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7:46pm September 1, 2014

Yeah that’s the thing…

Normal kids aren’t first sent to a shrink at the age of seven, sent to the school counselor at every single school they ever go to (at least every school that has a counselor) for social problems, sent to the camp psychologist in summer camp, sent to the high school counselor for regular sessions in high school because she was seriously worried about me after seeing me in a classroom, sent to a neurologist and a neuropsychologist and a psychologist in that same year after I dropped out of high school, and then referred to the office people (I don’t even remember what position they held) for crossing social boundaries we were unaware of in college.  

I actually got an actual citation that went on my permanent record, for walking into someone’s room that said “Come in anytime” because I didn’t know that “Come in anytime” didn’t mean “Come in at 6 in the morning on a weekend.”  And then they sat there and explained it to me a million times in a row and I didn’t understand at all what the problem was, and could not learn what the problem was, no matter how many times they told me.  Like I could not wrap my head around this.  It said “Come in anytime” and that's all I could think.

Like… I was pretty continuously being bounced around between minor psychiatric professionals from the time I was seven years old to the time I was finally diagnosed with autism at fourteen.  (If only that were the final end of the story.  I got undiagnosed and diagnosed with other things and then rediagnosed.  But at least I got diagnosed.)

And I never noticed that there was anything weird about the amount of shrinks I was being sent to.