My testimony of pain---Part One---Childhood

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This is going to be tough for me. I am not putting this in The Haven because I have healed/or nearly healed from my past. I am putting it here because so many of you that have posted in my positive threads have often shared moments from your painful past---and many of you might not understand my past because I haven't talked about it much. So this is not meant to pull anyone down, it is meant to let you understand the road I have come from. It is just my testimony of pain---pain that has dwindled through years of healing.

I had/have very loving caring parents. They have supported me in my endeavors and I couldn't have asked for better parents for me. They allowed me to pursue my special intense interests and believed in me. So I have no pain in regards to my family. Today, my family lives a half mile from my parents. We are very close.

Ok---my painful past. I can remember sometime before I was in school visiting a cousin who was my age in Florida. I collected pencils back then (and still do---though they are not an interest of mine). I had this handheld pencil sharpner with me. My cousin liked it very much. My parents suggested I give it to him. I did. But then, as we were leaving their house, I began getting upset. That pencil sharpner I felt belonged with me. No, it wasn't selfishness, it was that the pencil sharpner was part of what I was used to---it had sharpened so many of my pencils---it was my ritual. Well, that isn't real painful, but it is an early painful memory.

As a child I was accustomed to having my room a certain way---if something was gone, I knew it. As toys got old and raggedy, Mom would toss them in the garbage. I went through trauma virtually every gargage day. As a little child I would go out secretly to the garbage cans in the carport and locate my broken discarded toys. If I couldn't find them, I mourned for them as the garbage truck took them away. You see, I am very driven by having things left a certain way. Changes to my personal things causes me stress. Today, I still hate to see certain types of things thrown away. I hate garbage day.

I KILLED A KITTEN---MY GOD, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT...I RAN AWAY. I rode my bike to the girl who lived two doors away. They had all these pets that I loved. I loved their cats such and dogs and snakes and pet rats and...But it was their cats they were noted for. One of the mother cats had had kittens earlier. And the kittens were getting a little bit of size to them. So I rode down to see them. I DIDN'T SEE IT...I REALLY DIDN'T. It's neck went into my spokes of the front wheel---Oh my God...the sound. I killed a kitten---I killed a life. It was lifeless---broken. It was truly an accident, I didn't see it in my path. I should have looked harder for where I was riding. I pedaled away as quickly as I could. I couldn't look at its broken body. I can still hear the girl calling for me as I rode out of sight, "Come back...come back...it wasn't your fault...come back please." I didn't come back for awhile.

I tried little league baseball---I hated every minute of it. I wanted to quit. But I didn't know how to tell my parents I didn't want to play---too awkward to tell them this. So I suffered three years playing ball. I struck out nearly everytime. "Easy out...easy out...easy out...swing batter batter...swing...STRIKE THREE YOUR OUT!! !" If I had a dollar for everytime I heard that when I was at bat I would be rich. How on earth my father felt watching me bumble around out there kept from putting a paper bag over his head I will never know. My father was an ex-professional baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. It had to be embarassing for him. As I got older, I have often felt like I was a disapointment to my father. Since he was a sports jock in baseball and basketball, he probably had great plans for me when I was born in 1964. He probably imagined this boy continuing on the sports legacy that he and his brothers had lain in our town---they were all regionally famous. But I didn't come out of the womb right. I got all tangled up and nearly died of oxygen deprivation. It took the miracle work of a doctor to do a C-section to get me out alive.

In first grade, I had amassed a collection of over a hundred pencils in my desk. One morning, my teacher had taken them away. I asked her for them and she said I couldn't have them back. I only needed a couple pencils. #%*...they were mine. They were my pencils---she had no right. I looked all over the room for them. But I never found them. You know, I can still remember what some of those pencils looked like nearly 38 years later? I remember this one that I had sharpened on both ends after having the eraser removed. I was in pain from that. How could I trust my authority figure at school if she violated my personal space and took what was mine?

