TCNJ

13 Prairie WINTER 2025 ADAM MASTOON "Because that could explain a lot." Global developmental delay is a diagnosis given to young children who are behind in reaching the expected social, academic, or motor milestones. Apparently, it's fairly common for individuals with GDD to catch up in some areas while continuing to need help in other areas. If people with autism are marching to a different beat, then people with GDD are simply marching at a slower pace. "I know you're already diagnosed with autism, but if you qualify for global developmental delay, then that diagnosis would replace the autism diagnosis." She said it like it was something I could ask for and receive, like a tretinoin prescription. I reminded her that I had been diagnosed with autism by at least three separate doctors and that fighting it felt like a waste of time. "The good news is," she said, "An autism diagnosis can get you a lot of resources." " This has been my reality since I was a teenager: I carry this label, this diagnosis, which so many people would readily accept as self-explanatory if not redundant, but which feels confusing and ever so misleading from where I sit." [There was a] day in ninth grade when I pretty much begged my doctor to undiagnose me. But I didn't walk out of the clinic with a wild story like I had hoped. There was no climactic plot twist, bombshell revelation, or a Daily Mail article written about me ("It's not the same," says 15-year-old girl misdiagnosed with autism). Just the doctor telling me that all the records checked out and that no further steps were required. One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou, who said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Isn't that true? According to a recent TikTok trend, this is my Roman Empire [a phrase that refers to something one thinks about often]. And you know what they say about Rome. I embarked on this journey to write a memoir over a year ago, as part of TCNJ's Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience program. I was paired with a faculty mentor, received a grant and a salary, and made new friends. All my other memoir-ly endeavors had felt like one step forward, two steps back, and this project was no exception. But I couldn't look back, no, not now. I worked like a maniac. I would stay up past midnight sipping an ungodly concoction of condensed milk, protein shake, and Ovaltine. My head hurt from staring at the screen all day and my fingers ached from all the typing. I learned that I could convert exhaustion into fuel by pretending I was freaking Alexander Supertramp writing his last words. And yet, when the program ended, I had written only two out of the eight chapters I'd planned to publish. I resumed working on my manuscript in early 2024. Seeing how far you've come is a double-edged sword, isn't it? It shows that with hard work, anything is within reach. On the flip side, you can also see all the flaws in your old stuff that you didn't notice before. You will cringe. And you start to wonder if you'll someday feel that way about what you're trying to do now. But I knew that any flaws in my writing couldn't possibly embarrass me any more than the fortress of chaos, dysfunction, and manufactured crisis I'd built to avoid the profound isolation of my disability. And when it all came crashing down, I was still living in the shadows of a diagnosis other people imposed on me, slipping in and out of the cracks nobody seemed to notice. Or care about. I had to transform my alienation before it transformed me. It was time to write. ■ Asaka Watanabe Park '25 wrote the memoir, #TechnicallyAutistic. "My Roman Empire" was excerpted from Chapter One, "Lessons from the Periphery, where I talk about the diagnosis that never quite fit and how it changed my life." Sadly, Park passed away on September 29, 2024, from a compli- cation from Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare condition that makes arteries and organs prone to tear. "I, for one, wanted to become a magazine writer," she once wrote. A contributor to TCNJ's student newspaper, The Signal, and a member of Breaking Down Barriers, a disability awareness and inclusion club, Park was a passionate advocate for people with differences. To read her full memoir, please visit asakamae.com.

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