Thread by @erikaheidewald

Today is my stepmom Angie’s birthday. She died when I was 18 of an overdose of her prescribed pain medication. She struggled with mental illness and was a casualty of ableism, classism, and a carceral system that stole some of the short life she had instead of helping her.

She was a lot more than that, too. She taught me about makeup - a tool that helped her use her looks to survive in a world hostile to her, a skill I ended up needing. She didn’t understand the concept of things you weren’t supposed to talk about and she never sheltered me.

That was understandably controversial with other adults in my life but I’m grateful for it. Some of the more painful parts of my own mind were places only she could understand. She was a dreamer who believed I could do anything and I believed she could, too.

She didn’t understand rules, and life punished her for that. I always thought it was being poor that made us not conform to social norms, but I can see now it was more than that - it’s just how our minds work, and that divergence is always what brings people into my family.

She was my stepmom since I was 7 and stayed my stepmom even after she and my dad got a divorce but didn’t break up - my family never really can do things the way you’re supposed to. She’ll always be one of my parents, one of the few people who understood and loved me completely.

I tried to find a picture of her to post and this is all I could find. That’s something about poverty and ableism people don’t talk about much - how little of someone can be left when they’re gone. But that’s perfectly her. Holding a cat, teaching my friend to ride a horse.

I can really see now why we created our own world on our farm - there wasn’t much of a world outside of it that would welcome us. The farm was a place for misfits to be free. We had animals but never to kill them, my parents just couldn’t say no to any animal who needed a home.

We ended up with a dog that bit someone and needed a new home with lots of space, the world’s meanest goose, goats that broke through the window and came into the living room, nine cats at one time. I got to see two baby horses the day they were born, one who lived, one who died.

She found an injured possum and nursed it back to health and one time she brought it to Starbucks in a purse meant for tiny dogs - inspired by her favorite movie, Legally Blonde - and feigned surprise when a woman in the bathroom shrieked, “there’s a possum in your purse!”

She was a terrible influence on me, and a wonderful one, and I’d never want to separate those two things. I was never going to fit into the normal world anyway and she was an example of being fascinating, beautiful, funny, kind, miserable, joyful, and unique all at once, always.

I’m so grateful to her. I probably decided to be a blonde bc of her, even if I didn’t quite admit it when I made that choice & found part of myself in it. I’m glad as I get older I can see more of the outside forces on her life so I don’t have to accept society’s story of her.

I’m terrible at remembering birthdays so the person who reminded me, who reminds me of everyone’s birthday, was my mom, reaching out to tell me she was thinking of Angie and grateful for the love Angie felt for me and brought to my life. I really lucked out on mothers.

When I figured out I’m autistic, realized how obvious it was pretty much from birth, & saw the common threads through my family, I wondered - how did we never know? How did nobody ever tell us? It’s certainly not that people didn’t notice how different we were. They always do.

My family are all a lot like me, yet all unique, and they agree with and support what I’m doing but many of them have survived this world by refusing to be labeled, so I won’t label them all - but divergence is the thread that ties us together. It’s all any of us have ever known.

I knew I was different, but I didn’t know what normal was. I knew my brain, I just didn’t know that’s what autistic actually means. I’ve wondered how can it be that everyone in my life is and always has been neurodivergent - but of course. It’s the spark we see in each other.

It makes so much more sense now. Of course Angie was neurodivergent too, and of course that’s why she and my dad fell in love, and why she loved and understood me, and why she suffered so much, and why the world was so cruel to her, and why she died way too fucking young.

She was also physically disabled due to an accident as a teenager and lived with chronic pain. I’ll never know exactly what happened in her overdose and it doesn’t matter. She did not create the system that was cruel to her but by god did she make every moment she had fascinating

A reason why I advocate so much for changing the world to fit neurodivergent people is not only bc this one isn’t survivable for us, but bc I’m one of the rare lucky people who’s gotten to experience what life is like when we get to create our own world, like we did on our farm.

I’ve gotten to experience what it’s like when nobody shames you for being different, when your brain is allowed to do whatever it wants, when there are no rules, no standards to judge yourself by because you don’t even know what they are. My confidence comes from that place.

The pain in mine & my family’s lives has always come from the intersection with society. The more I tried to be in it, the more miserable of a place my brain became. We always keep trying, bc we don’t want to be isolated. We’re social people with big dreams & incredible willpower

I wish I could tell Angie she wasn’t a mess or weak or broken. She could have lived her dreams if society let people like us do that. I’m proud of her for making her own world. Her love for me helps me make my own. I can’t tell her, so I tell everyone. Thank you for listening ❤️

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