Tuesday morning. 6:45am. Woke up two hours ago and couldn’t go back to sleep. Checked my email and found my official work visa for Hong Kong waiting for me. Guess I’m already on HK time!

This is crazy! It’s so real now! In two months, I’ll be getting ready to board a plane and go to the other side of the world. I can’t believe I finally did it. I really did it! I wasn’t expecting this location at all, but I’m so excited! I am ready to explore!

Hopefully that will still be possible given the current situation. I wish I had done this ten years ago, but I can’t look back to the past and be angry about it anymore. We are living in very interesting times. I was clearly meant to go abroad at this time and be in this part of the world. I am at peace with that.

Longing to forget the past. There’s just so much pain from my family that I’m processing. So much anger. Before he died, my father would always say he couldn’t understand my anger. Safe to say his ghost feels a little bit different now. Spirits are like that. They can understand things they couldn’t when they were humans. I still talk to him sometimes because I’m trying to work it out so I can have peace. I feel he is more understanding now.

There’s a lot of other factors at play with the neurodivergent thing than I myself previously realized. It’s definitely genetic. My uncle famously self-medicates his with alcohol. It’s a pretty serious problem. He’s definitely the drunk uncle we weren’t allowed to pick up the phone for. So that’s a thing.

Then there’s the whole projecting depression onto me by my parents instead of getting counseling for themselves. Then the later demonization and vilification of this imaginary mental illness that was really just neurodivergence desperately trying to survive in a cutthroat world. Then all the bullying and social rejection on top of it. Eventually it all comes to a head when I struggle to finish college at a place that is wrong for me in just about every single way with no care or concern given to my specific needs by anyone, especially my parents. Then they created a bigger problem by refusing to allow me to leave, trapping me in an already deeply problematic situation, where I struggled to find work and people who weren’t absolutely terrible in general. Then, again, refusing to allow me the freedom to leave even after repeated problems arose that not being around here or them could clearly solve. So what do they do? Send me to live with a different drunk uncle, who created even more problems that I didn’t even know I could have, forcing me to flee back here and into the fold of the abuse, which was happening daily and still being blamed on me.

I was only set free when he finally died. And what did I do? Drove myself to rock bottom as fast as possible, prayed for a new life, got on a plane to India, and I started changing my life. Do you know how many goals I was able to accomplish in a single year that I haven’t been able to achieve in the last decade? It’s crazy when I think about it, actually.

The whole thing is just… yeah. Wow. It’s a horror story. Definitely. But in the end, we Nancy Drew’d this shit and solved the mystery behind the horror! It was neurodivergence all along!

Anyway, at least now when people start acting crazy around me, I can just stop them and say, “You’re wasting your time screaming at me. I’m neurodivergent. I don’t understand you. You need to learn to communicate with me in a different way or I will literally stop listening to what you say.”

Good luck screaming in my face now, hahahaha. Hahaha.

I will just go full robot mode now. I don’t care anymore. I am validated. I always knew I was different from everyone else. Always. I knew it all along. I always knew that I was special and that I saw the world in a completely different way. I was not caught up in their petty little dramas and their soap opera escapades. I didn’t give a fuck. I wanted to study everything I could and learn about the natural world. I was a seeker of knowledge. I wanted to learn it all., see it all, do it all.

And now I’m gonna! There’s no one to stop me now!

This is just such a relief. If anyone ever tries to weaponize mental illness against me, I get to call them out on being ignorant and ableist. Hahaha. Then I get to annoy them even more by not only pointing out that they are wrong, but explaining all of the reasons why in very great detail. Then I will watch their faces melt off as their feeble brains overload from trying to process too much information. Mwahahaha!

*steeples fingers together and smiles like an evil villain who has just come up with their master plan*

I feel like the Resident Alien. That show is so funny. That is so me, hahaha. I definitely feel like I’m wearing a beautiful woman suit to make people treat me less shitty, but underneath I’m just a giant amphibious lizard fish with rainbow scales. Just waiting for the moment they finally catch on and discover the truth about me. I’m not just some beautiful woman in a fabulous outfit! I’m a neurodivergent person who is about to bore you to sleep with 10,000 hours of facts about whatever random subject I’m interested in at the time.

