Growing Up With Autism

[00:00:00]For most of my life, I just assumed I was a bit broken. Nothing dramatic, just that I found certain things much harder than other people. It felt like everyone else had a manual on how to socialize and I never got the memo. For example, I'll sit down in a canteen eating my jack of potato by myself whilst all the other kids talked about all the cool stuff they have planned this weekend.

[00:00:19]And I just be thinking to myself like, how do they do that? Like, how do they have conversations so naturally? Why can't I do that? Turns out there's a pretty easy explanation. actually autism. For context, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at a very young age. I don't remember the exact age I was diagnosed with it. However, what I do know is that I was diagnosed with it very young. Don't even know why I repeated myself, but yes, another autistic trait, repeating myself. And I can safely say that my autism was high functioning. My mom used to tell me that when guests came to our house, I would find somewhere in the house to hide so guests wouldn't detect my presence. It didn't matter who it was. It could be extended family or other guests that are important, but I didn't care. They would never see me in the house. As soon as they entered the premises, I went ghost until they left. Jesus, the social anxiety was off the charts. I mean, trying to hide from people is actually dark. Like, what was I hiding from?

[00:01:13]Threats? A monster or this dude? Anyway, she also said that I used to bang my head on tables. Like, as if I was trying to knock myself out using a table. And she would tell me that I did it all the time. Like, what was wrong with me? And I also hated lights. Like I always wanted everything dark. Like if you use a phone flashlight, I will throw a tantrum. And if you ever point a torch in my face, I will probably bite you.

[00:01:36]Yeah. Looking back at how I was, I really proved beyond reasonable doubt to everyone that I had high functioning autism. However, when I got older and gained real life experience, I kind of learned to act neurotypical in a sense, and the symptoms of ASD were mild. I guess >> the thing about growing up autistic is that you feel like you're playing life on the hardest difficulty. I would watch people at school chatting, making friends, and it would look effortless to them, like it was natural, like breathing. Whereas for me, it felt like I didn't even know how to breathe. I knew something was off before I even had a language for it. You clock it early due to how people treated you compared to how they treat the neurotypicals.

[00:02:16]They would look at you like you're some sort of alien cosplaying as a human being or they will laugh at you, ignore you or make fun of you because they presume you're a bit strange or weird.

[00:02:26]And it doesn't happen once, it happens frequently all the time. And when it happens frequently, you come to this painful realization that it's because of the way you are and how you act. And trust me, I came to this realization soon enough. In my case, people treat me as less of a human being and just disposable. People never took me seriously. And no matter how much I tried to make friends with them, they would turn a blind eye on me and just ignore me all the time. It happened a lot at school. And let's even talk about school because school was a specific type of hell. All my homies hate school.

[00:02:56]Before I even go into it, I made a video going in depth about my experience being autistic at school. So, if you're interested, go watch it right now. But there's one thing I didn't mention in that video that I hated so much about school, and that was the school assemblies. 200 people in a cramped space, chair scraping, kids chatting, teachers shouting. I'd be sat there trying to act nonchalant. While deep down it felt like a nuke was about to drop in my cranium. Classrooms really weren't any better. When the classroom was loud, I just wanted to just leave immediately, bro. But if I leave, I'll get a detention by the teacher. So, I had to stay. And normally what I'll do is just that I would just place my head on a table just to avoid the noise and all the chaos happening in the class.

[00:03:39]Like I couldn't stand class every single day. You got the ratchet hot Cheeto girl just eating chewing gum so aggressively.

[00:03:46]You got the class clown just being an absolute nuisance and not even being funny at all. And you got the menace just literally swearing at the teachers.

[00:03:53]Like it just gets to the point where you're just sick and tired of hearing all of it and you just want to be by yourself all the time. When the noise hits a certain level, I can't separate individual voices anymore. It just becomes a mashup of [ __ ] and I can't even hear myself think. Then teachers get on to me because they think I'm disengaged and not paying attention to the lesson. And that's the one thing I hated. Even though the people are being disruptive, they have a go at me even though I didn't do nothing. How about you have a go at the people who have been actually disruptive to the lesson, not me. I could only pay attention if I can actually hear myself think. Then there's group work. Whoever invented the idea of group work deserves a place in the deepest depths of the shadow rock.

[00:04:30]They single-handedly made my school time 100 times much harder. The teacher will calm me tell the class who get into group please and everybody will grab their friends as usual except for me. I had no friends at school. So I had to be lumped with these randoms that I didn't even want to work with. I would have preferred working by myself rather being forced to work with a group that I do not get along with or have no chemistry with in any way, shape or form. But again, what choice do I have? I had to do the group work with them. So things are already off to an awkward start. So me being me, I don't say a thing and I just allow them to conduct the group work and I'll just listen along and just do the required work I'm supposed to do on my end. And during the group work, some of the students will start beefing me on why I don't speak. So when I try speaking, they will just ignore me. So whatever I do, I just can't even win. Do you know what I mean? So I'd rather just stay quiet and just do what I'm supposed to do. Do you see the pattern? Any sort of human interaction I have, it will always go wrong. Just got to the point where I just got fed up. I didn't want to be the lonely dude at school that everyone found weird. I wanted to make some friends and I wanted to be included in one of the groups in my year at school. So what did I do? I studied the neurotypicals and their moves, their behaviors and mannerisms. I wanted to fit in and that was my strat. I watched the popular kids like I was James Bond.

