"Confessional," A true account of me, Zoey Rae, and a slice of what life is like on the Autism Spectrum.
You know, life really kind of sucks sometimes. I know every teenager on the face of the Earth says that at some point. But it applies a little more, I think, to me than the average teen, seeing as I'm not your average teen.
The 'average teen' guide doesnt factor in the Autism Spectrum.
I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS - short for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified right before eighth grade. Thats why its called a spectrum, see, 'cause theres a lot of shades and hues, not just Autism or Aspbergers or whatever. Like, theres the kids in the Special Needs who cant hardly talk or are wheeled around in wheelchairs and their caretakers talk to them like three year olds.
Then theres people like me. The ones who are on the fringe of the social circles, outcast, that you cant really figure out why but they just look like weirdos. You cant tell if its their hair or their face shape or their intense stare(if they DO look at you) or their dislike of looking you in the eye. But you steer clear anyway. They obviously have no friends for a reason, right?
Actually, you are kind of right for thinking that.
Autistic kids like me usually dont make a ton of friends. Its hard for us to get close to people, whether it be from the dislike of being touched or the aversion to looking people in the eye. We tend to like to lock ourselves away from the big, wide world because sometimes, hey, we dont like the big wide world or the complications.
So, yeah, you wont see a whole ton of us in Drama Club or or Speech and Debate or anything that involves being onstage.
Another point - You probably have a pretty good handle on your emotions, right? I dont. I've got this problem with keeping my temper in check, and it's hurt me pretty bad when it's caused friction between a couple friends of my friends and me. But lets not go into that, at least one of them read this site and I'm sure she doesnt want to be blared onto DeviantArt. Suffice it to say, it put our friendship on rocky ground for a minute.
Or maybe thats just me thinking that. I suppose i cant speak for them.
I tend to lock myself into my art - The world is less scary in my corner with my Word documents or my tablet or my sketchpad. Even if I'm not that great of an artist, as you can see if you browse the rest of my gallery here, its what I like to do.
You're probably wondering why I'm putting this up here. The truth is, I've been afraid of telling my friends to their faces. I've been afraid they'd reject me and I'd be back to lonely old Zoey, the fatass weirdo in the corner with the bad grades and worse clothes, always with earbuds in her ears, which is who I was for the longest time until about sixth or seventh grade when I first met Mariah, and even at first I wasnt sure we even had a friendship - The popular kids were talking to her back then, she always says. Quite obviously, those same people thought less of me than dirt.
Every day is a learning experience for me. Every day, I'm trying to check my moves and make sure I'm doing it right. Every day, I learn new social rules along with the math lessons and science terms.
But my point is, I've been meaning to tell someone for a while. It's pretty hard though. Somewhere along the lines of coming out of the closet.
I'm hoping Kyra and Mariah will forgive me for not telling them all this earlier - Im sure Mariah will be pretty mad, and I dont know what Kyra will do. I'm just taking a leap of faith here, that my two best friends and all the other friends/acquaintances I know will be alright with me.
Ja Ne.












