About Me — Charlotte
North Carolinian. History Buff. Proud Democrat. College Graduate. Voracious Reader. Aspiring Writer. Autistic. A Work Still in Progress.
As someone on the autism spectrum, the inquiry “Tell me about yourself,” so often used in job interviews, brings a heavy dread in my stomach as I try to come up with a concise response that would hopefully lead me to a job offer. In more informal settings, I have an easier time. I am Charlotte, named for the titular character in one of my mom’s favorite childhood books. My namesake in Charlotte’s Web was a kind spider who helps out the other main character, a nervous pig fated for slaughter: all and all, a cute story.
While I grew up in North Carolina, my family is not from the area. My father’s family hailed from northern England, and my mother’s family came from a suburb near Chicago, Illinois. I was born in Maryland, where my parents had met and married two years before. While I am fond of the state in many ways, I have no real connection to my birthplace, having left there a year after I was born. My older brother still lives there today, after spending most of his young adult life in western Maryland, now settled and happy with his own family.
I moved around a lot as a child, never sticking around in one house for over a couple of years, with two exceptions. I have called five different towns in three states home in my lifetime. My parents hailed from working-class backgrounds in their respective communities, working hard to provide a good life for me and my brother. We were encouraged to pursue higher education for a better life than our ancestors. After a few obstacles here and there, my brother was able to thrive in a teacher’s college in western Maryland before he began his career in the profession he loves.
As the youngest and neurodivergent child, I had everything handed to me on a silver plate. My maternal grandparents, who lived their final years close to me and my family, spoiled me rotten — having me sleep overnight at their house and feeding me the treats I was not allowed to have at home. Peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches and Chef Boyardee, anyone? My parents, protective and doting, devoted much attention to me, especially since I was diagnosed with autism at age two. My case was severe enough to garner concern from my parents to have me formally evaluated by specialists at UNC-Chapel Hill. My parents insisted I be placed in the local school system a year later. For the first seven years of my preK-12 education, I was in self-contained classrooms with fellow autism spectrum kids, almost all boys.
I was a late developer in speech while learning to read and write earlier than most in my peer group. I was nonverbal until I was six when I spoke my first sentence. My mom and I had been leaving my grandparents’ house as we walked past a construction site with Catapillar machinery painted yellow with their trademark CAT logo. My six-year-old self pointed toward the digger and exclaimed, “That’s not a cat.” My literal autistic mind did not compute that the “cat” was anything but our furry pets back at home. In retrospect, my reading and writing from the time I was three may have been the catalyst for finally developing my speech. I was a curious, quirky child who loved poring over dictionaries and phone books. I learned basic motor skills at school and home and was encouraged to try new things, even if initially scared. One big hurdle during my early childhood was tying my shoes.
By the time I reached fourth grade, I had transferred to a better school system when my parents and I moved to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area. By mid-school year, I was fully integrated into mainstream classes with daily to weekly meetings with a special education counselor and an Individualized Education Program (IEP). This first year, coinciding with the first year of the new millennium, was the beginning of a new era in my life. I was no longer the special needs child in a self-contained classroom with autistic classmates (the majority being boys) but in an integrated class with mostly neurotypical children, with a few having IEPs. I even took field trips for different reasons. In my self-contained class, field trips were therapeutic activities outside of the classroom:
- Special Olympics
- Swimming at the local pool
- Playing at a playground in the park
- Bowling
However, by fourth grade through secondary school, field trips were purely educational with therapeutic scenery changes:
- A Lost Colony exhibit for 4th grade Social Studies
- Carolina Beach for the end of the year in 5th grade
- Washington DC for 8th grade US History
- The North Carolina Zoo for 7th grade Science
I ended up loving to learn as I went through my last years of school. My favorite books to read ranged from Harry Potter to historical fiction about the British royal family to biographies about celebrities and dysfunctional elite families. My favorite subjects in secondary school were English, History, and Spanish-also the classes where I had the highest grades. Math and Science were my least favorite classes, where I had the lowest marks. I was a decent student, earning As and Bs with a few exceptions. As I planned for my post-high school years, I knew that I wanted to go on to college. I had dreamt of being a teacher, aside from my brief firefighter/police officer phase when those officers came for an assembly in elementary school. I loved the idea of helping people-including autistic kids like me, who would benefit from a kind, dedicated teacher.
I realized I would not fit well as a teacher when I began college. For one thing, I had zero patience, and I struggled in stressful situations. Teaching is stressful, and I knew I would not last in the field. Another thing, I had terrible executive dysfunction, which worsened as I moved out of my parent’s house and into the college dorm. I had trouble with procrastination and keeping myself on track. My social skills lagged far behind my neurotypical peers as I chose to isolate myself in my dorm room rather than participate in school events and meet people. I look back a decade later and realize that I should have planned better for post-high school life instead of going along with what others expected. I don’t regret attending a smaller college and finishing my degree-History major with a minor in English. Still, I regret my mistakes throughout college and not getting a part-time job until I was twenty-two years old.
After working several temporary and seasonal part-time jobs, I became a cashier and customer service representative at a big box home improvement store. In the meantime, I returned to the classroom. I completed a two-year Medical Office Administration program at the local community college. By then, I decided not to disclose my autism diagnosis to classmates, work colleagues, and prospective employers. My diagnosis hindered my personal and professional life in a world made for neurotypical people.
By the time I was thirty, I had finally obtained full-time employment in the billing department of a clinical lab. I had healthcare. I had a 401K. I had paid time off. I worked stable hours with a regular income. I have been with the company for three and a half years. I work remotely (thanks to the pandemic), a dream job for an autistic person who does not want to commute long distances. Although I still don’t make enough to move out of my parent’s house, I feel happier professionally than I did five years ago. Plus, I have a clear path forward to a higher-paid position. My social life is stagnant thanks to the pandemic, my living situation, and my choice not to put myself out there and meet people.
In addition to my full-time career, my goal is to become a successful published writer. I have been writing since I was in middle school. My earliest stories were a take on the Wizard of Oz series in which a character ends up in an uncharted Utopia country with flying hovercraft and clean air, ruled by a benevolent queen. I called this world, Dolland (a take of Dollywood and from my favorite toys-baby dolls). My unpublished work has evolved into speculative fiction (ghosts, witches, and dysfunctional elite families). My ultimate goal is to hone this unpublished work into published novels.
In the meantime, I strive to hone my craft as I move from lurker to writer on Medium.com. I spend most of my time online due to my life circumstances, so I need to spend my time on more productive activities. I have taken writing classes throughout high school and college and even took a journalism class at one point. While I enjoyed writing articles for the paper, I was not fond of deadlines and talking to people. I did better with opinion pieces and personal essays about autism that I wrote in April.
My name is Charlotte. I am an introverted, autistic cis-female in my early thirties, a Millennial, and a member of the Boomerang Generation. I am a college graduate who loves to read and write. I am a loyal Democrat. I am single and childfree. I spend way too much time scrolling on social media. My special interests are history, politics, speculative fiction, dysfunctional elite families, basketball, and, yes, autism activism.
I am a work in progress.
