A Mask They Put On: The Politburo
Three of five in a series for the undiagnosed neurodivergent child who survived
You’ve just discovered you’re autistic—or finally received a diagnosis after years of wondering. Maybe ADHD is part of your story too. And now you’re looking back on your life with fresh eyes, asking: What happened to me? What could have been different if someone had known?
This five-part series, A Mask They Put On, explores the lived experience of growing up with generational trauma as an undiagnosed autistic child with ADHD. It’s a story of survival, of misinterpretation, and of reclaiming self-understanding and compassion.
I’m a late-diagnosed autistic adult myself. I write this series for people like me, newly diagnosed autistic adults, who are piecing together a lifetime of being “othered,” masked, and misunderstood.
Over five posts, I’ll tell stories of my childhood—not as pathologies, but as evidence of the brilliance, resilience, and sensitivity that went unseen. I’ll view my younger selves not as broken or problematic, but as heroes who adapted in a world that didn’t make space for us.
To read the first post in this series, click the button below.
[A Mask They Put On: The Politburo]
In communist systems, the Politburo, the highest ruling body, manages resources. The first Politburo emerged after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and had seven members. My Politburo came into being in 1986 and had eight members, seven following my father’s death. Both groups were defined by bureaucratic structures, lack of accountability, stifled dissent, inflexibility, and forceful personalities. The Russians formed their committee after dethroning the Czar to manage the needs of the people. My father formed mine after his diagnosis, to manage me and my siblings’ needs. It centered on a system to support Nancy, the woman who lived in our house, so she might provide for our direct care. Each member of my Politburo contributed their thoughts and input in a way they considered valuable. The group decided together. Blame shifted amongst members when things didn’t work out. Proceeding afterwards was uncomplicated. This system diversified both approaches and ultimate responsibility.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful that these adults took time and energy out of their busy lives to care for me and my siblings. Each committee member maintained their own family. They had a lot on their plate. The time and effort to address our needs required energy. Caring for us affected their families’ lives.
Making it especially difficult for everyone, my siblings and I weren’t what one might term “perfect victims.” My brother lost himself to heavy metal, dark trench coats, public air guitar solos, and cynical angst. Frustrated most of the time, my sister copied the adults’ aggressive behavior, aiming her anger at anyone who made her angry, mostly at the Politburo itself. I was the “bad kid” who lied, stole, and caused chaos. We made up an “annoying” trio. It would be so much easier for everyone if we behaved, acted normal, and stayed out of trouble. That was beyond our capacity. Anger consumed us, and we couldn’t express it. We didn’t ask for any of what happened to us. Still, the system made it easy to “other” us. We understood we didn’t fit in, and that they included us only because we had nowhere else to go.
The Politburo required us to show gratitude. My brother tells a tale about a committee member telling him he was fortunate his father drove him to receive orthodontic care. My brother replied that it’s a father’s job to provide healthcare for his kids. He wasn’t lucky. He was a kid, and his dad was doing what dads are supposed to do. The committee member didn’t like that response. Reflective analysis revealed significant childhood trauma affecting these adults. It represented a “tell us nobody cared for your basic needs as a child without telling us nobody cared for your basic needs as a child” scenario. These people held the reins of power.
Demonstrating gratitude involved regular contributions to the system. This was Nancy’s speciality. We weren’t the only kids who had chores. I recognize that. The distinction lay in how intensely she evaluated us, affecting our treatment. Each of us had chores like washing dishes each night, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, taking out the trash, washing clothes, mowing the lawn, or snow blowing the driveway. Chores will annoy any child, but doing chores as a group is even worse.
Renting a carpet cleaner, cleaning windows and curtains, planting the garden, harvesting, and preserving the seasonal fruits and vegetables all required a group effort. Each December, while my father was alive, our family hand-delivered thank-you platters of Christmas cookies to community members who supported us throughout the year. Baking, assembly, packing, and personalized handoffs to recipients proved stressful and drained my energy. It’s no wonder I continue to have challenges enjoying the holidays. The workflow of group chores functioned like an assembly line. In our house, our treatment depended on an evaluation of completed assigned tasks, including our perceived attitudes. If our performance was subpar or poor, some form of penalty resulted. Losing TV privileges hurt me the most. It represented tough love; it was getting us ready for the “real world.”
To check out a list of my series with descriptions and links, click below.
A Politburo exists to manage resources, and mine was no different. My father had been paying a mortgage on the home we lived in when he passed away. It had equity, but not enough to make selling worth it. We needed a place to live, and our house would do fine. My sister and I got monthly Social Security checks that we would sign over to Nancy until we turned 18. We were also beneficiaries of our father’s state pension and union benefits. These resources formed only part of the Politburo’s holdings.
My paternal grandmother’s estate formed a significant percentage of the funds set aside for our care. This seemed to cause a disturbance amongst my dad’s siblings, specifically with my aunt. She lived a few towns over with her two kids, and one day, after seeing them at holidays and family events, we didn’t see them anymore. The split and the Politburo’s creation, including its funding, happened at the same time, though we didn’t discuss it.
