My Activity Tracking
My tracker shows my steps for the 8 days of the challenge from 26th March to 2nd April. My goal progression shows all my steps including any I have done outside of the challenge days.
My Target: 80000 Steps
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Total
Goal Progression
Steps walked so far:
0 steps
My Target:
80,000 steps
0
Why am I doing this?
I’m a Black British Nigerian, aged 20, and I received a late diagnosis at 17.
Typically, we know how it is, perhaps not all but most ethnic parents don’t ‘believe’ in such things like autism or even mental heath issues. Which is crazy, because they also commonly have conditions such as high blood pressure, where you can’t necessarily see it or touch it (like autism), but you know there’s an issue due to the symptoms you have, due to how you feel within yourself. So to validate their own issues but not yours simply because they don’t understand and because your symptoms express themselves differently, is indeed hypocritical, disappointing and wilfully ignorant all at once.
Thus, my father spent my entire childhood & formative years labelling me lazy, a disappointment, spoilt, wasteful, saying I was making things up, saying that being British born had corrupted my mind and they were brainwashing me into behaving differently. He believes children should be seen (doing amazing because oh no, the community will gossip about us if it’s anything less than not even perfection, but what he wants us to do) and not heard. He didn’t believe in freedom of speech nor that someone younger than him can have a valid point. He also didn’t believe that he could ever be wrong about anything ever. A lot of ego with a built in God complex. And my God in heaven is not the kind to resort to violence when he doesn’t get his way. That’s what toddlers do. That’s what my father on earth did from when I was a young girl and still does today.
Age is not the catalyst for wisdom. Learning is. He said himself, ‘Why would I learn and evolve for the better? Learning is stupid, I have nothing more to learn.
Very elaborate wasn’t he lol.
I mention this not because I harbor personal hate, but because he is someone that had decided to make an enemy of me and my autistic nature. Putting aside the sensory nature of autism and functional thought processes, autism is like permanently being on a truth serum with a focus on morals, integrity, values and injustice. It’s like being born a freedom fighter lol. I have spoken up for myself and my rights against him from the age I learnt to speak. If the way I wash and stack the plates is really grinding your gears you think about that. Little autistic me just always washed the plates in a certain order, in my plate washing time, not taking up the tabletop space that others needed. Resorting to screaming matches and violence because I won’t allow you to place hands on me is not reasonable. Physical touch made me very uncomfortable and especially from people I deemed unsafe like my father. He believed he was my father he could do anything he liked, and that was in fact not the case. If someone outside behaved as he did and I reported it to the police, they’d be prosecuted each and every single time.
My mother on the other hand spent my childhood and formative years trying to mould me into someone I wasn’t. Constantly nitpicking at me, my belongings, complaining and comparing me to others. Til today she’d tell you she doesn’t know who I am, and that’s because she never accepted who I was. The ideal daughter she claims to know of only ever existed in her own mind. Projection is a dangerous thing.
My father proved to be her 4th child, not me.
Whilst my parents would claim to love me and have my best interests at heart, someone who truly loves you will listen when you speak, regardless of what they think. They will see the damage caused to you by their actions and take consideration. #EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE .They will see that shoving you into a mould that doesn’t fit isn’t the way, because 1. how they want you to be truly isn’t you so you’ll inevitably fail at it 2. you do the things they want you to and lose yourself through it all, and if they really love you they’d know the difference between you straight up slacking and you showing symptoms of long term depression.
Ironically enough, a lot of African parents work in the healthcare sector in the UK, mental health in particular. They have almost all had exposure to those with mental and/or physical differences.
So to come home and see your kid struggling and ignore the signs is indeed ignorant and naive. It is the equivalent of how previously researchers thought black women/black people were entirely different models of human, as opposed to white people.
My father in particular with his negative labelling on me was also in the running for local MP to make change for the local community here in the UK, he also did employment law and carried out a degree in psychology. On the outside such a charitable spirit he appears to be, and at home its behaviour, beliefs and takes that he’d never exhibit outside of the house. #EGO&VALIDATION
Whilst my parents claimed they didn’t believe in such things like autism & ADD, they had spent my entire childhood finding issue at my literal symptoms and assumed that I was just a terrible lazy child that went wrong somewhere as opposed to seeing if their youngest daughter was okay.
