I used to walk before I tip-toed. I used to sing before I whispered. I used to cry before I endured.

My colorful shorts had dirt stains on them from sitting on the park bench. I heard cheering for my brother’s baseball team in the distance. In my own little world, I opened my little pink journal and put bulky headphones on. There were words that poured out of my fingers onto a page with tears ridden on the sides. I had no proper language for the strangeness I felt.

I wouldn’t say I was the type of kid that had no friends. In fact, I was always at a friends house. I didn’t get home sick or miss my mom like the other kids did. I enjoyed the attention of other parents so much. They praised me for being so mature, so thoughtful. I was a kind soul to everyone but myself.

I feel like my body has always ached. My stomach brews an emotion so deep it can’t be thrown up. I feel fuzz in my brain but pain in my chest. My brain and my body begin to disconnect. Which one was doing this to the other? What is wrong with me?

I remember looking in a mirror, seeing a little girl look back at me. She’s so small, her face full and nose undefined. Her eyes look darker and heavier then she feels like they should. I stared at her as I put her hair into a bun for ballet. Pulling, twisting, arms getting tired. I couldn’t get it right that day. I laid in bed crying the rest of the night instead of going.

“You are the most stressed out kid I’ve ever seen,” My mom would say. “What do you even have to be stressed about?”

Everything, mom. God, I was a kid worried about everything. I was being buried alive and didn’t know why. I wrote in my journals about never being good enough and failing everyone around me. I was just a child, I hadn’t even been relied on for anything enough to fail someone that badly. While so many people talk about the ease of childhood, the lack of worries, I thank god I’m not there anymore.

I forgot about how long I’ve felt like this until I found those journals one day when I was older. I cried and cried at the thought of my little toothless self feeling inadequate of living. I hadn’t even done anything yet. I started out my childhood with a love for Just Dance and singing Britney Spears songs. How did the light leave my eyes before I could even sit in the front seat of a car?

My body. How I had been so cruel to it. I had no value for it. My body was my enemy. My body was given the punishment of my thoughts. For that I am so, so sorry. I wish I could say I was a careless and fun kid. I wish I could say that I loved myself.

Growing older, I know my unruly body is one that deserves the kindness it bestows to others. She should sing Britney Spears and play Just Dance. She should get rest and do the things she enjoys. She is me and I am her. My brain and body are still working on their relationship, but they’re beginning to understand how they are endlessly connected. While I have to undo a mindset that I’ve had my whole life, nothing makes me feel more at peace than the thought of feeling okay with myself. Just laying in the grass, quietly, feeling the wind and just the wind.

My unruly body thanks me, finally.

In first grade, I decided to sit on the bus next to this girl I thought was really cool. She was so good at drawing and made the whole bus laugh when she made a joke. I sat down and she talked to me like we were already best friends. Soon enough, I’m invited to her birthday party. Over the next 10 years, we spent summers walking to the ice cream shop together and watching silly movies on the weekends. One of the first times she came over, her mom picked her up and asked her to wait in the car. I secretly listened from the stairs as her mom explained to my mom, “we think she’s got autism, but more like Asperger’s. Thank you for having her over. Did she give you any trouble? We prefer having them hang out at our house just so no tantrums are thrown.” I remember thinking to myself, “autism? Asperger’s? She’s like my best friend, how could she have autism?” It wasn’t long before I was using the internet to search my curiosities and found so many confusing sources. It was later on that I saw what her mom was talking about. However, it never really changed our friendship. I knew she acted a little different than I did but I still loved her. It wasn’t until middle school when she got formally diagnosed. It was so hard for other people to see it; she was so sociable and funny, it didn’t fit the norm of what people thought autism looked like. I remember when she got emotional as she told me that she had autism, and I told her it didn’t change a thing. Although we aren’t friends anymore, she was one of my best friends for a long time and she made me a better person in so many ways.

In second grade, I weirded out the girl at my table in school. She even asked to be moved tables because I was a bit too excitable for her. A few weeks later, we became close friends as well. She was much more quiet. She hated confrontation, while I didn’t mind talking back to the bossy girls. We simply complimented each other in so many ways. She was good at everything she tried, musically and academically. I always strived to her level but often fell short. She inspired me, while I later found out that I inspired her to be more outgoing. It wasn’t until middle school that she got diagnosed with autism as well. Not a thing changed. To this day, she is one of my dearest friends.

