The Big Family Elephant in the Room | Neurospicy Black Girl

With the holidays approaching, Alani discusses the huge elephant in the room: family estrangement. Listen on as she talks about how to deal with this situation if you are neurospicy.

Articles mentioned:

• Late diagnosis in girls and women: https://360info.org/you-dont-look-autistic-why-neurodivergent-women-have-been-sidelined/

• Slate article about family enstrangement: https://slate.com/life/2024/08/no-contact-parents-meaning-family-estrangement.html

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Tags:
#neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurospicy #podcast #adhdpodcast #adhdproblems #neurospicyblackgirl #blackneurodivergent

Transcript

0:00

*sigh* With the holidays coming soon, I guess I gotta talk about how the most wonderful time of the year for many, is the worst horrible time for me. That is right, we're gonna talk about family estrangement. The underlying dark cloud of many. Especially this Neurospicy Black Girl. Hi, I'm Alani. I'm Black, female, and neurodivergent. AKA, I lost the genetic lottery. The only thing I could do is pull myself up by my bootstraps and live whatever life takes me. If anyone deserves to profit from my trauma, it's me. That's the life of a Neurospicy Black Girl. Welcome to Neurospicy Black Girl. The only place where you learned that your biggest bully is the person who gave birth to you. Yep. I'm Alani and today we're gonna talk about the difficulties of family estrangement. I've always felt alone during the fall/winter holiday season as it seems that everyone I know has a big happy family. Not only is being a neurospicy Black girl a cryptid in the Black community, but being a neurospicy Black girl who has no contact with their blood relatives? You're essentially an alien. Now, as this is a low-key sensitive topic for me, I don't know if I'm gonna go off as much as I did for my roommate episode. I was cussing like a character in a Martin Scorsese mob movie. But after some deep meditation and a new Prozac prescription, I think I'm gonna approach this topic in a more calm manner. I'm not making any promises though. Now, talking about my complicated relationship with my family is like reopening my wounds and having to restart the record player to the first track. I should honestly make a PowerPoint presentation of all of my trauma. So in case anybody asks what's wrong with me, I am going to tell them,"Just pick a slide. Wanna go to the 'Dad Threatens Mom's Life' series?" Or the "Mom Goes on Vacation to Purposely Avoid Spending Time With Her Daughter Show?" My favorite one is the "You're Just Like Your Father!""How to Make Your Daughter Afraid of Being Assertive Because She Doesn't Want to Be Compared to Her Abusive Father!" Yay! My parents are stubborn as hell, but one thing that they can agree on is that they hate their own daughter. I will say that I'm glad I inherited two things from my parents, their creativity and their hyper-independence. Especially their hyper-independence, so that way I can do things myself and not have to rely on others. My parents also taught me to lower your expectations, because if you lower your expectations, the disappointment hurts less. Well, my expectations are approaching the ninth circle of hell, so I don't know how lower it can go at this point. My parents, especially my mom, was against getting me help for my mental health. I essentially had to beg my mom to take me to see a therapist when I was in eighth grade. It turns out the only people that were looking out for me were the teachers. For context, during elementary school, my parents were going through a divorce. While as an adult, I understand that it was a blessing in disguise as those two individuals shouldn't have gotten married or procreated in the first place. As a child, I was going through it. My teachers noticed it, so they wrote in my report card expressing concern about how I was showing up to school sad for many days. You know what my mom told me?"Stop being sad. It's making me look bad." Fast forward to eighth grade, when I finally saw a therapist after having to beg my mom to take me to one, I revealed to the therapist about how much I wanted to end my life and that I had plans on how to do it. Since I was a minor, my mom was in the room and amount of crocodile tears she shed in the room, ugh. She was, quote-unquote, "shocked that I was feeling that way." No woman, you're only shocked that people are seeing that you are a neglectful parent. But I digress. Speaking of the neglect, this also has to do with my neurodivergence. I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 20, making me a late diagnosis. The neuropsychologist suspected that I also may be autistic, but my mom f***ed that up for me. For context, when you go get an ADHD or autism diagnosis, they ask to have your parent/guardian fill out this packet thingy discussing your behaviors as a child, and you, the patient, fill out one from your perspective. So from my perspective, my information strongly indicates that I may be autistic. However, when my mom handed in her packet, her answers indicated a low chance of me being autistic. My autism results are inconclusive. To add insult to injury, apparently during elementary school, teachers suspected I was neurodivergent. But my mom refused to get me help. Thinking it was just a phase. All the struggles I had in school could have been prevented if my mom took her head out of her ass.(sighs) I'm not gonna wish bad or ill a little towards my mom. All I'm gonna say is I hope she gets what she deserves for all of the mistreatment she has done to me and my siblings. Same thing applies to my dad. Now, being a late diagnosis ADHD or neurodivergent woman is unfortunately a popular phenomenon. According to this article, "You don't look autistic, why neurodivergent women have been sidelined." There's a huge gender bias when it comes to diagnosing girls and women versus boys and men."Traditionally, ADHD and autism have been perceived as male conditions, contributing to a two to four-fold higher likelihood of diagnosis in males compared to females." Then there's the whole referral process in order to get a diagnosis in the first place. In the same article it states,"Research shows girls aren't least likely to be referred for a diagnosis despite exhibiting characteristics of both conditions. The chances of recognition are even slimmer if you aren't white or middle class." I'll leave the link to the article in the description of this episode for y'all to check it out. Gotta love the double whammy of being misunderstood by both your family and your doctors. Ugh. Okay, so after my little preview of my family trauma, let's talk about family estrangement and the loneliness of being estranged from your family. I'm probably not the only one who gets a little sad when Halloween is over, because that's the only day where you can quote-unquote "be yourself or express your true self." The other reason is the holidays before March are all about relationships. So I essentially gotta go into a hibernation from social media. I just had to be born on the same month as Valentine's Day is. The day of love yet I came from so much hate. But anyway, it sucks being estranged from your family, especially if you live in the US where the nuclear family in a white picket fence is the whole ideal. I'd argue it's even worse if you are a person of color. For context, my family background is Afro-Caribbean, so it's a very collectivist culture where the phrase "it takes a village" is really practiced. There are multi-generations of family members helping to raise each other. However, I think in my family's case, I think they only do that because it's tradition. Because nobody likes each other. There's always huge gossip about how one cousin is a hoarder, two cousins live in a roach-infested household. They don't like this one relative because he's gay. There's this deceased uncle who's sexually assaulted a relative, yet they still let their young family go to his house on the holidays. My family is f***ed up. Honestly, I feel like if it weren't for traditional values, none of that would be speaking to each other. Of course, I, the black sheep of the family, got a break the cycle of tolerating abuse by going no contact with my family. However, to my surprise, going no contact with your family is becoming more common.