In second grade, there was a girl that used to bother and tease me. I finally took all I was going to take from her---she was tormenting me and standing on a desk, so I hit her and knocked her out. I can still see her falling off that desk---oh...and the huge purple knot coming out on her head---her eyes were rolled back, and the teacher who had been out in the hall came running in..."What happened???! !!" I was petrified and sobbing. I was taken away to the guidance office to talk with the school psychologist person. I can still feel that feeling I had sitting in there. That wasn't something I was capable of doing was it? Well, I guess it was. Looking back, I think it had a lot to do with sensory overload. She was making faces and loud noises and wouldn't stop. The more I begged for her to stop, the more she did it. Why I didn't leave, I don't know. I just wanted her to stop. It was also during second grade that I had the most trouble settling down in the classroom. I can remember running around the room when I was supposed to be seated at my desk.

In school, I didn't really fit in with my classmates. I eventually realized I was an outcast. Even teachers suggested to my parents that I socialize more. Oh, I tried...I just wasn't popular in the typical friendship type of way. I did find a friend early on that became my best friend. In many ways he was like me. As he has never been able to hold on to a job or keep a wife, I sometimes wonder if he wasn't on the spectrum somewhere. If he was, he was not as challenged as I was because he did fit in with the social groups, and he was popular. When he began hanging out with other friends in junior high school, I was left out. When I got into bigger groups of peers, I tried awkwardly (oh...so awkwardly) to fit in---but I just didn't. So I lingered literally in the shadows observing the way I thought I was supposed to be. I saw peers pop pills and chug beers. I never tried those things because I was/and am so rule driven. I have discussed this before. In junior high school I can remember dreading recess because I could not easily play basketball, or any of the other sports the kids played. I did not have the motor skills for it. So I walked the playground, in addition to my own yard, in specific patterns---over and over again. There are times I still feel driven to walk those patterns.

So, I was alone in junior high school---no friends in the typical sense. I did find a group to hang out with. They were into witchcraft. I didn't practice witchcraft, but I did find it intriguing. This group was the social outcasts of the school---not rough---just weird and nerdy. That's where I fit in junior high school. However, I didn't feel comfortable with them---but, even we autistic children sometimes long to fit in somewhere. And this group accepted me. My former best friend told my parents about the group I was hanging out with. My parents didn't tell me not to hang out with them. But, I quit hanging out with them anyway. I had something blossoming for me---I was in the band and I was a sort of prodigy at the trombone. My friend became music. Other students, I later learned, looked up to me because I was talented in music, and I made high marks in academics. And I was the tallest one in the class. I was 6'1" in junior high school (I never grew another inch). The junior high basketball coach tried to get me to join the basketball team---I wouldn't. Why? Gee---I couldn't even make a layup without stopping for a second and then jumping up about three inches---and then---I was lucky to make a basket. Also, I couldn't stand to be touched by those I didn't know real well---let alone getting thumped and knocked down. No!! ! No basketball for me. I stayed in the band, and as I was seemingly the only tall boy not playing basketball, this added to my geekiness. That Christmas, the stocking that always hung on the wall, was lost. It was the stocking I had always had. I cried for it. Thank God it was found---Mom still has it. It was my tradition/ritual to have that stocking every Christmas. But I am still scarred from the trauma of having lost this for the amount of time that it was gone. I just can't stand for something I am used to to be taken away or lost.

I was invited to fellow classmate's birthday party at her parents house. Over half of our class went. We, the kids, were put in the large garage where all the decorations and treats were. I tried to fit in. As hard as I tried, "No...I just don't fit in." In frustration, I walked out of the garage and knocked on the front door. Her mother let me in. She had a piano in there, and I spent the rest of the evening playing the piano for her mother.

