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From “What is Disability Justice” (Adapted from Patty Berne’s “Disability Justice – A Working Draft”, Published in Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People, A Disability Justice Primer, Second Edition.
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I’m going to reply to both your posts here.
School stress post:
As a fellow 30 something year-old, I agree that being around and interacting with younger people is a little different and at the risk of sounding like an “OLD” kinda hard. This feeling is definitely exasperated by our neurodiversity and while I can’t say that I know what it feels like to be enby, I’m sure that contributes to it as well. After all we live in an incredibly patriarchal society that punishes anyone who does not stay in the box they were assigned. Maybe you’re internalizing that and it perhaps leads you to feel weird and like some kind of “creep with ill intent” as you say.
On your question about making friends and the age gap dilemma, is your main concern with being seen as wanting to date them or more so the assumption of younger people not wanting anything to do with an older person?
Post reply rejection:
As someone who spends a lot of time in their head and rarely shares my opinion with others IRL, the few times I do post online and receive little to no engagement kind of bums me out. I don’t know how to explain it but it kind of makes me think that I really am a big weirdo with unpopular opinions and it takes me right back to high school. I try to forget about it by doing something else but that is definitely not the healthiest way to deal with that whole deal.
Good luck at school and on your journey discovering your true self, comrade
spoiler
I assume that they see me as old and because I’m awkward and neurodivergent, socially inferior as a result. I want to fit in, I want to have things in common, age is an immediate visual differentiator. I assume that people look at me and instantly clock me as a guy who is in college but on older end. I don’t think I look 20. I assume that 20 year olds know the difference between them and myself. So before I’ve even talked to anyone, I already feel that I’m going to be older than everyone. The college demographic is 18-24, while there are older people, most of the students aren’t even 25. I don’t get a set of 100 kids my age to just flock to.
I mean my concern is being friends with someone and then catching feelings and then I find out how young they are, or they find out how old I am, and then we have to decide if we can mind the gap.
Idk, I guess the normal brain can just like, let things slide off it. I remember things. I’d love if I could magically forget everything, but I can’t.