Staś’s story

At fourteen, Staś’s days do not follow one dependable pattern. Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder gives him an internal cycle of about twenty-seven hours, so alertness and sleep move through mornings, afternoons and nights. School, medical appointments, modeling, family plans and creative work have to meet a body clock that is not impressed by ordinary timetables.

He lives in Szczecin with his adoptive family. His parents have thirteen children including him, which means twelve siblings from his point of view. His twin sister is part of the same adoptive family. A house that large can be affectionate, loud, funny, exhausting and impossible to describe with a single wholesome adjective. Staś often needs quiet without wanting isolation from the people inside it.

Natalia is his girlfriend. That fact is current and may be named publicly. Their private conversations and the details of the relationship remain theirs, not because the relationship is imaginary or embarrassing but because two teenagers should not have to make intimacy into website evidence. It is enough to say that romance is part of his life alongside family, friendship, school and work.

He is easy to underestimate on sight. At approximately 130 centimetres, with growth and puberty delayed by acquired partial hypopituitarism, he is often assumed to be nine or ten. He communicates through a speech-generating tablet rather than a natural voice. Those two facts can cause adults to simplify language, direct questions to the person beside him or interpret wait time as lack of understanding. They are wrong about the mind in front of them.

His documented IQ is 142 and EQ 146. He has confirmed those scores, but they are context rather than a crown. They do not make trauma easy, remove autism, guarantee school access or turn every thought into something profound. The more useful description is that he notices patterns, cares about precision, reads people closely and can become trapped in the number of possibilities his mind produces.

Stanisław is the formal name; Staś is the ordinary short form he prefers in familiar public writing. The accent matters, and the shorter name fits most introductions better than repeatedly presenting him as though every page were a formal record.

His biological parents are Polish and Japanese. His biological grandparents are originally Polish, Japanese, Iranian and Iraqi. Those roots form part of his biological history even though family belonging in the present also includes adoption. Neither side has to be described as less real for the other to matter.

The history needs one careful distinction: ancestry did not cause abuse. Staś’s biological parents harmed him, including physical violence, but their Polish and Japanese identities are not explanations for that harm. The same is true of the wider Iranian and Iraqi family roots. Culture should not be used as a polite substitute for individual responsibility.

Language gives him another route into identity. Polish is central to daily life. He also uses English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese at different levels, and knows some Polish Sign Language. He has described all six spoken or written languages as part of his repertoire, but language knowledge does not mean identical fluency, speed or comfort in every context.

A mixed background can invite strangers to demand a percentage, a favourite side or a visual explanation. Staś does not need to perform a balanced cultural presentation on request. His heritage is factual and personal; adoption adds relationships and history rather than editing the biological line out of existence.

Staś did not lose a voice he once had. The absence of a normal cry was noticed from birth, and bilateral vocal-fold agenesis was formally diagnosed when he was three, by his best recollection. The diagnosis is extraordinarily rare. It is not paralysis, selective mutism, shyness or damage to tissue that previously produced sound.

He cannot speak, whisper, hum, sing or scream. He can make non-voiced sounds such as tongue clicks, teeth clicks and audible air movement, but no effort turns them into phonation. His hearing is normal. He understands spoken language. The missing structure is in the larynx, not in intelligence or the capacity for language.

True vocal folds also help close the airway during swallowing and build pressure for a strong cough. Their absence created significant aspiration and airway-clearance problems. Staś has a weak cough and still uses a cough-assist or airway-clearance machine daily. The equipment is part of ordinary respiratory care, not evidence that he is constantly in an emergency.

Four operations made swallowing and aspiration much less problematic: partial epiglottopexy, cricopharyngeal myotomy, laryngeal suspension and aryepiglottic-fold plication. In broad terms, they reshaped and supported structures above the missing folds and made the intended route into the oesophagus easier to use. They did not create a voice. Thickened liquids, once important, are mostly an outdated part of his current day because the surgeries helped.

