Monotropic Me

Hello all.  Popping back up to finally keep my promise to share more about my journey figuring out that I am a high-masking monotropic neurodivergent person. 

What does it mean to be high-masking?

Everyone with relatively "normal" social awareness understands that they need to calibrate their dress, behavior, and manner of speaking to fit the context of their interaction. For example, what one wears and how one speaks at a formal event or job interview is, in most cases, going to differ from when one is casually spending time with close friends. This is called adapting, NOT masking. Masking involves hiding/suppressing one's natural way of thinking and being in the world out of fear of significant negative consequences. It is a complex trauma response developed in childhood/youth and gradually refined over years of trial and error, observing other people, and/or receiving coaching or "therapies" that reward masking behaviors and punish being one's authentic self. 

Masking is fear-based, anxiety-producing, and mentally exhausting. Imagine, for example, trying to learn a language that is foreign to you. In one scenario, you do so because of the social and/or economic opportunities it would bring. In the other, you perceive that your life depends on not only learning this language but consistently passing as a native speaker from that country. You are acutely aware at all times that if you slip up in public—mispronounce a word or use an odd sentence structure—you will be exposed and henceforth treated as an undesirable foreigner. Thus, simply making small talk with acquaintances is, for you, a terrifying mental obstacle course. This is masking.

In the context of neurodivergence, masking is when one attempts to pass as neurotypical by consciously using rehearsed scripts, rules, and formulas to mimic behaviors and conversational patterns that neurotypicals use instinctively. Not all neurodivergents are capable of successfully masking, and those who do so develop health problems (e.g., acute anxiety, depression, digestive issues, etc.) from the stress it puts on their nervous system. High-maskers tend to eventually hit burnout, resulting in "skills regression" and a lowered life expectancy.    

How did I figure out that I'm high-masking?

After a lifetime of trying to articulate how tiring most social interactions are for me and being told "everyone feels that way," I found and took the CAT-Q (Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire), which finally gave me quantitative data that what I was experiencing was well beyond the range of typical. The CAT-Q is a way of measuring the amount of mental energy a person exerts attempting to mask their autistic traits. My total score on the CAT-Q was 152. For comparison, below are average scores from a study that was done. In other words, I have been devoting so much of my bandwidth to masking that I'm on the far end of the bell curve, perhaps even an outlier. 

Who is the Taylor behind the mask?

I've spent this past year exploring that question, and I will share more publicly if/as I feel ready to do so. I'll begin with talking more generally about the commonalities among monotropes.

As masking is a safety-seeking strategy, I have had to be strategic about where and when to remove the mask and experience being me in public. Some settings will frankly always be too unsafe, and so in those the mask must remain on firmly. However, for the sake of my overall health, I don't wear it nearly as much as I did in the past. I've been taking a hard pass on non-obligatory masking situations—which can look a lot like me becoming more of a hermit—, and, among people I decide to give a chance or in settings where it doesn't matter to me what observers may think, I have been gradually lowering the mask.  The deliberate unmasking is first paired with conversations with the people I want in my life about the changes they will probably notice in me and how to make sense of them. 

Note: As neurodivergents tend to gravitate to fellow neurodivergents, this conversation frequently becomes liberating for others as well. I recently took a risk and came out as a high-masking monotrope to a small casual gathering of my husband's colleagues, and what could have gone poorly (sometimes it does; hence it is a gamble) became a beautiful moment where a room full of closeted neurodivergents dropped their masks and started sharing authentically about their own struggles.          

What does monotropic mean? 

One could write dissertations on this question, so I’ve created/memorized this script to help keep me from going into a flow state when answering: Monotropic people’s brains are wired so that when we begin to think/talk about a subject that greatly interests us, we experience an all-encompassing pull into a hyper-focus flow state. This has its benefits, as it gives us the ability to excel at research and identify connections and patterns that others have not noticed. Monotropic artists can create amazing innovative things with such levels of focus. It does, however, have a downside. The flow state creates a tunnel effect, making it difficult to simultaneously pay attention to off-topic inputs (think of the stereotypical absentminded professor). Most neurotypicals misunderstand/interpret the nature of flow states (read more about the double-empathy problem), leading monotropes to experience repeated social rejection for this neuro-difference, often causing us to develop Complex PTSD. 

Because of our flow-state nature, monotropes find the ping-pong exercise of small talk tiring (and pointless) and prefer what we call "info dumping" conversations, where we take turns sharing in detail about topics we find interesting/important. Despite the stereotype of us being poor communicators, studies have shown that verbal monotropes are actually better at having meaningful conversations than neurotypicals, provided that each group is speaking with members of their own neuro-type. 

