Autism Awareness Month

So as some of you may know, this month is autism awareness month. I thought I'd take some time off of my regular blogging schedule to share my experiences with autism and anxiety. (Also, I couldn't think of anything else to write about😁)

When I was little, I was kind of strange. I was pretty smart (I used to draw multiplication tables in sidewalk chalk), and very anxious. My mother is very fond of telling the story of when we were driving to a place I didn't know. I couldn't read at the time, but I thought I knew everything, and I told her, "Mom, that sign says 'if you go here you will get lost'." She thought that was tremendously funny.

I used to line my toys up in rows. I didn't even know how to play pretend with them until my little sister came along to teach me. 
I also loved princess and racecars. I was obsessed with the movies Cinderella and Cars. 

I was diagnosed with OCD-- oh, I don't remember when. I was definitely young enough for my mom to get me a little book called What to do When Your Brain Gets Stuck. A while later, when I started showing symptoms of anxiety, she got me What to do When You Worry too Much. I don't remember either of those books working. 

What did work was what we called "Snuggle Time." It was fifteen minutes of uninterrupted hanging-out with Mom and Dad, and it helped me stop being afraid of going to sleep. We continued Snuggle Time for years, until about September of last year.

Then things really hit the fan. School had been in session for a while, and I was already hating it. My teachers were scary (and, I mean, like, pale twins slowly advancing towards you from the end of a deserted corridor whispering in ancient languages scary)
My smarts had practically deserted me, and my lab partner and I were always the last to leave the science classroom. In English we were reading a book that legitimately made me cry, almost in front of the whole class. My mom spared me the embarrassment of PE by having me work in the library, but I somehow managed to embarrass myself even there: tiptoeing around classrooms working at the computers, getting distracted and reading the books I was supposed to be putting stickers on, and then putting the stickers on the wrong way-- every possible embarrassment you can imagine. I took math on the computer, but I couldn't seem to grasp the concepts presented.

All of this was terribly distressing. I had always been the smartest, the tallest-- and even if I was a little shy, people had always seen it as cute-- until that year. 

I was so anxious about the last two paragraphs that I couldn't go to class. I spent hours with the school counselor, who was always telling me that being afraid was stupid and that I should face my fears at any cost. But I was already too far gone. Missing classes put me even farther behind, and that made me feel even more stupid. I would get awful head and stomach aches and have to leave after working in the library (my first class of the day). The office ladies would just ask if I needed to call my mom, without even looking at me. When I told them yes, all they said was, "You know what to do." And I did. I could work that stupid office phone better than they could.

Mom got me a phone to call her on, so that I could wait in the library for her after discreetly texting her from where the librarian couldn't see me. I would go and sit in the office, trying not to make eye contact with the kids who came in late, until she came to bring me home.

Eventually, it became too much. I started refusing to get out of the car. It was not the highlight of anyone's morning. Mom would take me home, so mad she couldn't even talk to me without screaming, and deposit me in my room. I'd apologize around noon, get a hug, and disappear back to my books. 

Soon, my mom enrolled me in an online school. That worked for a few months, but then I developed an irrational fear of the website. On top of that, I was really sensitive to small sounds and things like that (I always have been, but it's getting even worse), and I was sleeping on a cycle of nocturnal and diurnal that rotated as predictably as the phases of the moon, although I was so stressed all the time that I didn't even try to keep track. We gave up on school entirely.

And that brings us to today. I'm enrolled in a charter school, but I still haven't done any schoolwork. I'm still anxious about all kinds of sensory input, though I got my first pair of jeans this year, and my first long-sleeved shirt a few months ago. I'm still shy, short, and behind in school, but I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. 

I just want ya'll to know:If you're struggling with any kind of illness or disability, any at all, I just want you to know that you can still accomplish your dreams. I don't care if you're blind: if you want to be a painter, then be a painter. Do what makes you happy. That's what matters.

Sorry for the sappy post. Do what makes you happy. (Unless it's murder. Murder is wrong.)