Four Days, Three Nights on Bell Peak North: My Story

Described for more than seventy years as shy, backward, dumb, destructive, strange, inconsiderate, argumentative, and numerous other superlatives, after proving through DNA that his father was, in fact, his biological father, removing that doubt from his mind, the author underwent an online test to confirm that he is autistic, present in his immediate family, which explains why he is different to nine siblings and mainstream society. This is the story of how a neurodivergent through masking, overcame internalized ableism, selective mutism, hypersensitivity, eye contact, autistic burnouts, socializing and communication difficulties, to serve as a Soldier, Police Officer, and Aviation Protection Officer over fifty-three years. During those years, the author was subjected not only to a wall-of-silence for an alleged wrongdoing, but he also was excluded from a debriefing whereby what he endured over four days and three nights on a mountain to recover the bodies of two men killed in a light aircraft accident was confined for the next forty years in the subconscious of his mind. More importantly, it describes how another believed that an autistic person thought and behaved similarly to mainstream society, resulting in the demotion of the author, on the balance of probability, from the rank of Inspector back to Senior Sergeant, effectively bringing down the curtain on the author's struggle to achieve in mainstream society.