People are born with monotropic minds primarily because at least one close genetic relative is monotropic. Monotropes also tend to marry other monotropes and have monotropic best friends, which explains why we are currently seeing a tidal wave of adults figuring out that they are high-masking monotropes (all it takes is one monotrope to share their discovery with their favorite people, and the word spreads exponentially). 

Monotropes are part of a family of neurodivergents, and scholars are still figuring out who all belongs under the monotrope umbrella. We know for certain that it includes autistics and ADHDers (i.e. monotropes with executive dysfunction), and increasingly folks are realizing that they are AuDHD (a autism-ADHD combo), forcing researchers to rethink their categories. Some scholars argue that there is a third category of monotropes that is being called "gifted," but there is great debate if there is such a thing as a gifted monotrope who isn't also a high-masking autistic and/or ADHDer.  

A few additional resources 

I've spent a large chunk of today in a flow state writing this blog post, and it is now time to retrieve my offspring from school.  So, I leave you with some additional links to begin your journey down this rabbit hole:  

I created a FB group, Monotropic Me, for people interested in seeing what posts from others I've seen on the topic and wanted to share. 

For more on monotropism as a theory and who first developed it, start with this link. 

To take the monotropism assessment for free, start here.

Monotropic Love Languages:  I should write more on this at some point, but for now enjoy this article someone else wrote based on growing grassroots consensus on the topic.

Wisdom from The Last Missionary

Hey folks.  I plan to circle back to my previous posts from this year, but at the moment I wanted to share how strange it feels to increasingly find myself at Methodist/academic gatherings where my work and writings are known, but not my father, the late Rev. Dr. Bob Walters. This is a particularly new experience that I struggle to process, as I grew up in his long shadow (no joke—the first time my work was featured in a conference newspaper the headline was how I was following in his footsteps) and tutorage. For those who didn't have the chance to meet or be mentored by him, you can still encounter his wisdom through his books The Last Missionary and Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords: The Ministry of Being With. The books interweave teachings with stories of his time traveling via bicycle to rural communities deep in the interior of the DR Congo. Paperback versions can be ordered via Wipf & Stock and most bookstores, or you can instantly download them in Kindle format via amazon. Below are a couple excerpts that I've noticed are most frequently cited in papers. 

   

Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords was written as the sequel to The Last Missionary,
but it can also stand alone as its own text. 

A Methodist Family Legacy: the Muzorewas and Murphrees (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe)

 Good Morning/Evening, Friends,

I’ve been posting heavily on Facebook these past two week about my adventures at The United Methodist Church’s General Conference in Charlotte, NC, and today is a VERY IMPORTANT day for the United Methodist history books. More about that later when I’ve had time to  figure out what I want to say and can point you to my favorite news articles about it (this will front page Washington Post news tomorrow ya'll). 

What I was in the middle of drafting for today's blog post when the historic vote happened was that I made a new friend last week, and we instantly recognized each other as kindred spirits. It turns out that we both have family ties to Methodist missionaries in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). So, to see if we could figure out how well our ancestors might have known each other, I dug up the copy I had of a letter written by Bishop Abel Muzorewa giving testimony to the work and impact of the life of my paternal grandmother’s first cousin, Lois Murphree. In it, Bishop Muzorewa highlighted four things: Lois’ vital role in the development of the Rukwadzano (Society of Women), her and her husband’s role in shaping and training of the conference’s Christian Education curriculum, the work she did alongside Rev. Kapenzi in the 1930s and 1940s in developing the hymnody of the church, and the fact that in the 1940s she and her husband unofficially adopted and raised two vulnerable young girls after their father died and their mother was forced into an undesirable marriage. One of those girls was Maggie, Bishop Muzorewa’s future wife. 

Recovering White Savior

Happy Sunday, Friends,  

As predicted, there has been a spike in folks checking out this blog since my name was published on the list of the United Methodist Council of Bishops' nominees for Judicial Council.  What I didn't think about was that I'd start getting the question "Why do you so prominently call yourself a 'recovering white savior,' and what do you mean by that?"

