*after writing this I realized how long it was - for a picture of where I currently am skip the the last few paragraphs
Bare with me as I share a shortened version of my life story. I do not expect to receive any replies, this is more for myself. To have posted this is simply a means to let something out of me that has been building up but is so difficult to discuss with others.
I am a 26-year old male with an undiagnosed case of Aspergers. I have told very few people about my condition: my best friend, my wife, and recently a few medical personnel and job interviewers. Telling anyone was a huge mistake which I shall divulge later. First I will share you a story of how I came to be.
When I was very little I used to have a wild imagination. I remember vividly pretending to be a mad scientist in the field behind my house. I'd gather invisible "beakers" from invisible "shelves" the the field, mix them, drink them, and be transformed into something else such as a werewolf - rampaging the field for prey. My parents did not understand why I preferred this kind of play as opposed to playing with others and I must have looked somewhat silly randomly walking around in a field seemingly aimlessly. But I enjoyed my early childhood - it was a carefree time where I could be myself. Trouble started in primary school.
I think differently than others, and I learn differently from others. This was not understood by my teachers in primary school. "He doesn't know his alphabet! He can't tie his shoes! He doesn't play with the other kids! He never speaks!" (But I sure the hell could say my numbers backwards, forwards, in 2's, 3's, 5's 10's) These were the normal clamors between my teachers and parents while I was stuck in a daydream off to myself. Eventually I failed Kindergarten and was placed in Pre-First. During this time I started gaining a lot of weight, mostly from not wanting to play with others but wanting to keep to myself. I did not understand what i was doing, and did not understand why it was so wrong; I just preferred to play within my own mind. Pre-First was filled with a lot of dumb kids, and I did not get along well. This caused me to start to act out and get in trouble. I was placed in a special program at school reserved for mentally and physically challenged children – a fact exasperated by also having to go into speech therapy. Needless to say I did not enjoy this time which placed much mental strain and anguish on my still developing psyche. But soon the school came to realize it had made a mistake.
I excelled at math which made keeping me in a special program difficult. I was beyond the other students in the program and even beyond my classmates in my regularly grade level. Soon reading became increasingly simple also, and I had a knack for remembering science and history facts. I was running laps around the other students who had to read chapters, do problems, answer questions. I simply had to be told something and it was understood. It became quite clear that I was not mentally handicapped. But what was wrong with me? I still could not speak correctly (although everything in my mind came out clear), I did not enjoy socializing, and I kept to myself reading flipbooks of factoids or playing on the classroom’s Apple II. I was then placed on an accelerated learning path (and eventually into a gifted problem solving class) but still continued to go to speech therapy and eventually I ended up at the school psychiatrist.
I skipped school. A lot. When I went to school I complained about stomach aches and simply not wanting to be there – spending much time at the school nurse. Eventually abuse and/or neglect were brought into question. I was asked many questions by the psychiatrist, even told to tell some stories. One story in particularly that I remember telling was of a squirrel. This squirrel hated the other squirrels and devised a plan to steal all the nuts and hoard them for himself. During winter the other squirrels starved to death while this squirrel feasted happily by himself. The psychiatrist was horrified. When asked to pick out my mood from a poster of faces I always picked the one that looked bored. I was always bored. And I hated school. Being probed and question constantly did not help and I eventually asked that I stop going to the psychiatrist and stop going to speech therapy.
My requests were accepted as I excelled in class and came from a loving family so there was little reason to continue on this tail chase of “what is wrong with him.” So the next few years flew by with me keeping to myself and playing on computers constantly. I became somewhat of a computer savant – I would make simple programs, played learning games which I enjoyed very much, and learned how a computer worked. Computers were my life and they interested me to no end. Around the age of 11 or 12 my dad brought me the parts to build my own Pentium II which I put together and installed Windows on (albeit I eventually destroyed this computer because I did not quite understand circuitry and ending up frying the motherboard). During this time I also became involved in hacker groups. I’d troll AOL chat rooms and eventually IRC learning all that I could about phishing and hacking. I made quite of bit of money running a porn advertising scam and using others computers remotely to click links (on a side note this lead to an interesting conversation with my parents about why I was receiving checks from a porn distributor at the age of 12). I had made a few close friends during this time – I always had one or two. I never cared to have anymore and even with these friends I’d still prefer to spend most of my time alone. But soon, at the age of 13, my family moved across the country and my life took a tumbling fall.
