The weight of expectations as a neurodivergent Vietnamese American
Growing up, I didn’t have the language to describe what made me feel different than my peers and society at large.
Was it because I lived in a low-income household? Was it because I became partially blind and disabled, living life with glaucoma? Was it because I grew up without a dad? Was it because I was raised by strong female figures such as my mother and grandma? Was it because I carry with me unidentified symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as the child of Vietnamese immigrants? Or was it because a lot of my differences were unrecognized traits of autism and ADHD (AuDHD)?
Only in the last few years, since the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was in my late 20s, did I begin to learn more about myself. I still felt different, and I felt it deeply. I felt it in the expectations to always excel, in the unspoken rules of emotional restraint, and in that way, survival often meant suppressing my true self to fit a mold that was never designed for me.
For years, life wasn’t about thriving but about keeping up. It was about appearing capable, competent, and successful even when I struggled. It wasn’t until I was later identified and diagnosed as autistic and ADHD in adulthood that I fully realized how much I had internalized these pressures and how damaging they had been to my sense of self.
The model minority myth and its impact on neurodivergent and disabled AANHPIs
The model minority myth isn’t just a stereotype, it’s a harmful framework that erases the full spectrum of AANHPI experiences, particularly those who are disabled, neurodivergent, queer, low-income, or from underrepresented Southeast Asian communities like myself. It conditions us to believe that success is the only option and that if we aren’t excelling, we are failing.
For neurodivergent AANHPI individuals, this myth is particularly suffocating because it equates…
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