Ok, so let’s dive into me a little bit here. This won’t be some carefully structured, linear story because, frankly, that’s not how my brain works. I was the kid who cried over green beans at dinner. Not just any tears, mind you—these were dramatic, gut-wrenching sobs, the kind that could make an Oscar committee take notice. My parents, of course, interpreted this as some diabolical manipulation tactic or, in a spectacular leap of logic, assumed I must secretly adore green beans since I ate them first to “get them out of the way.” Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking, *Could someone just ask why I’m crying instead of turning me into some Machiavellian toddler mastermind?* But sure, assumptions are easier than communication, apparently. Oh and sending the kid to the corner till they calm down? That really helped, really it did. It wasn’t considered child abuse to keep me there for hours until I was quiet and still before the time out itself started. Nope. Not. At. All

Growing up, misunderstanding seemed to be the family sport. Take the whole “she doesn’t have stims, so she can’t have ASD” debacle. Oh, really? Let’s revisit the chronic leg-bouncing that had you repeatedly pleading with me to stop because it was.. how did you put it? Oh yea I can’t forget the “driving me up the wall.” Or the endless fidgeting with my hands—twisting, tapping, pulling at imaginary threads—that you’d interrupt by physically grabbing them and commanding me to “quit fidgeting already!” Those were stims. Classic stims. Neon signs of autism, blinking wildly, and yet completely ignored. If I had known then what I do now, I could’ve written you a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why My Annoying Habits Are Actually Neurological Symptoms,” but alas, that’s hard to do when you’re five or even ten but I could when I was sixteen and had this crushing fear of talking because it was a source of ridicule and bullying from you.

Kinda hard to forget what I heard any time I was around others and my younger siblings. They kinda picked it up and started in on me to. Fantastic parenting there, teaching your other kids it is ok to pick on the one that is the most annoying and guess what, they haven’t forgotten ether, some actually call it as bullshit, like I do. The others? Well one of them tried to use it to get others to physically assault me and I was told to suck it up and leave my service dog at home so all your kids could be in the same place as you. Yea even if it wasn’t bullshit about my fully trained service dog who has saved my life many times and never showed aggression except for the stuff no one else ever seen in a crowed as hell room, the social media thing of trying to get others to hurt me, even when it raised up to threats of death, the sending of druggies to my home that do the worst kind of drugs that knew me by name and sight that I never met.. hint? I may forget names, I do not forget faces and I never met this string of individuals.

Plus, there is the “my kid is now scared of dogs, but I got a pit bull that I haven’t trained, and the vet won’t see unless it is heavily sedated before hand” … Am I the only one to not see that blatant sign of fuckary? Perhaps it wasn’t me or my service dog in the wrong and I even offered to bend over backwards and stay in the corner unless someone came up to me with my service dog but that wasn’t enough. It was her way or no way you taught her that, not me, YOU.

What is worse? They started to pull crap with others, thankfully those people taught most of them to back off or how wrong they were besides the one. You know the one who tried to get me killed and I still get threats from the method every few weeks? She never learned and does it with others and one day someone will charge her. Hell I didn’t charge her that time because I was doing it out of respect for everyone else and as her older sister. It was the last and only time I will let something that bad slide, and oh I won’t let anything she pulls against me slide again cause despite what you and her think, I got some lovely screenshots of everything. Wanna see? No, because you don’t want to get in the middle of it. That just applies to me though, her you will try and get me to see ‘reason’. How about this, I am not that timid little girl. I have learned a lot about myself and embraced my chaos and knowledge. This means no more just taking it because I am sooo done and you need to realize that before you get charged my lovely jack ass parents as well who couldn’t stand each other but still teamed up on the oldest like you always did. As well? Why do I say that? Easy answer, she will pull some sort of shit again and I will have no issue throwing you under the bus for your actions like you did for my normal behaviors for someone like me. That weren’t all that bad since I heard most adults praise you on how well behaved and mannered I was.

Let’s get back on topic though as hard as it is to stay there. These are things you did and started and permitted though. Do not forget this, you were supposed to protect me, instead you taught me I wasn’t worthy of being protected even by my parents. A lesson that yea I have forgiven you for, but one that still makes me doubt that I even deserve this. The worse things are around me, the worse these memories haunt me. Which means most of this summer because our country and province are on fire I will be dealing with the lovely PTSD and other alphabet soup letters I have that you caused because you couldn’t accept the ASD possibility but you would take the ADHD one so I could be drugged and controlled. That worked out so well, didn’t it? Such as with say my room?

Then there was my room, the eternal battlefield of my childhood. “Your room is in chaos! Why can’t you keep it as neat as your books?” Ah yes, the paradox of my existence. My room looked like a tornado had thrown a tantrum, but my books? Oh, my books were sacred. They were lined up perfectly, alphabetized or sorted by some obscure system that only made sense to me, that routinely changed. One book out of place and I’d feel an almost physical discomfort, this itch in my brain that wouldn’t go away until order was restored. Unable to sleep because something is off and nightmares that I couldn’t recall that made me wake screaming? The one’s that would stop when my books were left alone and not get corrected. You recall this right? I sure do. That wasn’t just quirky behaviour; that was ASD’s special interest flair in full force. Meanwhile, the chaos of my room? That was ADHD’s contribution to the party—a kaleidoscope of unfinished tasks and misplaced items all coexisting in glorious disarray. But instead of seeing these as pieces of a larger puzzle, it was easier to just label me as “lazy” or “difficult.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, folks.

