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An Uncomfortable Situation at a Party
Jul. 22nd, 2014 08:29 pmI really enjoyed the majority of this past weekend! Danae and I went to the Chicago History Museum. I got to spend an evening with Lisa watching a movie I bought on Ebay partly because I wanted to show it to her. Danae and I went to a board-game party hosted by friends of hers. Lots of good stuff that I'm going to write about!
But I have to write about a difficult situation I was in as well.
At the board game party, there a typically wide-ranging discussion that landed on the topic of neurological diagnostic procedures that claim the ability to determine gender-identity based on brain imaging. Whether such procedures are effective or not, I think we all agreed that the results of such examination could easily appear to be an invalidation of someone's identity. If a bio-male who identifies as female was told by a doctor that a brain scan indicates that she 'ought' to be male, that could be a hurtful, even crushing, experience.
I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of that danger by talking about a similar experience I'd had when I was tested for prosopagnosia. Some years ago, when I was employed with better insurance, I was feeling some worry about the functioning of my brain in relation to some of the relationship issues I was having with my ex (a long, complicated story). I decided that I also wanted some kind of verification of the atypical neurology that I knew I had, but that had never been diagnosed. The neurological staff at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee adminstered a test for face-blindness. Their determination was that I had no significant facial recognition deficit. Instead, they said, I was probably just shy.
I was floored. When I was around 20 and I first encountered writings on the internet about prosopagnosia, it was one of the most revelatory experiences of my life. Suddenly, all the problems I'd had dealing with people made sense. I couldn't be a part of social networks in school because I couldn't tell people apart well enough to follow politics. I couldn't tell my parents or other adults who was picking on me in elementary school because I didn't know. I couldn't have any friends because I couldn't recognize individuals well enough from day to day to create a persistent mental picture of the other children. Because I'd never had any other experience to compare to though, I never knew that this was atypical. It was, as they say, the water I swam in. I only knew that I was terrified of interacting with other people, and I didn't really understand how other people could make friends. I eventually decided that I was just terribly shy and that there was little or nothing to be done about it. I would enter a career that involved as few people as possible, and learn to be happy with a small or non-existent social circle.
Then I found the writings of Bill Choisser and other faceblind people. As I read, I gradually came to understand why dealing with people had been so hard for me. Just as importantly, with a conscious understand of the ways in which my experience was different from other people, I was able to start finding ways to work around the limitations that prosopagnosia imposes on me. It's been a process of years, but I'm social to an extent I once honestly never thought I could be.
Going back to my board-game party conversation about the potential that medical professionals, especially those in fields related to neurology and neuroscience, have to inadvertently make piercing attacks against critical parts of their patients' identities, I shared a brief summary of my experience at Froedtert, and that I'd been told that I was not faceblind.
"Well," said one of the conversation participants who has a background in neurology, "you're not." Or perhaps he said that I probably wasn't; I can't recall exactly. It was a shocking thing to hear. The feelings it engendered in me were milder at first, and I asked him what he meant. We talked a bit more about what he means by faceblindness versus what I meant, and about the online faceblind community (which he was unfamiliar with). His knowledge was based on acquired prosopagnosia versus the congenital form, and I think to some extent the disagreement might be semantic. But as I tried to express myself more clearly and in more depth, he got up to assist our host with a household task and didn't hear the rest of what I had to say.
I was still feeling confused and stunned. I wanted to talk more about the issue from a rational perspective; explain where I was coming from and work out the miscommunication. It was important for me to rationally explore the issue with him so that it wouldn't seem like I was reacting in an uninformed and emotional way. But the party progressed and I didn't manage to continue the conversation. Danae could tell I was feeling off; she asked me if I was ok and whether she could do anything. I told her I was alright. I thought that I was. In retrospect, I think I was in the same kind of defensive headspace that I used to get into in school. I was distanced from the situation, approaching it purely logically and from far away. I also didn't want to feel that I couldn't stand on my own conversationally. The fact that the group's conversational style is fast-paced and full of interruptions made it difficult as well. I deal poorly with that kind of conversation, and end up saying very little.
In the car on the way home, I started connecting with my emotions. They were complicated. I realized that I was hurt and angry. But I didn't want to express my hurt and anger to the person at the party because I felt like it would invalidate the logic behind them. I'd already felt, having been in a room largely full of academics, in a position of inferior knowledge and conversational clarity and I was worried about how disagreement would reflect on me when I lack the kind of precise knowledge and vocabulary that others involved posses. As she drove, Danae expressed that she wished she had realized how much I was affected by the exchange, and that she wishes I felt better about her responding on my behalf. I love her for her understanding and desire to take care of me and defend me. I think in the future, I might be more ok with her doing so in this kind of situation. But it was complicated, and I'm still not entirely sure how I felt or how I want to respond. If it was someone I wasn't going to be seeing regularly I wouldn't feel much of a need to address it further with him, but I am likely to see him at further events and I feel uncomfortable about that.
Danae said that my feelings are reminiscent of the way she's felt on several occasions when she's been sexually harassed. Confusion and numbness at the time make it difficult to know what to do until later, once time has passed and allowed more conscious processing. For my part, I'm still thinking about what I should do. But I wanted to write it up here. I'm not crossposting to Facebook or Google Plus because people who were there are more likely to see it. I also don't feel that the person involved intended any offense, so I don't want people to be upset with him or make the sort of "Oh, what a dick," variety of comments that Facebook friends often do. But I do want to share my experience and perhaps continue processing the events via the avenue of writing about them.
