Living with Neurodivergence

Before we went to Edinburgh we went to a small town called Tarbet. My dad had found a job there and there was some accomodation there. It was only a caravan and it was run down but I think he was promised something better. There was a hole in the ground of it that had to be covered up and I don’t think the cooking facilities were that good either as I remember eating a lot of chicken soup. I didn’t mind as I like chicken soup. There were a family that ran it  and we played with the kids sometimes. There was one day when a man who lived in one of the caravans in the field came over to me and started talking. He seemed nice and said he had kids. I don’t know what I was thinking as I knew not to go away with strangers but he seemed okay so I did. Next thing I knew I was sitting in his caravan. He gave me juice and biscuits and he was asking me about myself and school. I told him about my teacher and the way she was. I could tell he knew it was true. He went through to the next room to make a phonecall and the conversation I heard wasn’t quite right and he sounded different to what I had met. He was telling someone what he had here. Suddenly something felt a bit wrong and I heard someone say just leave. You can deal with the consequences later, so I did. I walked over to the door, which I didn’t know if it was locked or not but luckily it wasn’t. I went slowly down the steps to avoid tripping then once on the field I quickened up and got halfway over before he came out and said where are you going. I said I was leaving because he had lied about having children. He said he didn’t lie, they were grown up and said something about not being able to run from something. I didn’t really understand what he meant but he was coming towards me slowly so I turned and ran again and got to the main park, when I turned to look he had gone back inside. I took a while to tell my mum as I realised something was wrong. When I did she was sick then went to tell my dad who went bezerk and told the family. The guy offered to go over with him to his caravan but by the time they were on their way his car had pulled out of the driveway and was leaving. We got in the car and he went after him. I think we were leaving the place anyway as the job didn’t work out. We had to stop the car though as we almost crashed and there was a couple with some kids that stopped and helped. I was upset at what my dad was saying and they helped to calm things down. We ended up just going to my granny’s in Easthouses and stayed there for about 6 months. We moved in with my granny for a while, it wasn’t meant to be for 6 months. It was just until they found a place to stay but that turned out quite difficult to find. I had to share a room with my sister and my mum and dad had my brother in with them as he was still just a toddler. I knew I’d have to start the school there  but I don’t think it happened for a week or two so I got a little time off. We knew some kids in the area, two sets of twin girls that we used to play with when we visited and I had been in the school also for about 3 weeks when we were there a while. I can’t remember the reason but we were made to enrol somewhere, so I knew some kids from the school there and had made some friends but I was still nervous about starting and maybe they had forgot about me. In the end I was just looking forward to starting as all the other kids were in school and it was just like I had been there all the time. The two girls I had been friends with were still there and I just went about with them mostly. They didn’t live in the same houses as my granny but they lived locally and they were glad I was back. Sometimes I had to go about with some other girls as there were things going on already when I got to school but I usually ended up back with them. It was a nice school and there wasn’t much bullying as they tried to involve everyone equally in what was going on and I usually looked forward to going in. One day I was swinging back and forward in my seat and I’d been told not to do it but I couldn’t help it sometimes and I went back and hit my head against the unit. My friend took me to the nurse but I was fine and returned to class. There was a school disco I went to. I went along with the twins older sister who was a year above me but I just ended up dancing with the girls in my year. There was one girl who made a threatening gesture meaning you’re dead to me but no-one really knew her and my friend just said nobody really liked her anyway so I didn’t really care, and one of them warned her to leave me alone. I just went around with my friends but apart from that there wasn’t really anything else. One day at the weekend then older twins were having their paddling pool out as it was a nice day. I wanted to go along but when I put my costume on I felt fat and I didn’t want to walk along the street like that so I had a carry on about it for a while and I had to be convinced to go, which was even more embarrassing as I knew everyone knew about it by then. I eventually went along and had a nice time. There was another day we were making go carts out of old prams and board and I was pushing one and went flat on my face. It was badly scraped and cut and I was in a bit of shock. My granny put me to bed and got me some lucozade and I had some chicken soup later on. I was embarrassed going back into school because I had a scar hanging off my lip. I was told not to touch it but I just sat in class with my hand over my mouth. We were always told to stay away from the woods as there was some gangs that hung around there. We would go close sometimes but wouldn’t quite go in. My mum and dad had been to see a few places to live I think my dad had some agency work. I knew we would be moving into Edinburgh again at some point. They accepted one of the places they had been to see. I wasn’t even going to finish p6 there. I begged and begged that they would let me stay. I could stay with my granny and she had said that would be okay if I wanted to finish the year but my dad said no. I was devastated and cried for ages but There was a school camp they had in p6 and I really wanted to go. They were all talking about it and planning things. Because they had said no to me staying I think they had to agree I could go to that so I went into school with the good news and bad news! I told them I couldn’t stay for the rest of the year but I was allowed to go on the camp. We just decided we would have a really good time anyway. We went to somewhere up the north of Scotland. We were in cabins and I remember having a really good time telling scary stories to each other at night and we would sometimes knock on the boys cabins and run away but they came after us one day. We did a trip up a hill and I think there was some orienteering or something but I just remember having a good time around the campsite. It was something to remember them by as I wasn’t able to stay. I had my 10th birthday party at my other granny’s in Edinburgh by the meadows but she could only have so many people in her house so I just invited the friends on my street and one girl from school but she couldn’t come.

