Please tell me why.

 

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Introduction

To fully understand my life, you must know things from the very beginning. Which might be unfortunately for because you will have to read much more and put together a lot of pieces. I might only be 23 but my memory isn’t the greatest because I have been through a lot that I try to forget but also I have autism. I have photography memory so I can picture most things that have happened in my life but not always what has been said our even the time period it took place. 

At the end of each chapter I have asked why questions to give you a better understand on who I am and how I feel.

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Chapter 1: The Early Years

I want to say when people find out they are pregnant, it’s the happiest time of their life but I know this is so far from the truth. I’m a realist, most people worry about different things. My mom found out pretty late that she was pregnant with me because my dad was fixed. People said I was a gift from God but that idea seemed to be short life. My mom had major issues when she was giving birth to my sister. The doctors told my parents not to have any more kids because of it. I might have been a gift but knowing the troubles my mom went through with my sister, I imagine it was very scary for her to find out she has to give birth again.

I was a pretty easy baby; I would sleep all night and quite happy to be alone but I was showing signs of having autism. At 6 months, the doctor diagnosedme with it. I went from the miracle baby to the I’m sorry your stuck with that baby. My own grandma didn’t want me to be diagnosed because how it would reflect on my family but I didn't reflect badly on the family. My whole family reflected badly on our family. Sure, my family has issues but as a whole family there are bigger issues, so much hate and disrespect in it.

I don’t remember most of my childhood; I look at it as I don’t remember having autism. I mean I still have it but it’s not noticeable. I had a best friend in kindergarten, most days she treated me pretty good but not always. I was clearly different than all the other kids, I could hardly talk and didn’t understand most things. One day on the bus ride to school, she had some candy and was trying to “teach” me the correct way of asking for candy. Of course, a little kid doesn’t know anything about working with autistic kids and so it quickly turned ugly. She said “What’s the magic word?” I quickly reply “PLEASE!” I began to get so excited for getting a candy but she looked at me in a teasing way and said “no”. I kept guessing different words, getting angrier every time I guessed. Once the bus finally reached the school she told me what the magical word was. She said “please and thank you!” I looked at her with so much emotions (people who don’t have autism won’t ever fully understand how it feels like to be so full of emotions when having autism and they are very lucky.) I thought for a moment thinking about how I can get that candy. I finally said her magical words “please and thank you” but she said that I was too late and left the bus.

I went to a private Christian school, so there weren’t many kids. In my kindergarten class, there was only two boys. My best friend had a crush on the “cute” one. I’m not sure why she liked a guy, I didn’t see or understand the point but she liked one than I must also like one. I thought it would I make the other boy not feel so left out. I spent my whole childhood feeling alone. I have two older sisters one is a year older the other is 5 years older. They clearly loved each other more than they loved me. That’s why having my own best friend made my life so much better even though she didn’t treat me well all the time. I was lucky that her crush and her didn’t become close because I probably would have been less important.

If your reading this because your raising an autistic kid and want to understand them more and I hope this helps but I know you will understand this more than I will. My parents made my sisters and I go to a public school because of the cost of private school. Raising an autistic kid is costly I hear and my dad worked very hard to give me the best. My mom worked with me all the time for than I wouldn't need to go to expensive therapies. I was taken away from my best friend, she also switched to a public school but we didn’t live in the same town so we had different schools.

I was going to public school in kindergarten every other day and the private school on the other days. However, this was still a huge change for me and I didn’t get treated as well at the public school. I was the kid the teachers didn’t see the point of teaching. I clearly wasn’t learning much and so I didn’t become a priority. Class time was much better than recess through, I spent many times begin stuck under the kid's climber because I kept thinking I dug a big enough hole to climb through but really, I didn’t. It didn’t matter how many times I tried I would always get stuck. This didn’t make me very popular with the kids.

Eventually it got much worse, I was swearing at home but I didn’t know what I was saying. I was aparrot, repeating what I heard at school without thinking about what they could possibly mean. I was also getting bullied and finally some kid took it to far, he took a skipping rope and tied me around my neck to a tree. My sister Sara (the one that’s a year older than me) was trying to untie me and got in trouble for it. I truly believe the school wanted me to leave so they used this opportunity to make my parents want to take me out because for some reason I also got in trouble. It’s like they think I some how tied myself to the tree.

