I always joke that people did not know I was autistic, or I did not really have that hard a time initially as an autistic female presenting person in a Chinese type of society because many of the traits are deeply positive ones. Introverted, nerdy, super obsessed with something nerdy: I was a model child! No social skills early on—that was a plus. Where I grew up, being introverted wasn’t really a thing you got bullied for, people who were ‘good at school’ had a certain amount of social credit the way I think it isn’t really many other places.

One of my special interests is food (specifically the cultural aspects and history of Asian food and migration and colonialism), and I often relied on specific local food dishes to emotionally regulate me.

So when I moved to the U.S., I was confused at why when I felt sad, nothing I ate made me feel any better. Turns out it was just the lack of specific items / routines that I was missing.

In time I had to learn to meditate, exercise, do things for myself; but in a society like Singapore / Malaysia, if I felt (anything) I always had a thing I wanted to eat to help me feel better.

That’s actually why I wanted to go home, and would feel so horribly sad about it, every single day when I first got here. I quite literally could not eat my feelings anymore.