If You Were to Draw a Superhero, What Would They Look Like?
An artistic autistic reflection on my feminine biases
A question was posed to me by one of my neurodivergent twin souls after he read my article on Wednesday about the morality of my autistic literalness after a near head-on collision with two superhero figures. I knew I had her sketched from my erratic emotive scribblings during the pandemic when art and a passion for it just exploded out of me. My whole office is now like my Autistic art museum. And here she is. I found her in one of my sketch pads.
He then asked me, “What did I see in the sketch in my mind’s eye? (Hence, why I have close friends like this now; they keep going with the questions and beyond and spoil me with intellect.)
Brain food.
I told him I saw strength in becoming a warrior, not a worrier. That transition from worrier to my kind of warrior in my life was messy. She, too, is messy but momentous. I took her out last night to catch a bit of her momentum before I settled myself to feel the presence of many other strength-driven, intellectual, and exceptional autistic women in a new peer support group I am facilitating on behalf of AsIAm.
Where am I going with this?
You see, I am not a woman’s woman; I have many biases I have had to work on about women, from being betrayed, berated, intimidated, bullied, and having vitriol made up about me by women in my past personal and professional lives. I have also seen women pull hair from each other’s heads behind bodybuilding stages.
I have seen women emotionally destroy men. I have witnessed women make accusations against people very close to me that were damaging but also found with CCTV evidence untrue. I have another female close twin soul utterly destroyed personally and professionally by a woman, thankfully now behind bars for making false accusations here in Ireland.
I specifically won’t engage in women’s entrepreneurial groups, and as my business grew, I found it subsequently took the direction of a male niche. That wasn’t necessarily deliberate; it just evolved, and I only coached male professionals for two years, as that was all that approached me.
Despite my ingrained biases, I longed for that space and was still doing deep work on it. A loss of feminine energy surrounded me. I am surrounded by men 24/7; it has its pros and cons. I have a handful of women who are incredibly close to me now, and just one is from my childhood. Most of my former female so-called friends have left; more have absconded since my autism diagnosis. Not a bad thing either, but there is grief to process.
Somehow, over the last year, the universe has enabled me to reach these Autistic women, and it has oddly but wonderfully evolved into other women finding me. I have coached more amazing women in the last year than ever. But I know now that these women are my superheroes too. My peer groups are a safety net for me. They catch me when I am falling, and they lift me up.
When you know, you know.