I entered high school and continued with the band. I didn't realize at the time that I was bullied, but I was bullied. Doesn't that sound familiar? I have been set on water fountains, laughed at, and had my trombone dented up by who I thought was an older band member friend. That same so-called friend had me on his bowling team for the high school (there were at least three other teams I could have gotten on). I thought he was being nice, but he faked friendship (I think???) because I was the best youth bowler in the entire county---and he wanted me on his team. Bowling---yeah, that was my domain---no physical contact---and I had the proper skill for it. We won the county trophy. When we would eat after matches, he would steal my food that I had bought. He would burp loudly at the table as I tried to eat. I rode in his car and he would scare me to death driving 70-80 mph on a curvy two-lane road in his late 60's model Chrysler big block 8 cylinder. He scared me.

SELF-HARM:---yes, I confess.

By junior high school I was twisting and pulling my hair. I was breaking a lot of hair. But you would never know it---in the 70's many of us guys had a whole lot of hair. My avatar picture was taken in 1974 when I was about 10 years old---so you get the idea. After my mother realized what I was doing, I no longer did this. But I did enter a secret outlet for my pain---self-harm. I used to stick sharp pins through layers of skin on my stomach. Why? It was a release of tension I guess. I felt better afterwards. I pushed a lot of pins into me over those years. It was like the more pain, the more release of tension and psychological pain. I found the ribs to be painful, and also the feet.

Well, there is a lot more I can add from my childhood---but I have given you a sampling of my early life. I have done this not for sympathy, but for sharing with you things that show I understand the pain that we autistics share. I have only given incidents of many that occured to me. I cannot write all of them. But I have given you some particular incidents that represent some moments in my life. Don't be pulled down by this. I am a very happy person now, and I had a lot of happy moments as a child as I absorbed into my interests. But, I also had pain.

Part Two: My adult life...will follow soon. Because this is so long, I am not proofreading it. As being obsessed with trying to make perfect posts was something that caused me stress here at the WrongPlanet, now might as well be a good time to not worry about grammar, usage, and mechanics.

Thank you all for your support at the WrongPlanet.

bump

Glider, I'm sure your father is very proud of you. My question: What did he do to encourage your pursuit of those activities for which you had talent and interest (especially when it became clear you had no interest in, or talent for, baseball)?

Since I was so fascinated by the electronic organ, my parents bought me one for Christmas when I was still in grade school. Anytime friends or relatives came to our house, my father would make a point to have me play music for them. He always seemed to come alive with excitement when I was playing for people. I found out that he often bragged about me to his students where he taught---and to this day, I believe he still brags about my talents at the college where he teaches. He has been teaching for over 50 years. Often times I will run into somebody that he taught, and they will say, "Your dad told us (the class) all about how you do this (music) or that (some other thing). So Dad has always exhibited pride in me, but at the same time, I feel like he probably hoped I would pursue sports---"like father like son". I only assume this because he was such a popular sports jock in school, and cool around the guys, and that when he was young he probably wouldn't have hung out with the type of student I was. His youth was spent working on his family's farm and playing basketball and baseball with the guys.

I can relate to the wrenching guilt of doing this. I did something similar as a child by accident. There was a sparrow that was hurt so I took it inside and gave it water and crackers and let it rest under a little blanket in the house until it started moving around more healthily. I felt like such a good samaritan. I then put it back in the rafters of the old barn from which it had fallen (I found it on the ground). When I went to check on it the next day, I found it dead and covered with bloody peck marks. The other birds had pecked it to death. I found out from a nature-minded adult that it was probably pecked to death because it smelled like me because I had picked it up and held it and taken it inside. So it smelled like An Alien and they killed it for that. They killed it because of my intereference. If I'd left it alone, it might have survived but my interference doomed it. So I can understand that horrible guilt of I DIDN'T MEAN TO. I WISH I COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND UNDO IT. It's an awful feeling.

Thank you for sharing Janissy. I believe many of us would have tried to do a similar thing with the sparrow---I'm sure I wouldn't have known that the other birds would have picked on it either.

