Weird Girl

I changed my mind about marriage

A quick hello before we dive into todays essay! I’m back from a much longer hiatus than I expected when I decided to take August off. To say I have had a “Weird” year is an understatement. Professionally I have had the most amazing opportunities, gigs and once in a lifetime experiances. Persoanlly I have had the most terrible year filled with health s**t, chronic pain s**t, loss and then obviously just the general dumpster fire that seams to be a person in the world. I know grief and magic are so intertwined but holy f**k is it exhausting. I had written this essay back in August and truthfully have been terrified to share it. But I do really think I’d be much more embarrassed to lay on my death bed and think about the essays i didn’t write then the ones i did. And theres nothing like a week and a half wondering if you’re gonna die to help you get over yourself. 💃🏻 I’ve been dating the same guy for 12 years. It’s embarrassing to be turning 30 and knowing I’m a seasoned relationship veteran. This is not at all what I pictured for my life. I pictured bad relationships, bohemian escapades, silk scarves strewn over lampshades. Stevie Nicks type love affairs where I make the men that fall in love with me sing my lyrics back at me on stage while we make eye contact for the rest of their life. [https://youtu.be/eDwi-8n054s?si=CTJa0iZcF_LLYbZf&t=255] We walk our dog on the weekends and plan where we want to go for lunch on Saturday. We’ve been together long enough to have fought out weather or not to get a cat, got a cat, and for that cat to have lived a long and happy life and for that cat to have died at an elderly age. We’ve both gotten sober together, instead of closing down the bars and dancing on the tables like we used to on Friday night, we got for ice baths and breath-work mediation classes and I love them. My boyfriend is also a perfect angel, he thinks im extremely beautiful and very talented and humble and does most things more me. I haven’t gotten a beverage for myself from the other room for over a decade. The only thing more embarrassing than admitting I have been hooking up with the same guy for 12 years would be to marry him. I do not think marriage is an achievement or the ultimate expression of love. Shock horror, I am a child of divorce. Weddings, and I would argue subsequently marriage has devolved into the performance of it all. You cannot tell me 99% of weddings happen only for/because of instagram. Alternative, destination, elopement, family style or otherwise. All a production for the people from middle school that still follow you, a potential moment for #content and the opportunity to showcase how much power (money) you have. The manic string of engagement party, engagement shoot, bridal shower, bachelorette, day before, day of and day after wedding has become standardized for instagram. I could write another essay about the expectations of bachelorette culture (you do not need a 6 day trip to Charleston, South Carolina to celebrate marrying a guy named Joe, please) or the finances and debt incurred in order to be able to out perform Trish in finances euro-summer-wedding, let alone the amount of waste generated for these rituals. I feel as if I am on an ice float left alone in the ocean. All the other women in my life, a raft we all agreed to stay on, where we were safe as long as we were together, severed off one by one to go back to the island we swore we’d never return to. All thrown out, all “compromised”, in order to marry a man. The cognitive dissonance required to say some of the most radical, powerful feminist things I have heard from the women in my life and to then choose to wear a white dress and change your last name to a man's is a stunning leap, I an Autistic women do not have the physical neural pathways to perform [https://theneurodivergentbrain.org/cognitive-dissonance/]. Feminism feels likes a flimsy thing to try on in our 20’s only to shrug off in our 30’s. What I hate most about weddings is watching women compromise their values because they think they need a man to complete their life, make it better, give them something they don’t already have. I am not supposed to say any of the above. It’s bad feminist of me. We railed against the cringe capitalist mirror of Girl Boss feminism, and