Forum Thread

*Please no posting here*

Hello, I'm Bethany, I'm a 22 year old young adult female. I have high spectrum autism, ADHD, ADD, Neurofibromatosis type 1(NF 1), anxiety, depression, arthritis and some other disabilities and health issues. Because of my NF, tumor growth is quite normal for me and I'll be living with chronic pain my entire life because of this.

I've never really had a 'normal' life, I've gone through countless surgeries and long hospital stays my entire life.
I was born in Bangkok, Thailand while my parents were missionaries in both Thailand and Cambodia; and they had no plans to return to the states until after I was born. Because of my health we all had to move to Washington so I could be near a good hospital that could deal with what I needed.

I've had a handful of near death experiences, one was when I wasn't even six months old, another two was when I was in grade school and the most recent one was a couple years back when I was 18. I wasn't able to graduate senior year because I had to spend nearly a month in the hospital, the first week going in and out of something similar to a coma.

I was thankfully able to earn my high school diploma through a transition program as the school I didn't graduate from wouldn't allow me to return to retake 12th grade(and yet they allowed another student who failed to reach even more requirements to graduate walk with our class and give an entire graduating speech; as well as giving her a special page in the year book only people who actually graduated were able to receive while removing me from the yearbook entirely.)

The previous years of school weren't any better, I had one friend in school who ended up stabbing me in the back, publicly telling me she was ditching me so she could join the popular crowd. I had about three other friends, two went to different schools and one was two grades older than me so after I entered forth grade and she went to middle school we never really saw each other much.

When I entered eighth grade I transferred to a private school for people with learning disabilities, which actually turned out to be worse. The only reason I stayed was because I was able to understand things teachers tried to teach me. Everything else was horrible, only a few teachers, most if whom retired over my years of going to that school, were understanding and went out of their way to help me. The other teachers always looked down on me and wouldn't really listen if I had problems they should of helped with.


*This is still a work in progress*

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