When my family moved I experienced somewhat of a culture shock. The school system was less forgiving, the other children were more relentless, and the atmosphere was dreadful. In school I was not put in any special programs and I even had trouble in certain ones that I normally excelled (namely math) because it was taught differently than what I had previously learned and this change was very difficult for me. I became socially inept during this time not speaking to anyone and sitting in the corner a loner during any break periods. I was ridiculed for a short while until the other children learned that when backed into a corner I fight back. Soon I was labeled a psychopath who would blow up the school. At home I again played on the computer constantly – even more than before as I did not have any friends at all. I got deep into MMORPGS starting with Ultima Online and then Everquest. I loved these games as they allowed me to play with others and be myself. There was no social awkwardness, no stuttering, no speech impediment, just me having fun talking and playing with others. I spent days at a time playing these games, locked in my room, skipping school. My parents worried, but they never quite understood. In these games I was powerful – guild master of large guilds. I was seen as charismatic and intelligent. If only they knew I was a socially inept 14 year old. My parents stopped worrying when I started receiving money for playing these games (I would run raids and sell loot on eBay). After a while though these games started to bore me and I wished that I could be this charismatic online leader in the real world. I approached my parents about receiving help when I was 16.
I was brought to a psychiatrist who quickly diagnosed me with social anxiety and put me on a large dosage of Paxil. The change to my personality was astonishing. All my social inhibitions were lost and I became loud and obnoxious not giving a single care about anyone else. In my parents and the psychiatrist mind this was a great improvement and I was eventually deemed as “cured.” Unfortunately this was misdiagnoses and while they improved my symptoms, the underlining cause was always still there. The rest of High School went by with a breeze. I made several friends, dated, and generally had a decent time. I even met my future wife during this time. Unfortunately the Paxil had side effects and made by extremely drowsy so I slept for a good bit. Skipping school to sleep, sleeping in class, coming home after school to take a nap. My grades fell from perfect A’s to B’s, C’s and even a D in trigonometry. However, I graduated with honors at the top of my class because of my previous grades. Deciding on college I had made a huge mistake.
I was a computer savant. I understood how to program, how to build and diagnose computers, how computer components worked and communicated, how the Internet worked. Computer Science was the obvious choice, and the choice everyone thought I would choose. However I went with “love” and followed my then girlfriend to a different program, Pharmacy. My parents didn’t mind, pharmacists make a ton of money and I was intelligent enough to do it. Regrettably, I also decided to stop taking Paxil during this time. Getting off Paxil shook my life, my social inhibitions came back and I was no longer able to function. I dreaded going to class and the only thing that kept me going was my girlfriend who I ended up marrying the second year of college. I also got back into MMORPGs playing World of Warcraft and skipped many classes to stay in my dorm to play. My wife never really understood but started to loathe me because I made good grades without going to class and without studying. This, however, did not last long. Advance college courses are something one needs to actually attend if they plan on passing. My grades fell the 3rd year of college, eventually I ended up failing several classes and it took an extra two years to graduate with my bachelors. Obviously I did not get into pharmacy school. But I didn’t care, I was in my own world again playing WoW with a vengeance.
During my 4th year of college I got a job working as a salesman at a computer retailer. I learned something incredible about myself during this time. Even without Paxil I could be charismatic and charming. I was the best damn salesman there. There was something about being able to convey ideas to others that just made me wonderful at this job, although if the conversation ever turned social I would quickly clam up and not be able to even speak. I started questioning myself again, what is wrong with me. This is not social anxiety – I can lead and teach others just fine. I convey my ideas with the zeal of Hitler. But I cannot socialize. I cannot carry a normal back and forth conversation. I cannot just chit chat. I decided to get on Paxil again.