instead of pushing the needle we birthed Choice Feminism. A watered down version of feminism that allows us to be BFF’s with transphobes [https://people.com/brittany-mahomes-jumps-taylor-swifts-arms-reunite-chiefs-win-8724868], and tolerate much more filler and plastic surgery than we think is ok, we’ve all sung out as “I wouldn’t do it but it’s her choice”. The degree in which we are asked to tolerate choice feels far from feminist to me. Choice feminism espouses the idea that any choice a women makes is inherently feminist. That just because a woman chooses to side with her oppressor and against other women makes that choice, fine? Exempt from criticism. White women have been doing this for centuries. I could point to the big ones, the women that voted for trump, the trad wives we all seem so enamored by [https://caniholdyourbaby.substack.com/p/the-imagined-victimhood-of-conservative], the women that side with their abusive husband [https://meghandaum.substack.com/p/alice-munro-andrea-skinner-stepfather-sexual-abu] over their own children. But I think “choice” is more insidious than that. The choices women make in the everyday uphold patriarchy as a way to bash other women with it. All while being good lefty liberals but with lip fillers, blood diamond on their ring fingers, credit card debt for a dress they’ll only wear once for the opportunity to change their last name to a mans. All in the name of protecting, ultimately, themselves. Arguably it’s the only choice women are ever actually making. To side with oppressors or not. White women really are quite stunning at spinning this into victim hood. Intelligent, smart women I know get married to horrible men, men who hate them, who think that getting married means the women will “settle down”, quit their jobs. All men are Steve’s and when they marry Miranda’s [https://youtu.be/ICyqZLPoZTs?si=fsXgquae57JjFliT] they are shocked they don’t rearrange their lives for them, move to Brooklyn and mother their children. The self inflicted victimhood of white cis hetero women, the ability to be both oppressed and the oppressor, and unable to be accountable for the patriarchy they uphold day to day in the micro and macro movement they make. “Women’s rights is not only an abstraction, a cause, it is also a personal affair. It is not only about “us”; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.” - Cinderella's Stepsisters, Toni Morrison A couple months ago I was in the shower and felt two lumps in my right tit. I really hate saying breast. I called my doctor's office and ended up in a paper gown the next day. The dance of formalized medical performance begins. I in my paper gown, my doctor in her “this is serious but let’s wait and see” face. I laid down on the vinyl table and made eye contact with Jesus on the cross. My doctor opens my paper gown and my right flopped to the side. To diffuse the tension building between the three of us I loudly ask my kind young Orthodox Christian Doctor with a too big engagement ring poking my in my armpit “what even are tits made out of anyway”. While stilling prodding around in my armpit she says “the breast is made up of different glands and fibrous tissues”. Her ring get caught in my armpit hair I insist on growing up to let anyone that may catch a glimpse of my armpit hair, I am a feminist. She places the paper back over my chest and tells me it's a good idea to get some scans done. We skip mammogram and go right for ultra sounds. I go for scans the next day and my doctor's office calls me back that afternoon to tell me the results came back “weird”. A departure from the medical jargon of “different glands and fibrous tissues”. My tits are now, formally, medically “weird”. I go back for scans the next day again, they come back “inconclusive”, another scan reveals the are “abnormal”. This dance goes on for the next week. Throughout scans and pokes I insisted on using the word “tit” much to the upset to many a nurse, ultrasound tech and Doctor. I remember having the forethought enough on doctor visit number three, when I could tell my she was preparing me for the worst case scenario results, to ask about what would happen to me if I couldn't make a decision for myself, if my autonomy was stripped from me. She looked up from typing her notes and asked me very sharply “are you married?”