But I have to write about a difficult situation I was in as well.
At the board game party, there a typically wide-ranging discussion that landed on the topic of neurological diagnostic procedures that claim the ability to determine gender-identity based on brain imaging. Whether such procedures are effective or not, I think we all agreed that the results of such examination could easily appear to be an invalidation of someone's identity. If a bio-male who identifies as female was told by a doctor that a brain scan indicates that she 'ought' to be male, that could be a hurtful, even crushing, experience.
I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of that danger by talking about a similar experience I'd had when I was tested for prosopagnosia. Some years ago, when I was employed with better insurance, I was feeling some worry about the functioning of my brain in relation to some of the relationship issues I was having with my ex (a long, complicated story). I decided that I also wanted some kind of verification of the atypical neurology that I knew I had, but that had never been diagnosed. The neurological staff at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee adminstered a test for face-blindness. Their determination was that I had no significant facial recognition deficit. Instead, they said, I was probably just shy.
I was floored. When I was around 20 and I first encountered writings on the internet about prosopagnosia, it was one of the most revelatory experiences of my life. Suddenly, all the problems I'd had dealing with people made sense. I couldn't be a part of social networks in school because I couldn't tell people apart well enough to follow politics. I couldn't tell my parents or other adults who was picking on me in elementary school because I didn't know. I couldn't have any friends because I couldn't recognize individuals well enough from day to day to create a persistent mental picture of the other children. Because I'd never had any other experience to compare to though, I never knew that this was atypical. It was, as they say, the water I swam in. I only knew that I was terrified of interacting with other people, and I didn't really understand how other people could make friends. I eventually decided that I was just terribly shy and that there was little or nothing to be done about it. I would enter a career that involved as few people as possible, and learn to be happy with a small or non-existent social circle.
Then I found the writings of Bill Choisser and other faceblind people. As I read, I gradually came to understand why dealing with people had been so hard for me. Just as importantly, with a conscious understand of the ways in which my experience was different from other people, I was able to start finding ways to work around the limitations that prosopagnosia imposes on me. It's been a process of years, but I'm social to an extent I once honestly never thought I could be.
Going back to my board-game party conversation about the potential that medical professionals, especially those in fields related to neurology and neuroscience, have to inadvertently make piercing attacks against critical parts of their patients' identities, I shared a brief summary of my experience at Froedtert, and that I'd been told that I was not faceblind.
"Well," said one of the conversation participants who has a background in neurology, "you're not." Or perhaps he said that I probably wasn't; I can't recall exactly. It was a shocking thing to hear. The feelings it engendered in me were milder at first, and I asked him what he meant. We talked a bit more about what he means by faceblindness versus what I meant, and about the online faceblind community (which he was unfamiliar with). His knowledge was based on acquired prosopagnosia versus the congenital form, and I think to some extent the disagreement might be semantic. But as I tried to express myself more clearly and in more depth, he got up to assist our host with a household task and didn't hear the rest of what I had to say.
I was still feeling confused and stunned. I wanted to talk more about the issue from a rational perspective; explain where I was coming from and work out the miscommunication. It was important for me to rationally explore the issue with him so that it wouldn't seem like I was reacting in an uninformed and emotional way. But the party progressed and I didn't manage to continue the conversation. Danae could tell I was feeling off; she asked me if I was ok and whether she could do anything. I told her I was alright. I thought that I was. In retrospect, I think I was in the same kind of defensive headspace that I used to get into in school. I was distanced from the situation, approaching it purely logically and from far away. I also didn't want to feel that I couldn't stand on my own conversationally. The fact that the group's conversational style is fast-paced and full of interruptions made it difficult as well. I deal poorly with that kind of conversation, and end up saying very little.
In the car on the way home, I started connecting with my emotions. They were complicated. I realized that I was hurt and angry. But I didn't want to express my hurt and anger to the person at the party because I felt like it would invalidate the logic behind them. I'd already felt, having been in a room largely full of academics, in a position of inferior knowledge and conversational clarity and I was worried about how disagreement would reflect on me when I lack the kind of precise knowledge and vocabulary that others involved posses. As she drove, Danae expressed that she wished she had realized how much I was affected by the exchange, and that she wishes I felt better about her responding on my behalf. I love her for her understanding and desire to take care of me and defend me. I think in the future, I might be more ok with her doing so in this kind of situation. But it was complicated, and I'm still not entirely sure how I felt or how I want to respond. If it was someone I wasn't going to be seeing regularly I wouldn't feel much of a need to address it further with him, but I am likely to see him at further events and I feel uncomfortable about that.
Danae said that my feelings are reminiscent of the way she's felt on several occasions when she's been sexually harassed. Confusion and numbness at the time make it difficult to know what to do until later, once time has passed and allowed more conscious processing. For my part, I'm still thinking about what I should do. But I wanted to write it up here. I'm not crossposting to Facebook or Google Plus because people who were there are more likely to see it. I also don't feel that the person involved intended any offense, so I don't want people to be upset with him or make the sort of "Oh, what a dick," variety of comments that Facebook friends often do. But I do want to share my experience and perhaps continue processing the events via the avenue of writing about them.