According to this Slate article: 8:35

"For me, with the parents I had, no contact was the only option.""About 30% of Americans are currently estranged from a family member, with up to 40% of Americans having experienced it at some point." I'll leave the link to this article in the description. I bring this statistic as a reminder to both you and to myself that, even though it may feel like it, you are not alone. So yeah, family estrangement sucks booty. The negative feelings are worse in the winter holidays. If you are estranged from your family and need some tips, keep listening because I got three tips for you. You might have heard of these tips before, but there's nothing wrong with reminders. Tip number one, community comes in all different shapes and sizes, and you have the options of building one. There's this tweet that says, "'My child is completely fine.' Your child's favorite trope is found family." Not gonna lie, I felt lowkey attacked because it's true. The chosen/found family is my favorite trope. I believe it's because I have always wanted to create my own family, where everybody felt loved and cared for. I hate that I was born into a dysfunctional family that has no chance of being repaired, because if I'm being honest with myself, I can't help people who can't help themselves. And to you who's listening, you can't choose who you're related to, but you can choose who you allow into your life. In the age of internet, communities can be in person, virtual, or both. You have the option of choosing what your community is and how you get to interact with it. Go to your local library, Eventbrite, Meetup.com, or even join a Discord of your favorite hobby, for example. Don't be afraid to experiment, safely, of course. Tip number two, if you are alone during the holidays, turn it into your self-care day, or week, or however long your break is. Are you able to travel? Go to the city that you've been thinking of since you've put a picture in it in your mood board. Have to stay local? Go to a hotel in your city and pamper yourself. Take advantage of room service. But treat the hotel workers with respect, of course. Gotta stay home? Have a makeshift spa day. Order some face masks and treat yourself by watching some funny reality TV show or an actually well-produced program. Whenever I need some good, turn-your-brain-off programming, my favorites are "Bar Rescue" and "1000 lb Sisters". Yes, you're allowed to judge me. Here's a mini tip in regards to food during the holidays. So, during Thanksgiving and Christmas in which most places are either closed early or just closed all day, a group places that are usually open are Chinese food places. So, if you are in need of some makeshift dinner, enjoy some general tsos chicken. Or if you're vegetarian or vegan, something veggie related, I don't know. Tip number three, celebrate yourself. When living with or interacting with toxic relatives, especially parents, they would often try to either tear down your accomplishments or try to take credit for the reason for your success. Like no mother, you aren't the reason I graduated college. I busted my ass working multiple jobs while still being on the dean's list and managing to graduate Magna Cum Laude, while you didn't want to pay for college in the first place. And you accused me of trying to ruin your life? Your own freaking daughter. But I digress. Remember all the things that you did because of your determination. And/or if you're like me, you like to accomplish things out of spite. Write down all of your accomplishments and read it out to yourself whenever you need a pick-me-up. If anyone that deserves to be celebrated, it is you. I appreciate you listening to this episode. This is a tough topic that I feel gets brushed under the rug. But know that you are not alone. If you want to share your accomplishments to me, follow me on @neurospicyblackgirlpodcast on Instagram. Also, you can support me by Buying Me a Coffee, which is linked in the description. Also, check out the media arts center that helped me produce my series, BRIC, which will also be linked in the description. Again, thank you for listening. And remember, it's okay to be human. Do what is best for you. Tune in next time where something new happens and it will definitely not be boring. Bye![music]