Loveday Writing

NOT TICKING THE RIGHT BOXES

I’ve never been someone who has ticked the right boxes in life. I’ve always joined into certain fashion and technological trends later than everyone else and I’ve always achieved certain milestones at an older age than most people such as; getting my licence, getting a job and experiencing my first relationship.

But the best example in my life of when I have defied expectations and challenged authority is when I proved some sort of mental health and apparently childhood experts wrong after they diagnosed me with a mild intellectual disability because I apparently didn’t tick the right boxes and didn’t abide by authority—I am aware that there would be more to it than that, but I think that’s pretty much the size of it.

My parents were told that due to this apparent mild intellectual disability, I would be in “special” classes for my entire school life (K—12), I wouldn’t go to university and I wouldn’t amount to anything more than basic life skills. Being a six year old, I had no idea why I was in a class of six people which included a deaf girl and four other people who seemed to be a bit slower than me, nevertheless, it was the best year of my school life as I got to learn sign language and due to the small size, my classmates became my best friends. Also on occasion, I did get to socialise and spend time in the “normal” classes with the “normal” kids. Over the course of my year in kindergarten, I became fluent in sign language and I learnt how to use computers with ease. Because of this, the teachers at my school told my parents that they thought they might have been wrong about me.

Well, as a matter of fact they were. I was in “normal” classes from year one onwards, got decent marks in my final exams in my HSC, worked full-time for a year and was offered a double degree; Bachelor of Creative Arts-Bachelor of Journalism at the University of Wollongong, which I am still completing, I will be graduating next year.

While I am aware that intellectual disorders—mild or otherwise do exist and should be taken seriously, I was misdiagnosed as I didn’t tick the right boxes or do things the right way and proving that being different doesn’t equal not being “normal” was the way that I defied expectations and challenged authority.