Autism

Somos Abnormales by Residente (Spanish song by Puerto Rican artist)

• Video (VERY NSFW!!)
• Song with lyrics (safe for work)

Lyrics in Spanish:

Lyrics translate to English:

I share this songs for several reasons:

One, the artist is openly autistic, saying in one of his songs that he was diagnosed as a kid. To me, it seems like he also takes special effort to be authentic and engage in his uniqueness without any shame.

Two, the song is called "We're Abnormals". My Hispanophone family nicknamed me Arnold Mal, which was pretty clever on multiple levels. I was the first American-born and native Anglophone in the family, so the name Arnold was fitting in that they saw it as an English name. Also, when read in Spanish, "Arnold Mal" sounds like they are calling me abnormal. That was fitting because I was definitely the weirdo of the family. Before diagnosis, it made sense since I grew up with my father's side of the family, yet stuck out as being oddly different from them. They often told me that I reminded them of my mother my entire life. I had embraced it because I was proud to not take after a lot of their traits, which I found did not match well with my ethical standards. After diagnosis, it makes even much more sense since I'm autistic and they aren't (bonus: my mother was very likely autistic). I stuck out for being odd in my manner of doing things, preferring order, limited socialization compared to them, interacting softly, and having a strong moral code. Related to the strong moral code, the artist has a history of composing songs that stand up for underdogs and disadvantaged people, which I can relate to my whole life.

Three, because of my experiences and projecting that onto the artist, I see it as him having similar experiences, probably being labelled as abnormal since childhood. By the way, abnormal is a common term for those that aren't neurotypical in Latin America. He taking on the identity as if saying, "If I'm abnormal, then I'm going to be proud of being abnormal with all my other abnormals," then, celebrating being abnormal and its benefits. Basically, the song is about being prideful of being different, and I love that. Ultimately, the song is about being proud of being you, especially if you're abnormal 🥹

Four, the song also has lyrics that relate to common autistic traits.

• "We resist using uniforms," which is common among autistics to resist conformity.

• "Because we look curious." Special interests! But also confused in social situations and I know I have a staring problem when I try to figure people out.

• "What I like about you is that you are abnormal." Yep! I naturally gravitate to autistics, even before knowing I was autistic. But also, there's research to support that with the concept of the double-empathy theory that argues that autistic people aren't lacking empathy, they're just better at empathizing with other autistics. The same goes for neurotypical people in that they also empathize better with other allistics.

• "Our sexuality awakens, the DNA with spread legs." I've read that autistic people tend to have atypical sexual preferences, from asexuality to uncommon kinks.

• "Our genetics, a labyrinth." This reminds me of the autism evaluation process when the evaluator tried to figure out who else in my family was autistic.

• "We are equally different". Yeah, we're just different. No worse, no better.

• "What gets mixed up is more interesting...What I like about you is that you are abnormal." To me, autistic people tend to be much more interesting. They have their uniqueness and special interests.

• "I'm abnormal." I'm Arnold Mal, and I'm abnormal.