When I was diagnosed with autism at age 13, I didn't even know what the word meant. My parents told me that my brain worked differently than other people's in the most basic ways. It wasn't good or bad, it was just different.
They explained that there may be some things that are harder for me to understand… I already knew that. I always knew I was different from other people, and maybe that's why I thought I was weird. Because people have been telling me that my whole life.
To be honest, it took me a while to really accept my diagnosis. That said, I was a teenager, it was COVID-19, and I was struggling with Zoom calls and quarantine. I barely knew who I was and now I needed to figure out who I was as an autistic teenager.
I had so many questions, but I wasn't ready for the answers. Imagine finding out that there was a real reason, medical or otherwise, why you behaved that way. What would you do with that kind of information?
It took me a while to talk about my diagnosis. Three years ago, I never would have imagined that I would be sharing my story and owning my weirdness!
It wasn't easy. I was bullied throughout elementary school, to the point where I even had to change schools. It seemed like no matter where I went there was an invisible barrier between me and everyone else. I thought I would be accepted if I just figured out what I was doing wrong and fixed it. After seven years of suffering, I decided to stand up to the girls who were bullying me. Do I need to understand the terribleness of the way I am behaving that has decided to make my life miserable? I was looking for an answer to a profound reason, and all I got was that I was acting strangely. Fortunately, I put that experience behind me as I realized that it was the problem, not me. High school opened up a new world for me and I found friends where I could be myself without fear of judgment.
Now I can look back on my childhood and smile.
How did no one notice? How did I get through all of elementary school and even an evaluation with a neuropsychologist for ADHD without anyone realizing?