This forum seems like a wonderful environment for someone on the spectrum to participate and conceive with other like minded autistic people. While the majority of the forum is diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, I'm currently diagnosed as PDD-NOS(hence the username) and formally with the duo diagnose of being developmentally delayed. Now you mind it staggering that someone that was consider so impaired would actually try to engage with those who are higher functioning and had less problems growing up during childhood/early adolescence. This place is much easier for me to tell my backstory compared to outside the virtual world where it feels embarrassing and humiliating to chat with neurotypicals as they judged me based on my soft vocal tone and my inability to chi-chat as being "ret*d". There was one moment two years ago back in my junior year of high school where this student who was a freshman at the time would keep trying to talk down to me because I never responded to him or his friend while eating at the lunch table with my fellow friends. Let me give you guys the backstory of my life as someone with an autistic spectrum disorder.
When I was in my earlier stages of my life, around the ages of 3-4, my mother noticed something different about my personality, with myself not progressing to what normally someone that age would accomplish at the same stage. This would led to duo-diagnose of Pervasive Developmental Disorder/Developmental delay that would have me placed in special education program where they teach students with severe disabilities how to incorporate in the normal world. From the time I was in middle school the SPED teacher would keep teaching us the same material that elementary teachers would teach to their kids and this aggravated me so much that it led to confrontations with her in the classroom concerning the subjects being taught to me. I felt social exclusion from my peers because I could never relate to much of their own special interests or they acted social immature for my own tastes. Even in the classroom I felt like I was child trapped inside some thirteen year old body due to not having much exposure to things consider standard for that age. Honesty I educated myself outside of the classroom by having knowledge in trivial that would enhance my learnings more than whatever I could get in some self-contained program for students with cognitive disabilities.
My freshman year of high school started out the same until being evaluated for my IEP in late September would have change the outlook on what I should be learning in school. Nothing felt pleasant than now having to enter the mainstream of the school and being included as student instead of being consider "some special needs student". The only problem was that I was stuck in that program until I managed the change in my sophomore year when I made the transition to completely academics instead of being taught lessons that I self-taught myself at my home. No longer was this adolescent consider cognitive delayed, he was also going to graduate among his peers and earns his high school diploma! This certainly was still a challenge due to social anxiety and difficulty reading what emotions most of my classmates had towards me. Once I get myself integrated with other students, there was much improvement among my social abilities, having six friends in my circles, two of which had high functioning autism. I just earned my high school diploma seven months ago with having meet the requirements for graduation and had the most sentimental breakdown in my life, looking back at those years and realizing you'll probably won't ever encounter 95% of your graduating class sometime in your adult life.
04 Dec 2014, 8:02 am