Communication developed through multiple channels. Staś writes by hand, types, uses a speech-generating tablet, gestures, uses signs shared within the family and knows some Polish Sign Language. In public, AAC gives unfamiliar people an audible output they can understand. At home, faster combinations of expression, signs and written language can carry more of the exchange.

The voice on the tablet comes from a real donor rather than an abstract computer setting. That makes the output human in a specific way, while the selection, timing, humour and opinions remain Staś’s. He does not become the donor, and the donor does not become the author of his sentences. The device is a way his language reaches the room.

Staś remembers fear and abuse in his biological home. Physical violence included being hit. Communication barriers made him more vulnerable because he could not call out, answer aloud or quickly explain himself to an outsider. Autism added sensory and regulation needs that adults could misunderstand or punish rather than support.

The abuse is believed to have caused the injury behind acquired partial hypopituitarism. A blow or other inflicted brain injury can damage the pituitary or its connections. In Staś’s case, growth-hormone and gonadotropin deficiencies were later diagnosed and continue to affect growth and pubertal development.

That medical consequence makes the past visible in the present, but it should not require a retelling every time height or development is discussed. Responsibility sits with the adults who hurt him. A teenager receiving endocrine care does not have to continually supply an abuse narrative to earn treatment or respect.

His twin sister was part of the early family and later part of the care history. Her childhood should not be turned into supporting evidence for his or assigned a dramatic role he cannot verify. Siblings can share a household and experience it differently; neither child should be made responsible for protecting the other from adults.

Removal at five changed the location of the story, not every lesson his nervous system had already learned. For a physically mute autistic child, leaving danger could also mean entering vehicles, rooms and decisions full of unfamiliar people and inaccessible communication. Rescue and terror can occur in the same transition.

Staś entered the Polish foster-care system at five and was adopted at twelve. He moved through multiple settings during those seven years. The exact number is not stated here because it has not been confirmed clearly enough for publication. What is confirmed is the pattern of movement, mixed quality of care and repeated demand to adapt to adults, rooms, rules and expectations.

Some adults tried to understand. Kindness could mean learning a sign, supplying paper, respecting a sensory need, waiting for an answer or recognising that a meltdown was not manipulation. Those acts mattered. They did not guarantee that a placement would become permanent or erase the wider instability surrounding it.

Other experiences were harmful. Staś has described foster care as including mistreatment, misunderstanding and adults who did not respond safely to trauma, autism or muteness. That record should not be softened to protect the reputation of a system. It also does not make every foster family cruel when his own account contains people who helped.

He was separated from his twin sister during care. Separation removed the one person who shared the beginning of his history and added another relationship controlled by case decisions. She is now one of his siblings in the adoptive family, but reunion does not retroactively make the separation painless.

He remains in contact with two former foster siblings according to the information he supplied. One old foster sibling gave him a small fantasy-beaver stuffed animal that became an important surviving object from before adoption. Its importance is not childish in the dismissive sense; an object that crosses placements can hold continuity when addresses and adults do not.

Education and friendship were disrupted by movement. Belonging takes time, and friendship depends on remaining somewhere long enough for ordinary repetition. A child who expects another move may protect against loss by not investing, while adults then record withdrawal as a personal deficit.

Court and case processes also carry a communication problem. Adults can discuss a child’s best interests in spoken language moving too fast for typed participation. Being physically present is not the same as being heard. Accessible advocacy requires written information in advance, time to respond and adults who treat his own view as evidence rather than decoration.

Generalized anxiety disorder was diagnosed when Staś was around six or seven. It describes broad, persistent worry that is difficult to control. The foster-care context supplied real uncertainties, while the disorder allowed worry to spread into further possibilities and remain active even when one question had been answered.

