skysometric

Sky's Journal

trans christian, any pronouns. artist at heart, programmer by trade. this is my journal of sketches, project notes, and assorted thoughts – spanning games, technology, creativity, neurodiversity, and more!

970 posts

I Thought I Used To Hate Wings. Like, The Food. They're Messy And Hard To Eat And They Hit On So Many

i thought i used to hate wings. like, the food. they're messy and hard to eat and they hit on so many little autistic pain points that i have with food. i used to dread getting them with my family, and as an adult i never went out of my way to get them.

but i finally let myself try them again tonight... and it turns out they're pretty good! but that's because i got to try them on my terms.

i got boneless wings.

"now sky!" you might say. "those aren't really wings. they're basically chicken nuggets."

Yeah, I Know. i heard that every time we got wings as a family – and that's exactly why i never got to try them. i always got the regular wings instead... and i hated it!

i've always struggled with eating meat with bones in it. when i have to pick at my food in order to eat it, my stomach begins to shut off and say that i'm not actually hungry... so i only get through half of it before i can't eat any more. plus the fact that they're already messy means that all that picking makes my hands greasy and i don't like how it feels when my hands are a mess and—

"why don't you just Eat Them," my dad would say. how do i answer that? i am trying to eat them. it is not good for my autism. (i did not have the words for this as a child.)

this isn't even the only food i have this struggle with – i live in the south where crawfish boils are a crowd pleaser, and as much as i love the taste, i can't eat enough of them before my body shuts off. it takes me too long to peel each one to reach the meat on the inside!

so why didn't i just get boneless wings, if i have this problem with so many foods? i still don't fully know. but the echoes i hear from my memories tell me that it's because they're "just chicken nuggets," and if we're gonna get wings, we should get wings.

so the one thing that would've helped my autism was simply shamed out of my life.

...to my dad's credit, he did use that mindset to get me to try a lot of things that were outside my comfort zone as a kid. him telling me "you don't go to a chinese restaurant to get chicken nuggets" is one of my formative memories, and choosing the cashew chicken that day is a big part of why i love chinese food as an adult!

but i didn't choose to go to that chinese restaurant. and i didn't choose to get wings back then either. i might have handled it a lot better if i had chosen it on my own terms. and what better proof do i have than tonight, when i finally chose to try boneless wings, despite the shame it was associated with?

i could have shared their joy for wings as a kid if i had simply had that chance... but at least i can enjoy them now.