Afterthought of my message: I had not originally intended to make this as long and detailed as it turned out to be, but once I began typing, a floodgate of memories opened of the symptoms I displayed as a young child. Sorry for the long, drawn out message.
I was diagnosed at age 8. Asperger's, ADHD, OCD, and depression all at the same time. "Passive agressive" was even thrown into the mix.
When I was in pre-school, I would throw extremely violent temper tantrums of hitting (even adults,) screaming, and running away. I would have to be chased around and restrained by being held down or even sat on (not roughly,) just because of the fact that I exhibited severe rage. That was one of the first hints that someone was "wrong" with me. I had other issues, like being really bossy when playing with other girls when we played with our Barbie's. I much preferred digging for bugs and playing cops and robbers and building blocks with the boys. Reverse psychology never worked on me, and neither did time out. The other thing that got me in line was my 6'3" father glaring at me or yelling at me. And it never worked for long. Once, when I was sent to my room as punishment for something, I refused to stay in my room, so my parents locked the door. Well, I got so angry at that, that I repeatedly tried to open and close the door and I actually ripped the lock off the door. It was one of those hook and eye type locks.
But I would retain a tremendous amount of information and details on topics that had to do with science, and could even hold a moderately intelligent conversation with an adult about such topics. I never spoke in baby sentences or sounded too much like a baby when I spoke. My parents said I was speaking in full sentences by the time I was two and a half and that I annunciated well.
I don't remember this myself, but my mom told me that when she would ask me why I acted the way I did or why I did what I did (after she picked me up from pre-school on a day when I had a rage fit) I would tell her, "It's not me, Mommy, it's my brain. I can't help it." I think that was the very first thing that let me parents know they needed to get help for me to find out what was causing me to act how I did.
Also, when I would draw, the level of detail I included was far above that of a four-year-old. (councelor/therapist later stated this) I would include circles for knee caps and red circles on the ends of stick fingers that were my representation of nail polish. I never left teeth white because I knew teeth were not perfectly white (I guess that's why I did it, now that I think back on it.) And I drew teeth looking like jagged rectangles in the mouth sticking out at odd angles.
At age 7 I became obsessed with cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises.) I got books on them at the library and actually drew a picture of each of the 86 (if I remember correctly) species. I could talk about them for hours but no one was ever interested enough. I also obessed over learning about the planets, dinosaurs, and volcanoes.
When I watched movies with my family, and something that realistically could not happen occurred in the movie, I would ask how that was possible or why it happened. The answer I always got was, "It's just a movie. It's not meant to be thought about that way. Just enjoy it." I would make my parents play the Little Mermaid up to five or more times in a row (so I've been told) on weekends and get up and dance and sing every time. They got sick of it but always played the movie again for me.
I also had my bedtime ritual of singing my nursey rhymes before I could go to sleep: Hickory Dickory Dock, the one with "in the kitchen with Dinah", Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and several others. I would not let my mom or dad, whoever was singing them with me that night, leave before we said them all. If they forgot one, I would tell them the one they forgot and we would sing it. Then I would be up until 11 pm thinking about stuff, unable to sleep because my brain kept thinking of random things and vivid scenes of..."stuff" would play like a movie in my head. I never even remembered falling asleep because I never consciously closed my eyes. I was aslways awake, and next thing I knew, mom was waking me up. The only way I fell asleep was when I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open. But having my cats curled up on my pillow above my head and purring always helped me relax.
I will stop babbling now. I suppose some of those are the things that led my parents to get me tested. It is a good thing thay did, because I was a very angry and depressed child.
Sorry, that was very long and involved. Probably more than you were looking for. But once I started typing, I could not stop. I started remembering things I had forgotten about for so many years. Then I would remember something else.
Best of luck to you and your daughter. But why is she in denial? Does she know exactly what Asperger's is?
09 Jan 2011, 1:48 pm