Autism was recognised around the same age. Autism is neurodevelopmental, not caused by abuse or foster care. It shapes sensory processing, communication, predictability and social experience. Trauma can intensify some outward behaviours, but C-PTSD and autism answer different questions about why his nervous system responds as it does.

C-PTSD and the depressive disorder were diagnosed around ten or eleven by his recollection. Complex trauma includes re-experiencing, avoidance and present threat as well as persistent difficulty with regulation, self-concept and relationships. Depression changes mood, interest, energy, concentration, hope and safety. Neither label means that every response to foster care was irrational.

Staś survived a suicide attempt. The story names it because a biography that moves directly from hardship to adoption would be false. It does not state the method. The event was dangerous, should never be copied and does not become more authentic through operational detail. Survival allowed later parts of his life to exist even though those parts could not be seen from the worst moment.

Mental-health care also had to cross an access barrier. A child without speech cannot use a service designed around rapid verbal answers, tone of voice and spontaneous spoken disclosure. Typed responses need time and privacy. Direct questions about safety need a written route. A synthetic voice saying frightening words must not be treated as emotionally flat evidence.

Current medication and detailed treatment remain private. Public diagnoses are not an invitation to audit prescriptions, appointments or progress. Recognition and practical understanding do not require making care a spectator activity.

Staś was adopted at twelve. His adoptive parents have thirteen children including him, so he has twelve siblings. Eleven are adoptive siblings from his perspective, and the twelfth is his twin sister, who is also part of the adoptive family. That wording prevents the common arithmetic error that turns thirteen children into thirteen siblings.

Permanence is the largest structural difference between foster care and adoption. It means he does not have to interpret every conflict as a placement review or every need as a possible reason to move. A legal relationship can establish that security while the body still takes longer to believe it.

A large family creates constant variation. Siblings have different histories, ages, needs and temperaments. Some are loud and active; Staś has described being especially close to a quieter younger sister whose company asks less of his sensory system. Closeness to one sibling does not rank the worth of the others.

His twin relationship has its own history. Separation in care meant the two children developed in different environments and with different ways of coping. Being siblings again in the same family does not rewind them to age five. It creates room for a present relationship that can include shared origin without assuming identical memory or personality.

The family also provides practical access. People who know Staś can read familiar gestures, wait for typing, use shared signs, recognise overload and help communicate in an emergency. Support should not become speaking over him. The goal is a circle large enough to make participation possible while his own answer remains central.

Home still needs quiet. Thirteen children do not turn sensory overload into a cute household quirk. A closed door, headphones, predictable access to a low-stimulation space and permission not to join every activity can protect the relationship between Staś and the family rather than representing withdrawal from it.

Bilateral vocal-fold agenesis was noticed at birth and formally diagnosed at three. It is the congenital condition behind physical muteness, weak cough and the original aspiration risk. Daily airway-clearance support and the history of swallowing surgery remain practically relevant.

Autism and generalized anxiety disorder were diagnosed around six or seven. Autism shapes sensory, communication and predictability needs. GAD produces broad worry and physical alarm. Around the same age, acquired partial hypopituitarism was diagnosed after an injury believed to have been caused by abuse.

The pituitary condition includes growth-hormone and gonadotropin deficiencies. Growth has been affected; at fourteen he is about 130 centimetres tall. Puberty is delayed. His genital development remains closer to that expected around nine or ten, his penis has not undergone the usual pubertal growth for his chronological age and he remains largely hairless. Those details are included as paediatric endocrine education, not as permission for intimate questions.

C-PTSD and a depressive disorder were diagnosed during foster care, probably around ten or eleven. C-PTSD connects the history of prolonged trauma to ongoing threat, regulation, self-concept and relationship patterns. Depression affects mood, interest, energy, thought and safety. The diagnoses interact without becoming interchangeable.

Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder was diagnosed at thirteen. Staś’s internal day is about twenty-seven hours, causing sleep and alertness to rotate around the twenty-four-hour social clock. A period of ordinary-looking nights is part of the drift and not evidence the condition has vanished.

