So where were we? Oh yes! The "learn all about the sea" time of my life! Around that time our teacher at school had an interesting habit: he would ask as to bring whatever information we could, from encyclopaedias (internet use wasn't that common around then- it was around the time where internet connection costed as much as long distance phone calls and phone companies hadn't started their offers), to read to the class. It was my favourite thing to do. I would sit every chance I got, I would search anything related in the encyclopaedia and I would sit down and copy any information I could, to read it to the class. But mostly, because it was freaking interesting. My fascination about the sea lasted a while, only to be replaced by all the info on the human body.
Recently my mum and I found my primary school yearbook at the back of a cupboard. At the question "What do you want to do when you grow up?" I had answered: "I want to be a teacher, because I like kids. But also I want to be a neurologist, because I am fascinated by the human brain!" 6-7 years later, I ended up in a course that had a bit of both: and the lectures I never missed (and still remember by heart) were those that had to do with the brain and the neurons. And they say you never know what you want to be as a child... 12 years after that time and I am still fascinated by the same two things: children/children's development and the human brain.
My adolescent years were dark. Very dark. Productive learning and information storing were substituted by the stress of never feeling and the confusing realisation that talking insessively about what interests you to your peers is not considered "cool" anymore. But I couldn't think about stuff and not talk about them, it was just impossible, I wouldn't control the compulsion. So I stopped thinking about stuff. I stopped thinking about anything that interested me. Sure, I would still develop fascinations for a short period of time (like astronomy for example) but my brain would soon switch to "copying mode" which, to put it simply, was the order "don't talk, just nod" and every will to live, along with the excitement that the thought of new knowledge would give me, would go away. And I would cry myself to sleep every night.
I think that the only serene places, apart from my home, that made any sense to me at the time were my afternoon language courses. Foreign languages and other cultures were a fascination of mine, one that was early picked up by my mother and reinforced as much as possible. I started learning English (of course my mother tongue is Greek) at the age of 8 and French at the age of 11. Soon my parents realised that group courses just weren't my thing and eventually there was a slow transport to one-to-one lessons. Those lessons were probably the happiest non-family related memories of my childhood. I was very good at "listening" because I can pick up accents and words by ear very easily. To my mind it's not that very different process with the echolalia traditionally linked to autism because I wouldn't, necessarily, understand what I heard. I could just identify similar sounds that happened to be words and hence I was good at "listening". Even now, if asked, I can tell you the lyrics of a respectable number of Japanese songs, without necessarily knowing what every phrase means. I never took a Japanese lesson in my life, yet I was able to decode a number of phrases and words and even use them in a new concept/in new combinations just because I've watched a ton of anime and hear their theme songs in a loop everywhere I am. That's just how my brain works.
Anyway, another thing that I learned at school, and not the easy way, was that I was different. That slowly, but steadily, developped to a never-loudly-admitted fascination by anything/anybody that was different or a specific sub-cultural group. Muslims. Immigrants. Metalheads. People with special needs. I slowly became obsessed to find the patterns according to which people identified difference. Even more so, because I didn't fit any of them! I wasn't a muslim, I wasn't an immigrant, I wasn't a metalhead (yet) and I didn't have special needs (or did I?) so why on earth did I stand out so much? My logic was getting me nowhere: and the only logical explanation was that I didn't have the necessary information to answer the question, which tormented all my being. But I needed that answer!!!! So I slowly convinced myself that it was of the next best thing: I was different because I was a priest's daughter. And I needed an identity SO MUCH that that realisation soon became my whole being. I TRIED to become my own false thought process. But that's again another blog post by itself.
Around fifteen I decided to become a psychologist for people with special needs. I have no idea why I decided that, I have no idea how it came to me all I know is that at the time I told myself that it was divine inspiration, because the thought came to me at church and I used to translate religion rules very literally. And I was told that nobody can understand divine inspiration (plus I was too depressed to try) so I accepted it. God wanted me to engage with people with special needs. So be it.
I don't want to get too much into detail at what happened during the next three years because it was a quite dark and painful time for me, even more than those before them. All I am going to say is that this realisation lead me into choosing the appropriate "direction" in high school that would lead me to it, half the way I forgot it and I thought I wanted to become a lawyer because they told me to aim for the highest school and that was the highest one but then I gave my national exams. And I am not going to get into detail about how the Greek ranking system works, but I didn't have the grades to get into law school (by default even, which was even more frustrated) so I got kind of lost....
After dealing with (some of) the stress and the frustration of not having the perfect score, I had a quiet talk with myself on what on earth was I going to do next. And whilst helping a friend make their choice of schools, it came to me: "Department of special educational needs". I remember that after that my brain stopped for a while. It just did. And suddenly everything went back in place. I hadn't felt that kind of serenity in years! I remember that after looking at the universities my friend and I watched a movie. I still remember it was a Jenniffer Garner one, but I have no idea which or what happened. All my mind could think about during the whole thing was "Department of special educational needs". After my friend left, I went in the kitchen and announced it to my startled and shocked parents. For them, it came out of nowhere. I had NEVER mentioned it before. I didn't even know that the freaking thing existed until a week before then!