. My common law relationship status would not get Simon through locked hospital doors, it would not grant him the right to make decisions for me, we can pay our taxes together, but we cannot make life and death choices together. I very rarely talk about my boyfriend online. Mostly because he has nothing to do with what I write about, make, and quite honestly I think my relationship is the least interesting this about me. Women online share photos of their husbands glaring at them over the dinner menu and begrudgingly hold the phone to take OOTD photos. Their proximity to a man as something on par with the art they make, the songs they sing the businesses they run, their contributions to the world. Simon got into bed at 11pm, after doing the washing up, taking out the garbage and cleaning the house (because I do none of these chores). He leaned back, closing his eyes like a porcelain baby doll as it tips back, and just as his head touched the pillow I took a deep sigh and with tears in my eyes “I think we should get married”. Throwing the last 12 years, my rioting every time someone gibed at a wedding “you’re next”, my staunch hatred of marriage, the implications that I would be someone's wife, all out the door all for the privilege of letting him change my morphine dose if I was in a vegetative to make that decision. True love. I will never change my name. I will never be someone's wife. And all of the sudden I don’t feel like I have a choice in the matter. It will be hard for my boyfriend to advocate for my health care unless he is my husband. That actually it is easier to be married to a man. Simon’s response was “ok, sure”. I can’t help but think marriage is a compromise of my feminism. I am sure I have pissed off plently of people that won’t make it this far into the essay, but I don’t think being married makes you inherently not a feminist, and I hate that the internet makes me feel like I have to caveat this essay with that statement. But I do think of my ancestors before me. The ones that would dance and cheer for me for this opportunity of a lifetime. Unmarried, childless, educated woman. Don’t f**k this up they whipser in my ear. The doctor called me at 5pm on a Friday afternoon. She asked loudly over my cars bluetooth “is this a good time”, it really wasn’t, I was driving and the car behind me was honking its horn because I hadn’t made my left turn yet, paralyzed with fear that it was cancer and that I was about to get in a car crash before I even got the chance to have chemo. But when a woman you've been harassing all week with your lack of medical jargon asks if it's a good time, the answer is “yes”. “Results are all clear, we need to monitor in 6 months but we’re happy with the results”. Click. I don’t remember driving home, the rest of the words my doctor said to me on the phone. I walked into the kitchen and saw Simon shaping two sourdough loves, folding the gluten stands under each other, flour dusting the floor of the kitchen and forming a little halo about his head in the sunlight. I wrapped my arms around his back as he twisted the little white mounds on the work top, “We don’t have to get married now”. Thanks for reading weird girl. If you want more me while I kinda return to a usual schedule you can find me and my “day job” over at DoYouEver [https://substack.com/profile/259496640-doyouever]. We interviewed Cody Cook-Parrott [https://substack.com/profile/2263550-cody-cook-parrott] and they were so generous with their time. Ok thanks for being here I’m feeling mucho back so you can expect regularly scheduled nonsense in all it’s forms back again 💕 xx Phoebe P.s Some IRL stuff if you wanna hang with me! Hamilton folks! IRL workshop at Bambinos with me Nov 28th [https://doyouevermedia.com/storytelling-day], deets here, sliding scale come yap with me! We’re getting better at talking about ourselves, our work 🤸‍♀️ Toronto area folks I am performing some new work next week at Replay Storytelling Wednesday November 13th @ 7pm [https://burdockbrewery.com/products/replay-storytelling-presents-strange-luck?variant=41342661230679] along with some other amazing storytellers! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit phoebetaylor.substack.com/subscribe [https://phoebetaylor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