My sophomore of college, I found myself rooming in an apartment with pretty much strangers. 3 girls who were already friends had invited me to live with them. One of them I clicked with immediately. Together, we sat on the couch for hours, switching between studying and watching dumb TV shows. We went on insane amounts of Dunkin trips and laughed about everything. When we disagreed, we disagreed strongly but when we agreed, it was a passion. She self-identified with autism spectrum disorder, I later found out. Not a thing changed. She graduated this year but I still message her often. She made my sophomore year filled with laughter and fun.

A few months ago, I moved in to my apartment with two girls I didn’t know. I found myself being joined on the couch for my studying sessions and watching dumb TV shows. One of the girls found me funny and loved to listen to my stories. She’s bright and has lived a life different than mine yet we are so similar. She decorates for holidays and has a box of fidget toys that we all play with during our late-night roommate debriefs. She told me that she also self-identifies with autism spectrum disorder. At this point, I know that it would not change a thing. I can’t wait for our friendship to continue to blossom.

Throughout my life, I have been surrounded by neurodivergent individuals, whether I knew it at the time or not, these are just a few examples that stand out. At first it may have been confusing, but I quickly learned what was so special about it. Something about these wonderful people in my life has drawn me to them. I am neurodivergent, although I do not have autism, but I do understand autism to an extent I wish more people would. Some of the most important and incredible people in my life have ASD and I would never want them to change. They do not need a cure. The ways that they are different have made me a more understanding, intrigued, passionate person who is continuously inspired by them; not because they have autism, but because of who they are and autism just happens to be apart of that.

To all the underrepresented people who have struggled with getting an autism diagnosis: I see you, I hear you, and you are valid. It is not your fault that our classrooms didn’t introduce us to different minds and didn’t show us how to embrace your differences. I have seen with my own eyes the struggle my women friends had in recognizing they have autism and the impacts of their symptoms getting overlooked.

Surrounding yourself with friendships of people that are different than you is what makes you a well-rounded, empathetic, worldly person. Some people only stick to people exactly the same as them. This, I will never understand. Our differences make us much more interesting, don’t you think?

Two girls riding on their bikes. This was one of my favorite things to do with the first friend I mentioned.

A google search of the word “autism”, showing almost exclusively young boys as examples.

The only time I’ve ever asked for an excuse from anything was when I was literally passed out on the sidewalk near True Grits. I emailed my professor from the health office, phone in one hand and electrolyte freeze pop in the other, asking for an excuse for missing class (where attendance counted towards grade). I was probably more worried about their response than I was my own health.

I was fully excused and the professor obviously was very understanding.

Even crippling in my bed from stress and depression, I will pull out my laptop and do all 3 attempts on my homework until I get the highest grade. Even with random vertigo hitting me, I still handled dangerous chemicals in lab. Even with my grandma passing away, I only missed one day of work for her funeral.

These are all situations where I would demand my friends to take a break! Prioritize yourself! Ask for help, an extension, a friend, anything! I would never expect anyone else to put themselves through more for something like school or a job. Not being able all the time is okay, and normal.

Does this mean that I have a disability? No, I don’t think so. Sure, I have my fair share of medical conditions that make some days harder than others. But somedays it’s just life that is making a day hard. Why do I need the label of a disability in order to have an accommodation?

I genuinely think asking for an extension or excuse is harder than just doing the work for me. The mental energy of typing out that email and stressing about the response, what the professor thinks of me, and what I think of myself, turns me away from it. The guilt of just calling off of work is so intense that it haunts me for days. Not to mention, feeling disabled sounds so scary to me. I almost try not to accept it for myself, and I have often had the privilege of doing so. But, like that time I was passed out, sometimes we have to accept our own limitations. Sometimes we simply cannot power through it. And sometimes, we have to get help. Asking for help is hard. Asking for help because you have an internal stigma around disability is harder. I know I must get over this, because my ability will wear away over time.

I hope I don’t offend anyone with this post. I truly don’t think anyone should follow my footsteps. This is just a product of how I was raised, and I hope others can relate to breaking free of the stigma of disability. I, personally, will take time to get there. There has been days where the quality of my work has suffered due to this. We all deserve a break sometimes, even just for exhaustion; and it doesn’t take away from the people who deserve breaks for other impairments.

