echolalia is maybe. the weirdest adhd/autism Thing because sometimes you just. hear something. or read something. and your brain just goes. No. You Must Say This And Only This In An Extremely Weird Voice Over And Over For The Next 2 Hours
speaking of. ive just been wandering around my house for a bit repeating Fucka You. Basard over and over again
Today is World Mental Health Day. It’s typically the day when social media gets flooded with things like “you’re strong enough”, “you can do it!” and “you don’t know how strong you are!”
But I’m here to say that sometimes you aren’t.
Sometimes your thoughts get the better of you. Sometimes you find yourself trapped in your own mind with no way out. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And that’s okay.
If you are struggling with mental health, know that it is okay to have bad days. You’ll have great days when you feel like you are on top of the world, where your mental health isn’t even a thought in your mind. But you’ll also have days when you feel as though you are nothing but your mental health problems.
No-one will understand what you are going through better than you. People can offer a kind word and support, but you know yourself best. You’ll know what helps in that situation, whether it is hanging out with friends closest to you or cancelling plans in order to have a mental health day.
Do what you have to do on those dark days to get through it, even if it means not leaving your bed. You know the best way to battle your demons, even if that means that you have to lose a few battles in order to win the war.
Autistic and mentally ill and physically disabled students are incredible! We exist in a world that is built for and by neurotypical and able bodied people and we still manage to navigate it!!! Disabled students are so important and deserve all of the validation in the world. I hope every single one of you remembers to look after yourself.
You don’t need to earn self care; you don’t need to completely drain your batteries before you’re allowed to practice self care. You deserve to feel as productive and a part of the community and the student body as any neurotypical able bodied student. Don’t ever compare yourself to their performance standards or force yourself to live up to them in a way that causes you harm. You are perfect exactly how you are. Also, don’t EVER feel badly because you need to do things in a different way from everyone else or you need help accomplishing something. Don’t feel guilty for being yourself. Your accomplishments are not lesser. You are not lesser.
i knew in the 2nd grade that standardized testing was bullshit. harry potter book 4 had just come out and i was at a good part. harry had just put his name into the goblet of fire.
during the standardized test, we were allowed to keep a post-test book on our desk. i diligently got started on part 1: english. at the time, all of the answers went on the same sheet, but all of the questions were in different booklets. so i finish all my english questions, read in my extra time, and then it’s part 2: math.
i realize i have answered all of my english questions on the math portion of the answer sheet. at first, annoyed but undeterred, i’m like. okay great i gotta erase every bubble. but i get bored around question 5 of doing this because… like… harry potter is sitting on my desk and i could just give them the wrong answers. so i answer maybe 10 whole questions in the math portion, copy the english answers over to where they actually belong, and then crack open the book and call it a day.
i obviously failed. this is the real life, not a movie. my parents were called in. i had scored in the lowest percentile. i was bad at math. i was concerningly bad at math. i could have done better just guessing than how i did with the english answers.
if this was just a funny story, someone would ask me “why did you do so badly when you usually get fairly average grades” and i would have said “i wanted to read harry potter, not take this stupid test.” but it’s the real life, and nobody asked. instead, i was branded stupid and bad at math. i got placed in a lower math than i needed to be in; got bored, stopped paying attention. knew i was in the “worst at math” group, started saying “i’m bad at math” and 100% stopped trying because the further i fell behind, the worse i got. through the rest of my academic career – until senior year in high school, i never got above a c on a math test, because i was “just bad” at math.
i had undiagnosed adhd. the only reason i know now i have adhd is because at 22 years old, i finally went to a therapist, who effectively said, “are you kidding me you have the most obvious case of attention deficit i’ve ever seen.”
but nobody had been looking. my one test grade had given teachers permission to not look, because, obviously, i was bad at math. the one time i got 100% on a math test – that one time in senior year – i remember my math teacher looking at it and saying “it’s clear that if you just focused, you could do the work.”
in college i’d take a math class and i actually “just focused” for the first time in my life – meaning i treated math as a challenge, but one i could overcome with the skills i’d learned all on my own, through constant work and practice. i got the highest grade in my class. i still think i’m bad at math.
which makes me wonder: how many people got fucked over because of something stupid like “i was too preoccupied with harry potter”. who had nobody looking out for them. who slipped under the radar because – come on, aren’t some people just bad at things?
beinggayonmain 