Welp, I've got a short answer and a very long one. The long one is so long that for about the past seven years I've been chewing on the idea of turning it into a book with the working title Confessions of a Recovering White Savior.  The short answer is this: I grew up in a culture that taught me an understanding of discipleship that was rooted in paternalistic white supremacist assumptions about what doing good in the world looks like.  (I encourage you to read Teju Cole's Atlantic piece titled The White-Savior Industrial Complex for more on this) Along my life journey, I have come to understand and am able to articulate in an academic way why the savior complex is toxic, and I now proactively work to address the racist and classist assumptions that undergird it as well as the counter-productive behaviors that stem from it.  That said, just as a person who has been sober for 20 years may identify as a recovering alcoholic, I identify as a recovering white savior as a reminder to myself where I began and what I could easily slip back into if I don't regularly remind myself to pay attention.  

Hope that makes things a bit clearer, and welcome to my website!  

Also: If you are looking for me IRL this morning, I'll be worshipping at First UMC Charlotte with some of my favorite people. Look for the woman in the orange earth toned patterned dress. If you are too far away to join us, you can tune in to their livestream at 11am local time. 

 

Judicial Council Nomination

Update: I was elected 2nd alternate, which means I get the flex of being on deck to serve on JC if two members step down for any reason (something that could quite possibly happen) without the additional unpaid labor on my plate for the time being.  ☺    

Hi all.  Greetings from The United Methodist Church's 2020/2024 General Conference.  As a follow-up to my previous vague-posting, I can now publicly say that my name is on the Council of Bishop's nomination list for Judicial Council. As such, I've been instructed to share my professional CV (in addition to the previous post about my Methonerd Credentials). God only know what will happen these next two weeks, but I'm sure it will be a wild ride. 

See CV below:

My Metho-nerd Credentials

Greetings to my friends, old and new. 

my confirmation, Sunrise at Geist UMC

As I previously shared, last year I started teaching United Methodist (UM) History, Polity, and Doctrine courses at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, but you might not know why the school wanted me to teach leaders in The UMC about The UMC. It isn’t a question I normally get asked, but if you are a delegate to this month’s UM General Conference, you may have spotted my name on a nominations list and thus googled me. This post was mostly written for you. 

Cradle United Methodist— I was born and raised in the old South Indiana Conference, daughter of an itinerant UM elder. Church activities filled my evenings and weekends, and being a UM pastor’s kid became a core part of my identity. (My family’s ties to Methodism in the Americas go back at least to the 1800s, but that’s a story for different day.)

Active in UM leadership since my youth—By age 12, I was serving on district and conference youth boards, and by high school I was a youth representative on numerous UM committees, including at the national level. 

• Elected as a youth delegate to the South Indiana Annual Conference in jr high and continued serving as a youth delegate every year until I moved away for college. I was “that kid” who showed up to AC having read all the pre-conference packets, reviewed Robert’s Rules of Order, and was able to list all the districts and committees in my conference and the conferences in my jurisdiction.
• Served on the UMC's National Youth Ministries Organization and co-chaired the national gathering planning committee.
• Attended and/or coordinated many, many large gatherings organized by UM boards and agencies. If the event was organized in the 1990s and 2000s and aimed at my demographic, I was probably there and got the t-shirt.
• For my BA/MA program, I attended the United Methodist-affiliated American University in DC and immediately sought out a UM congregation to attend and ways to plug into the student movement. I was awarded the Allan Burry prize (General Board of Higher Education) at the UM Student Forum for my work in re-launching a UM student ministry and worshiping community on my campus.

North Katanga Conference Connection—In the early 1990s, my father was making frequent trips to UM communities in North Katanga (to learn about his work and journeys, read The Last Missionary and Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords), and at age 15 I traveled to Katanga to attend an annual conference session there. It was the first of my many trips to DR Congo, including an extended period serving as an individual Volunteer in Mission. I eventually was ordained an elder in the North Katanga Conference, which is a long story I’d be happy to share over a cup of tea. You can find portions of it in my published doctoral monograph Decolonizing Mission Partnerships. 

UM Boards and Agencies— I spent a lot of time at the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill (DC) back in my undergrad and grad school days, serving as a part-time program assistant at the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) and the UMC's Special Program on Substance Abuse and Related Violence. The experience taught me about the inner workings of UM agencies as well as the difficulties they faced. Some of the tasks I was assigned included editing committee-created proposals for General Conference resolutions and drafting replies to hate mail. Due to the latter task, I kept the IRD website tab open so that I could generate form letters responding to brazen lies that had been published about the agencies and its staff. Through this exposure, I began to understand the politics of the fighting within the denomination. 

