Hello
I am someone with Autism but I have only just been diagnosed and this is my first post here. I have noticed this site is very complicated and confusing so I hope I have done everything correctly.
I am 16 and left school on Friday. I am hoping to go collage next year.
Now I know that I have autism not much has happened to help me. I have done research and learnt a lot about myself that I never knew and worked out why I have always felt different from everyone else.
One of the things I always do is to chew things. At the moment it is these rubber bracelets. No-one knows about it because I am too ashamed to tell them so I only ever do it when I am alone. It really helps me because if I do not chew then my mouth hurts sometimes-but if I chew too much my teeth hurt. I think it hurts if I do not chew because I am shy and do not talk very much at school so I do not use my mouth.
I have found these things online which are made in Canada and designed for children with sensory issues. Without trying to 'promote' them in any way because I do not know if this is allowed or not. Basically they are necklaces that have a rubber shape on the end for a child to chew or fidget with.
I think one of these sounds amazing.. I could wear it to collage and it would help me so much. But, the problem is that I would have to talk to someone about it (like my mum) and ask her to buy one for me.
Another problem is that if people picked on me for it. I have been bullied all my life so I am used to it, but it still scares me that new people will do it and I do not know why.
I am not trying to look like the best teenager around and I do not want to have friends, but I think that to do the best in collage I will need to join in with people sometimes and this will be hard anyway but made even harder if everyone thinks I am a baby.
Can I have some suggestions for what I should do about this please?
Amy
