Hello all. I'm presently not diagnosed, but after reading and researching, I'm convinced that that's a mere formality. I've never told this all to anyone - this brings back a lot of painful memories. Hoping not to sound too long-winded or be to detailed, but here goes . . .
I remember learning to read on my own at age 4. My parents loved me and always supported me in spite of all the grief and heartache I caused, and they've always been proud of my mind. I've experienced extreme social awkwardness as far back as I can remember. There was that intense obsession with maps, highways, trains, rivers, rocks, which has led to many other obsessions, which has never really gone away even now. School was a living hell - constant teasing and bullying. I was hopelessly unathletic - always the last kid picked to sports teams, the last kid to learn to ride a bike, and I couldn't catch a ball to save my life. I had violent tantrums in elementary school, was occasionally sequestered into special ed classes. School was marked by several several suspensions and (once) expulsion, though I'm most definitely not a fighter. Gradually the bullying stopped as I got bigger, but never the teasing, never the rejection. I was referred for so many psychological evaluations, it's amazing that I could have fallen through the cracks. Looking back, I feel lucky that I wasn't institutionalized.
In spite of all this, I did well academically - I always had the gift of being able to get good grades for not much effort, because I could memorize and take tests like few others could. But truth be told, I was a pretty indifferent student - into my own preoccupations, given to "daydreaming", and except for band no extracurricular activities. Team sports were completely out of the question. The expulsion happened early in my senior year, and my parents pulled strings and got me enrolled a neighboring school, where I finished out. I graduated 4th in a class of 179, scored 1400 on my SAT, aced my AP exams, and went off to college and got the **** out of my hometown for good.
Adulthood has often been a mighty struggle, but on balance my life has got a lot better. I still struggle in many (though not all) social situations, still often experience sensory overload and mental shutdown in certain situations, especially when an "authority" figure is standing over me "cracking a whip", or when someone is subjecting me to group or public humiliation. I've always been very protective of my private space, and my privacy in general. I've never been really keen on being touched, and whenever anyone tries to get close to me (not in the literal sense, but emotionally), it feels like I instinctively begin pushing that person away. Now that I think about it, I've got some pretty rigid routines, but those are so ingrained into my day-to-day life that I never even noticed them until friends pointed it out. Making friends has always been difficult, but I've worked really hard at it. Consciously I always try to treat people with kindness and respect, even as there is little or no emotional connection. What's important, I believe, is not what I feel about other people, but how I treat treat them. This has caused me to become a very tolerant, non-judgmental person, or at least I try to be. Gradually I have acquired a circle of friends who have been exceptionally kind and understanding. I still feel very much the outcast in many group or organizational settings. People who know me casually always comment on my quiet and shy demeanor; people who are closer to me comment that I never seem to stop talking (but that's a complicated subject). In a way I'm still as arrogant and defiant as I ever was. I still struggle with sadness, an overwhelming feeling of apartness from almost all other people, and existential nothingness. But I've refused to surrender to depression, and resolved that I won't let it affect the way I treat other people. Amazingly, some other people seem to genuinely like me, though just as frequently I've had people treat me with outright contempt. I've even had someone fall in love with me, who claims to love me AS I AM. (That's just blowing my mind!)
There is much, much more. This is my reality and I've learned to live with it. I've adapted and survived, as best I can, and I have to say that this strange, insular life of mine is absolutely worth living.
Thanks for reading and I'm sure that I'll have more to say later. I'm still learning, still discovering. This is all quite difficult for me but I hope you will all understand.
29 Jan 2012, 7:12 pm