3 nov 2024 - 12 min

Every time I write about Autism people leave

Every time I write about autism people leave. They leave the room, they leave the bar, they unfollow me, they don’t call back or ignore the dropping of a capitalized word, all together. Despite being pathologized countless times, told I am not good at recognizing people's facial expressions. I can always tell what they’re thinking when I drop my big A word. She’s making it up!She’s watched to many tik toks!She wants attention.She doesn’t look autistic. She can't be autistic. I know this because I left the room when autism came up. When someone showed a little but too much of themselves, offered me something I didn’t wanna hear, a diagnosis of chronically online. I rolled my eyes and tried my best to hold their humanity in the palm of my hand, only to stuff it in a snotty kleenex after the fact. It felt too cringe. Too close to my own s**t to look in the eyes, to pay attention enough to care. To listen. I never planned on writing about being Autistic. I avoided the idea for years after friends and therapists suggestions. On the phone with my friend Alexandra and she asked “do you want me to tell you?”, she forwarded me a list and it felt like someone reading my diary at me. It was too much to ignore. A flashing light of a limit reached years ago. In a doctor's office a couple weeks later I was told I was “too pretty” and then “too anxious” to be autistic. I was given a list of forms to fill out, come back in 6 weeks with a letter from my mother and a stack of my report cards as a child. “Something is wrong, we just need to sort it out”. I walked to a park and sat at a bench for an hour, I think. I couldn't be autistic. A doctor just told me so. A doctor who didn’t listen to me, a doctor that said I just need to “try harder”. He didn’t think I was autistic. I couldn’t be and therefore I wasn’t. I tick all the boxes of late diagnosed Autistic woman, in some sick medical system bingo card. I haven’t met another autistic woman who’s score card doesn’t almost exactly match mine. Threatened with hospitalization and institutionalization throughout my childhood and teens. Diagnosed with OCD at age 19, diagnosed with BPD at 21, prescribed too many SSRI’s in my 20’s and then not enough. Prescribed medications for epilepsy patients and heart conditions. I was “just evil” according to my family, a “b***h” to my peers and classmates. A diagnosis of weird girl at the back of the room, something that no amount of rubbing can ever scratch off. Once you’ve been branded, that’s it. In a way I don’t blame people. I didn’t stay when others told me about themselves. Cringed at the idea of saying the big thing out loud. Judged others for their blue hair and stim toys, rolled my eyes at the idea of #neurospicy (ok I still do, but now because I just want people to say Autism). To call it internalized ableism is not enough. Self hatred, loathing. If I could just muscle through, why can’t everyone else. I couldn’t muscle through it. I failed hard at my performance of Normal Woman, Good Woman, Capable Woman, Nice Woman. 30 years of masking has taught me that, I can’t hide it. People clock your weirdness, your otherness. I’ve been called enough names by men and criticized for the way I speak, dress, wear my hair, make eye contact or don’t make eye contact, that I know people know whether or not I tell them. I screamed in public, lost it at the mention of a changed plan or a loud noise in a cafe, and jumped out of more moving cars than I can count on both of my hands. Wrestling it down, pretending it isn’t in the room with us benefits everyone else. Never the Autistic person. I don’t think people mean to leave. It’s not conscious. It’s a series of hearts on an instagram post or a comment of “you’re ok”. Anything to dismiss the capital A in front of you. It lumbers into the room to make everyone feel uncomfortable. Something to turn and avoid, something that inevitably highlights the ugliness of ourselves, and the room we stand in. Of course people leave, it's something to fear. Something that haunted classrooms and living rooms in the 90’s. The thing that steals little white boys away from very nice middle class family’s. Something writers and journalists feel they can weigh in on, poke fun of. A trend sweeping chronically online white women with coloured hair. (I am once again paging Freya India [https://substack.com/profile/20148231-freya-india] to do better after this article [https://substack.com/home/post/p-144850922]).Any other tick of marginalized and people don’t just leave, they kill you. If you’re brown and autistic people don’t believe you, they hoops of diagnosis are far more challenging to run through. If you’re Black and autistic you’re more likely to face police violence in the throws of a meltdown, or for simply just existing. I don’t know how to tell the world they should care about autistic people. I know they don’t. I wish they did, I wish the needs of Autistic people were taken seriously. I wish we didn’t have to perform “disabled-enough” for people to listen. I wish we weren’t constantly told we’re “ok” or “fine enough” or “too much” and simultaneously not enough. I can’t not talk about it anymore. I spent too long not talking about it. Pushing parts of my face around until they made other people feel comfortable. It’s my operating system. And not talking about it quite literally kills us. Not because being Autistic kills you, but because people do not accomodate Autistic people and their needs (the average life span of an autistic person is 36 [https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303696?journalCode=ajph], something I think about daily). So I do now know how to get you to care about autism. But I have writing. I have a camera, I have a music and shouting. I have threads to pull. And since I started talking about I’ve gotten DM’s from strangers, telling me they feel the same. Conversations outside the internet with people to say “this helps”. A piece of my story weaving into theirs. I don’t know how to tell you, you should care about Autistic people, but I won’t stop talking about it until people stop leaving. thanks for staying💕 xx PhoebeP.S I want to give a quick shout out to Gabrielle Ione Hickmon [https://substack.com/profile/2653579-gabrielle-ione-hickmon] and Lexi Merritt [https://substack.com/profile/6528742-lexi-merritt] this week for the conversations I’ve had in developing this essay. This took a lot of gumption to put together and I wouldn’t be able to do it with out their cheerleading. 🫶 *typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop* I am just a human girlie living on earth with a mortal brain 🤸‍♀️(and also like, don’t be an ableist freak🥰) Thanks for reading the Weird Girl.Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and breaking up with the wellness industrial complex. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing 👼 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit phoebetaylor.substack.com/subscribe [https://phoebetaylor.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

20 jun 2024 - 8 min

Weird Girl

2 maanden voor € 1

Over Weird Girl

Alle afleveringen

Alleen bij Podimo

Populaire luisterboeken