I think often about how in class we talked about creating a system where we can accommodate better to people’s needs. Although it is quite impossible to accommodate everything all the time, there are ways to better serve people. The repairs need to take place from the foundation of our system, starting with mindsets. There are many ways I could feel more comfortable missing a class or getting an extension, and it starts with the mindset of my parents, the attitude of my professors, and my own. From then on, once the details are hashed out, a much more promising world is ahead. Think about what we could be without these barriers holding us back. I think it is quite beautiful.

(Reminder to be kind to yourself)

My body exists as an argument. My body is an inner discourse in my head and a theoretical object to be tossed around by politicians. My body may breathe and jump and eat and do all the most basic functions, but it will never have the luxury of existing simply. My eyes look away too quickly or they may gaze too long with a hidden intention or thought behind them. My heart flutters as I raise my hand and pounds as I try to fall asleep. Even on the cellular level, the macromolecules of my body tirelessly create my being with hidden complexity. My body bleeds and cries and sings and falls. It is always changing how it feels, not usually followed by a moment of peace. Peace is not well known to my body. Peace is only for the perfect or those at peace with the imperfect. My body is always running towards the perfect but the finish line keeps getting pushed further away. I am out of breath.

I am 20 years old and I feel like my body is paraded. I feel like it barely belongs to me. It is for the world to look at and think about. I belong inside of it and yet I cannot be content with it. I need to constantly be learning and aware of other bodies so that I may exist in the most perfect way, a combination of every best quality I can find.

I met my boyfriend when I was 16 years old. His parents judged the girls in the family who were too loud or talked too much. So, I was quiet and well behaved. They then told me they felt I was being disrespectful through my quiet, and so I spoke, but only at the correct time with the correct tone and the correct amount of information. They made fun of another family girlfriend who was anorexic and never ate, she was always complaining about headaches or some new health problem. So I made sure to eat in front of them and keep my health problems and complaints to myself. They made comments about women gaining weight and also told me they felt they knew nothing about me. So I made sure to eat the correct amount at the correct time and give a few tasteful complaints.

I entered high school at 14 years old. People loved the girls with quirks and imperfections. John Green taught me that the “just damaged enough” beautiful girls were the ones that every guy dreamed of. People thought I was intimidating. People couldn’t relate to me. I was putting on this perfect image; put together, mature, smart, always on time. People didn’t like that as much as I thought they would. I decided to show just enough imperfection to seem relatable, cool, funny. I let people in, just enough.

I entered my dark phase at 12 years old. Everyone hated the girls who yelled in the hallways, cried all day, posted their life story on social media. They were too big, too open, too much. Perfect people don’t act like that. I wanted to be full of secrets, a mystery. I wanted to be someone that people wanted to get to know, they wouldn’t just already know. I wanted everyone to wonder. The less they knew, the more likely it was that I could be perfect under it all.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time at my friend’s houses. “We love having her over!” their parents exclaimed, “She’s such a great influence.” I probably wasn’t, but I sure knew how to make the parents happy. I said the perfect things to them and said them in the perfect way and ate what they made for dinner was a great friend to their child and never misbehaved and acted girly and innocent and the way a perfect little girl should be. I lived for that validation. I watched my friends get yelled at, hit and punished. I would never do something to warrant that.

When gender started to matter, having only older brothers was hard. Losing your siblings because boys and girls can’t be friends is hard. We weren’t allowed to like the same hobbies anymore. My brother wasn’t allowed to acknowledge that we had fun. I wasn’t supposed to watch him play video games and he wasn’t supposed to play dolls with me. His friends became meaner to me and my friends became shyer to him. I couldn’t play baseball and basketball outside with my brothers anymore when I became seen as a girl and not just a person. I was doing everything wrong and it wasn’t my sport to play anyways, apparently. I should just do ballet. I should just stay small and quiet and just be so different than my brothers. I am a girl, anyways.

As I grew up, I looked for my parents in every authority figure. Even when they were standing in front of me, I was looking for them. I found what gives praise: perfection. A large part of that perfection was being a girl and all of the things that means.

You know what it means to be a girl. It means you can’t win. It means you have to be perfect but you can’t actually ever be perfect. You need to be just imperfect enough but brace yourself to be judged for those imperfections. I never found happiness from it in all those years from trying so hard and my body feels like a war zone. I know all of this. I know perfection isn’t real and it’s unachievable and it’s useless to even try. Why can’t I escape it?