Actually, sparrows do not rely on their sense of smell for much. It is a myth that they'll smell 'human' and then act on that. They probably pecked it for a completely different reason, possibly relating to the original reason it had fallen.

It is also a myth that if you touch a baby rabbit (or other wild animal) that the mother won't take it back.

I so knew it wouldn't last long.

...knew what wouldn't last long?

It's probably best not to ask. Nothing good can come out of this path.

At least she acknowledges you exist.

At first I thought she (GT) was talking about the baby bird. then I realized she was probably referring to Glider's hiatus. Nice to see you back Glider.

Anyway, I think I am fortunate to have had a relatively pain-free childhood. I didn't use to think that way until I came onto WP and read some of the awful accounts of other people's childhoods. By comparison, mine was enchanted. I wasn't abused or bullied. Most of my problems were of my own making, bad or impulsive choices. I had good parents and wasn't neglected. I didn't lack any material thing. I had playmates, not necessarily friends. As a teenager, it started getting harder, a few friends, other oddballs and outcasts, but accepting of me. But then, I dropped out of school, where I was incredibly unhappy most of the time, and married at age sixteen. Still a child. Three babies in three years. Still a child. Today, my life is still blessed, kind of isolated, but that's how I like it. Mostly, I was and am misunderstood. Still a child.

Thank you Cosmiccat, it is nice to be back. I really had no intention of returning, but after one month, I decided I needed WrongPlanet. It is a comfort to be able to discuss issues here and read about others' experiences and concerns. Thank you for sharing on this thread.

That sounds very similar to my childhood. I think, in large part, my musical talent and ability to do well in school made up for my weirdnesses, at least to the adults in my life who nurtured me.

Even with my extremely supportive mother, she knew I was radically different from my brother. We played very differently from a young age. He was an avid reader, while I showed almost no interest in books. He played with G.I. Joe and Star Wars figurines, while I drew up maps of imaginary lands and sang into a tape recorder for hours. He was out making friends, while I sat in my room or at the piano.

I like the way you describe your peers as "playmates, not necessarily friends." That's exactly how I felt when I was a kid. A common mantra of my pre-teen years was, "I want you to try and make at least one new friend this year at school." I never really lived up to that, at least not until high school.


I had a couple of bad years in junior high, though I think most people do. I have no doubt that I started "normalizing" somewhere around tenth grade, right around the time I fell in with the bookish folk in high school. They were incredibly accepting and patient with me. I still didn't really feel like I fit in with them (I didn't share their love of books, for instance), but the "loose coalition" was enough to get me through.

The fact that I got through adolescence so successfully compared with many here makes me wonder how "spectrum-y" I really am. To me, it really doesn't matter whether I actually have AS or am simply part of the broad autism phenotype. I undoubtedly have autistic traits that have played a major role in shaping my personality over the years, and that is pretty much undeniable. However, I'm not parading around the world declaring that I am autistic. That really wouldn't do any good whatsoever. Rather, I'm using my knowledge to discover inner "whys" about my past, my personality, and my tendencies in order to make the future brighter and better. But that's me. Everyone has their own style, and I have no problems whatsoever with someone who publicly declares themselves to be autistic.

Some people want to think that the world of AS and autism is black and white, that people like us don't really exist. The truth is, though, that we do exist. Maybe a large part of us aren't draw to online support groups because we don't really need them. I come to WP because I can share similarities about my personality with others that the most of the world does not understand. That and I love engaging in open discussion about these issues. They fascinate me.

Sorry, this post is partly related to this thread and partly related to the recent "self-diagnosis" thread which has been raging on of late. Forgive me for digressing.

The OP's post was pretty painful for me to read.

Glider18
Thank you for sharing. I look forward to reading more about your story.

I appreciate your reading of Part One of my testimony. I was thinking today about getting started on Part Two---The College Years. I will try to work on that tomorrow. Part Three will be the adult years up until my diagnosis.