The harms of late diagnosis can be depression, low self esteem, little to no sense of self, a repressed spirit, social anxiety, loss of social skills, constantly living in survival mode. Feeling anxious fresh off the wake, always feeling like something or someone is coming to get you, a constant impending sense of doom. Let alone those who never were diagnosed and spent their life listening to those who were not having the same experience and lost themselves entirely.
A late diagnosis typically means a lot of trauma, in squashing yourself down to be someone else, or even in just trying to exist as yourself.
My mother was against a diagnosis because she didn’t want me to have a label. I always say, you don’t make apple juice with oranges, you use apples. A ‘label’ is not a negative thing. It lets you know that for one there is a difference. There is a word for apples and a word for oranges because they are not the same fruit, simple as.
For two, it lets you know that you may need different accommodations, different skill sets. Ie. PETROL cars will need PETROL and a DIESEL car will need DIESEL. If you put petrol in a diesel tank, it not only damages it but you can’t drive it either.
I saw a quote on tiktok and what a bar it was:
A diagnosis validates your experience, a diagnosis is not your whole identity.
You could be struggling with the loss of a friend or a parent and be quiet and withdrawn for a while. On the outside looking in, they’d label you as an unsociable and moody character. Whole time that’s not even the case, the only person that will know you and know the full truth about you is you.
So, if you feel like you can’t do things how everyone else does, if you feel different within yourself. Go get that diagnosis and validate yourself! Asking others what they think does very little, when they can’t see your thought processes, how your mind works, they can’t feel the overstimulation setting in, no one will ever truly know but you. And the proof is always in the pudding.
Whilst I was being gaslit and fighting for human rights at home, I was wasting away internally and failing at school. My reports always said I was excellent, intelligent, bright and creative. I had a passion for learning and could answer questions when asked so well, but for one reason or another I never seemed to pass written tests. Speaking assessments were always where I achieved the best grades, but we hardly had those. I didn’t have the right support at school, not until the autism assessment was complete. So I sat through multiple sets of mocks (covid era) and sat through my GCSEs with the utmost turmoil. I typically had panic attacks before most exams and sometimes after too. I studied and studied and studied but not knowing the right methods for my own mind, written assessments completely threw me off. The ways I found I could revise, with perhaps classical music or a show for impromptu body doubling were not ‘allowed’ by my father. Mind you the whole time, I had distant ‘relatives’ staying in my bedroom back to back.
This wasn’t always the case, from a young age I excelled greatly. I went through my key reading stages in reception all in a day. I remember they told me to stand with my hands out so they could present each and every certificate to me and pile them up. I went home with a faaaat stack of them. I was always on the top table for maths, I was exceptionally smart and excelled in creative writing. In year 3 my teacher didn’t believe I could read a novel in one day, I took the book out and returned it the next day. She questioned me thoroughly on the contents of the book as though I were lying. I had been reading novels for years, reading a book in one night wasn’t a challenge for me. I did extra curricular competitions and won.
I have truly always been advanced. I was able to take part in special sessions and excursions, I was a part of the Brilliant Club under the scholars programme. I also engaged in football and dance (jazz, ballet, tap) and achieved my medals and trophies. I was a smart and well rounded individual until at a point I was burnt out. I burnt out and struggled to keep my flame alive long enough to survive secondary school.
College was the worst for me. I went to a one of a kind academy, owned by the GLOBAL media company we see everywhere today, and opened officially by Prince Harry alongside the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. They taught practical topics and skill sets that weren’t taught in any other school in the UK.
What an opportunity it was, and it was something I was passionate about. I was burnt out but I showed up every day, on paper not a lot was completed but the knowledge in my mind remains invaluable.
They were made aware of my autism assessment but legally couldn’t give me the support I needed without the final diagnosis which I received at the end of the academic year.
So, I’m raising money for this charity because it’s important that even if your friends, your family, your school are unable to help. At least there’s a charity where you are the focus, where the first step isn’t to doubt or invalidate you but actually to provide help. Convincing others you need help isn’t a job we should be taking on. While some may actually be supportive, being autistic and existing everyday is a battle in itself already.
We aren’t war generals, we are just people with slightly different brain structures.
And being a black British autist is such a challenge but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I fought, I conquered and I speak for those that are doing the same.
Any donation big or small is greatly appreciated❤️
