As an autistic person, I experience echolalia, which is a meaningless repetition of words just spoken by another person, occurring as a symptom of mental conditions. This is something that I experience quite often and while I do not do it outside of my home, it is something that I have struggled with for a long time and as such what was being repeated to heart. However, I now understand that I need to see past the scripting that I do and focus my energy elsewhere.

Over the past few years, I have experienced echolalia of phrases or actions that I wanted to say to others as a result of relieving problems that I was facing. It was having feelings without the ability to understand or process them while fully understanding that they are just words and not things that are to be taken seriously and hurt me. They are a part of being autistic and as much as it was taking me down it was because I was unwilling to address the things that I needed to in order to cope with the challenges that they bring.

It doesn’t make me any less of a person. It is just who I am ans that is the way that it is. It is choosing not to take the things that are being scripted within my safe space seriously understanding that it’s the makeup of being autistic. It was only challenging in the past because until things changed for the better and I allowed myself to see that they were better for me that I could actually breathe and not take the scripts that I was led to believe were a cry for attention but rather a traumatic response to things that have happened in the past.

Many things have happened in the past and for that I also have to learn to let them go and not get to me. Sometimes we all have to have a reminder that was then and this is now. It is finding new ways to work around what I find is challenging for me and finding new ways to cope with things that are in an environment that is not always conducive to my well-being. Part of what has been a crucial part of my understanding is being fully adherent to my medication regimen, understanding that all of my medications are a necessary tool to allow me to live my best life.

There have been many things that I have repeatedly said that have gotten me into trouble growing up, but as I became more aware of them, I was able to explain them and as a result things were done to ensure that I was not triggered by certain things until they did not exist anymore. Accepting that scripting is a part of being autistic allows me to move forward from what has been holding me back for a long time because I allowed to be, but I move past it not only because I am more mentally well, but also because I have more potential than being stuck with thoughts that no longer have any credible use to me.