I rant about my life with Aspergers

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Ok guys and gals I've rarely opened up much about my aspergers but I'm 25 now and I have so many unanswered questions. To understand me and hopefully help me I guess I'm going to have to give the whole back story.

It took me 19 years to admit I had aspergers and that it affected my judgement and other major aspects of my life. I was raised by a single mum mainly with very little help from my dad along the way. When I was about 3 y.o the people around me started to notice how different I was. I grew very quickly and was awkwardly tall, I think I hit 6 foot around age 9 or 10. Anyway I would go to school and was very bright for my age I never really had to pay attention until high school and could easily pass every subject with flying colours. I had an I.Q test done in primary school that put me around the 140 mark for an adult.

Where the problems where was with my social interactions and my behavior. I've come along way since I was a kid and these days people can't believe I'm autistic at all. I only wish they could see me when I was younger when I was expelled from 8 schools and was in fights almost daily. I was picked on relentlessly, my height made me a massive target already so throw in violent, unpredictable and social awkward and you have a bad mix. I skipped grades, went back down grades nothing helped. In classrooms with my peers I wasn't challenged by the work and grew bored and caused a lot of trouble. I finished the 2nd grade and went to the 5th grade for a while were the work was more suited to me but my lack of social skills was magnified. Other symptoms I exhibited were depression and anxiety, poor gross motor skills, very poor concentration and total lack of respect for other people, their property and all authority.

I was taught to ignore the bullying, which I got better at. However the more I was bullied the more rage would build up inside of me. I would obsess in my head about enacting revenge on my tormentors, eventually it would only take one incident to send me over the edge and I would explode into tears with a violent rage and would take a very long time to calm down. I'm understating that... I was a complete psycho. Now that I'm older I realise that half of it was kids being mean and the other half was me misreading social cues and reacting badly. For example I could ignore bullying for a week and then the final incident that caused me to black out and turn psychopathic was usually an innocent act by another person that I would mistake for threatening or bullying. It sure made me look like a lost cause to students, teachers, neighbours and even family.

I would misread social interactions all the time. A great example is sarcasm... I couldn't understand the concept at all and I would take sarcastic comments literally every time. I couldn't maintain eye contact very well and I couldn't read people's expression's to save the life of me. I look back on it as if I've lived 2 lives. My first life was my childhood and most my teens where autism controlled my actions and my life and it really feels now like an out of body experience almost, its feels like someone else. My second life was when my social skills started to catch up and my ability to control my rage improved to the point I black out rarely and usually only in the right situations now. i.e when my life is in danger or I'm being assaulted. My second life started when I could finally admit after 2 childhood diagnosis that I had aspergers.

I have several friend with aspergers I have known a long time and something I noticed with them is that the more severely affected individuals will not admit they are autistic. When I was in denial I would reject the medications subscribed to me which where Ritalin and Dexamphetamine. The periods where I didn't spit the pills out later and was medicated my school life would improve dramatically both concentration and social interactions where improved. The problems where that when I got home from school and my last pill would wear off I would be far more impaired and my behavior would be 3x worse than it was when I was unmedicated. Its no wonder my poor mum didn't want me to keep taking them in the end, she had to deal with a psychopathic man-child coming down from the drugs at 6pm every monday to friday night.

The only person who rarely physically abused me was my mum. She his heavily Aspergers herself and is far smarter than I. She had a horrific childhood that deserves its own book or iAMA. I don't want to reveal too much so lets just say it rated a 10 on the abuse scale. She tells me giving birth to me changed her life and she ended up going to uni at 25 and getting a degree. Then she graduated and is now a very successful woman. For me the abuse I experience was never of a sexual nature, I would just be beaten with household objects nearly everyday because of my behavior. My father when I rarely stayed with him didn't understand autism neither did almost anyone in my life back then. He and my mothers boyfriends, if I acted up they thought I just needed strong discipline, most people i.e teachers, friends, other parents would tell them was their fault I was like that.
Being psychically punished had zero affect on whether or not I misbehaved or not. It would just cause my darkness to swell more and more and teach me that hurting people when we are mad is ok.

Although I was all that I have described there were somethings that made those closest to me realise I was really a sweet kid trapped inside poorly wired brain. I had many pets in my youth and never did I mistreat any of them. I was close with all my pets and I like to think their unconditional love for me helped me cope with my dark passenger (sorry dex ).