The next few years were a rollercoaster. My wife and I had many troubles, mostly stemming from her not understanding me. “Why are you such an as*hole, why don’t you care about other people, why don’t you love me like a normal husband, why do you not look at me in the eyes when I talk to you, what is /wrong/ with you.” There it was again. What is wrong with me? I don’t know. Without Paxil I seemed to have social anxiety but with the ability to give passionate speeches and lectures about topics which were my own, with Paxil I was a socially inhibited lunatic. I was all alone in the world with no one that understood me. Once my wife left me it was a dark and scary time were suicide seemed like the other way out. My best friend from high school essentially ignored me as he had become somewhat of a social butterfly during college (we had gone to different colleges as I had followed my wife to a pharmacy prep school). I was clocking in more hours into MMORPGs than I had when I was younger – an escape from this world which gave me great comfort. I stopped caring about work and went off and on Paxil several times until eventually it stopped working altogether. My condition worsened by the day and I was either sleeping or playing MMORPGs. I became calculated in MMORPGs, studying raid encounters, studying damage spreadsheets, writing essays about theorycrafting (using numbers to explain in game mechanics). It wasn’t much of a life, but it kept me going. I was threatened many times to be fired, eventually being put into a new position at work where I no longer had any contact with people and just organized stuff all day. My wife and I got back together after a while but we still had lots of trouble. About a year and a half ago I was determined to find out what was wrong with me once and for all.
I scoured online databases and discussion boards. I studied every psychological disorder under the sun. One disorder kept coming up, autism. I kept saying to myself “I’m not autistic; I function fine for the most part.” Ideas popped into my idea, maybe I’m a schizoid. Maybe I have antisocial personal disorder but social anxiety prevents me from acting out on it. I started doing drugs to try to understand myself which lead to a greater understanding of how the world worked, but not me. At times I had bouts of madness where I believed this world was created in my head and everyone around me were projections of my mind and the only way out was to kill everyone, including myself. Nothing. Nothing at all made sense. Why does no one on Earth have the same problems that I do. Why am I like this? Then I stumbled on an article about Aspergers. I had never heard of this before, a high functioning autism? I didn’t even know such a thing existed and always thought autistics were either idiot savants or weird looking people with uncontrollable fits. I started studying this disorder closely, reading case examples and diagnoses criteria. Everything fit and ended up taking the Autism Spectrum Quotient. I scored 35 out of 50, the perfect median of those suffering from Aspergers (as a contrast, normal people score 15-17). It seemed I had finally found the answer to what was wrong with me. But now what?
My first inclination was to tell others. This is the reason I am like I am. Maybe now others won’t treat me so badly because there is a biological reason – a structural brain reason – why I am like this. How wrong I was. I first told my best friend from high school who had been going through mental problems of his own. He told me I was using this as an excuse to be an as*hole. I told my wife who said she would have never married me if she knew I was autistic. I told an interviewer for a job who said I did not get the job because he did not want to deal with someone with autism.
I recently went to a doctor because there was a change made to my job that I could not cope with. She made fun of my condition saying it’s all in my head and that I was being stupid for acting the way I was. She prescribed me Celexa which I refuse to take as Paxil caused me to put on tremendous weight and did not truly help my situation. She scheduled me an appointment for a psychiatrist which I am afraid to go to because I cannot take anymore ridicule at this point. I’ve recently tried to get a new job but no one will hire me because I am not social enough and I do not have any skills to do professional work. I, at this point, can no longer work with other people and have nothing I can do to make money.
So now I sit here - on the verge of losing my job, losing my wife, losing my house, losing my mind, and having nowhere to turn.
03 Aug 2011, 8:29 am
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