Failed by the System

The Irish Government and department of education should acknowledge their failure for a lot of people like me and issue a much needed apology..

Life isn’t fair and I’m in a lot of emotional and psychological pain. I’m doing my best. I’m exhausted but God is my strength. I have handed everything that I’m struggling with and unable to forgive to Him because I’m not strong enough to carry it alone.

Some of my bullies in college and school never believed I was autistic when I told them. They still believed the stereotype the autistic people have a certain physical appearance. Perhaps they were confusing autism with down syndrome…

Yes, I was self diagnosed for a few years but a psychologist confirmed what I believed was likely true for me in October or November 2014 when I was 23 years old. I’m fairly certain I have more than one neurodevelopmental disorder and developmental delay but I don’t know what they are. I’m not sure I want to bother being diagnosed now that I’m in my mid 30s.

I’m beyond the years where any help would benefit me and because of this, I missed loads of developmental Milestones that the children being diagnosed today with these conditions receive the help for.

The first I ever even heard of autism I was 17 or 18 years old in secondary school in 2008/09. One of my teachers asked me if I was autistic and I said no because I didn’t know what it was.

I just thought I was offered the chance to drop Irish and do computers instead as a subject in 2004 by my  principal Ms Wyer and my Junior Irish teacher, Ms Kane because I was bad at the subject and didn’t understand it at all.

I never knew I had an intellectual disability and neither did my parents. Nobody really knew about these things in my generation or my parents generation because they weren’t talked about. Now, years later I have developed several mental health conditions from the after effects of being bullied right up through education.

I and many others, were failed by the Irish Government, education system and by “supposed friends” who the majority of them turned on me bar one of my childhood friends during a time I was severely cyber bullied and bullied in person by three different years of students in drama school inthis included two college tutors in 2013 who believed rumors about me being homophobic. I’ve never been homophobic, just so you know, sure when I was an LGBT ally for years since one of my friends came out as bisexual when we were in school and she was bullied really badly for years.

Please keep me in your prayers. I’m scared of what my future holds. So far life has been very challenged and difficult to navigate