Oh yeah.

I just feel so much better admitting I’m a special rainbow fish deep down inside. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that too loud. My cat came right over, sat down directly across from me, made eye contact, and started licking his chops. Oh no, has my best friend suddenly become my enemy? I thought we had evolved past this!

This really does explain all the things. Okay. Well, actually, I was feeling like… unsure of how I felt about it. But now that I’ve walked myself through it, it’s just totally me! It’s better to embrace it.

I still don’t like labels in general. I don’t like putting myself into categories. That’s not how I personally self-identify. I am okay with saying I am Neurodivergent, but I don’t need any kind of specification beyond that. I really just prefer to call myself The Rainbow Fish, like the book. It has a special scale that makes it different from all the other fish. That’s me. I don’t need anything else.

Hang on, I just started crying.

I feel so relieved. Like, i just want to be myself. I’m not a bad person. I don’t want to hurt people. I’m not solely concerned with myself. I care deeply about the world. I’m just tired of everyone in my life constantly treating me like trash just because I don’t fit their idea of what a normal person should be. I’m not a normal person. I never was. You knew I was different and you completely failed to protect me, understand me, and guide me along a good path. Instead, you thought only of your self-image and how it looked to other people having a total freak for a daughter.

And this bitch wonders why I need to move to the other side of the world to get away from her. Ugh!

Unreal.

*heavy sigh*

This explains why Seaspiracy hit me so hard. It was like a punch to the face. Wake up, bitch! The world is going to shit and it’s up to us, the neurodivergents, to save the planet as we know it. You’re being recruited to join a special team. It’s called the Avengers.

I see what you’re saying, but as a She Hulk time, I don’t have time to be a superhero. I have a life, I have a job, I have a boyfriend. I can’t just leave the planet to go across the galaxy in the hopes of saving Earth from some distant evil force.

Hahaha.

There’s some random pieces starting to click together here. Like, oh yeah, that’s why I generally think Marvel is dumb besides She Hulk and Black Panther. I like the X-Men too but I haven’t watched it in like 20 years. I probably should. It would help me feel better about the world. I always knew I was one of the mutants.

Also, Animal Farm. I never liked that book. Everyone gets so caught up in that book like it’s some deep philosophical meditation on politics, but to me, it’s all just very plain and obvious. Especially now that I’ve lived out here and actually been to a real farm.

I don’t know how to explain it further. I don’t agree or disagree. I don’t have a strong opinion about it. It’s just… obvious.

I can’t communicate further than that. Maybe I should read it again. It’s been like 20 years. God, listen to me. I sound so old at the age of 36. Insanity.

Yeah I just read the SparkNotes again. It’s all very obvious. Maybe this is what is wrong with me. I read books like that when I was young and saw humanity for what it was early on, and that’s how I ended up lying flat. The US is definitely the Animal Farm.

Well of course I wasn’t going to thrive in a situation like this. Whose dumb idea was this again? It’s clear I should have been at Professor X’s special school for mutants all along. Tsk tsk. No wonder everyone here acts so weird around me all the time. They hate me and want to put me on the death list. Got it.

I’m so excited to go to Hong Kong. I won’t miss it out here at all! Omg! I love city noises, the hustle and bustle, the fast pace, the excitement of getting where you need to go, the glow of the lights after dark, the random, chaotic energy on every corner, all of the weird, random shit you just see. I love it. I can’t wait.

Soon, this life will be a distant memory in time. None of these things I’ve been so worried about will matter anymore. I can stand proud and say I made my own choices, and I did something awesome, and I overcame all of my fear and anxiety to take a job on the other side of the world.

I just looked up the Rainbow Fish. I did not realize the book had been “cancelled.” It’s amusing, but I agree. Why do I have to give up my special scales to make other people happy? That’s what I did. I gave up all my scales and diminished into nothing. Luckily for me, I managed to regrow them and get my life back on track, but yeah. Not a great metaphor there.

However, it does make an excellent criticism of late-stage capitalism. Maybe some of the bigger fish should have to share, considering the rest of us are getting nothing. So, yeah, it’s definitely a book that’s open to interpretation.

I’m going to try lying down again. I need to process. I feel so much better now knowing I’m the Rainbow Fish.