The terminology around autism follows his preference rather than a universal rule. He accepts ‘autistic person,’ ‘person with autism’ and ‘autist.’ Many autistic advocates prefer identity-first language because autism cannot be set aside from the person; others prefer person-first language. Staś does not experience ‘autist’ as an insult when it is used neutrally, and he has no interest in policing another autistic person’s self-description.

Staś attends school with accommodations. His favourite subjects are history, geography and literature. Each offers more than facts: history asks how power describes itself, geography connects people to place and movement, and literature shows how language can carry experiences that ordinary conversation drops.

The school environment can still be inaccessible. Bells, corridors, group work, fast discussion, unexpected staff changes and physical education add sound, movement and social ambiguity. Autism can make unfiltered sensory input overwhelming. C-PTSD can make blocked exits or abrupt adult authority feel threatening. GAD adds anticipation. Non-24 may place his biological night in the middle of a lesson.

AAC changes classroom timing. By the time Staś has composed a sentence, a spoken discussion may have moved several turns ahead. Participation cannot be measured by speed or number of audible contributions. Questions in advance, written channels, protected wait time and classmates who do not speak over the device give his actual knowledge a route into the room.

His IQ and EQ scores are sometimes useful evidence against lazy assumptions, but accommodations should not depend on exceptional scores. A child with any cognitive profile deserves access. For Staś specifically, high ability can hide the cost because an assignment is completed even when anxiety, exhaustion and repeated checking made the process unsustainable.

School advocacy has personal meaning after foster care. Meetings where adults discuss his needs can echo earlier systems unless he receives information, time and a genuine role. A written contribution is not secondary participation. It may be the most precise contribution in the meeting.

Possible future study includes law. Staś is interested in the work of language, evidence, rights and institutions, while remaining unsure how achievable the profession will be with access barriers and the demands of health. Naming that uncertainty is not lack of ambition. It is a more serious form of planning than pretending determination removes every structural obstacle.

Writing gives Staś time that speech-based interaction rarely offers. He can choose the exact word, build a line, revise a claim and keep the result from being replaced by somebody else’s faster summary. In foster care, notebooks and pens could provide continuity when people and places changed.

His work includes poetry, personal essays, political and social reflection, writing about foster care, disability, communication and mental health, and the shorter observations that do not need to become testimony. Not every piece represents a final position. A fourteen-year-old writer is allowed development, contradiction and an archive containing earlier facts that later become outdated.

Mute Doodle Den is the less formal home for that writing. Its first-person voice can be sharper, messier, funnier or more immediate than this third-person profile. The blog is evidence of his voice, not an infallible database. Current direct confirmation takes priority when an older page names a past relationship, routine or medical situation differently.

His own public writing tends to be direct, specific and occasionally dry. It does not need ornamental resilience language or a lesson at the end of every hardship. The strongest pieces often say exactly what happened or what he thinks, then trust the reader to live without a manufactured moral.

Doodling and drawing sit beside writing because not every idea begins as a paragraph. Visual marks can organise thought, regulate attention or simply be enjoyable. Photography provides another form of selection: where a frame begins, what stays out and how ordinary light changes the meaning of a face or place.

He would like writing to remain part of his future, possibly through publication or work. That possibility does not depend on turning every private experience into content. A writer owns the right to leave a subject unwritten and still be considered honest.

Staś works as a model despite his young age, and he wants that work described as work. A booking can be enjoyable and creatively interesting without becoming a charitable opportunity. Professional expectations should be clear on both sides, with age-appropriate conditions and responsible adults handling negotiation.

His father or one of his agents or managers handles enquiries. That arrangement protects a minor from direct approaches, creates a route for contracts and scheduling, and gives clients one place to discuss access. It should not exclude Staś from decisions about his own image, clothing, touch, timing or boundaries.

