Living with Neurodivergence

When I left school in 1997 with no qualifications I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was just sitting about the house or pacing back and forth going over everything and all the bullying and name calling in school. I was comfort eating and gaining weight from the stress and excessive hand washing to deal with things as i had not had any support from staff at the time and I did approach them once when it got particularly bad and I had boys shouting abuse at me and sometimes sexual comments across the road. A friend at the time told me I had to go and see staff but they just said I could sit in the office for a while if I wanted to. I just declined. Eventually I got a position with training for care and a placement in a nursing home at first, which I wasn’t that happy about as I wanted to work with kids but we had to try both. I got placed at a nursing home close by which was fine at first but it all started going wrong and other staff members making snidey comments and leaving me standing about with nothing to do. I just remember trying to pass the time away by walking slowly along the coridoor and making trips to the toilet, sometimes to wash my hands again. The whole thing increased my stress levels and I started going out quite a bit at the weekends and drinking. One day I decided I wasn’t going in there anymore so I got dressed in my overalls as usual and pretended I was going in as I had to have a job to live under my parents roof, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in so I just sat on a bench and stared into space for what felt like hours trying to come up with something else but I eventually just went home and faced the music. I got another placement working with kids which was better and I enjoyed that one but I couldn’t really finish the programme as I was drinking quite a bit by this point and not functioning right which I now know was partly to do with dyspraxia and problems with coordination and perception. I got enrolled in another on the job training programme in a nursery but there were some problems there and although i loved the kids I couldn’t stay there long either. I put it all down to the excessive bullying in school and having no support with my learning conditions.