[00:05:50]I was moving covert as a [ __ ] I was mimicking their ways, copying phrases, body language, literally everything. I was a chameleon of the school. Every conversation was calculated and it kind of worked for a short while at least sometimes. And what I mean by that is, for example, I'll be at break time at school and I'll be playing basketball with the sports dudes. And when I talk about my favorite NBA players, even though I know I don't even care about the NBA, they see through my bluff and they will tell me to get the hell out of here, bro. Like, who told you to speak, my [ __ ] What's wrong with you? Shut the hell up and go away. So, the masking worked until it didn't. Well, let's talk more about masking. You know me probably heard about it. It's kind of like Jim Carrey the mask, but a lot more boring. Some people are better than it than others.

[00:06:34]However, for me, I was completely trash at masking. Like I kind of illustrated earlier, sometimes people use sarcasm or inside jokes that completely confused me. Instead of asking what they meant, I would just smile and nod because I didn't want anyone to think I was weird.

[00:06:48]But me doing that unironically made them know that I just didn't get it. So, they just wanted me out of the group. I just just could never win. Later, I'll just spend my ages replaying the conversation in my head, trying to figure out what everyone was laughing about, but I just wouldn't get it. And I tend to force eye contact just to seem normal. But in my mind, I'm just saying, "Stop looking at me. Please stop looking at me. Stop."

[00:07:11]Like, the amount of times I masked in high school, I'll probably be a millionaire. Like, you do it so much, you just don't end up realizing that you're doing it. And then you really start to lose your true self, which kind of sucks. The only time I had a chance to actually be my true self was when I was by myself playing video games or talking to random people in Call of Duty when I was playing video games or whatever. So, the only place that I felt safe enough to be my true self. People didn't know who you are. So, there was no filter. You didn't have to talk to people verbally if you didn't want to.

[00:07:38]You could just text or send memes. You'd be given the time to think before saying what you need to say. There's no constant background noise either. It was a dream and My Bubble was the best place to go hammering my hyperfixations. Yeah, that meme about autistic kids loving trains or dinosaurs is accurate. Well, for me at least. But hyperfixations can literally be about anything. And I mean anything. Well, luckily for me, mine wasn't anything too crazy. I fixated on the sounds of London tube trains. Uh the sound hits close to home, as you can clearly tell by my accent. You know, the sound is just absolutely satisfying. And I do love uh landing transport, especially the underground tube line trains. And I do like football. And my goat is CR7.

[00:08:28]Come on. All my homies hate Messi. All my homies hate Helina. Masking all day.

[00:08:34]It really drains the soul out of you.

[00:08:35]Like I would come home just to fold in half. Spending the next few hours rotting my bed trying to come back to life. My mom baiting me out asking how my day was and I'm like fried. My brain was like a marshmallow. It was rough.

[00:08:48]Your social battery just hit zero instantly. It was hard to maintain. And I'll tell you another thing. I'm too direct. If I think something, I'll say it. Which sounds fine in theory, but apparently you're supposed to say it in a specific way with a specific tone. And sometimes you're not supposed to say it at all. But there's just too many rules.

[00:09:05]Like I just lack social cues. Do you know what I mean? And I still do sometimes. But he's a work in progress.

[00:09:11]And when this all happens, you just hit the absolute phrase. Why can't I just be normal? Why can't I be just like everybody else? It's just not fair. What did I do to deserve this nerf? And as I just met child, I just realized that I was just not weird or something was wrong with me or I was strange. I just think differently to everybody else. You know, autism is a spectrum. So, everyone's autism is different from everybody else. No one has the same type of autism, which makes it kind of cool.

[00:09:35]Do you know what I mean? And I just came to kind of appreciate me having it, you know? And I just learned to just not take it for granted and just be grateful for being different, you know? And I'm glad autism is getting talked a lot more these days, even though it gets me'd on a lot. This helps me understand myself a little better and it kind of makes you feel less alone. But I still don't want to make it my entire personality. I still struggle to this day. I still feel different. I still misunderstand people.

[00:09:58]I'm still learning. But these days, instead of fighting myself, feeling guilty and frustrated, wishing that was normal, quote unquote, just try to work with it rather than against it. And I understand my brain better now. and I just embrace me having it. After telling my story, I hope you feel lesser known for the people who have autism. If you relate to this video, then let me know in the comments down below. And if you want to watch the video about me going in depth about my experience being autistic at school, then again, watch this video on the home screen right now.

[00:10:28]I actually just click on the screen right now. Thank you.