We moved into a flat in Edinburgh, it was close to the commonwealth pool and I liked swimming so that was a bonus. I started at the local primary school and got shown about by two girls all day. They seemed nice but I knew I was going to find different friends. That’s when I got speaking to a girl, she lived just up the road a bit and we became friends. She said the girls that showed me around were going to private high school, which I had nothing against but I knew I wasn’t. I still stayed friendly with them but made other friends. There were 3 or 4 girls I was friends with and we went to each others houses and things. Some of them I just met up with somewhere. Commonwealth pool was a good meeting place. We would sometimes go to Leith water world and things but one friend didn’t swim so we did different things together. we would sometimes go in the museum because there was some 3D interactive stuff there and then the cafe for a drink and a cake. The school was okay. There was a bit more on the curriculum than the last one but there were differences and there were some boys that made comments to us and would make fun of us from time to time. The teacher was nice though and we did some creative things like paper mache which I enjoyed. We did some group projects and things and we would have to do Scottish country dancing in the gym hall sometimes. There was one occasion where we were doing measurements and we were asked what would we measure water in. I put my hand up and said a measuring jug. I was convinced it was the right answer but it had the teacher laughing for quite some time but she said it was a good answer, just not the one she was looking for. There were some boys in the class that wouldn’t let that one go, even though the teacher found it funny. They would make make fun of some of my answers and sometimes I just didn’t bother giving one but I had my friends I went about with sometimes. There was a girl who was from Craig miller( a rougher part of the town) and she seemed to have a problem with me and would have a go at me for no reason or ask me what I was looking at and things. I just tried to ignore her.

When we started P7 there were some things we were supposed to do like tuck shop duty, litter picking duty and monitoring the younger ones in P1. I enjoyed the tuck shop because it made me feel good serving people and taking their money etc and I feel it gave me more confidence. I also enjoyed looking after the younger ones and there was a little girl there. She wasn’t quite 5 yet and had some problems being there all day. I used to look after her a bit and would quite often go and check on her even when I didn’t have to. I think it annoyed my friends a bit but I had to. There was a group I’d go about with a bit but I had some other friends. One was a little bit gothic and wore doc martins. It was different to me but we became friends. We would sometimes fall out though because she made comments that I felt were to make me look bad or put me down in some way but I quite often went to her house and she sometimes came to mine. She had a sleepover that one of my other friends came to aswell which was a good night but we drifted apart a bit and had one particular fall out that we couldn’t come back from and when she approached me to become friends again I mimicked her behind her back. She knew and walked away. I felt a little bit guilty but I had knew I had to make a decision who I was going into high school with. The girl I met early on was going to the same school and some others but some of my friends were going to different schools. I would sometimes wonder if people seen what had happened to me before with my teacher and the way she was. I knew it wasn’t normal but I felt like I had to keep acting that way. I’m not sure I had even processed it properly. I was okay with the friends I had but there were people in the class I really couldn’t be bothered with. It was a multi cultural school too and focused on that but to be honest some of them weren’t that nice and made some derogatory comments towards girls. There was an Asian girl who was really nice though and she became part of our group. I had an accident in the playground one day where I fell against one of the animal stools and hit my head. I was embarrassed more than anything because I had to go back into class to collect my bags but I had to be picked up later. There were some journalists that came to the school one day, it was to talk to us about bullying in schools. We all had a turn talking to them about some of the things that went on with some of the boys making fun of our answers in class. I think I got it quite bad but I don’t remember how much I revealed to them. I wasn’t in the main clip which was on the news but I was in the bit where we were all walking back into school and I’d turned away from the camera a bit but some of my family recognised me and we’re calling my mum to say they had seen me on the TV. We had an annual fete where we got the chance to do stalls and create things.  I did a stall with some other people. It was usually a good day. For P7 camp we went to Laganlia which was one of the places for school camps. We did things like orienteering and they had some entertainment for us at night. There was an obstacle course we did and zip slide into cold water. I did it but I had to get out fast as it took my breath away. The highlight of it though was our head teacher doing a robot dance for us on stage at night. Some of us had fallen out but that got us all talking again.

Before going to high school the same head teacher asked if I could come to his office. I thought I was in trouble for some reason but it was to discuss wether I was prepared for high school. The teachers had some concerns about my work and my organisational skills and keeping up with workload but he said the main problems people had in high school were social ones like difficulty making friends and he could see I had a few friends. He asked me how I felt about it and I said I didn’t want to be kept behind because my friends were going to high school. He said he didn’t think it was necessary but he had to talk to me anyway. Before we moved on our P7 teacher gave us all a gift of wallets and small purses with Chinese symbols on them. They had a small amount of cash in them as a token. It was quite nice as she had been a bit of a stricter teacher than the last one. We had a sports day aswell where I came 2nd in the running race against the 2nd lankiest guy in my year, beating the girl who usually came 2nd. I don’t know how I did it. I just felt something and put everything I had into it. It was close but I definitely came in 2nd as I remember my teacher cheering and the girl came over and said well done. She was one of the two girls who showed me around when I started so I was glad she wasn’t annoyed.