Life for me has been difficult, but I have learned so much. I know that there are things that I would wish for my next life. How about you?

My parents had no idea what was wrong with me, so they did what a lot of parents did back then: they tried to hide my problem, and they tried to make me fit in the 'normal" slot. All they achieved doing this was to keep me in perpetual confusion for a very long time.

My dad has passed, and there probably will be no reckoning with my mother. She is probably the reason that I have been living in the dark for so long. She never sat down with me, and said, "Hey, I know you are not normal, and I decided that I will just let you be who you are." She is normal, and so are my sisters, mostly. She was embarrassed by me, and confused by me.She wanted me out of the house when I turned 18 (and away from Dad), and that is all she ever wanted for me.

It was not until last year that a psychologist put a name to what had been wrong: autism. I might be what people would call, "highly functioning", but I really do not feel like I have functioned well throughout my life. I just wish somebody could have figured this out when I was younger. I jumped into the world too soon, and I have learned my lesson. The next life, I will leave to God to put me in the world. I wish I has been born later in this life. If I needed to be autistic, well then, the label would have been applied and maybe things would not have turned out so messy for everybody. A lot of people have been hurt because they did not have this information about me. Also, I am a good actress. I was taught to be ashamed of any of my abnormal behavior, so I developed a lively interior life to hide my frustration and pain.

But I am in a position to be of help to others now, and that is what I would wish to have now. I am helping Wade, who is also afflicted with this. We try very hard to cope with life, but life just is hard for us. Wade and I have endured a gross amount of hazing and bullying, and it is now hard to trust the world to be kind. The world will be kind if we ask for that, and expect that. But it is hard to maintain the head in a right place sometimes.

So: What do you wish for your next life? For my next life- well, I will not "jump" too soon ever again. (I am referring to my memory of heaven.) I wish to thank God for His great compensations to me to make up for the troubles.

Jai ♥