As a child, did you ever pick up something, turn it around or upside down, and want to figure out how it worked? Maybe take the back off, open the top, or even bust it open to pieces to see what’s inside? That was me as a kid: the one who broke the toys just to see how they worked in the first place. At two years old, I was the kid who insisted on walking around to the back of the Ferris wheel to see how it worked before I would get on it and ride. Once I understood how it worked, I hopped right on. At four, I figured out how to navigate my hometown from a booster seat in the back of an old wood-paneled minivan and taught my parents some faster and more direct routes around the place they’d been living and driving all their lives. That was all, of course, having never been given a map.

My curiosity about the world around me grew as I grew. I couldn’t get enough knowledge, no matter how hard I tried. My thirst was insatiable. At seven, I had every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy book read inside out, front to back, and everywhere in between. I investigated each fact presented in every one of the books to see whether or not the information or conclusions were accurate. I became so bored with school that I started to cause problems.

Though odd, I was not too terribly different from any other kid at school. Not enough to be noticed as anything other than intelligent and quirky for the first several years, at least. In first grade, I was in a mixed class with the grade above, so I did their work as well as that which was assigned to me. I had no other way to pass the free time after quickly finishing what I was required to do, and it was far better than sitting there and twiddling my thumbs while staring at the ceiling.

When I became a second grader, life became more complicated because I’d already mastered all of the necessary concepts for the following several grades, so they wanted to skip me for several years. My mother said no; I was already too weird as it was and would never make friends if they stuck me with students much older, where I’d immediately be a social pariah. Besides, it was just second grade. A kid that is that age can only have so many problems in life, right? They just wanted to figure out how to “handle” my outbursts and keep me occupied with something stimulating enough to keep me in my seat.

The most noticeable problems I have had are those seen on the outside, though they are barely a glimpse of my constant struggles. They are considered standard for all children for the first years of life, so they weren’t really of particular note for a while. I was a toddler from hell, they said, but many children are classified as such by their parents.

These struggles were situations visible to others that are usually outside of the child's control or understanding. Others are seeing a reaction to something that has made the child’s world feel upside down, as though something isn’t right and needs to be fixed for things to be balanced again. Life truly doesn’t make sense to them in those moments, and the only way to gain clarity is for things to be exactly as the child imagines it to be in their head, accurate to reality and possibility or not. Often, kids at a young age “freak out” when a situation is one they perceive as unjust or unfair; other times, it results from overstimulation from various (and likely compounding) possible sources.

For me, these visible outbursts often became a meltdown triggered by some sort of sensory input my body was dealing with that was beyond what I could handle. It was sometimes the result of many underlying and unseen emotional struggles, and the smallest of things could trigger a massive scene with no one the wiser as to the context in full. In truth, my “problems” began before my second-grade year; they started the day I was born. People only began to see red flags in my behavior once I reached the schooling age. An internal difference caused my issues, but no one paused to ask why it was that I had those behaviors or struggles to begin with.

Not unlike juvenile diabetes, severe food allergies, or Down syndrome, my diagnoses of autism and ADHD are life-long. I was born this way; I will die this way, and I would never have it any other way. It needs to be known that both of these diagnoses are the result of a physical difference, not a mental problem, as most people tend to mistake it for being. There is nothing wrong with me; it is that I am physically wired differently, and the world as a whole doesn’t know what to do with that. People shun what they don’t understand because it makes them uncomfortable, and far too few people desire to experience discomfort for learning and growth. What has always astounded me is that something ceases to make you feel as uncomfortable once you understand it, so why wouldn’t that principle apply to people?

Because my neural pathways are different and how I process, learn, or express things can be contrary to what people expect in society, I am widely considered to be suffering from something of which I should or must be cured. I don’t want to be cured because there is nothing to cure me of. When considering all factors, I want acceptance and the “common” human courtesy of being allowed to exist without being forced to do something unnatural or outside of my capabilities. I don’t care if people like me; I just want them to leave me alone if they can’t be kind. I welcome anyone who cares to invest in knowing me as a person, but those who refuse or insist that I am someone whom I am not through inferences and lies, I have no desire to interact. This world is a crappy enough place to live in without having to deal with crappy people who insist on imposing themselves, their expectations, or their agenda on me just because I don’t conform to their mold.

I’m an adult now. I'm not quite middle-aged, but I'm coming up on it. I have lived enough lifetimes for a village and experienced so many things I never should have due to people’s intolerance and cruelty toward my differences. I was beaten and punished for things entirely outside of my control. I was constantly, and still am, told that everything I do is wrong and who I am is wrong. There has never been tolerance or grace for differences between myself and others. I was attacked if I wasn’t like others or talking and acting how they did or how they wanted me to.

It is always good to add to that lovely ongoing trauma. In this sensory processing disorder, I am pretty literally physically feeling things on the level that an infant does because my brain did not shed those small pathways. I am experiencing far greater sensitivity to every bit of stimuli around me than the majority of the population, and most people can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like. The amount of effort I spend all day every day just trying to keep my sensory situation at equilibrium before even factoring in interacting with anyone or being required to do anything is astounding.  I also have practically no proprioception, which means that I have no idea where I am compared to everything else in space and time. As a result, I am constantly injuring myself or breaking things and have spent my life being chastised for something that is an issue due to how I was born, not a lack of attention or clumsiness.

I’ve been raped more times than I can count, though a number that would surely sicken even the most experienced of social workers before I ever even reached adulthood. The experiences I have had since I came of age do not pale compared to those I had as a child. Things did not get easier as I aged; they got harder. Life got more complicated, more painful, and more overwhelming. The complexities of emotions I felt at far too young of age were due to trauma, and that trauma was statistically almost impossible for an individual with my diagnosis to avoid.

I’ve spent the last 15 years raising two kids who have the same diagnoses as their mama, and my husband is our unique brand of neurologically spicy as well. It might have taken me over two decades to be informed of, research, and genuinely know that there was a reason that I couldn’t figure out why everyone else does what they do. There was a reason I was always the weird one or the one who was considered ridiculous or dramatic, and it had nothing to do with a defect in my personality or a lack of effort. I just happen to belong to a different community than most people. I don’t fit into society, and I’m thrilled about it. I’m working hard to raise my boys to know that they are the ones who get to define themselves, not others. No one else’s opinion of you matters unless you choose to care about it. It is far harder to live knowing deep down than it is to say simply, but it is true nonetheless.

It might have taken me nearly two more decades after my initial diagnosis to figure out that I don’t have to care, but I am glad I’ve gotten there. I don’t have to follow any made-up rules, especially when others throw them out the window when it is convenient or works for their narrative. I don’t have to live the way others tell me I have to. I don’t have to spend every moment of my life accommodating the chosen ignorance of others who refuse to meet me halfway or in any way at all. Nothing is wrong with me; it is a broken society that expects anyone to be someone they are not. So, I exist outside of society, as I always have. The difference is that I now understand why I don’t fit in and don’t want to. I am happy where I am, wherever life may take me, knowing that the pressure I have allowed myself to feel all these years is unwarranted and unnecessary. I embrace who I am and how I was created. Moving forward, my goal is to help others find freedom in understanding and letting go of what does not serve them well. We all deserve to be allowed to exist. We all deserve the chance to thrive. I refuse to let others take the power over either of those things away from me ever again.