The challenge begins now, how do I write about this when the enemy's voice is asking, did this really happen to you, you were healed from, how dare you say it, autism! But the enemy's voice can be quiet because I am giving God the glory for the amazing thing he did for me.

My life started in my mum's womb, and later I learned that I wasn't expected to be there. But actually, I was supposed to be there! Finding out I wasn't planned wasn't a surprise, but it was tough to accept coming from my own mum 15 years ago, although I do admire her honesty today. Hmm, so we can discuss this later... I started in my mum's belly... I then had an easy pregnancy and birth, I was born at Macclesfield Hospital on February 1st, 1982.

My earliest memory was when I was around 4 years old I think, I remember sitting on the sofa and my family surrounding me, actually not sitting next to me and just hovering in front of or behind the sofa. It felt like I had been plonked in the middle of a dysfunctional family and I was in a world of my own. I used to think, why don't I connect with these people? Another memory is of me stroking my rabbit, I used to stroke Dandelion for hours and hours and just not get bored of that whilst my dad usually brushed past me on the garage step to go look to find a hammer or something. Another memory was of me being quite attached to my mother but not really liking the attachment. Like I felt quite needy toward her but didn't actually like her that much. I remember I didn't like it when she was in the kitchen washing up and left me in the living room to watch down at fraggle rock or something, it was a relief when she came in to do her ironing. So then, after a busy morning at nursery because I tired myself running around with ants in my pants (the play workers used to say), I slept for 3 hours in the afternoon to then wake up and have my tea, play dominos with dad or something and then sleep some more on the sofa till I was carried to bed because I asked to be carried to bed and didn't like being put to bed.

These memories are good ones but then soon I was to head to primary school and then some problems began, like feeling hurt for being told off for misbehaving, I remember snatching, telling lies and being hyperactive and in year 5 I was told off for that a lot and I felt devastated to know that was misbehaving and often cried about that and to make things worse I couldn't explain how I felt about that to anyone and kept all that feeling to myself. I remember that I was interested in learning but I didn't really lean that much. I wanted to achieve something I couldn't actually reach. I remember that feeling it was so annoying. I felt like I had tried so hard to do my maths but no one saw how hard I tried and then I was kind of disappointed with the feeling like no one said well done - for getting good scores in maths.  I remember returning to my maths weekly and to have to learn it all again or rely on my photographic memory to tell me the answers. Yes, it true I winged my education and managed to pull off that I didn't actually understand everything. I think this is why I kept on learning and trying to remember stuff and looked like a nerd but actually I wasn't one, just so I could train my brain to remember things. If I left learning I would not be able to survive it felt like. You know that feeling you get when the penny has dropped and you finally understand something and it means something to you. I never got that feeling, but I do now, like if I leaned about rivers and estuaries it meant nothing at school and for me it was just a picture of that, that's what I memorised, but now it means so much to me, now I can actually feel something, like that's amazing how all of our streams, lakes and rivers go into the sea and how I see that's how God intended for it to be so we can have access to water.

So having a photographic memory became problematic for me but back then I didn't know that this was the reason behind my problems. I became a person that was laughed at and put in the lower sets at primary school. We had a school with 2 classes in each year, there was a class for the clever pupils and the other classes was mixed with the year below. I was in the class with the others in the year below and it felt really uncomfortable because I always felt like I should be in the top class because of how hard I worked and wondered what was it that was holding me back, some kind of block it was, a block in me. Very frustrating you can't move on feeling and stuck in a rut feeling. Actually, it was a distressing feeling that I felt almost everyday in primary school, like what is this block, I felt like I was actually super clever because I could memorise all my work. Even writing, I wrote only by copying and didn't understand English at all, words just were words, if I tried to describe something then soon I would give up on writing the paragraph and carry on copying a meaningful paragraph from another book, so I was good at that, copying. Therefore, at primary school, towards the end, I only really enjoyed Art, my Art teacher absolutely adored me because I could copy so well and then I would love that because he often said wow, well done and showed my work to the assembly and then I felt some worth you know. It's funny because now I don't enjoy art at all and hate anything to do with copying.

The end of primary school crept up on me and then to my surprise my parents wanted me to attend the high school my sisters went to because my dad believed he wanted to instil some discipline in me. I was mortified because I had to break up from my best friend and other close friends but actually I got over that quite quickly but they didn't. I think it's because the love that I showed for my friends meant a lot to them and then when I left the group it was like a drastic thing. For me I cried for two days I think but that's it. I remember I had a feeling of hurt, a little bit of flesh present in me that soon turned into oh well, an ice cold heart that didn't care all that much about anything like no one can hurt me now type feeling.

I started my secondary school without my friends with me, I wondered how am I going to survive my first day but I did. My numbness of not feeling anything but emptiness about leaving them kicked in and that I suppose made me look lonely and so the other kids could feel sorry for me. I made a friend in my form and she had kittens, her cat just gave birth so I was intrigued. I absolutely loved fury animals, they were so cute and I still do. Coincidently my form landed in the art block so that was cool, easier to fit in I guess. 

Not being diagnosed with autism in my early teens meant that my classmates couldn't understand my unusual behaviours, and honestly, I wasn't even aware of them myself. I remember having certain rituals, like always wearing two pairs of tights because I thought my legs looked too thin. I also had this urge to arrive a bit late for registration, as if it was just built into me. In the school dining hall, I had to sit on a specific step, and if I didn't wear multiple rings on my fingers, even though they were against the rules, I felt completely overwhelmed. Wearing multiple rings on my fingers turned into a major issue for me, but I didn't realise it back then, and it still bothers me now. My teacher would often tell me, "Rachael, you can't wear those rings, take them off," so I complied. However, the next class, I would put them back on, not grasping that I would just get scolded in front of everyone again. This happened so often that the boys in class started calling me Dumb Ass for not understanding basic things. Since I didn't appear autistic the teachers never stepped in to help. They expected me to stand up for myself, but I couldn't. I was meant to see it as a joke, and I carried that label with me until I turned 16. In my high school, everyone treated each other poorly, and I ended up being mean too, calling people names just to fit in. Deep down, I realised this behaviour wasn't right, but I felt pressured to go along with it. As I got closer to my GCSEs, the name-calling escalated, and I even got pushed in the hallway because the other girls thought I was disrespectful for not making eye contact. The pushing escalated to a point where they suggested we meet after school to fight, which I wanted to avoid at all costs. I decided to be brave and confided in my mum, and to my surprise, she contacted the school and spoke to a safeguarding teacher. I felt a huge sense of relief because I never thought she would take such action for me, especially since we didn't always have the best relationship.

My mother contacted the safeguarding teacher regarding the incidents of bullying I experienced after school. I felt an immense sense of relief. I was present, anxiously listening to her phone call while nervously biting my nails in the same spot on her bed where she once comforted me during earaches. I experienced a profound sense of relief, as I felt less harsh due to a glimmer of hope that the bullying might cease while my mum was talking. As a result of my mum's telephone call, I became the leader of an anti-bullying group in school. However, this new role was not without its challenges as I started to feel over-protective about everyone that was bullied in school.