Autistic : learned femininity

I had so many factors working against my natural femininity that it's become clear to me how my story panned out.

My parents were hoping for a boy. After they had my 2 older sisters, they imagined that I would be the boy they wanted. My dad had even proudly chosen my name. I believe that my being born a girl was utter disappointment for them. I have recently come across a number of people who have experienced similar gender stories and have ended up experiencing gender dysphoria and / or body dysmorphia. The truth is that I WAS hurt. Every single time that my parents reminded me, or reminded others by repeating the same story to me, to friends, to relatives. It made me feel insecure, wrong, a disappointment. That somehow I wasn't really a girl. It stuck with me throughout my life, and it did some real psychological damage. As a person with Autism, I am a very literal thinker. If someone told me I was meant to be a boy, that's exactly how I understood it.

I developed a fear of my mother. She was mentally ill with undiagnosed schizophrenia that nobody else seemed to have picked up on. I'm ashamed to admit that I hated her. She was harsh, mean, cold, cruel and callous. Her appearance wasn't feninine, her clothing wasn't feminine, she hardly applied makeup. She was - in a word - ODD. She still has anasagnosia which is a lack of awareness of her illness. I have been studying her all my life, and when I realized (became aware of the fact) that I was schizophrenic, the Lord placed onto my heart that my mother was, too. So I never had a female role model in my home. She taught me absolutely nothing about life. I was to speak when spoken to. I was to be well mannered and polite. I was to smile and be pretty. That was it.

I would get bullied for being myself. I was shy, reserved, quiet, introverted as a young child. I hated being left out, I hated getting hurt. I hated being invisible. After I was sexually assaulted, I hated being me. This created a mask. I became "whatever men wanted", and in my personal environment that meant a mysogynist. A stereotypical narcissistic "man" inside the body of me.

I learned that girls are weak. That men are respected. That "sexy" got attention, and tomboy got me hurt. I learned to study what men liked in women, and that's what I mimicked. I had no boundaries, no idea of who I was or what I enjoyed. I was echoing those around me who were popular. I took this literally, I spoke like them, dressed like them, danced like them, walked like them. As if my life was a movie and I was playing all the parts.

I believe my schizophrenia onset happened after I was Raped, and I turned to cigarettes and alcohol to calm my mind. 

I went through life making bad choices, as is typical of those suffering with schizophrenia. I never knew that I had the illness myself, I only knew to avoid my mother at all costs. She was a horrible drunk who would spit and drool, wet herself, fall over drunk.

As I was PETRIFIED to end up like her, I tried really hard to be like other women. I refused to be like her. 

I felt rejection from my father because I was a girl. Rejection from my mother.

Rejection from peers at school. 

Rejection from my boyfriends who all cheated on me. 

Rejection from my own self because I believed all the lies from these people. 

Rejection from my abuser. 

So I learned to TURN AGAINST MYSELF. 

I deliberately chose men who hurt me. Unaware that that's what was happening. My authentic self was the complete opposite of who I pretended to be. 

I was really a shy, introverted, autistic who developed cptsd, schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder from all the trauma of masking. 

I experienced a double mind... Never quite knowing who I was. I needed a man to take care of me, I needed to please him. I developed a fawn response which became why I couldn't leave him even after severe psychological abuse. Like the relationship I had with my mother, she had taught me, together with the boy who assaulted me, that fear, disgust, and pain was arousing. I believe that I mistook arousal for love. It was never love. My mind had been trained to accept abuse as love, arousal. I was actually in fear of my husband, it wasn't love. When he kissed me I would lose my breath and I assumed I was like a lovesick child. I believe now that it was fear that made my heart race. I'd have to ask him to give me a minute to catch my breath. I felt little, small, and anxious. My relational trauma I suffered as a baby and a child around my mother had created within me a masochistic tendency! 

Or is there other trauma that I have suppressed? 

Recently, a sentence has made its way into my mind which I believe helps me piece it together:

FEELINGS FLUCTUATE IN PSYCHOSIS. 

I am learning that once I was in full blown psychosis my thoughts were no longer rational, therefore I cannot make sense of them. I was often in a state of hypomania (elation and hyperactivity). 

I also believe that my trauma from undiagnosed autism and schizophrenia escalated when I reached menopause, due to estrogen levels.