New-ish project

[Neia]

Sometimes wacky prompts do work.
Feeling like you're stuck is so very frustrating.
I love writing, it helps me relax, when I'm not stuck.

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She barely remembered getting up, grabbing the boom and nearly falling again as it swivelled towards her, then stepping to the elm and groggily looking around.

It took her several minutes to realise she wasn’t where she should be, where she expected to be.

Taika couldn’t understand what had happened. The landscape around her was full of life, fresh and clear. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen birds flying freely. And It smelled different here… better.

Had the ship sailed that long?
But even if she had somehow been unconscious for several hours, the trimaran couldn’t have cruised so far to foreigner lands that the acrid scent of the lava flows was completely imperceptible.

She sniffed the air, then inhaled deeply.
No… not a whiff of sulphur or anything burning.

Never in her life had she smelled air so light.

 

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Sometimes wacky prompts do work.
Feeling like you're stuck is so very frustrating.
I love writing, it helps me relax, when I'm not stuck.

I write a lot, for pretty much the same reasons, but I never had enough imagination to invent stories. So instead I write about a lot of the things I've experienced in life and I'm also quite politically active and write to politicians often.

 

[Neia]

I write a lot, for pretty much the same reasons, but I never had enough imagination to invent stories. So instead I write about a lot of the things I've experienced in life and I'm also quite politically active and write to politicians often.

I can't write about my life. It hurts much.

I spent most of my life with my nose in a book or another, sci-fi, science and history were my first passions.

One of my favourite tv shows as a child was a historical documentary and I'm one of those whose memories are like a film. I see them in pictures, with colour and sound and smells.

I do use a lot of my own experiences, veiled as they may be, in what I write though.

 

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I can't write about my life. It hurts much.

I started writing about my life as a way of trying to understand where it all went wrong, this was before I knew anything about autism. And you're right, it hurt. A lot. But once I started the first 400 pages or so came rushing out in a flood of tears and I felt so much better afterwards.

It's not a book for the general public, but I wrote as if I was trying to explain things to a stranger, in that way I managed to explain a lot of things to myself.

 

[Neia]

From the age of 3 I remember always having a book around, although I only really started reading at 5. And then reading became a habit, a pleasure.
During my free times at 5 i was either reading, watching some sci-fi show on tv, watching Follow Me from Thames Television, or watching this guy:

 

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From the age of 3 I remember always having a book around, although I only really started reading at 5. And then reading became a habit, a pleasure.

I was the same. By age 7 I had read every children's book that there was and I started on mainstream novels, mostly science fiction.

And on TV my favourite personality was Professor Julius Sumner Miller, a US born nuclear physicist that migrated to Australia and he used to have a segment on a popular children's TV show. He'd show wild different experiments and then ask the audience how it works. "Why is it so?".

He even looked like a storybook mad professor.

 

[Neia]

Did you know that some on the spectrum are known to be precocious readers?

I'm just starting to learn about what this really is, instead of having my concept of what people on the spectrum are like, from tv and film crude stereotypes.

I started to speak at around 5 months old. Not sentences of course, but just words like: give, mine, more, etc.

My mother had a tape of squeaky little 9 month old me asking her questions. Then, by age 5 and till I was 7 I stopped talking. And my "wonderful" 1st and 2nd grade teacher was so wonderful that she would beat me up at every chance she got...

Today, when I look back, I can see my ASD traits so clearly... and to be honest, it angers me that all the doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists never saw anything except, anxiety, depression, trauma, ...

 

[Neia]

I was the same. By age 7 I had read every children's book that there was and I started on mainstream novels, mostly science fiction.

And on TV my favourite personality was Professor Julius Sumner Miller, a US born nuclear physicist that migrated to Australia and he used to have a segment on a popular children's TV show. He'd show wild different experiments and then ask the audience how it works. "Why is it so?".

He even looked like a storybook mad professor.

You're like a male version of me

No... wait. You're a couple of years older, so I'm like a female version of you

 

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Then, by age 5 and till I was 7 I stopped talking. And my "wonderful" 1st and 2nd grade teacher was so wonderful that she would beat me up at every chance she got...

