I Am Not Disabled

I’m not. That’s what my diagnosis classifies me as, and that’s what society classifies me as. But I choose not to. Why should I live within the means of how my diagnosis and society define me? I prefer to live within my own means. I graduated high school. I’ve been to college. I’ve held down a job. I’m a conversationalist. I defy my diagnosis every day by doing things that people with ASD aren’t supposed to do. That’s the point of living within my means. My own means. Not society’s or my diagnosis. I attended a school from fourth grade until I graduated high school where I was told, “You are not disabled. You learn differently.” From then on, I hated the term learning disability. I hated the term disability in general. Because that wasn’t who I was as a person. I wasn’t going to make that a character flaw just because society saw it as one. I see it as apart of me. It is not all of me, by the way. It will never be all of me. Because I stand in the way of it, and I won’t let it define me. I didn’t let it define me from the beginning; that’s the kind of person I am. I knew even before my ASD had a name that whatever was going on with me, I wasn’t going to let it stop me? Why? Because friends, I am not disabled. I do not have a disability. I am a little different. I am wired differently. Different, not less.

For The Love Of God, Shut Up!

That’s the thing about us ASD folk; we are verrrry sensitive to noise. I had hyper acoustic hearing as a child and still have it now. I have the hearing of a bat. That car alarm down the block? Yep, I can hear that. Next door neighbor having a conversation revealing wayy too much info? Oh honey, I heard you the first time. That said, I hear every. thing. High pitched, loud noises hurt my ears. Other noises are just annoying. Here are a list of sounds I hate:

• Babies or kids crying
• Car alarms (especially the really special ones that put on a symphony)
• Construction noises
• Tree cutters
• Leaf blowers
• Fire alarms
• Sirens; especially fire truck sirens
• The timer on the slow cooker
• Anything with a really loud beep or high pitched screech
• The microwave timer/beep
• The emergency alert broadcast system
• Motorcycle engines
• Air horns

That’s not even half of it, loves. I have way more noises I cannot stand. I also cannot stand overly loud people. Loud parties. Clubs (the last time I went to a club I had my ears covered the entire time). Bars. Concerts. You will not see me at Warped Tour, Coachella, Outside Lands, nothing. Going to the grocery store and dealing with every day folk is enough. Having to deal with screaming kids on aisle 5 is enough. You will not see me at the next Jason Aldean concert, much as I love him. The noise, urgh. Going to the movies, that’s often my threshold. I know, if I’m so sensitive to noise, how did I work a foodservice job for two years where it’s always noisy and chaotic? How did I work in a kitchen? I’ve come a long way from being that child in her room covering her ears for hours so she wouldn’t hear sirens. I’m not that toddler who cries at the sight of a blow dryer anymore because the noise is scary. I find a way to block my sensory overload out to a point and just try to focus on what I’m doing. I would try to stay as calm as I could, although it wasn’t always easy. Of course I would get startled by the bells and buzzers and occasional clatters every now and again, but so did everyone at some points.

But oftentimes, it gets a little much. For me, noises get to me more than most. I’ve spent many days and nights crying because I’ve had too many sensory overload triggers and I’ve reached my threshold of how much I can handle. When I don’t cry, I get anxious sometimes to the point of panic attacks. So what can be just a little noise to a neurotypical person can be too much to handle for us. So for the love of god, shut up! Please!