Somatized

Pablo Ruiz with Itch
(photo from hanneorla's Flickr)

Sometime in April, I watched in horror as my husband pulled his shirt up. Sure enough, the rash had migrated across his chest up into his armpits, and even his shoulder.

“Oh, Sweetie,” I said to him. “I’m so sorry to see you this way.” I rubbed lotion all over the rash to soothe it, though I knew that as long as the pressure remained, the rash would only move once again.

In Chinese, he always called his condition shénjīngxìngpíyán (神经性皮炎), sensory neurodermatitis. Over the years, I came to know this — along with those sudden stomach aches John would get before a challenging day at school, and even his allergies — as a sure sign of my husband’s stress or anxiety.

I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen John cry, an emotional response that I pull out at least once a month — and sometimes, in the past months as we faced pressure from the discrimination, at least once a week. The strongest emotion I’ve seen from John would be what I might call frustration, but even that’s nothing compared to the anger I’ve flashed before him in the past. Instead, I read how John really feels through things like his spreading rash, or his stomach aches — things he referred to as somatization, the channeling of emotions into physical symptoms. Continue reading “Somatized”

Ask the Yangxifu: Should I Tell Chinese Boyfriend I Have Asperger’s?

A journal tied up in string, filled with someone's secrets from the past
A Western woman wonders, how should I tell my Chinese boyfriend about my dark secret -- Asperger's Syndrome? (photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian)

Alhana asks:

I feel embarrassed asking this but since you mentioned your husband is PhD, and since he is a psychology major, I’m positive that he is familiar with Aspergers, otherwise known as high functioning autism. In May a psychologist diagnosed me with Aspergers, and around the same time I did some research and found out that Aspergers is genetic, which means if I have a child then there is a high chance of them having Aspergers. Also, ironically, I’m in kind of a long distance relationship with a Chinese guy. (I haven’t told him.) If he and I should ever get together and if he proposes to me, I feel that I must tell him about it because I know that there’s a possibility it will bite me back in the future and will create resentment. The thing is I don’t know how to go about it. I doubt that he has heard of it or is familiar with it. How can I make it seem normal or casual without making me seem like a freak or whatnot? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Should I Tell Chinese Boyfriend I Have Asperger’s?”