*DISCLAIMER- If you’re reading through my old posts, you’ll see that week 33 has been deleted. I’m not against identity first language like I once was*
Hi everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Happy Tuesday! For this weeks post, I’ll be reflecting on my grade school years. I wrote about kindergarten-senior year, (weeks 9, 11, 16, 18, 20, 24, 26, 28, and 30) but I didn’t really talk much about how I felt after all of these good and bad things happen, so for this post I’ll be talking about how my life changed after each grade if it did. Since I don’t want to make this post too long, I’m not going to write about every grade since I don’t feel like some of them shaped me into the person I am today. They were more like placeholders haha. So yeah, let’s get into it! 1st grade (week 9)- You’re probably thinking, why did Kailey pick 1st grade?! It was forever ago!! How does she remember so much of 1st grade? Well, I don’t remember that much of 1st grade, but I chose 1st grade as one of the years because this was the year I became ineligible for special education services at school. Although it was only temporary, a lot of my life changed after that. I no longer got any additional help other than meeting with a social worker once a week. 3rd grade (week 11)- You’re probably thinking the same thing about why I chose 3rd grade. I chose 3rd grade because that is the year I became eligible for special education services again. I started getting resource room support again. I didn’t have to get as much help as I did when I was younger, but I still got extra help, and accommodations. 6th grade (week 16)- This one should be pretty obvious if you read my 6th grade post. For a long time, I didn’t really think about 6th grade since it never came up in conversation, but I was supposed to do a presentation at a START conference that got cancelled twice. Once because of bad weather, and the other because of COVID. I made a presentation about my life on the spectrum, and I had to include my middle school years, so the 6th grade memories started to creep back up on me. For the longest time, I never realized how much the bullying affected me long term. This blog has helped me do lots of self reflecting, and I’ve learned so much about myself since I started it. Now that I look back at 6th grade, I realized how much the bullying did affect me. I completely changed my appearance, and the way I acted because of it, which I don’t regret because it made my life a lot easier. I don’t remember a lot of specific things people said to me, but I do remember how they made me feel. This past summer, I moved out of my childhood neighborhood. I thought I was going to miss it so much, but honestly, I don’t. It’s nice being away from the people who picked on me in grade school, and to have a fresh start. The only thing I really miss about it are my next-door neighbors who I didn’t start talking to until about a month or two before we moved out, and I majorly regret not talking to them sooner. I’m friends with them on Facebook now, but I hope I can see them in person again sometime. 9th grade (week 24)- This one should also be obvious if you read my 9th grade post, but it may not be as obvious as the 6th grade one (week 16). 9th grade taught me something big. It taught me that A LOT can change in a year! On the first day of 9th grade, I walked into school having married parents who loved eachother, and a zayde (grandpa) who was alive and didn’t have cancer. On the last day of school, I walked out having parents in the process of a divorce who didn’t love eachother anymore, and a deceased grandfather. When it went to camp in 2015 and 2016, I kept my letters, and SO much changed. In the 2015 letters, my parents used the word “we” a lot because they were doing stuff together. My nana signed her letters from nana and zayde. In 2016 my parents used the word “I” since they weren’t doing stuff together anymore. My nana signed her letters just from nana. At the time, it was super depressing to have this much change, but it’s been 5 years since this has all happened, so it’s my normal now. Not only that, I also went back to being into an ASD classroom since I wasn’t in one in middle school because the middle school I went to did not offer it. So I had to get re-used to the ASD classroom life, which was a difficult adjustment. 11th grade (week 28)- I feel like I changed so much as a person during 11th grade. I became more patient, and started treating people better. In March, I got in really big trouble at school from a staff member. She really whipped me into shape that day (figuratively, not literally), so I feel like I changed a lot since then. I started to do more of the things I love, and show leadership in peer to peer at school. I realized some things about myself that I haven’t before. Not to mention, I’m still in touch with this person! I’ve always admired the way she treats others around her. 12th grade (week 30) is an honorable mention because I feel like I changed that year too because I had to get ready for college, but I don’t think it’s as important as these since pretty much everyone changed after 12th grade for the same reason, so I’m keeping it at the top 5. I hope you all enjoyed this post, and I’ll see you next week, and I have a really informal post planned for you guys so stay tuned! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower
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Greetings friends! Welcome back to my blog! I hope you enjoyed my non autism post last week. So that means this weeks post is about autism! Yay! Let me know what you guys like better, autism or non autism related posts! I love hearing your input. It makes me a better writer, and I want to interact with my readers!
