Teasing Out A Complex Upbringing Across Countries

And by complex, I don’t necessarily just refer to dysfunction and trauma… My childhood experiences feel all too common yet at the same time, trying to figure out where cultural difference, family history, circumstantial events, mental illness and neurodivergence begin and end and overlap is a constant exploration for me. I grew up in Malaysia and moved to Australia, discovering my neurodivergence later in life.

Like many late-diagnosed autistics, I had a long history of mental illness before finally landing on the concept of neurodivergence which much simply explains a lot of my experiences…Or does it? There lies several aspects of my cultural history in particular which are not uncommon but remain largely unacknowledged in mainstream literature/media.

1. Fragmented caregiver roles and maid culture

It is extremely common in some parts of the world like Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai for maids a.k.a. live-in domestic helpers to be hired in not just wealthy families but many middle-class families as well. I grew up with a maid, who I fondly called Aunty S, as my main nurturing parental figure. From her I learned what it took to run a household, and she ensured I was fed, bathed and toileted as a child day after day.

To others, she was an employee doing her job; to me, she was integrated into the family as second mum. My parents worked long irregular hours in a self-established family business to sustain the funds to raise 4 children, of which I was the youngest. They taught me the social decorum rules of how to present myself well in the company of family friends and business associates, and I was very compliant about that.

My eldest sibling on the other hand had the ugly job of at-home discipline and dealing with the tears and naughtiness. They are much older than me, and the house often felt like chaos that they needed to subdue and get back into line before our parents were home for dinner.

A child’s unstable or disjointed attachments to caregivers is often framed in terms of divorced or blended families, where relatives like grandparents may take over the caregiving role, if not an external figure like a teacher or religious mentor perhaps. There are some studies on the impact of maid culture on child development and upbringing but none through the lens of managing a neurodivergent child. I often wonder whether my neurodivergence was more unnoticed due to the split roles between my caregivers.

I was already masking a part of myself with each one of them! No one seems to be able to validate my childhood experience as an integrated whole which has made reflecting on potential early signs of my neurodivergence incredibly difficult.

2. The impact of multi-lingual environments on observed communication deficits

English is my native language - quite uncommon for a Malaysian - but I can also speak and write Malay which is the national language mandatorily taught in schools. I am also Chinese, and since Mandarin is the most widely used Chinese language, it was the dialect I learned in formal curriculum. Oh! But the Chinese community in my hometown mainly speak Cantonese. And my family is of Teochew/Hokkien descent, which is another group of dialects again. Add to that collective Chinese cultural pride, and I was an utter failure as a banana. A banana?

Yes - “yellow on the outside, and white on the inside,” since I cannot hold a Chinese conversation despite being Chinese.

Thus was my comfort and affiliation with Anglicised culture whose words also influenced my ideas of the world. But despite leading the language of neurodivergence, the vernacular becomes limited. They say being autistic can be like an alien on Earth - you were dropped here with no life manual, a manual that everyone else seems to have. Now let me tell you that often not understanding the language spoken around you makes you a quieter person, makes you withdraw socially, makes you memorise patterns of niceties and react to humour you don’t understand just to fit in. Even the English I am natively familiar with is culturally different to the Australian English I now deal with on the daily. Where does the autism and cultural otherness start and begin?

3. Dismissing symptoms as cultural stereotype

Something that I finally got my therapist to understand recently is the exact role of the “high-achieving Asian tiger mum” stereotype in my life. I never denied that that cultural lens exists, but it needed to go beyond a binary yes/no on whether it applied to me. Many many professionals I’ve seen assume from my background that I experience a lot of external pressure to be high-achieving, thus fuelling my perfectionism and anxiety. That is half-correct. I did grow up in a society where achievements were always compared to others, and giving up self-care was a pious method of working towards success. But that is secondary to where my perfectionism and compulsive tendencies come from. I was never pushed to do better, or told I wasn’t studying enough by those closest to me. I inherently did it from an inner desire for routine and control, not to please anyone (although that was a “nice” bonus). Plus it helped that I was considered gifted.

It was thought that I needed to learn to say “no” more, care less about what others think, and prioritise self-care to manage my anxiety. Knowing what I know now about my autism, I’m now exploring this matter from the viewpoint of: what if my compulsive perfectionism is not pressure-induced anxiety, but actually self-soothing regulation of a neurodivergent mind through mastery in an otherwise uncontrollable world? I’m sure it’s a mix of both, but the latter viewpoint is something no professional has ever suggested to me, that some degree of insisting on order and correctness might actually be beneficial for my nervous system. This goes way beyond “stop being so Asian”.

My hope is for mental health professionals and those working with neurodivergent clients to be culturally-informed, without it getting in the way of an individualised healthcare approach. Have the cultural context and knowledge in the back of your mind, but always, always explore from a place of curiosity and uniqueness. Culture, language, identity - it helps to have a common understanding but realise that how it impacts each and every one of us is unique. About the Author Mei Ng (she/her) lived in Malaysia and Singapore before migrating and settling in Australia in her twenties. She now lives in Perth with her husband and beloved fur kid, Layla. After decades of mental health struggles Mei was late-diagnosed as autistic at the age of 31. She has special interests in engineering, making music, and all things dogs.