Name: Amy Scholefield
Age: 21
Religion: Wiccan
Star Sign: Libra
Chinese Year: Monkey
Occupation: Student
Location: Northampton England

History:
I was born in 1992 and lived in a pretty poor estate called Kings Heath until I was 12. I really hated it there, between the aggressive Staffordshire bull terriers everyone had, the screaming babies, underage mums, domestic arguments, uncontrollable kids smashing bottles at the house etc. and the lowest collective I.Q of anywhere I’ve ever been to, I’m whole heartily grateful to have left and never gone back.

I went to Kings Heath Lower School and so began the downward spiral of my school life. Unbeknownst to everyone until I was 16, I have Autism and it immediately singled me out as socially inept, a ‘weirdo’ and an easy target for bullying from the ghetto kids of the estate. As anyone who’s ever been bullied will tell you, the bullies seldom ever got punished and yet when you retaliate instead of oh say… having your head shoved against a brick wall, you are the one who is punished. This is something that can just make someone crawl with rage, or depression and yet so many teachers, if not all, do it. My conclusion is that they just can’t be bothered to deal with them. I quite often had bruises on my legs and until my mum held me back a day and photographed them all, the school didn’t do anything. However as schools always do they watched me like a Hawk and took me seriously for about a week, until they went back to ignoring me.

I didn’t have any friends and kept to myself and my imaginary fantasy worlds, as girls with Autism are prone to do. I found Maths really hard to do and understand, but I excelled at Art and History and I spent a lot of time with my Granddad Colin, who taught me about plants, animals, WW1, WW2 and my favourite… Dinosaurs! My Autism means I have intense interest and an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of subjects I’m interested in. This unfortunately left me very frustrated when I only had contact with my Mum and her friends, who were more interested in TV soaps and so and so’s new baby than all the things I knew and wanted to talk about. My Mum often told me off for ‘nattering on’ to people who ‘weren’t interested’, it was quite a few years before I was finally able to talk with like-minded people.

I was however, given something to hang on to when in 1999 a cute little electric mouse aired on British TV. Honestly Pokémon changed my life, it introduced me to Anime and lead me to where I am now. My Dad who is a classic nerd who played Dungeons and Dragons when he was my age encouraged me a lot, buying me a Gameboy Colour and Pokémon Red and Yellow as my first games. He raised me on films like Legend, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Princess Bride and was happy to see his little nerd daughter blossom into her own. My Mum on the other hand being a typical girl of the 80s… was confused by it all. And when I say typical girl of the 80s I mean it, stacks of shoes she only wears once, hidden hoards of make-up she hardly ever uses and dragging me around town every other Saturday, clothes shopping. Oh Joy.

More to Come!