Going to School While (Unknowingly) Autistic | AUTISM IN GIRLS

I am 65, and finally realizing what my "problem" has been, thanks to your sharing of your experience. I am so thankful to you ! I can now leave this earth with a contentment of mind. It has been such a hard life, and I prayed everyday for God to get me OUT OF HERE. I never could communicate with others, they never understand where I am coming from and it's been hell. At least because of you, I can relax a bit and try to go from here. Thank you, you are the BEST. God bless you now and always

For me it was/is a chronic sense of depersonalization/derealization, a sense of being in a dream, a sense of being what i like to call "a highly sensitive ocean" (like there are no boundaries to your experience, you don't feel like you exist as a separate self), extreme shyness, wanting to either scream/cry or be in this serene quiet state

I always “hated” school, but I love learning. Took me almost 26 years to work that one out.

Your experience of burnout in high school is making light bulbs go off in my mind. Senior year of high school I was depressed and anxious and gave up on school, where before I was a good student. I think I got burnt out and just never understood until now. Wow. It makes me sad because I didn't understand (of course hindsight is 20/20.)

My 11 year old just got diagnosed. She loves to learn but hates school. I am homeschooling her next year. I think she will be happier

I do the savouring thing too.I do it with films or the season finale of a series as I don't want it to end and I want to keep having it to look forward to

I still get flashbacks from the noice and smell. And mortal boredom. Sitting there. Counting looong seconds. For 13 years. I think parts of me mummified.

School was the most horrific experience of my life. I give you props for making it through because I couldn’t. In grade 8 I was having such extreme meltdowns (that at the time we thought were panic attacks) EVERY morning before I went and ever night the second I came home that I had to stop going to school. I was put in special programs for anxiety that didn’t help, put on medications that didn’t help, and eventually ended up having to finish school at home with tutors. Once I was at home I was fine. I could do my school work, that was never the problem. I got all A’s just like you. But the anxiety I felt going to school was SO EXTREME that I just couldn’t keep going. I also had extreme separation anxiety with my mom. In kindergarten my teacher used to make me sit in the coat closet because my crying was “interrupting” the class because I was so terrified. My mom also picked me up early from school. I remember sitting in that damn closet, crying my eyes out, staring at the door and trying to will my mother to walk through it and take me home to safety. Your videos are helping me so much, our experiences seem almost identical. I am now going to watch all of your videos 🥺

Ugh I relate to getting bullied, but not realizing it. -_- It only hits in retrospect.

I know the “savouring the cookie” part at the beginning was unrelated to the rest of the video but OMG if that isn’t me. I always think “I need to save this until I REALLY want it/need it but then when I do want or need it I can never convince myself that I want it or need it badly enough so then whatever it is just sits there or goes bad or gets lost. The struggle 😅

I don't think I could handle 4 days of counseling per week; that's a lot of socializing!

everything you speak of is so relatable. it applies to both male and female autistic adults. (based on my own experience and from what i've heard from other autistic people)

School...was always the outsider in Kindergarten and 1st grade Then we moved and I went to a two-room elementary school and thrived - I could do my lessons while listening in on the other grade's lessons, so I picked up a lot of info that way and was doing Jr. College entry level work in 7th grade. Then came high school. Talk about a soul-sucking experience. It got so bad I made arrangements with the teachers to show up for the head-count at the beginning of class, get my lessons, then go to the library to do the work - which I would knock out in a few minutes and then go take myself for a walk around town or to Main Street to the grocery store which carried my favorite author and candy bar which became a once-a-month 'thing'. I didn't go to my graduation or the prom. I'm 59 and don't go to high school class reunions, either. I did two years of college: one year in a junior college for the basic 'pay your dues with the ho-hum stuff' where upon I failed 'Creative Writing' because I was actually creative...I didn't take it for sentence structures because the class was falsely advertised as 'creative' so I failed that one; and the other city college in another part of the state for landscaping - which I was told by a doctor to stop the physical part of it if I didn't want to end up crippled in a wheelchair from spinal issues...but that wasn't the cherry on top. I had an instructor fail me for insisting that Scandinavia had a formal garden design as sure as Japan/China, England, Mediterranean, etc. did. And I proved it in my drafting designs. In the end, I just had to get away from those duds with zero vision. I probably would have been better at homesteading, talking with a bunch of people actually doing it for real. I haven't been properly diagnosed yet, I'm looking for a counselor that goes beyond alcoholism and drug abuse. [I've done some heavy time with narcissists, too - parents and religion - so I hope to find someone who can address both things]

I put things off because I want them to turn out the way I see them in my head and I know it will never be that way.

I’m homeschooling my 2nd grade girl. She hates school. Even home school. She tolerates it but we tried K in public school before we knew she was autistic and it was a disaster. She’s still traumatized over the 3 weeks she went. This video is really good. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, I had a meltdown at work because it seems like things never stop changing! I kept improving, going faster, getting a lot more done in a shorter workday. And then I found out that the owners didn't like how I would have to work a full eight hours when I had to run a buffet all by myself, wash all of the pans and dishes by hand, clean the dining room and floors; prepare food for the next day, plus a literal cleaning list that I had to get done everyday, cleaning different areas of the hotel. This entire situation concerns me, because I really had to figure out how I could possibly ho faster when I am almost constantly moving at a fast speed. I am at the point in my life where I no longer care to wear a mask, and only do so when I am required. Otherwise I am tired . . . I am burned out, sick and tired of expectations. I have love, and that's all that people should care about. And I swear I will never get another food-related job again if this doesn't work out. Because people at work who don't do your job often think that's is easy, and they therefore pile more work onto you. I was first getting trained to become a housekeeper there, because I wanted a job unrelated to food production; a job where you would have the same number of tasks everyday, where you got about 30 minutes to clean each room (with noone adding tasks to your list). I have just about had it, and hope to work at a job one day where I just have one job to do, and not have to be a part-time janitor.

