What good is a system which
diagnoses later in life?
Have your label,
No support,
Deal with your strife.
The doctors and professionals
don’t know what to do with you.
Try you on new medication,
By now you’ve had a few:
Amitriptyline, Imipramine,
Fluoxetine, Sertraline,
Venlafaxine…
Do we continue?
Your brain isn’t Neurotypical,
Yet they are blinkered to this,
Thinking ‘normal’ treatment
Will help you,
But something’s amiss.
No adult Autism support services,
You missed all the options –
They cut off at thirty.
No Adults have Autism,
Right?
For needing some help
You feel useless, dirty.
You know counselling works on a personal level,
Yet six sessions of CBT*
Is what they keep offering,
And you’re now seeing the Devil.
How is six enough to help anyone?
A service stripped and cut bare
Is not beneficial.
How deep are the wounds?
They’re no longer superficial.
You have days when you can’t process,
Can’t cry.
Pick up the blade
Is your option,
Watch the blood trail
Down your thigh.
Endogenous opiates
Block the original pain.
Mask it all, no-one can know.
‘Marks of weakness,
Marks of woe’.
You can’t be out at work,
Its seen as incompetence.
Get home, collapse,
Have your meltdown,
Carry on the next day regardless.
In a school you work in the SEN department;
With limited support and resources
How can you make a difference
And be relevant?
Where members of SLT
On a pay check ten times higher than me
Can’t contain a student
Who has ADHD.
You see no worth
Have no value.
As a statistic, society will
Go on without you.
Born a statistic,
Die a statistic.
Is there any point?
Let’s be realistic.
Folks don’t like you for your
Linear thinking.
Your brain works too fast,
All comes out while they’re blinking.
Straight down the line,
Instead of the grey areas.
This cuts through the grease;
They’re finding it scarier.
And they will find you
‘Too much’ this and
‘Too much’ that,
You’ll water yourself down
And find yourself Sad.
But how do you process your
Emotions
When you aren’t sure what they are?
Have you said too much?
Have you gone too far?
Or not far enough
As you hold your heart cards close.
You once let them in,
And then they ghost.
Overwhelmed by your senses;
Tactile system,
Vestibular system,
Proprioceptive – not even aware of
Your body’s position.
Functioning is low,
Its becoming too much effort
To just put on clothes.
Emotional dysregulation:
Quickly have extreme highs
Then extreme lows.
Label it a ‘mental illness’
But it’s a developmental disorder.
I didn’t acquire this,
Its not something you get from exposure.
‘Person with Autism’
Please.
I’m an ‘Autistic Person’
Its not an accessory or
Disease.
There is no cure –
Don’t come at me with your
MMR vaccine talk
Or ways you can be
Autism free.
Not necessarily awareness,
But understanding
Is what We need.
One day I will take my final breath;
When this Autistic Girl
Has nothing left.
When there is desperation
And no way out.
When the neurotransmitters
Carry too much doubt.
I’d need someone to adopt my gecko
And my furbaby; they’d be all alone.
The cat’s a bit naughty,
But deserves a loving home.
If you come to my funeral,
Good for you.
But don’t wear black
And, more importantly,
For goodness sake
Don’t wear blue**
* CBT – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
** Light It Up Blue by Autism Speaks – Autism Speaks is a hate group.