07 Aug 2012, 6:10 am
Well what an exhilarating/frightening journey I am now on. I only discovered the term Asperger's syndrome about six months ago and never really thought of its implications for myself. Somebody put 50 question quiz on Facebook entitled "the Asperger's test" and all my friends were taking it posting their results. My elder brother then took the test and I think he hit around 22. This got my interest so I nonchalantly took the test and hit 40/50. I was quite taken aback but then started reading more and more about Asperger's syndrome and it was if the book of my life was being laid out before me.
I remember having behavioural problems in primary school in lessons and in the playground. I clearly remember watching the "cool" kids in the playground and watching how they behave and copying them in my head for later use. There is a funny bit where as a child between eight and 11 I would copy the facial expressions of Steve McQueen in movies who I thought was what everybody assumed to be cool and normal. On a football pitch I would want to be the Manchester United winger Steve Coppell, yes there was idolisation of a well-known sportsman, but I was also copying his facial expressions as if I didn't know how to do it myself. When I was playing football I wasn't pretending to be him - I was him.
I remember lying on my bed running over the next day's potential conversations in my head over and over until I fell asleep. I very rarely dreamt about people but instead created an entire village of white buildings. (I still have this dream today)
In secondary school I did very well and was in all the top classes up to my final year where the wheels came off in a big way and I began a spiral of odd behaviour, repetitive actions, long lasting negative thoughts, meltdowns, alcoholism, drug use, self-hatred and loneliness that lasted until I was 24. During that very dark period about the only thing I had to rely on was my ability to copy people that I deemed popular and to incorporate their mannerisms and behaviour into what was left of mine. Apparently I am also blessed with a wicked sense of humour that got me through a lot of that period where to be quite honest I should have received professional care. I ended up working in a student bar where everybody was so drunk including myself that nobody noticed that I was pretending to be like them. However everyone kept mentioning how intelligent I was and that I should go for university. So I did. How I came out of University with a degree I will never know because for three years I pretty much sat in my room staring at the walls, playing old arcade emulators, crying, binge drinking, masturbating and tidying up, constantly tidying up my room. I remember one weekend during the holidays when my flatmates had returned to their homes. I spent nearly 2 days in a bath, constantly topping up with hot water in the darkened windowless room internally screaming and crying.
Part of my university studies incorporated the work of Charlotte Brontë. With Howarth just up the road from the University I would cycle there on a regular basis and read her books feet away from where she had written them and also her grave. The book, the setting and reality became so blurred that a few weeks later I had an incredible meltdown at a party and ended up in student health services for a couple of days. The staff assumed that my drinks had been spiked but I'd been building up to it for a good few days. My imitation strategies had become so disorganised because I was immersed in this fiction written by somebody I could almost touch even though she had been dead for many years I simply didn't know what day it was and the exhaustion brought on by constantly pretending sent me off the end of the scale. I was living the book. I rarely read fiction anymore because a) I just don't get it and b) if I do get immersed in the book what happens to the characters upsets me so much. I do get this with films as well but the effect isn't as much because the three-dimensional space of the cinema and time frame is something I can cope with on the condition that it is not busy or I'm with someone I can hold on to. Thank God for popular science books 
After Uni I eventually got married and moved to Norway where I was fortunate to become the father of two beautiful children but then the wheels began to get shaky again as more pressure was put on the work I did and I was asked to do more and more. My dwindling coping strategies, imitation abilities and lack of reading intention culminated the me becoming an easy target for deception. My marriage failed horribly though I was staggeringly fortunate to retain 50% custody of my children though admittedly back in the UK, a place I never wanted to see again.
There is of course an awful lot more I could go into but if I carry on I may not stop and this will be on my mind for the next three or four weeks. It's not bravery that is making me write this its necessity. I have always known I am different, very different but I have been so desperate to be accepted "on Earth" that it has led me down some very dark roads that have done nothing to protect my well-being and has placed me, in my younger years, in a considerable state of danger.
So after reading lots of books, okay large sections before I get distracted and move on, and speaking to a very dear friend of mine who suffers greatly from OCD (she said she spotted me a mile off) I decided that I needed to do something about this. I took the RDOS quiz and signed up here. I have also contacted my local GP for the matter be referred to the County psychiatrist in order to be diagnosed for Asperger's syndrome. I don't particularly have much faith in the health system around here as they are very low and resources and would rather just throw pills at you.
Thank you for letting me join your community.
I'll do my best not to be an idiot,
Matthew.
Oh and test results from the quiz were as follows.
Your Aspie score: 180 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 32 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie (I know
08 Aug 2012, 12:07 am
08 Aug 2012, 6:44 am