His appearance can suit editorial and androgynous work. Very short stature and delayed puberty mean clothing may come from younger size ranges, but casting must follow his real age and agreed portrayal. A body that looks younger is not permission to infantilise him, and a fashion context is not permission to sexualise a minor.

On-set access includes a written call sheet, a named contact, notice before schedule or location changes, consent before physical adjustment, time for AAC and a quieter place to recover from sensory load. Non-24 means timing can determine whether a shoot is workable. Early call times are not a neutral test of professionalism when the internal night has moved into morning.

Health information should be limited to what affects safety or participation. The aspiration history and weak cough may matter around food, illness or strenuous conditions. Daily airway clearance may affect scheduling. Small stature affects fit and equipment. Anxiety, autism and trauma affect environment and consent. A client does not need laboratory values, therapy notes or intimate pubertal details to provide safe work.

Modeling also complicates the idea that shyness means wanting invisibility. A camera can be more structured than a spontaneous conversation. Expression does not require natural speech. Being looked at within a negotiated frame can feel different from being stared at as a medical curiosity. The distinction is control, purpose and consent.

Staś babysits. The role surprises people who see muteness, autism, small stature or age before they see patience and attention. Surprise is not evidence that the work is inappropriate; it is evidence of what adults had assumed competence must look and sound like.

His first opportunity came through adults who knew the family. The child was safe and asleep when the parents returned, and the experience led to further trust. The important point is not a sentimental claim that one evening proved everything. It is that responsibility was assessed in practice rather than rejected from a list of diagnoses.

Another caring relationship began through a psychologist who knew both young people separately and believed the connection could help. What began around childcare became an unofficial-brother kind of bond. Staś has described taking the boy to school, bringing him home and spending time together beyond paid babysitting. Names, photographs and identifying details stay private.

Communication without speech can work well with children. Staś can type, gesture, use visual language, join an activity at floor level and wait instead of filling every silence. Children who are anxious, autistic, quiet or accustomed to being misunderstood may respond to an older person who does not demand a polished verbal account before believing them.

Care still requires practical safety. Responsible adults decide what arrangement is suitable, remain reachable and account for Staś’s health, sleep phase and the child’s needs. Physical muteness means emergency communication must be planned. A strength-based account should not pretend safeguards are unnecessary; a diagnosis-based account should not pretend safeguards make competence impossible.

Childcare is one reason Staś considers future work involving children. Elder care is another possibility, for similar reasons: patience, observation, dignity and communication beyond ordinary speech matter. He is interested in people-centred and hospitable work that is genuinely achievable, not in a single inspirational career chosen for him by a biography.

Writing and doodling are the most obvious creative interests, but the list is much longer. Staś draws, dances, plays violin, models, games, reads, stargazes, hikes, cycles, takes photographs and listens to music. These activities ask different things of attention and the body; they also offer different exits from a day dominated by medical or institutional language.

Violin is especially interesting beside muteness. The instrument can sustain pitch and phrasing that his larynx cannot produce, but it should not be turned into a metaphor every time he plays. Music can be technique, pleasure, frustration and sound without needing to serve as a replacement voice.

Dancing allows expression through movement and timing. Modeling also uses body and stillness. Hiking and cycling offer movement with a destination or landscape rather than a loud competitive room. Photography gives him control over attention. Reading and gaming create worlds available during hours when non-24 leaves the rest of the household asleep.

Stargazing fits a moving sleep rhythm almost too neatly, but the disorder should not be romanticised. Being awake at night can make stars available; it can also be lonely. A beautiful use for an inconvenient hour does not make missed daylight, school or family overlap disappear.

Foxes are his favourite animal. They replaced wolves after a real fox came near him, an encounter memorable enough to change the answer. His favourite colour has been described as viridian. Family cats are part of home. These smaller preferences matter because a profile made only from hardship and achievement would sound like an application rather than a life.

