If you’ve met one, then you’ve only met one.
When my parents first told me about this condition that I have, I originally planned to never tell anyone about this. The original three options I had for myself were to never tell anyone, wait to tell everyone until I was on my deathbed, or wait until I win an Oscar or some other major acting award I will probably never win. My parents didn’t tell me this secret until I was seventeen, and it was bad enough that I was still in the teenage-angsty “Oh God, I hate life. Just kill me now” stage and failing two classes.
Now, what is this “condition” that I wasn’t informed about until my childhood was just about to end?
Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, which is a form of autism. I am mildly autistic and it took me nearly eighteen years to know that.
To be fair, my case was more mild compared to the more severe cases of autism that I was more aware of, making it a bit hard to detect. I honestly didn’t know that autism could be mild and only knew about the stereotypical autistic image. Some of my friends who know my little secret were surprised and said that I didn’t look and sound autistic.
You know the saying “If you’ve met one, you’ve met them all”? Well, it turns out that if you’ve met one person with autism, then you’ve only met one person with autism.
I’m currently a twenty-one-year-old college student who’s studying theatre. There was a professor in the theatre department who used to teach a class in which students would write and perform a one-person show. He and his wife retired a year ago, so the class was retired as well. However, the theatre department wanted the one-person shows to continue, so it was continued as a special program instead of a class. Those who wanted to write and perform a one-person show signed up while those who’ve taken the class signed up to be the mentors for the first-timers.
When I first signed up, I didn’t originally have the idea that would eventually become my one-person show. When I finally met up with my mentor (and one of my closest friends) a few weeks later to discuss what I should do for my show and when we should meet for rehearsals, I finally told him about my mild autism after knowing him for a year. Surprisingly, he was calm and totally fine with it. He admitted that he suspected that I had some sort of disability, but he dropped it because he “didn’t want to make any assumptions”. Knowing that I was in safe hands, I let him help create a special way to “come out of the autism closet”. Yes, it turns out that “coming out of the closet” that doesn’t just refer to gay people. I mean, there are closets for rape survivors and people with eating disorders and whatever to come out of, so why couldn’t I come out of the autism closet?
Now, why would I write a show about a disability that I originally didn’t want anyone to know I have? To be honest, I’ve had so much emotions bottled up for years and I’ve been full of fear and denial ever since I was told about my mild autism. It’s never a good idea to bottle up your emotions, and doing this show was a great way to slowly empty my emotions rather than wait for the bottle to overflow and burst. I wrote and performed this show hoping that I would understand autism better than I did before and finally love myself.
Wanna hear something ironic?
My parents kept my mild autism a secret because they didn’t want me to be called “retarded” or “stupid”. However, my classmates from second grade to senior year of high school have called me “retarded” without knowing that I had mild autism. They didn’t call any of the special needs kids “retarded” or “stupid”, though. I’m glad that they never knew because they would’ve only been my “friends” because they were supposed to be nice to the special needs kids.
When I finally performed my one-woman show back in April, I received praise from my friends and classmates. The only thing about my relationships with them that has changed is that they know that I have mild autism. Besides that, my relationship with them now is the same it was before I performed the show. I’ve been friends with some of these students for about a year and half, and I didn’t need to tell them about a diagnosis to make them like me. They told me that my script was well-written, and some told me that my show was the best of the bunch that had been performed that weekend. I remember a few people asking me if I’ve ever considered being a playwright, which is why I’m now working on some new plays. And yes, I plan to write at least one about autism.
I’ve definitely written enough, so I will stop for now. If you have any questions about what it was like growing up with mild autism or anything related to that, feel free to ask.
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
yousharknotpass