My parents pulled me out of school and starting homeschooling me. I have very mixed feelings about homeschooling, it helped me learn education wise because my mom was determined to get me to understand and be able to learn. However socially this didn’t help me at all and made me feel more alone.

I went to the Y.M.C.A. on Saturday to do swimming and gymnastics and Sundays we went to church these were the days I got to interactwith people. I use to bring to dolls to the Y.M.C.A that I named Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen because I was/am obsessedwith them. Which actually makes perfect sense, they have each other and a special bond that I always wanted. Every friend I make I wanted to please them to be able to get that special bond. One girl I met at the Y.M.C.A decided it would be fun to call 911, I didn’t think we should but there was no way I was going to mess up this friendship that was just starting to grow. She picked up the phone at a pay phone in a hallway that pretty much nobody walked down. She looked at me and asked if I had any money. I knew I didn’t but I didn’t want to let her down, so I started checking all my pockets then finally looked at her with a long face and said “Sorry, I guess I forgot it at home. Maybe we can do it next weekend.” I could tell she was a bit annoyed. Then she said “Let’s try to see if it works without any money and if no then we will wait a week.” She pushed the numbers, then said “It’s Ringing!” I knew I should be happy that it was working but I was to nervous about getting in trouble. I couldn’t hear the operator but I knew they were saying something because Kate’s face went ghostly white. She dropped the phone grabbed my arm and we ran away from the scene. At that moment, I released how fun a rush of doing something wrong and the fear of being caught could feel. It felt even better because I did it with someone who I might grow so close to.

I’m the most luckily unlucky person alive, at least that’s what it seems like to me. You don’t want to play cards or board games with me because you would most likely lose but when it comes to life I seem to always lose. My friend Kate just disappearedout of my life and my friends continued to disappear throughout my life.

Every other Friday, my sisters went to G.E.M.S it's like girl guides. I didn't go at first it was because I was too young but then I didn't want to go. My dad would take me to Tim Hortens when my sisters were at gems. It enjoyed hanging out with my dad. I hardly every hung out with him outside of this time. I always got hot chocolate and a gingerbread man. That's all I remember. I don't remember what we talked about for the two hours we had to fill but I know I enjoyed it. That's why I didn't want to join G.E.M.S the first year I was able to go.

Please tell me why? Why is me having autism disappoint you? Why can’t my family love me as a person not as autistic? Why do I have to struggle just to make one friend?

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Chapter 2: Elementary School

My sister began the French emergent program in a different school, it was outside of our area. Since her school didn’t offer French emergent she was able to get into this school. She noticed how much they helped kids with different disables and told my mom, thinking it might be good for me. Of course, we couldn’t see the future and even today nobody knows all that went wrong or how bad this school was for me. This school probably had the most negative impact on my life than anything else in my life has had.

I started there in grade 4, Miss. Longthorn as my teacher, she was a blessing sent from God. To bad that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t making any friends but I quickly notice a group of boys who seemed to play lots of war acting games. I decided to make a no girls group and try to be one of the boys. Becoming a complete tomboy wasn’t hard, I was raised by one and Sara is a mixed of tomboy and emo. I was quickly expected into the boys group and they loved how I didn’t like girls. However not all the guys saw me as just being one of the guys. One of them had a crush on me. I wouldn’t have minded if he played it cool but he kept asking me out. I had enough of it not only was it annoying to be asked out non-stop nut the guys were starting to see me as a girl and I couldn’t have that happen. I did what any crazy person would do. I grabbed his arm when he asked me out and snapped it. I didn’t know that I would be strong enough to break it but apparently, I was. Luckily for me he lied about how it broke to the teachers and the guys saw me do it. They seemed to stop looking at me as a girl and thought I was really tough. As much as I wanted to be loved I didn’t want to date this guy.

It’s rather odd how many people are scared of me. Even today people think I’m big and tough but I’m really not. My body is rather weak just was weak as I am on the inside. The guycontinued to ask me out but he didn’t get to see me as much because I became sick. Nothing serious, just strep throat. I had it off and on for months.

