#cheezburger

My parents didn't take me to the doctor or replace my mattress for a year.

• Mum taught my siblings and I that autism is unnatural, and raised us on 'vaccines cause autism' and used this to bully and otherise me from my siblings. I grew up being left out of games and watching movies because I was an 'r-word' and 'too annoying', especially by my older brother, who apologised for his behaviour ten years ago and may also be autistic himself

She said things like 'You would've been a genius if the vaccine hadn't destroyed part of your brain'. She never let me go on merry-go-rounds as a kid because she convinced herself I had 'balance issues' and also once tried to convince herself that I had epilepsy (I don't)

• Mum would tell me that my younger siblings 'weren't vaccinated and they're all right' despite one of them being diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia

• Middle sister possibly bullied an autistic boy at her school. Where did she learn that from? It wasn't just because all her friends did

• Mum wanted me to be 'cured' of autism but also wanted me to come across as 'more disabled'. My older brother was allowed online girlfriends and to travel to big cities alone to meet these girlfriends in his teens. Middle sister was allowed to travel to London to meet her slightly overage white supremacist boyfriend at 14/15.

• But I wasn't allowed to go shopping by myself until 17. She said it was because I ran away when I was nine. She made me get rid of all my online friends at 18 because my new special interests scared her (I made a secret FB group for them and added them all back a year later). But she was always reading conspiracy theory books and looking at conspiracy theory websites, and in the last five years of her life, was always being racist on YouTube comment sections. She hysterically wailed when she saw I was talking about Gaddafi on FB. She made the ridiculous accusation that I was trying to buy and sell polonium because I was in a FB group about Libya, Syria and Iran news. News! Syria and Libya were huge news at the time. (She later blamed her outburst on menopause)

• She didn't want me having any interest in current affairs or politics at all. She told me off for looking at 'george bush funny' on Google Images at 14 and accused me of being a hacker, told me about Garry McKinnon to try and scare me, and implied I was going to go to prison for... looking at funny George Bush cartoons and memes.

• At 17, she also said I was going to get in trouble for looking at Gaddafi memes on Cheezburger and writing silly FB statuses about him. Why, was he going to personally hunt me down? He was a bit busy in summer 2011...

• Denying me opportunities to keep me stunted. She 'forgot' to fill in my work experience form at 15 and had the audacity to say 'The way you're overlooked is hideous'. She wouldn't let me go to prom because 'you would've cried all night' but she just didn't want to make the effort. And of course I wasn't allowed to go anywhere. She told me that after leaving college, she wanted me to help do jobs around the house. I only existed to serve her and she hated that I got grown-up special interests.

• Wanted me to be babyish and infantilised (but also 'cured'). She bought me a babies' picture book at 12 because 'she thought I'd like the pictures'. She bought me a High School Musical T-shirt for my 14th birthday when she knew I didn't like it (I was a Harry Potter girl back then... oh dear) and she wasn't happy that I never wore it. She also didn't get out of bed until 4pm on my 14th birthday! She didn't want me to shave, didn't let me use deodorant when older brother's room reeked of his deodorant...

• Threatening to put me in a special school for severely disabled kids when I was 15 and crying about not being popular.

• Recorded a meltdown at 11 and threatened to send it to a teacher at school

• Triggering meltdowns on purpose by saying horrible things or telling me, a week before my 17th birthday, that I wasn't getting the main present I wanted, a digital camera, because 'you'll just take blurry pictures of pigeons and seagulls'. You could get digital cameras quite cheaply from the supermarket back then. She got me a £1 bag of fudge instead.

At 16, my personal notebook went missing at school (likely stolen by my main bully just after I'd finally reported her). I had such a big meltdown that Mum said I was going to be 'one of those crazy people on the bus who talks to themselves'. Then she pretended to have a hunchback, shifted her eyes and went 'Muhmuhmuhmuhmuh, amuhmuhmuhmuhmuh.' Then she made me have a bath and held out a pair of her underwear on the landing (cheap packet underwear, it had a fern pattern on it). I often had to share underwear with her and middle sister and barely had any of my own until 17-18. I only had one bra that I liked from 15-18.

• Used my autism against me all the time - saying I was rude on holiday for asking what drinks the hotel had. Acting like I was inconsiderate because I didn't get her a snack cake from the kitchen when I didn't know she wanted one. Saying things like 'It's your condition that makes you feel like that'.

• Saying homophobic things and blaming my being autistic and 'not getting jokes' but she definitely wasn't joking

• Threatening to have me sectioned from age nine

• Threatening to have me forcefully medicated for talking about special interests too much

• Saying I was 'brainwashed' for wanting to shave, wanting nice bras, wanting a different type of shampoo, one time even just for mentioning Spider-Man

• Telling me that she wished she'd never told me I was autistic, because she felt I hadn't struggled enough in life

• Blaming my curvature of the spine and sciatica on weight gain. Telling me to try slimming drinks. Barking at me to try and walk straight. Saying I was faking it to 'try and move out' when she also yelled at me for not having moved out.

• Just two years ago, she publicly shamed me for being autistic and not very talkative and told younger sister not to be like me, then spoke very kindly to a young woman with a learning disability.

Younger sister and I had watched Dune: Part Two at the cinema. Three hours long. We met up with Mum and middle sister in a pub afterwards. We went to ASDA, and Mum and middle sister were talking to the cashier, who was explaining their loyalty app. Middle sister went to some bar and younger sister and I went to the bus station.

Mum said to me 'Why do people in your generation not make eye contact or talk to anyone? Not everyone in your generation can be autistic.' Then she said to younger sister: 'Never have any vaccines, otherwise you won't have any social skills.' What she was really doing was saying: Don't be like Kirsty, she's not normal and is tainted inside.

Younger sister said 'I don't have that many (social skills) anyway!' A lot of her friends are autistic.

Then a young woman came into the bus station and it was slightly obvious that she had some form of learning disability. She said she'd overslept because she was on some new seizure medication. And Mum was talking so kindly to her - asking abour her college course (something with horses) and I was so angry, but of course I couldn't show it.

And then there's the ableism towards others:

• We went on a day out and there was a woman in a wheelchair. She was friendly, was talking to us and let middle sister and I play with her dog. When she got off the train, Mum said 'I think she's putting it on a bit'

• When I was 16, she told me about a teenage boy with Down's Syndrome, who was in the supermarket with his mum. He evidently struggled with walking and talking, and Mum said it was because his mum had coddled him and 'hadn't tried hard enough to help him'. She didn't know these people! Even at 16, I was appalled, and knew she wanted me to grovel and say 'Thank you for trying to cure my autism' but I didn't say anything

• Shouting that a TV presenter in a wheelchair was faking it and saying she can't really be disabled if she's on TV