How does a Child With Autism Understand Being Different?
How a Child Explains Being Different to Themselves
A story about how I grew up thinking I wasn’t human.
Image by Coffee on pixabay
I didn’t always know that I was Autistic and have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper-Activity Disorder).
I don’t have exact dates for my diagnosis because I was so young. I do know it was during childhood, but other than that, I have no time frame for them.
I was first diagnosed with ADHD when I was five. At least I believe it was five because I remember constantly being in trouble during Kindergarten because I couldn’t sleep during nap time because of Adderall.
When I was old enough to know how to read, I immediately noticed that I was different from other kids. Other kids didn’t feel physical pain if they were forced to sit still. Other kid's brains didn’t work at ninety-nine miles per hour. Other kids didn’t constantly have to be moving. Other kids were able to focus on one task at a time. I couldn’t do any of that.
I eventually researched on my own what ADHD was and learned about it. Which was great, until I noticed that I wasn’t like other kids with ADHD.
Other kids with ADHD didn’t feel uncomfortable if tags were in their clothing. Other ADHD kids didn’t hear the humming of fluorescent lights. Other ADHD kids didn’t find eye contact physically painful. Other ADHD kids didn’t have their senses muddled into one. Other ADHD kids didn’t constantly need to be doing something with their hands.
I quickly noticed that I wasn’t like other kids with ADHD.
When I noticed that I was different than other kids, Teen Titans was a brand new show. I had fallen in love with the show and became really attached to a character named Starfire.
Starfire is an alien from the fictional planet known as Tamaran. She was forced to stay on Earth for a reason I don’t remember.
Like me, Starfire struggles with spoken language. Like me, Starfire struggles to understand social cues. Like me, Starfire does not understand idioms.
Like I was as a child, Starfire speaks very formally.
I didn’t have a diagnosis for Autism yet, so I didn’t understand why I was different from most kids, and from fellow ADHD kids.
When I saw Starfire suddenly everything clicked.
“That’s why I’m different from other kids! I’m from another planet! Everything makes sense now!”.
After coming to the conclusion that I must be from another planet, logically that meant that I wasn’t human.
Now the question remained: What species am I really, and what planet am I really from? Who are my real parents, and why haven’t they come for me yet?
I remember spending hours trying to figure out the answers to these questions. I would sit outside and stare up at the stars, pleading with my alien parents to come to take me home.
Eventually, I woke up from a dream where I was on a frozen planet. I had blue skin, violet eyes, and blue hair.
I couldn’t believe it. This must be the planet that I’m from! I finally have a clue of where I’m really from!
More time passed and I had another dream. In this dream, the name Sicowkaksin (pronounced Sea-cow Kak-sin) could be heard on a loop.
The dreams continued and I was happy. I knew my real name! My real name was Sicowkaksin! I was that much closer to finding out who I really was!
I never told my parents any of this, because I didn’t want them to think that I was crazy.
As the years went by, I believed in this fabricated explanation.
I even had a name for the planet I was from, as well as an entire language from the planet that I believed that I was from.
The planet was called KristoTokiaAzarath. (Pronunciation-
Chris-toe Toe-key-uh Azz-uh-rath.)
(Later renamed as an adult to KristoTokiaAzarae for copyright reasons.) (Pronunciation: Chris-toe Toe-key-uh Azz-uh-ray.)
The language is called Astrok (Uh-stra-kuh).
KristoTokiaAzarae, or KTA, and Astrok was a fabrication, but the fabrication made me happy, and it gave me an explanation, so I didn’t care about keeping it a secret anymore. At this point, I had told everybody on the bus about the fabrication. At first, people thought that I was pretending, so they would humor me with stories about what KTA was like when they visited. None of them matched the images I had in my head, but it didn’t matter. I knew they were most likely talking about an unnamed sister planet and confusing it with KTA. When I continued to talk about the fabrication for a year, the adults quickly figured out that I wasn’t pretending, and really believed in the fabrication.
I assume they must have told my parents because two days later they sat me down and told me that I was Autistic.
My world was shattered upon hearing that I was Autistic.
This meant that KTA never existed and that I was never an alien, which means that everything that I thought was true about myself had been a lie.
I eventually came to accept my Autism diagnosis and no longer believed that I was an alien – Like I did as a child.