So this weeks autism post is about stimming. According to the dictionary, stimming is “behavior consisting of repetitive actions or movements of a type that may be displayed by people with developmental disorders, most typically autistic spectrum disorders; self stimulation”. Lots of people with autism use stimming as a coping mechanism. Some examples of stimming include hand-flapping, rocking, spinning around, or something as simple as pacing. Stimming is almost always the most obvious symptom of autism. Stimming behavior looks a little unusual at times, but it’s important for you to remember that there are also subtle forms of stimming such as biting your nails, tapping your pencils, or twirling you hair. If you have done any of these or something related to these, you’ve engaged in stimming. Don’t look at it as a bad thing. It’s normal for people to do these types of things. But people with autism might have more unusual stimming habits and that’s ok! The main difference of people with autism stimming and people without autism stimming are the type, quantity, and obviousness of the behavior. If you see someone biting there nails in public next to someone who is spinning around, you would definitely think one of these stims is more out of the ordinary than the other, and don’t deny it, you know which one it’ll be. All behaviors are technically stims, but most people think of stims as things that aren’t normal to do in public and are culturally unacceptable. For example, it’s somewhat acceptable to bite your nails and twirl your hair. I’m sure you’ve seen lots of people do it. However, it’s not really acceptable if you see an individual pacing around, flapping their hands. Light, and occasional rocking, is usually ok, but rocking one’s body back and forth counts as a stim. It’s really unfortunate that hand-flapping is less acceptable than biting nails, because they’re both stims. But in our society, they are treated differently. Some stims (that are mostly shown by people with autism) can scare some people or upset them. For instance, some people with autism stim by making loud noises that can sound terrifying. Some hit themselves, or bang their head against the wall. These kinds of stims are very concerning for obvious reasons. Especially since they can cause injuries. Why do people with autism stim? This behavior can occur because they’re excited, anxious, happy or stressed, since it feels comforting to them. It’s usually something that can’t be controlled in that moment. When times get tough, people with autism tend to stim for longer periods of time. People who don’t have autism do fine with controlling their stims in public, or engage in a hidden stim such as tapping your toes rather than rocking back and forth. However, people who do have autism may not be aware of how others are responding to their behavior. This especially occurs when an individual with autism has a hard time controlling their stims, and find it stressful to do so. There are many ways to manage stims, but I will not be covering that in this post since I don’t want to make it too long, even though I purposely made this post more longer than the others. I did this because i want all of you to have a different viewpoint when you see people with autism engaging in these types of behaviors. Instead of laughing at them, accept them for who they are. At the end of the day, we are all people, and we all stim! I’m attaching the article that educated me more on this topic, and it also addresses things I didn’t talk about. Thank you all so so much for reading, and I’ll see you all next week! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-stimming-in-autism-260034 Hey friends! Welcome back to my blog! This will be my last grade school post on my blog. I can’t believe I covered everything! I especially can’t believe I remembered so many things that happened each year. I didn’t even mention all of them, there’s so much more! I’m excited to be writing about this one, since it’s my most recent year of high school, and grade school in general (and always will be). This post will be extra long because so many fun things happened my senior year that are too good to not share! So let’s get started!
I walked into 12th grade with a positive attitude because of how much I changed for the better in 11th grade (week 28). I was especially excited because my online math days were finally over. I finally got to be in a regular math class, which felt great. I took a semester of Money Matters and a semester of Applied Personal Finances. I liked taking math classes that are actually beneficial to adulthood. Unlike Algebra and Geometry. I don’t need to know y=mx+b and the area of a circle for life skills. No offense math teachers, I’ve never liked math as you can probably tell lol. It’s nothing personal! 12th grade is when I had my first job. I’ve babysat a few times before that, but this was the first job I did work for. I worked for Mystic Kettle, which is a local kettle corn company. Peer to Peer always sold their kettle corn at conferences, and they loved how hard I worked and how much I sold, so they asked me to work for them, and without hesitations, I accepted the offer. Every Saturday for the fall season, I went to a cider mill and gave out samples of kettle corn for 5 hours. I was always exhausted at the end of the day. You may think giving out samples is easy, but it’s actually harder than it looks. I had to walk around all day and I asked the same people over and over again if they wanted a sample because I couldn’t remember who I asked for the life of me. There was a lady who even gave me a hug because I asked her so many times. It was a nice gesture, but I felt so embarrassed! I got involved in the drama program for a hot second in 12th grade. For the fall play, they were doing it on the book called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. This book is about a boy who has autism. The drama teacher