A New Year, a new me. As cliché as it may sound, I am hoping this year brings some big changes to my life. I really can’t go on as I have any more and want to live the kind of life I want, need and deserve. I have known all my life that there was something different about me, I was the weird kid. I was the one people played with because they had to but wouldn’t otherwise bother with.
Primary school, in particular, was hellish. This is where I was still me but learning and testing the limits, working out all the unspoken social boundaries that everyone else already seemed to have a pretty good grasp of. I was bullied a lot, was singled out a lot, embarrassed myself far more than anyone else because of simple misunderstandings because my brain wasn’t processing the world around me the same way that most other people were.
By secondary school I was beginning to get a good grasp on things, but I was still always a little behind everyone else, it was like I was constantly lagging. I could never get right up to speed. But socially I muddled through and made a solid group of friends and had fun.
Academically, I had always excelled, there was no cause for concern in that department because I was intelligent and let’s face it a bit of a goody two shoes, so I was always working hard and on my game. The only time this wavered was later in my school career, particularly in Sixth Form where in preparation for university, everything is a little more relaxed and puts more onus on the student to lead the way and take control rather than the teacher. And then university …. Been there, done that, and dropped out …twice!
Somehow, up until this point I have muddled my way through adulthood not entirely unscathed. I have had various jobs that I have left or got behind in due to my differences in handling and dealing with things. I have defaulted on a credit card and have never had much in the way of savings. I was single most of my twenties. As mentioned above, I dropped out of university twice so have no qualifications to my name. So that’s a general overview of my story thus far but now I have realised through other people’s stories of their lived experiences with neurodivergence and many online tests and questionnaires that maybe I wasn’t weird, stupid, unlovable, lazy or useless after all, I was just and am still, neurodivergent.
Alice in Welshland 