The fantasy-beaver stuffed animal from a former foster sibling belongs here too. At fourteen, keeping a comfort object is not evidence of immaturity. It is an object with relational and historical value, and delayed puberty or short stature should not turn every soft thing he likes into proof that adults were right to treat him as younger.

Natalia is his current girlfriend. Older writing may naturally contain an earlier chapter of teenage life, but it should not be mistaken for the present. The current public fact is Natalia; the rest of the relationship is mostly private.

AAC can make texting a natural part of connection rather than a lesser substitute for spoken conversation. Written language allows jokes, arguments, reassurance and ordinary updates without requiring the other person to wait beside a device. In person, patience and comfort with silence matter more than performing constant conversation.

C-PTSD and GAD can complicate trust. A delayed message may feel threatening even when the logical explanation is ordinary. Reassurance can help, but a girlfriend should not become the only regulator of fear or the sole person responsible for safety. Healthy teenage connection includes adults and professionals carrying adult responsibilities.

Friendship has also been shaped by movement, school access and shyness. Staś is not socially empty. He may communicate less in unfamiliar groups, observe for longer and prefer relationships where intensity does not have to be constantly proved. A small number of safe connections can matter more than visible popularity.

His relationships with children reveal another side of connection: quiet attention, responsibility and the ability to make somebody feel taken seriously. His relationships with siblings include noise, closeness, difference and shared family life. No single person is assigned the role of proving that Staś can be loved.

Staś pays attention to who controls the language of a situation. Foster-care files, school plans, medical summaries and contracts can all describe a person while placing that person at the edge of the decision. Writing is one way he moves himself back into the sentence.

Justice interests him partly as an intellectual field and partly as lived experience. Law uses words to define evidence, rights, responsibility and the best interests of children. He may consider becoming a lawyer, while openly questioning whether professional access, education and health will make that path achievable.

Achievement is not the only standard for a future. Childcare, elder care, writing and other people-centred work appeal because hospitality and patient attention are real skills. A job can be valuable because it fits a person and helps others, not because it offers the most impressive answer to what a highly intelligent child should become.

He cares about people being heard through methods other than speech. That includes AAC users, autistic people, children in care and people whose bodies do not follow expected development. Advocacy can be public writing, a meeting contribution, a boundary on set or the smaller act of waiting for a child’s full answer.

He is also allowed not to turn every part of life into advocacy. A disabled teenager does not owe constant education, and a care-experienced writer does not owe every memory. The right to be ordinary, playful or uninterested is part of the dignity advocacy is supposed to defend.

Staś considers law because language and institutions matter to him. He also knows the route may be demanding and access may be poor. The honest ambition includes both interest and doubt. Adults should not convert that into a destiny or use intelligence scores to declare barriers irrelevant.

Writing is likely to remain, whether as published work, a profession, an accompanying practice or the way he understands everything else. Modeling may continue when bookings are safe, suitable and compatible with health. Childcare or elder care could become more formal directions. Other hospitable, people-centred work may appear later and fit better than anything currently named.

Adult independence will not necessarily mean doing everything without help. It can mean choosing support, controlling information, making decisions with accessible communication and building a home where quiet and permanence are ordinary. Medical care, non-24 and AAC will shape logistics without deciding the worth of the life around them.

Relationships may change because teenage relationships and families are living things. Interests may expand. Diagnoses may be managed differently. Height and pubertal development may change with time and care. Fourteen is a present age, not a finished portrait.

The smallest future wishes may be the most revealing: enough books, a place to write, controlled sound, people who do not panic at silence, work that respects his body, time with those he loves and a room that remains his after a difficult day. None is smaller than an impressive career if it makes a sustainable life.

His story has no useful final lesson. Abuse was not required to make him creative. Disability does not exist to teach strangers gratitude. Foster care did not become worthwhile because some good relationships emerged from it. The present is meaningful because Staś is here to live it, not because suffering can be rearranged into inspiration.