I did the same, at the same age, but only at school because I hated being there.

My Grade 2 teacher told Mum that I was dyslexic and would never learn to read. Mum burst out laughing and the teacher got really angry, "Don't you care about your child's future?". Mum laughed so hard she nearly wet herself.

 

[Neia]

There is still a lot of ignorance in the community, but it is much better now than it used to be.

I was diagnosed when I was around 20 or so after a vocational guidance assessment.
My memory isn't the best when it comes to time, btw.
I was referred to a psychologist who told me I was "mildly autistic".
Back then they didn't use the term "Asperger's".

I'm glad, really glad, I have this forum to learn from, and to help me see I'm not just some feelingless, selfish nut. As I was dubbed all my life.

 

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I think you two should get a room.

And that's exactly the sort of crass comment I mentioned in another thread. Not at all funny in any way and quite often offensive.

 

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I'm glad, really glad, I have this forum to learn from, and to help me see I'm not just some feelingless, selfish nut. As I was dubbed all my life.

Until I found this forum I only had information from neurotypical sources about autism and none of it quite fit. Close but never really there. When I started talking to people in here everything fell in to place for me.

 

[Neia]

I did the same, at the same age, but only at school because I hated being there.

My Grade 2 teacher told Mum that I was dyslexic and would never learn to read. Mum burst out laughing and the teacher got really angry, "Don't you care about your child's future?". Mum laughed so hard she nearly wet herself.

My teacher really hated that I could read with no difficulty and recite the times-tables without stuttering.

She once beat me because I recited the 7x table without flaw. It's one of the easiest ones but anyway...
She asked me if I had studied it a lot the previous day, it had been our homework, I said no because my mom had me doing vocabulary, so the witch beat me because I hadn't studied.

Even though I didn't miss a beat and she queried me longer than she had the other kids.

I hated that woman when I was younger.

 

[Neia]

And that's exactly the sort of crass comment I mentioned in another thread. Not at all funny in any way and quite often offensive.

Thank you for being braver than me.

 

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Thank you for being braver than me.

It does help explain why he's always had trouble finding a date.

 

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My teacher really hated that I could read with no difficulty and recite the times-tables without stuttering.

I never had to study anything. I read something once and I remembered it. I used to stay home from school a lot too because it was too stressful. Both my parents worked so that was easy, sit down the end of the street and watch for Mum to drive to work, then go home again.

None of my teachers ever mentioned that I wasn't at school, I think they were happier when I wasn't there.

 

[Neia]

It does help explain why he's always had trouble finding a date.

My difficulties were/are because I keep correcting people most men don't like being corrected
Well... most people don't like being corrected.

 

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I never had any trouble but I never approached women, it was always them coming up to me and starting a conversation. The women I was most often attracted to never wanted anything to do with me, but in hindsight that probably worked out for the best anyway.

 

[Neia]

I never had to study anything. I read something once and I remembered it. I used to stay home from school a lot too because it was too stressful. Both my parents worked so that was easy, sit down the end of the street and watch for Mum to drive to work, then go home again.

None of my teachers ever mentioned that I wasn't at school, I think they were happier when I wasn't there.

I wasn't so lucky.

I did have a great memory, but I still had to pay attention in class. Which for me was actually easy most of the time.

I could detach myself from whatever had happened outside, on the playground, and completely focus on the teacher.

I was "the perfect student".
Attentive, respectful, eager to learn, had good grades... all the while while dying inside. I was bullied by other kids, and by some of the teachers.

And I had a past of being able to sneak away and disappear, and getting into trouble. So my mother took me to school.

 

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I never had to pay attention in class, I always had a novel in my lap and I just used to sit there and read, but some part of my brain used to listen and absorb it all anyway. Whenever a teacher thought to catch me out by asking me a question I didn't even have to look up from my book, I could answer automatically.

And anytime I did put my hand up because I wanted to answer a question they'd ignore me. One teacher even said that there's no point asking me because they know that I know the answer.

Teachers and students all hated me, except for the girlfriend I had all through primary school, Leanne. She was smart like me and had the same troubles.