wanted to portray this the best he could, so he went out of his way and got a panel together of ASD teachers, ASD parents, ASD siblings, and most importantly, people with ASD. I’m so lucky I was chosen for this. I got to put my specialties in place, and it felt really good that people were actually listening to me for once. Usually we are overlooked, but for this play, we weren’t. I know for a fact that the drama teacher, and the play cast learned a lot from the whole panel. Especially us. This was such an amazing experience and I’m so glad I got to be apart of it! Although, I wish I could change things because I didn’t know what ableism was then. (Week 15 bonus post). A week after the play debut, I turned 18. A legal adult. I started to do a bunch of adult stuff, like fill out endless amounts of forms for things such as disability benefits. I also got to get my nose pierced. I paid for it myself, but I doubt my parents would’ve let me before then. It hurt really bad, but I’m glad I did it. It adds a little sparkle to my face, and I like it a lot. Some extended relatives tried to talk me out of it when I posted on Facebook asking for piercing place recommendations. I’m glad I didn’t listen to them and did what I wanted. Fast forward two months. I was able to be a counselor at 5th grade camp. It was the most fun experience ever. I had the most amazing girls. They were all so sweet, and well behaved. I keep in touch with some of them through social media. I went to camp as a kid, and I liked experiencing the counselor side for once. My co counselor was amazing too. Her and I went to camp together as campers, so we did what our counselors did. I will never forget this experience, and my 5th grade campers, who are now in 7th grade. I missed a week of school for this. Even though I had a lot of catching up to do when I got back, it was all worth it! I got to go to California with my mom for spring break to see my cousins. I had such a fun time. We stayed at their house. They live in LA. You can see the Hollywood sign from their house! It was so cool! We even walked a few miles to the Griffith Observatory. They live in the same neighborhood as Ryan Gosling. I couldn’t see his house, but I saw all the bushes around it, and took a picture lol. Doing activities like these usually isn’t my cup of tea, but this was actually my favorite thing I did when I was there. There’s A LOT more that happened between spring break, and prom, but it gets personal for different reasons, so I’d rather keep it to myself. I share a lot with the world, but I do like to keep some of my life private. The opposite of junior year prom (week 28), senior year prom was a disaster. I didn’t feel confident at all. I was in a horrible place with my hair (if you know, you know). It was short, and I felt ugly. It was also a stressful night because my mom paid for the party bus my friends and I went on, so all of them and their moms kept on coming up to me at prom park asking me where my mom was so they could pay her their portion back. I had no idea since prom park is packed, and I was trying to walk around to get pictures with my other friends. I got so overwhelmed, and it threw me off for the rest of the night. I ended up spending most of that night crying, and making a huge fool of myself. Here comes the big event. Graduation. It was bittersweet to leave high school. I was excited to start a new chapter in my life, but at the same time I didn’t want to leave because I was going to miss so many people, and the memories I made. I was also really excited to “friend” my former teachers on social media once I graduated lol. A year ago, I’d say “I’d go back to high school in a heartbeat”, but now I wouldn’t go back to that time because I really like the place I’m at in my life now. I’m confident in my own skin, and I feel like I’m slowly changing the world one autism post at a time. I have moved on from the aspect of high school, and the building itself, but I will never forget the people I met. Those are the memories I cherish! *Disclaimer- just because you keep in touch with former high school mentors doesn’t mean you haven’t moved on from high school! Some people really need to get that through their heads!* I’m very lucky that I got a normal graduation and all night party to go with it. I’m so glad I graduated before the pandemic. I saw most of my classmates for the last time. Some of them I’ve been in school with as early as preschool, and now I go to never seeing them again. It’s still weird to me, but I hope all is well with everyone in my graduating class. Especially during times like this. As I stated in my 9th grade post (week 24), I wasn’t originally planning on posting about high school at all, but I decided to because I feel like I’ve changed so much since then. The way I carry myself, my interests, my work ethic, my confidence, and more! All in the best way possible! I honestly had no idea I could change this much just by leaving high school and going to college. Nothing new happened besides that. Well grade school, that’s a wrap! You read about 12 years of my life, and these were all just summaries! There was so much about each year that I didn’t include, and there’s a lot that I don’t even remember! I hope you all enjoyed my senior year post. I’ll see you all next week for an autism related topic you must have kindness, patience, and compassion for. Also, while I still have your attention, please checkout this article I was in for the Berkley Spectator. I may be an alumni, but I’ll never say no to helping someone out! Especially one of my cousins who I’ve grown close to recently. I spoke out about Sia’s new movie, Music. Check it out! https://berkleyspectator.com/1405/news/controversy-arises-over-sias-new-movie-music/?fbclid=IwAR1FFsXTXEp3iTZz7bwo7qPdklKzL7Wjcj36vcK6lkC_-Zrt9DvlWrN3WBA Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower |
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