Hi, I had already been diagnosed (I had never had any delay in or loss of verbal communication or cognitive skills) before I started school, back in the late 90s. However, I was not informed of my diagnosis until I was 12, back in the mid 2000s, when my mom and I read a book about autism. After my mom and I read the book, I decided that to take it upon myself to make sure that my teachers knew about my diagnosis. I'm sure this cleared a lot of things up for them, as learning about my diagnosis cleared a lot of things up for me.

My mom and I have talked about this a lot over the last 6 months or so. Elementary school wasn't too bad for me, it depended on my teacher, but having the same environment and classmates all day every day gave me the stability I needed to cope. Middle school was a struggle, changing classrooms and classmates every period and more sensory chaos. High school was hell. My high school had 3000 students and I had physical limitations that made certain classes difficult. I dropped out just after I turned 20 and got my G.E.D. with ridiculously high scores. Undiagnosed Autism plus selective mutism equalled educational hell for me. I didn't start learning about autism until I was in my 20s and only had it confirmed last summer. When you mentioned The Grinch, I thought of the original cartoon and when he complained about all the noise Noise NOISE! That is still a major issue for me.

This sounds familiar. I’m a gal & I’m about 6 months- a year older than you. No clue I was autistic until adulthood. I grew up with uniforms in a tiny Catholic school, K-8, 24 kids max. I went there through 7th grade. (Loved uniforms for the record.) There were 7 kids in my classroom (2 grades) in Kindergarten & 1st & I was still totally overwhelmed. I literally spent all of recess dissecting a wooden sandwich into its components over and over in kindergarten & half of first grade. Couldn’t eat sandwiches bc the foods touched & texture with hotdogs was a nightmare for me so I never ate hot lunch. One of my major special interests was animals, & I remember a massive 2 week argument with my 2nd grade teacher that homing pigeons did INDEED exist. I memorized every horse breed in 3rd grade & read the Lord of the Rings. I had a severe bullying that year including from teachers and really only had 2 close friends. One of these friends is lifelong, I met her in 2nd grade bc she was drawing horses. I asked “do you want to see what a big horned sheep does?” She said yes so I head butted her in the chest & knocked her out. She got up and said “you’re weird, we should be friends,” and that’s how we became friends. I used to tell her animal facts while she sketched. She never made me make it hold eye contact either which is super great. I appreciate it even now. Back to 3rd grade hell: the teachers who were bullies cut my grade for no reason other than disliking me, even though I had the same answers as other classmates with As. Basically decided not to waste my time trying at that point. I also got in a ton of trouble for lining up my erasers over and over in math trying to calm down bc it was too loud. (I was the 5th kid in that classroom.) I got in trouble for “hiding in the bathroom” all the time that year, which was really me mostly trying to deal with indigestion & panic. I was suicidal from that point on through the end of high school. Used to have huge meltdowns at the end of every day over homework. I remember bawling uncontrollably to my mom a lot that I just couldn’t do it & rocking back in forth in the chair at the counter. (I actually noticed this in a child I nannied with autism & just told him “yeah, you’re right, this IS actually stupid when you already know it” & I had a talk with his mom & teacher which eventually resulted in him being pulled, homeschooled by me for a bit & then in a gifted specialized school. 4th-7th I had a great teacher who was clever & experienced. Finally picked up I was dyslexic and spent a lot of time with me 1-1 explaining things in greater detail (like what a summary is for a book report.) I really loved her. I think she really saved me. In 8th grade my parents switched us to the local public school. Spent a month crying about the change. I guess 8th grade was ok. I had a lot of meltdowns over what to wear & really didn’t know how to handle that. I didn’t make any real friends until the last 2 weeks of school when I found a girl with another special interest like mine. Always faked sleeping on the bus so I didn’t have to talk to most people. Guys trying to date me confused me & I disliked that they tried. High school was hell. I got in a lot of trouble with teachers who didn’t understand me and my sensitivities to light and sound got worse to the point I was hospitalized for migraines for 40% of those grades. Eventually I got permission to go to quiet dark places with migraines and used to sit in the empty dark auditorium rocking back and forth to calm down. (I was supposed to go straight to the nurse but couldn’t manage that without calming down first.) Other students sent me death threats freshman year, I spent the rest of high school from month 4 waiting for someone to try to make good on the threats. Eventually just decided most people were awful and not worth getting to know. Isolated more, completed things & have avoided almost everyone from high school ever since. I did get pretty good grades considering I missed 40% & I got a perfect score in AP US History (another special interest.) I feel like schools really aren’t designed for autistic kids & most do more harm than good especially the larger ones. It’s why I enjoyed working for a homeschool co-op with mostly autistic students in tiny classes: I could tailor things to help them like I needed back in the day.

Thank you for sharing your story. In grade 6 I also wad having a lot of struggles I would come home and have a meltdown everyday, or we tough it was a meltdown at the time. Looking back I think that it might have been burnout.