Later in my 20s, while living in North Katanga, I got to know the folks at United Methodist Communications better, as I served as a translator for francophone delegates to UMCOM trainings at Africa University and as an advocate for increased coverage in the UM News Service on the challenges and accomplishments of African UM leaders. My doctoral research in my 30s gave me yet another opportunity to dig into the history of our denomination and the role its agencies have played. (side note: I am very grateful for the work the UM Archives and History team has done to digitize its collection).  

In 2017, I was appointed as Bishop Mande Muyombo’s Executive Assistant for Partnership and Engagement and have continued in this role until today. In other words, I act as my bishop’s strategy advisor and Gal Friday—does that term age me too much?— for interactions with the anglophone world. Bishop Mande is not only bishop over three conferences covering two countries, he has also during this period been Chair of the Africa University Board, Chair of the Connectional Table, and Secretary of the Council of Bishops. As his personal assistant, I have been the proverbial fly on the wall and observed in real time as recent historical debates and events have unfolded.  (This knowledge informed the chapter I wrote in Methodism and American Empire  about empire politics in The UMC harming the central conferences in Africa and endangering their leaders.)  

Global UM Connection—If I was hyper-involved in The UMC in the ‘90s and ‘00s, where have I been “hiding” the past 15 years? In 2009, my spouse became a diplomat, and we began our super-itinerant life outside of the USA. Thus, while I was commissioned in the Indiana Conference, my first post-MDiv clergy appointment was to a UM congregation in the slums of Lusaka, Zambia. Later I served as the pastor of the UM congregation in Algiers, Algeria (France-Swiss Conference), was on loan for three years to the The Church of England’s parish in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and have even preached in Methodist congregations in my current home of New Delhi, India. Soon I’ll be moving to Cairo, Egypt, which will make travel to my episcopal area (North Katanga-Tanganyika-Tanzania) easier and put me in a better time zone for when I’m on Zoom with my colleagues and students in the USA.     

Roaming the globe (I have called 8—soon to be 9—countries home) has given me a broader perspective on what it means to be Methodist, the structure and traditions of Methodism outside of the USA, and where the story of The UMC fits into the bigger picture. I still care about what will happen next, but watching from a physical distance over the past few years has helped me to spot patterns, problems, and possibilities that those immersed in the work don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to reflect upon. I have been able to become a non-anxious sounding board for my colleagues, which—ironically in my eyes—has led since the last General Conference to me being “discovered” and recruited for teaching and consulting roles by institutions and agencies within the denomination.   

This week I am once again packing my bags for The UMC's General Conference. The last few have been brutal, but nevertheless I decided to return. I go to provide pragmatic support to my bishop and episcopal area, to see old friends, to witness a moment for the history books, and, most importantly, to sit with the wounded. If you would like to meet-up in Charlotte April 21-May 3, drop me a line. I'm always happy to expand my circle of kindred spirits.

Taylor

Status Update and New Publication: Methodism and American Empire

Greetings Friends,

For those who don't follow my adventures IRL or on FB, you may have noticed that I've once again neglected to update my blog for nearly a year. While in the past the reasons for this were complicated, this time around it was a conscious decision. The short explanation is that the next step in my personal evolution required me to drastically reduce the amount of unpaid/underpaid work I do. It was time for me to address my highly toxic co-dependent relationship with the institutional church, where I was constantly giving my time and emotional resources to a ravenous entity that could not love me back. I needed to take a giant step back and wrestle with my underlying motivations for rarely insisting on financial compensation, identify the legitimate needs that were not being met, and figure out how to meet them in a healthy way. 

I've learned a lot in this period of self-examination, and one of the things I figured out is that I am a high-masking highly monotropic empath who has been gaslit by authority figures since childhood. As I've spent the past year inhaling all the literature/content I can find on the intersection of neurodivergence and healing, I now have a great deal to say/write/teach on the topic, although that too would be unpaid labor I'm not currently willing to do.  

In related news, I've begun doing more paid work—mostly teaching a variety of courses for the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. My relationship with the MTSO family is still in its early stages, but thus far all signs point to this leading to a healthy longterm collaboration.  

Also in related news, there's an important new book out: Methodism and American Empire; Reflections on Decolonizing the Church. I contributed a chapter on the damage that the fight to control the membership and material assets of United Methodist Church has done to the UMC in Africa. I joined this project back in 2021 and finally got the opportunity to read the completed book last week.  I wish I could make it required reading for everyone in leadership positions in the UMC—especially those who are delegates to next month's General Conference, but going forward it will definitely be on the syllabus for the UMC Polity course that I teach.