Howdy do, welcome back to my blog, coming to you live from my brain! So, let me start today’s episode with with a fun fact about yours truly. Which is? I’m a GIANT video game nerd, with a special place in my heart for Mortal Kombat. Omg. OBSESSED.
And I mean from the first time I laid eyes (and quarters) on the original MK arcade game in the back of a Papa Pete’s Pizza in 1992. Then in my Playstation 1 era, I spent much (ALL) of my spare time releasing my aggression in the form of MANY satisfyingly bloody slicing and dicing sessions. Like a mental rage room, if you will. And boy howdy, did I take advantage of it.
I froze my enemies in place, then shattered them to smithereens with a single strike as Sub Zero.
I roared, “GET OVER HERRRRE” as I, or rather, Scorpion, rocketed a harpoon hook into my foe’s midsection only to jerk the body back to me for a proper and bloody evisceration.
Anyhow, my absolute favorite character in MK3 (my favorite of the 3), is Motaro. I seem to remember in the game during the match, a message would flash across the screen that said, “YOU MADE MOTARO ANGRY!” And oh man, at that point I knew I was in for it. Motaro was a TOUGH video game boss to beat. Don’t believe me? Here’s a little clip of Motaro doing what he does best.
So How Does Motaro Being Angry Come Into Play Here?
Well, sit back, my dear friend, and I shall be GLAD to tell you more. GLAD I SAY. First of all, let me just say autistic folks like myself often relate their feelings and/or emotional state of being to fictional characters. I’ve ALWAYS done this, and I didn’t know it was an autistic thing until recently. Okay? Okay. This is going somewhere I promise. Stay with me.
So if you read my last two blogs, you know recently I got a little irate over…let’s just say social contract stuff. That’s the best way I can describe it without getting too far into it. Will it matter in a year? When I calmed down about it, no. But oh holy cow, at the time? IRATE. Okay so here’s where some of the fictional-character-emotion-relation thing comes in for me.
I Am A Dainty Little Venus FlyTrap In A Glass Case Of Emotions
Whenever I am just FURIOUS (or even pretty darn irate) about something? Motaro from Mortal Kombat 3 swaggers his four-legged self right into my front cerebral cortex, puffs out his chest, and roars a thunderous, “MOTARO ANGRY!” and I swear that’s my sense of justice speaking. Another autistic thing. GIANT SENSE OF JUSTICE. HUGE.
But so then WHY am I this angry, MOTARO angry, as I call it, over stuff that’s not going to matter in a year, much less the grand scheme of things? This is one of the “whys” of my own psyche I’ve been trying to unravel for a long time. Finding out I’m autistic in my mid-forties was a BIG part of said unraveling, but I still couldn’t get a grip on why I felt my feelings SO DAMN MUCH. Like UNCOMFORTABLY MUCH.
Emotional Fuckery Has Entered The Chat.
And so I was talking to my sweet Baboo today about how I literally went from zero to YOU MADE MOTARO ANGRY about something that won’t even matter in three months, much less a year, and he was like, Meredith, honey, you’re a Scorpio. And you’re autistic. You’re an autistic Scorpio! Quick astrology lesson – many Scorpios feel their feelings VERY DEEPLY. And we get ANGRY like murder hornets. Trust me when I tell you that you really don’t want to be on the wrong side of a Scorpio. We can hold grudges for YEARS.
And as an autistic female, my emotions are OFF THE CHART. Now some of you might scoff at some of the woo-woo stuff, but IYKYK. And on top of that, I’m in perimenopause! He says, hon, that is like the HAT TRICK of passionately emotional fuckery to HAVE. And I just stood there like…wut?
Look at me, learning mind-blowing stuff about myself at the tender age of almost fifty. And that’s another thing. Nobody told me I’m going to feel ANCIENT in middle age. But that’s another blog entirely. But anyway, having big scary feelings at ANY age feels, well, big and scary. And when folks have TREATED you like you’re scary – well. It can be hard to deal with, let’s be frank. So it’s a real relief for me to find out, oh, so THAT’s why I’m feeling like I wanna, in the words of Limp Bisket, “justify RIPPING SOMEONE’S HEAD OFF”.
It’s Me, Hi, Your Biology! I’m The Problem Its ME.
After I retrieved my jaw from the floor, I’m like YOU MEAN TO TELL ME IT’S MY BIOLOGY? I swear to you all I felt like Marty McFly when he exclaims to Doc that Doc had “made a time machine? OUT OF A DELOREAN?” Well, my biology, my brain, and certain astrology placements, but like, 1/3 that, 1/3 my biology, and 1/3 my spicy brain. And it SUUUUUCKS. But at least I know why I feel the way I do, and what to expect in the future.
Also now that I know what’s going on, it’s INCREDIBLY gratifying to look back at certain reactions I’ve had and realize that NO, I wasn’t being too sensitive (and being as sensitive as I need to be is FINE), my feelings were (and ARE) VALID, and NOW I have a “why” as to the depth of my reaction. Which I must tell you is incredibly freeing considering how many countless hours I have spent wondering and berating myself and worrying about if I overreacted in a moment of time that most likely nobody remembers but me.
So that is my win for today.
Anyway it is about that time to go and tend to the bath spiders (as the saying goes), so thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time!
Be excellent to each other,
Meredith Silverman