Читать книгу M is for Autism - The Students of Limpsfield Grange School - Страница 12

Tuesday 4.00pm

So I go and see a counsellor every Tuesday after school, at 4.00. My grandma pays for me to go. She said she wanted to help. She wants me to be a happy, carefree girl… So do I. So I agreed to go.

The counsellor’s room has powder blue coloured walls and a white ceiling and she is always calm. She is called Fiona. I didn’t talk for the first few weeks. It was all very overwhelming. The counsellor sat opposite me on a comfy, beige, chair and said it was OK if I didn’t want to talk but she was providing a safe place for me to express my feelings and to sort things out that confuse me, when I am ready. A safe place. I liked that, so after a few weeks I realised that she was always in the same seat and was always waiting for me at 4.00 on Tuesdays and I liked this, so I spoke. I asked,

“Why am I the problem? Isn’t the dinner lady, the whispering girls and Miss Haynes – aren’t they the problem?”

There was a silence in the powder blue room.

(I now call it the COUNSELLOR SILENCE; she does this sometimes when she wants me to think about things.)

“How lovely to hear your voice M,” she said. “And yes, you are right, well worked out, you are not a problem.”

And after a few more weeks I realised that she believed everything I said. She believed me when I told her about my anxiety and not understanding people. So I talked about more things and when she asked about my name I told her about the spelling test day and how I chose my name, and she said I’m trying to take control of my life and my identity. She’s probably right. She also said it’s very honest of me to call myself a name that really represents me and my feelings.

But to be honest, she doesn’t know the half of it.