After my really convincing and mature arguments (if you don't let me go there I am going to leave, go study by myself and never talk to you again) my parents agreed to let me go. It's not that they didn't want to in the first place, I think it was the fact that I had NEVER mentioned it before that had them so confused as to my sudden decisiveness! I never regretted that choice and I don't think I EVER will. It was the smartest decision I even made. During my first semester, I found out about this volunteering program with children with "autism". "Autism?" What is autism? Yes, I had no idea what autism was. I had to turn 18 and enroll in a special educational needs course to even hear the word "autism". I decided to enroll to the program simply because autism was going to be in my curriculum the following years and it would be nice to know what we were going to talk about in advance. Soon after, I met my first-ever child with autism: a 10-year-old girl with non-verbal "low-fuctioning" (have I told you I hate that term????) autism. But hey, that's probably another post by itself!!! :)
Recently my mum and I found my primary school yearbook at the back of a cupboard. At the question "What do you want to do when you grow up?" I had answered: "I want to be a teacher, because I like kids. But also I want to be a neurologist, because I am fascinated by the human brain!" 6-7 years later, I ended up in a course that had a bit of both: and the lectures I never missed (and still remember by heart) were those that had to do with the brain and the neurons. And they say you never know what you want to be as a child... 12 years after that time and I am still fascinated by the same two things: children/children's development and the human brain.
My adolescent years were dark. Very dark. Productive learning and information storing were substituted by the stress of never feeling and the confusing realisation that talking insessively about what interests you to your peers is not considered "cool" anymore. But I couldn't think about stuff and not talk about them, it was just impossible, I wouldn't control the compulsion. So I stopped thinking about stuff. I stopped thinking about anything that interested me. Sure, I would still develop fascinations for a short period of time (like astronomy for example) but my brain would soon switch to "copying mode" which, to put it simply, was the order "don't talk, just nod" and every will to live, along with the excitement that the thought of new knowledge would give me, would go away. And I would cry myself to sleep every night.
I think that the only serene places, apart from my home, that made any sense to me at the time were my afternoon language courses. Foreign languages and other cultures were a fascination of mine, one that was early picked up by my mother and reinforced as much as possible. I started learning English (of course my mother tongue is Greek) at the age of 8 and French at the age of 11. Soon my parents realised that group courses just weren't my thing and eventually there was a slow transport to one-to-one lessons. Those lessons were probably the happiest non-family related memories of my childhood. I was very good at "listening" because I can pick up accents and words by ear very easily. To my mind it's not that very different process with the echolalia traditionally linked to autism because I wouldn't, necessarily, understand what I heard. I could just identify similar sounds that happened to be words and hence I was good at "listening". Even now, if asked, I can tell you the lyrics of a respectable number of Japanese songs, without necessarily knowing what every phrase means. I never took a Japanese lesson in my life, yet I was able to decode a number of phrases and words and even use them in a new concept/in new combinations just because I've watched a ton of anime and hear their theme songs in a loop everywhere I am. That's just how my brain works.
Anyway, another thing that I learned at school, and not the easy way, was that I was different. That slowly, but steadily, developped to a never-loudly-admitted fascination by anything/anybody that was different or a specific sub-cultural group. Muslims. Immigrants. Metalheads. People with special needs. I slowly became obsessed to find the patterns according to which people identified difference. Even more so, because I didn't fit any of them! I wasn't a muslim, I wasn't an immigrant, I wasn't a metalhead (yet) and I didn't have special needs (or did I?) so why on earth did I stand out so much? My logic was getting me nowhere: and the only logical explanation was that I didn't have the necessary information to answer the question, which tormented all my being. But I needed that answer!!!! So I slowly convinced myself that it was of the next best thing: I was different because I was a priest's daughter. And I needed an identity SO MUCH that that realisation soon became my whole being. I TRIED to become my own false thought process. But that's again another blog post by itself.
Around fifteen I decided to become a psychologist for people with special needs. I have no idea why I decided that, I have no idea how it came to me all I know is that at the time I told myself that it was divine inspiration, because the thought came to me at church and I used to translate religion rules very literally. And I was told that nobody can understand divine inspiration (plus I was too depressed to try) so I accepted it. God wanted me to engage with people with special needs. So be it.
I don't want to get too much into detail at what happened during the next three years because it was a quite dark and painful time for me, even more than those before them. All I am going to say is that this realisation lead me into choosing the appropriate "direction" in high school that would lead me to it, half the way I forgot it and I thought I wanted to become a lawyer because they told me to aim for the highest school and that was the highest one but then I gave my national exams. And I am not going to get into detail about how the Greek ranking system works, but I didn't have the grades to get into law school (by default even, which was even more frustrated) so I got kind of lost....
After dealing with (some of) the stress and the frustration of not having the perfect score, I had a quiet talk with myself on what on earth was I going to do next. And whilst helping a friend make their choice of schools, it came to me: "Department of special educational needs". I remember that after that my brain stopped for a while. It just did. And suddenly everything went back in place. I hadn't felt that kind of serenity in years! I remember that after looking at the universities my friend and I watched a movie. I still remember it was a Jenniffer Garner one, but I have no idea which or what happened. All my mind could think about during the whole thing was "Department of special educational needs". After my friend left, I went in the kitchen and announced it to my startled and shocked parents. For them, it came out of nowhere. I had NEVER mentioned it before. I didn't even know that the freaking thing existed until a week before then!
After my really convincing and mature arguments (if you don't let me go there I am going to leave, go study by myself and never talk to you again) my parents agreed to let me go. It's not that they didn't want to in the first place, I think it was the fact that I had NEVER mentioned it before that had them so confused as to my sudden decisiveness! I never regretted that choice and I don't think I EVER will. It was the smartest decision I even made. During my first semester, I found out about this volunteering program with children with "autism". "Autism?" What is autism? Yes, I had no idea what autism was. I had to turn 18 and enroll in a special educational needs course to even hear the word "autism". I decided to enroll to the program simply because autism was going to be in my curriculum the following years and it would be nice to know what we were going to talk about in advance. Soon after, I met my first-ever child with autism: a 10-year-old girl with non-verbal "low-fuctioning" (have I told you I hate that term????) autism. But hey, that's probably another post by itself!!! :)
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