And the whole “no extreme obsessions” thing? Let me introduce you to hyperfocus. It’s like obsession, but with a time limit and an intensity level that could put laser beams to shame. I didn’t build shrines or collect encyclopedic facts about one topic, but when something caught my attention, I’d dive so deeply into it that hours would vanish, and the rest of the world would cease to exist. Including my homework that I couldn’t do because it was boring (missing the dopamine here). Whether it was rearranging my books for the hundredth time or devouring a new subject in school, I was in it. Completely. But, of course, hyperfocus wasn’t on anyone’s radar, so it got filed under “weird” and left at that. It wasn’t “let’s feed this interest” it was “she needs to be interested in what we want her to be.” Isn’t gonna happen for nerotypical kids, so you really think it will work on one that can see something is off, that as an adult I can now say why it felt that way? Guess what I seen it, it wasn’t that I didn’t and was ignorant of it. I was just to scared to say anything. I am losing that fear each and every day. It burns me out when I do a huge leap but the burn out and all that comes with it because I am learning who I am is worth it.

Oh yea, let’s not forget clothing. Apparently, I was “so easy to clothe” as a kid. Spoiler: I wasn’t. I had a comprehensive list of fabrics and textures that I simply could not endure. If a shirt had a scratchy tag, it might as well have been made of sandpaper. Seam placements? Hugely important. And don’t even get me started on socks that didn’t line up just right. But did I have the words to explain this as a child? No. So when I tried, the response was a dismissive “Labels shouldn’t matter.” Um, it wasn’t the label on my clothes I was concerned about; it was the way they felt on my skin, like tiny armies of discomfort marching across my nerve endings. This is why I was a sweatshirt, t-shirt, and jeans kid.. oh, wait that few of clothing choices wasn’t an indicator something was up at all was it? Sensory issues, people! But why explain when you can dismiss, am I right?

And then there were the assessments. Oh yes, the magical, invisible assessments my parents refused to entertain. Imagine my surprise as a kid when I stumbled upon the fact that a professional evaluation might’ve given us all some much-needed clarity. But no, denial was apparently the parenting strategy of choice. Because if you don’t name it, it doesn’t exist, right? Wrong. What it did was leave me to piece it all together years later, armed with nothing but hindsight, a lot of reading, and the occasional existential crisis. Great job, everyone.

And let me not forget the pièce de résistance of parental commentary: “You’re chaos” and “You’re exhausting.” Oh, thank you so much for that. Nothing boosts a kid’s self-esteem like being told their very existence is a drain on others. It’s not like I was already battling feelings of inadequacy or doubting myself constantly. Nope, let’s toss a little more emotional baggage on the pile and see how tall we can make it. Seriously, it’s a miracle I made it out of childhood with any sense of self intact or even any compassion for others and a healer to boot. The more I see about you and my childhood and most of my adult years so far makes me really wonder how in the hell I made it out at all and actually makes me feel better about me because I didn’t let you change who I am at my core, yea I still have issues accepting it however I am learning to get past you to be me, not what you failed to make me despite your attempts and I am beyond glad for that part of who I AM.

The more I see the more I see my strength and that gives me even more power. You know the old saying? Knowledge is power. It is also my weapon against what you taught me that was dead wrong. Just as this website is as well a way to accept me and fight your crap you made me go through for as long as I can recall and if I can recall dumping baby powder down the heat vent in the building we lived in when I was a kid and the layout in technicolor of the place, you know the one you say we lived in when I was around three? Maybe the fact I could recall those details should have given you a hint I was not what you were wanting but something better then a cog, I am the one who isnt a sheep like you tried to teach me to be, I am the wolf that preys on the sheep and protects the pack and I will never try to be a sheep again.

So, hey, here I am. Chaos and all, navigating a world that feels simultaneously too much and not enough. I’ve learned to lean into the quirks that used to make me feel “other.” My leg still bounces, my hands still fidget, and, yes, my room is still a disaster zone. But my books? Still perfectly organized, thank you very much. Some things never change. Here’s to the chaos, the humour, and the endless quest for understanding. It’s messy, it’s a little chaotic, but it’s all me. I am still learning who I am, and not whatever box I was supposed to fit in kid. I have fang and claw now, ready to keep playing? Yes, then I say let’s play because you taught me well how to see beyond the bullshit people try to show. I am the decendent of survivors, the one’s that couldn’t be killed despite the attempts. Even the attempts you made to deny me my paternal connection and thus a big part of who I am. I am Yotin Iskwew, Siearra Frost, and the names I am known by, I made them mine.

People, please don’t be part of the problem, I beg you. Please see those in your life as a whole not the parts you want to see, how you want to see them. Do not dismiss stuff that is hard to accept, it only harms you in the end. It get’s seen by someone who won’t sit quietly by and will walk away from you. Those who are different in your circle of people, they can be your best friend. I should know, because I am that different person. I have AuDHD and it is part of who I am, it also means I only call a few friends and that group is beyond small which means you get more quality time from me instead of an obligation or just part of me. This is a common thing I see with other’s who have the same letters in their alphabet soup from what I have seen in my rabbit hole diving… here is to the next rabbit hole.