I’m not privy to the details of my father’s upbringing, but I understand that my father and my grandmother had a close relationship. This likely explains her will’s distribution. She had stocks and other assets accumulated from my grandfather’s career as a school administrator that all found their way into the trust fund for my care. Yes, I am a trust fund kid. Our shared trust fund persisted in the tens of thousands until the house sale catapulted it into the hundreds of thousands, but it was still a trust fund. In terms of finances, we had a secure start in life. We were the lucky ones.
Nancy served as the lynchpin of this entire plan. Her absence would have forced my sister and me to live with distant guardians. With her help, our guardians could care for us from afar, knowing Nancy kept us fed and sheltered in our familiar home and community.
Nancy arrived during my kindergarten year. She replaced my uncle/science teacher and his family, as well as other women who failed at caring for our household. We proved a challenging group of people in a difficult situation. I don’t think I would have stayed either. We comprised three children, five to eleven years old, an absent father, and a demanding, unwell mother, in a room next to the kitchen. Nancy asserted her readiness. In hindsight, I sensed it suggested her desperation to find a place to live, but I digress. She and her son moved into the two-bedroom home attached to ours not long after we first met her. I understand she came recommended by a fellow church member. She lost her housekeeping job with a wife/motherless family in New Jersey, before moving in with us. The story goes that the widower married a second wife, and they didn’t need Nancy anymore. Their loss became our gain, I suppose.
Nancy brought a lot to the table; mostly food—desserts, to be exact. I’ve always said that people are good at either cooking or baking- rarely both. Nancy baked and excelled at creating sugary treats, such as cakes, pies, puddings, and cookies. Her skill-set served her method of belonging. Whenever someone came by to help, she had a treat to share with them. Whenever we needed to say thank you for a good deed, she had a treat to share. A teacher’s thank-you gift? She had you covered. As a daycare operator, a feature of her brand included the diverse selection of sweet treats offered to her young clients after school or to their parents during pickup. Her Christmas cookies achieved legendary status, not only for quality but also for variety. She could do wonders with a can of Crisco and prided herself on being one of those confectioners who operated without recipes most of the time. Her reputation grew, and her production picked up. For a while, she sold her pies as an additional income stream. Since she didn’t like to measure, she always had extra pie crust to make the most tasty little foldovers, filled with homemade jam. The kitchen counter and fridge usually held a selection of homemade desserts, covered in plastic wrap.
With a plethora of baked goods at my disposal and a world collapsing around me, I found comfort in binge eating. It ran in the family. My body and mind existed in a state of chaos; eating was my only comfort. I craved sugary, starchy, fatty foods all the time. Stress intensified my desire to binge eat. The years that followed Nancy’s arrival included lots of stress. My mother moved into a nursing home. They treated Nancy for cancer. My home turned into a daycare. Doctors diagnosed my father with cancer. I lived as an undiagnosed neurodiverse kid. That’s not even all of it. It was a lot of stress.
New around here? Click the button below to get your bearings.
Eventually, my father and Nancy confronted me about my habits and weight gain. From their perspective, I alone had to handle this situation. Nancy refused to halt the supply of baked goods despite my self-control issues. I had to develop that skill on my own. I could not, so I sought opportunities to binge eat outside the house. That required money, and I didn’t have any. Money was available nearby. I started stealing change from my father’s coin jar and my brother’s paper route money to buy candy and doughnuts.
The IGA supermarket across the street had a top-notch bakery and an okay candy selection. The Newswrack on Main Street compensated for the IGA’s so-so candy selection. From penny candy to jumbo candy bars, it offered all the candies desired by village kids. Both became my targets, and both caught me red-handed on multiple occasions. I once shoved a pack of Hubba Bubba bubble gum into the front of my briefs after getting caught stealing it. Behind the plexiglass of the manager’s station next to the checkout, some adult asked me where I hid the gum. I shrugged. I walked out of the IGA with that pack of gum in my pants. Nobody, even back then, was searching in my underwear. It represented a win, a dysfunctional one, but still a win.
The stealing and lying led to temporary bans from stores, “tough talks,” and some spankings with my mother’s sorority paddle. They hung that paddle over the interior of my bedroom door as a deterrent. It didn’t work. None of it stopped me. Each Sunday, the IGA offered free doughnuts to customers visiting after church. I became renowned for my Sunday routine of circling the bakery and the back of the store, where I would devour doughnuts before making another attempt. Community members saw me doing this. I’m aware they had opinions. I didn’t care. The desire to eat was so strong. My sister’s friend joked about witnessing this phenomenon with me once a few years back. She found it hilarious. I found it depressing. I was a child so burdened by my environment that I ate to self-soothe any way I could. Now, looking back, I can’t find humor anywhere in that.
If you were an undiagnosed neurodivergent kid, how did you react to the stresses of the world around you? Did anyone notice if you were struggling? What helped you regulate? What made things worse? Are things different now that you’re an adult?
To read the next post in the series, click the button below.