It became my best interest to stay in grade 4 again because I missed to many days of school and I wasn’t learning as fast as the other students still. Although my life might have been very different if I didn’t stay behind. I quickly made friends with three girls, Sam, Brenna, and Tessa. I found out at parent teacher night that Brenna and I went to the same church as babies. Brenna is someone you might want to remember because she randomly appears through out my life. Than there was Patty. Patty was the biggest problem in my life. My friends and I quickly included her into our group. I even inviting her to my birthday, she came as a party pooper. Right away my parents didn’t like her but they kept everything she was doing under wraps because they didn’t want me to be too heartbroken. This was one of their biggest mistakes in my life. She would call my house leaving death threats. They didn’t tell me until my teen years once she got into my life again. Grade 4 went pretty well and though girls were definitely the reason but I wanted more.

Grade 5 was very different than grade 4. My friends made more friends. Meaning I wasn’t number 1. I hated being left out as it is but I needed to me the centre of attention. During recess, it was a battle to get on the monkey bars. If you got on you mostly like are sitting with the “cool” kids. Pretty stupid but I would wait by the monkey bars just hoping for a spot. One day this girl got down. I quickly headed to her and she looked at me and said “you can have my spot.” Trying not to look excited, I climbed up. The girl next to me, Kera, looked at me and said “That’s my cousin’s spot”. Before I could even reply she pushed me off the climbers.

Kera was the Queen B of the 5thgrade. I had her in my class I knew how people acted around her. I knew I shouldn’t even try to stand up to her, let alone tell a teacher. One thing about Queen B’s are they can be replaced and I was going to try. Luckily for me a teacher saw the whole thing so we had to go to the office. I sat in the hall as the principal talked to Kera. While sitting, I was planning on the perfect thing to say. I haven’t sweared since I learned what it meant but I knew this moment called for it. After this moment, I was hoping to go from loser to popular.

There she was. I stood up, walked to Kera with my head held high. Like I didn’t have a care in the world. I whisper to her “You think you are a tough B**** but I know you’re not”. She walked away without a word. Amazingly I did it! Kera replaced her friends pretty quickly for me. All the sudden every body wanted to date me. I asked a couple of them out just because I didn’t like who they were dating and once they dumped their girlfriends. I would dump them. I had no interest in boys but I knew it was the thing to do. Kera kept asking me who I liked so I picked a nice quite guy that didn’t care for popularity to like. I figured he wasn’t interested in dating. Luckily I was right.

Kera was a trouble maker so when I saw her holding a box of smokes I figured that I was about to try smoking. I really didn’t want to smoke but I wouldn’t give up my popularity for anything. Kera said “can you believe this! I found unused smokes at the park! What should we do with them?” I knew I wanted to say throw them out but that would be so lame. I looked at her like I’m too good for everything and said “I don’t know but I won’t give up my beautiful teeth to smoking.” Then she ripped them up and said “I agree”.

I started dating a boy on my swim team. Not really but it was a great lie. Kera loved to hear all the juicy details about how him and I would change in the family change room to be together. I feel like this was when I started becoming a great liar. I would use an out of service phone and call him around her. She actually, believed me. Eventually Kera starting getting bored with me dating a guy she couldn't meet so I dumbed him.

News of the break up spread pretty fast. Soon, guys were asking me out but I wasn't interested. However, there was this one girl (Brooke) who I didn't like. I had no reason not to like her. She was just someone I choose not to like. She had a boyfriend. I need that guy, I didn't like him but I knew it would hurt her if I took him. When I asked him out he said yes. As I watched him go dump her, I getting so high on myself. I just stole I guy I didn’t even want! To me that proved I was poplar. After he dumped her, I dumped him. This start a war between Brooke and I. It went on for months. We kept hurting each other with words. I was get bored and during the last week of school started getting more hateful. I slapped her so hard I left a hand print on her face. Since it was the second last day of school the school couldn't do much. I was told to tell my parents about it and wasn't allowed to go to school for the last day. I didn't tell my parents. I didn't even need to come up with a lie. I already knew I was missing the last day of school. I was going to my grandma's place.

Halfway through grade 6, people started to be done with me. Kera become friends with people who I hated. I was no longer the queen B. It was too much to handle so I ask to be homeschooled. I never said goodbye I just disappeared.

Please tell me why? Why do parents think they are helping their kids by hiding things from them? Why did Patty ever have to come into my life?

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Chapter 3: My Family

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Chapter 4: Early Teen Years

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Chapter 5: Leading Up

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Chapter 6: I Said No

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Chapter 7: The Months After

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Chapter 8: Special Olympics Part 1

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Chapter 9: Steven

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Chapter 10: Sara

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Chapter 11: Private School

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Chapter 12: Public School

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Chapter 13: College

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