everything, no fretting over whether you’ll get a park close enough or will the accessible parking be all taken or will some dipstick give us hassles because we have an invisible disability and park in a disability space, no worrying about potential meltdowns or shutdowns, no ‘at what point does it get too much and we bail out’, no ANYTHING.

I used to read accounts of these people’s lives, only half-consciously looking for any sign of this, but it just wasn’t there. And then it finally hit me - that they don’t worry about these things because they don’t have to. So I understand that now. But I’ve been struggling with so much for so long, that I have no conception, no understanding at all, of what a life without that struggle would feel like.

But what I do understand, is that, if all of us ‘not-normal’ folks got together, we may find that, like the non-‘Default Man’ people, we’re actually the majority – and that it’s actually normal to be ‘not-normal’.

Things I Don't Understand - Number Nine - Egotism

I don't understand egotists.

By egotists, I mean those who are convinced that they're somehow so special that the world should revolve around them and their needs, that they are above the rules that act as guidelines for other people's behaviour, and sometimes even above the law.

There are varying degrees and kinds of egotism, though none can be said to be entirely harmless. There are the spoilt brats of both sexes, who learn in childhood to throw tantrums if they don't get what they want. Such children are often tiresome to be around, and many of them, alas, continue this behaviour into adulthood.

Then there are the adolescent 'mean girls', with their bitchy little cliques, and the arrogant young men (and many older ones too) who seem convinced that the mere possession of a penis makes them superior. They always give me the impression that they believe they're somehow "too special" to bother with things like being nice or considerate of others.

There are plenty of egotistic adults as well. People who use and abuse others, who whine and manipulate and scheme, controlling others for their own ends. Their attitude seems to be that only their own wants, desires and feelings have any validity, or if they do recognise others' feelings at all, it's only so they can use them against those others. They are, in their eyes, the centre of the Universe, and others are mere 'backdrops' for their own dramas. We've probably all met people like this, and some of us have suffered at their hands. I know I have.

Julia Cameron, author of my favourite book on creativity, The Artist's Way, describes such people as 'crazymakers'. They're the ones who always manage to create drama just when you don't need it, constantly undermine your efforts to establish order or sanity in your life, jerk you back on a short leash whenever you try to escape, invade your personal space and time, and generally drive you crazy - all the while telling you it's all your own fault, that if only you did this, or were that, things would be just fine... But no matter how hard you try, it never seems to work. Of course it isn't - they're pulling your strings. Such relationships are often verbally or emotionally abusive, but of course they rarely acknowledge that.

Some of these people would probably fit diagnostic criteria for conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, if they ever submitted to being evaluated that is, which most of them wouldn't - any problems they have, in their view, are always someone else's fault. Others would not perhaps quite fit into that category, but are still extremely unpleasant to be around. An unknown percentage are outright abusers - the sexual exploiters of children, the domestic abuse perpetrators, the rapists, the workplace predators, the sleazy guys in the pub or nightclub with roofies in their pockets.

Sociopaths and psychopaths seem to me to be the ultimate egotists. Other people's pain are sources of amusement or pleasure to them, they truly don't care. And of course some of these become serial killers. It's surely the epitome of egotism, to see others only as prey or as obstacles to achieving their desires. These people are truly chilling.

Many dictators are egotists too, or become that way after long years of the corrupting influence of absolute power. They take their egotistical beliefs and apply them to an entire nation, or even beyond. Anyone who dares to defy them becomes, in their eyes, guilty of a kind of sin against the little god they see themselves as. There are plenty of examples in history of this - Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, the list is a long one, and they're not all dead yet.

Egotism occurs everywhere, even where you'd think it wouldn't. I spent several years on the fringes of the New Age movement, and while I saw much good, I also saw some not-so-good things. The worst was an article I read once, by a man whose name I forget, but who was said to be one of the 'fathers' of the rebirthing movement. In this article, he bluntly stated that if his followers did not financially support him so that he could indulge in constant all-day rebirthing sessions, they were "oppressing" him. No, I'm not kidding. (I had to read it several times myself, before I could believe it wasn't some kind of joke.)

I don't get why on earth any of these people would think themselves so superior, or as having the 'right' to demand everyone else treats them accordingly. They're usually singly lacking in any qualities that would justify such a high opinion of themselves, and often behave in ways that lower them in mine. I also don't get why egotists want power over others - the only power over others I've ever wished for, is the power to make them stop dumping on me.

I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, but it seems to me that egotists of all stripes have something seriously out-of-kilter in their psyches, a kind of sucking need or hollowness within, that can never really be filled, no matter how hard they try. Even seeing that, however, I still feel I don't really understand these people.

Once again, I'm not sure whether this is due to my being aspie, or simply being me, or a combination of both. Many aspies view all human beings are intrinsically equal, probably due to a) our intense honesty and passion for justice, and b) our failure to 'read' all the little signals of social status. I am not alone in that.

Then again, it could be due to my family background and upbringing, most especially the influence of my mother. A year or two ago, I was watching an episode of Midsomer Murder Mysteries with her one afternoon. When the murderer and their motivation was revealed at the end, I turned to my Mum and commented that many reasons for murder, in both fiction and real life, seemed to me so silly, certainly not good enough reason to take a life. "That's because you or I would just walk away, Pen," she commented. "We couldn't be bothered."

I've thought about this quite a lot since, and I've realised she was right. One of the qualities my mother passed on to us was a sort of matter-of-fact humility and emotional stability. In other words, none of us have the kind of egos that expect the world to revolve around us, and if anyone really annoys us, we simply withdraw from them. Perhaps these egotists lack such a stable upbringing and family 'style'.

Either way, whatever the reason, I just don't understand egotism and egotists, and avoid them wherever possible.