# Here's a list of all the elopements I remember or was told about. ## First Elopement When we lived in California for about 1 year during my first 3 years on this earth, we apparently went trick-or-treating for Halloween and it's probably the first Halloween I had where I was able to walk on my own. A few days after Halloween, I apparently decided that I needed more candy and I just walked out of the house to go and get it I must have been 2, almost 3 at the time. My mom found me next door, trying to trick-or-treat. Sure, you could say that I was just a kid and that sometimes kids do things like that, but the fact that I thought trick-or-treating was just a way to get free candy and not a special occasion just goes to show that social things like holidays just didn't make sense to me. Another example of that would be [[Decorating a Tree for my Mom's Birthday]]. Eventually, I learned what holidays were and I started looking forward to them. Well, I started looking forward to decorating for them. I did not look forward to the social part of them. Now that I'm trying to unmask, holidays are less and less important to me. ## After School Play Prep In either 4th grade or 5th grade, we were preparing for a play and I was on the costume team. We were making costumes for all the actors and the play was coming up very quickly and we weren't done with the things we needed to do. I was definitely stressed about them not being done on time. At some point, the teacher came over and told us to stop working on the costumes and instead help the props/set team. I became so furious that I just left. My house was only a block away from the school at that time, so I just walked home and hung out in the backyard while I cooled down. I'm not sure if my teacher ever realized that I left because I don't think anyone ever said anything to my mom. Maybe some of the kids told the teacher I went home. Either way, I clearly left when I probably shouldn't have--at least not with today's standards of making sure kids are dismissed from supervision properly. ## Elopement-Lite Due to masking and the fear of getting in trouble, I would often get permission to elope. Basically, when I was really stressed, I'd ask my mom if I could go ride my bike. Obviously, this was a healthier way to elope, but it definitely was elopement all the same. I'm pretty lucky that my while my mom didn't know about my autism, she was still a pretty understanding parent. Without that understanding, I don't think I'd be where I am today. ## When My Grandpa Died I was 16 at this point, but there was a rule in the house that we had to let my mom know when we were leaving and where we were going. I was going through some stuff with my boyfriend at the time too. That combined with the passing of my grandpa and the fact that our household was changing yet again (my mom was engaged to someone new) led to me walking out, leaving my cell phone behind, and heading down the road to a small garden with a bench. Probably an hour later my soon-to-be-stepdad found me as he was driving around in his truck looking for me. ## Cutting school This only happened once, but it was quite possibly the strangest elopement I ever did. I must have been a junior or a senior, but one day while walking down the stairs, I had this overwhelming urge to just leave and I voiced that to my friends. Now, I was not the type to cut school--I was masking hard at this point and knew that would be "bad," so I was planning on fighting that urge, but my friends decided that it was actually the best idea I ever had. So, we all left and got some pizza. I think we attempted to call the secretary and pretend that we had a doctor's appointment or something. I'm pretty sure she saw right through that, but we got away with it anyway--as far as I know.