I think being in denial and believing that you are right and everyone else is wrong when disagreements occur is normal for severe aspergers. The only advantages to my condition where when I played basketball something I'm very passionate about. I would unleash my inner rage on my opponents and convince myself they had wronged me. I would fly around the court like a maniac, I could run faster and my stamina improved when I was enraged. I would play defense with heart and I would hustle my ass off playing much better than I ever could otherwise. A couple of my coaches picked up on it and would intentionally have my teammates pick on me before games, often they would leave me on the bench and pick on me themselves only to unleash me later in the game to great effect. I remember emphatically blocking shot after shot and glaring right in my coaches eyes in defiance. The downside was that if there was any real flare ups during the games I would sometimes black out and get into fights and get myself ejected and/or suspended.
The other advantage was of course.. the intelligence. I say this in the past tense because although I am wiser now, I'm nowhere near as smart as I was as a kid. The I.Q test I did when I was a teenager wasn't as properally administered as the one I did as a 6 y.o but it showed a drop to about 125 and I'm sure I would be lucky to break 115 now at 25 years of age.

The reason for this is that I grew tired of being a total outcast and having only a couple of friends at a time. I moved to a bad neighbourhood when I was 11 and I started to smoke marijuana with whichever local hoodlum would accept me. It was an equal trade. They needed someone to supply money or do crime with to support there habit, and I needed friends, regardless of whether I was being used or not. Now when I look back and I see the effect being a marijuana smoker has had on me. Slowly over my teens the interactions I had with groups and individuals I met through smoking caused my social skills to improve to the point you can't really observe my aspergers anymore unless you meet with me many times and only then your average person will pick up on it. The side effects of marijuana where that my cognitive ability diminished and my memory was affected which I believe made me appear more normal, not such a smartass anymore.

The other side effects of marijuana are the increased anxiety and depression, something I struggle with today. The more the weed caused me to become more "normal" the more my depression and anxiety increased. These days I am a slave to my own conscience, as I feel terrible for the pain I caused people. My family, my teachers, my classmates and my friends. Even though I don't feel like it was me that made those decisions to be violent or cruel, and that the autism cause me to react in certain ways. I still feel a terrible emptiness and depression and feel a need to make it up to everyone who was ever affected by my actions. My conscience eats at me it never stops.
One of the most crippling symptoms was my lack of regard for authority, people and property. When I was around 13 I started to leave home for up to weeks on end and hang out with drug users, the homeless and criminals who I felt accepted by. I was doing more and more criminal acts, almost always due to peer pressure or trying to impress others. I was placed into a group hostel for homeless and criminal youths, I rebelled immediately and resented being locked into a room with bars on the windows and treated as a prisoner. The only crimes I was charged with was when the police intervened to get me off the streets. I reacted to them trying to take me to the hostel angrily and fought them off destroying a small amount of property in the process. Once I was charged I was legally forced to live at the hostel on bail where I lasted a few weeks until I was unfairly punished by having my only privilege taken away. Until this particular day the hostel had made and exception for me to play basketball once a week with my team. They punished me for my roommates interactions with a female youth at the hostel. I later learned this was because unlike me around 60% of the youths inside were there because they had committed sex crimes and had been abused in prison. Thus they overreacted when my sex crime accused roommate struck up a romance with a girl and snuck her into our room to chat while I slept.

I woke to the drama and never being a good waker I verbally abused the staff and wanted to go back to sleep. They informed me I wouldn't be playing anymore and I casually informed them that if I didn't attend the game there would be hell to pay and went back to sleep. The very next day when it was clear I was going to miss the game I flew into a rage, assaulted the workers and destroyed a large amount of property. My actions led to me going to juvenile prison for the first time and that was when my mother moved to another country (my dad also resided in that same country with his original wife and kids). Being locked in that cell was the lowest point in my life, I can remember the exact time I hit rock bottom and I just sat on the concrete floor of my cell and just cried and cried.

The day before my 15th birthday I had my day in court. I pled guilty to assault and property damage (max sentence was 10 years) under advice from my legal-aid attorney and during sentencing the judge asked if I had anything to add. I managed to convince him that everything that had happened to me was due to my freedom being taken away and not my character. He gave me a 2 year bond and granted me my freedom and took away my status as a ward of the state and put me in charge of my own life which wasn't normally allowed until age 16. He also granted me the same rights to unemployment benefits a 16 y.o has so I could start my new life. I walked out the next morning.

After that I did everything for myself and being a loner and detained in some way or another most of my life being independent was great. What I did with my life wasn't. I sold marijuana and committed alot of crime, I was never at any point in my life a really bad criminal. I lived by a code that I learnt early on and we only took from the rich, or corporations which were fair game to us. I sometimes tried to go straight and work a normal job. The longest I have held a job to date is 6 months and that was not without an awful lot of incidents caused by me. My time management skills are terrible and I was often late. My sleep patterns are irregular and the depression and anxiety would cause me to not go to work some days. If I was running late for example my anxious fear of confrontation would cause me to not call work and apologise and make my way there, but hide under the covers and feel hopeless and depressed. Sometimes I wish I could find a job were my employer understood my condition and would accommodate for my condition. I think if that would happen I wouldn't feel so anxious about being in trouble anymore. Also after a few weeks or months my co-workers and bosses start to pick up on my symptoms and start to dislike me, its like school all over again.

5 and half months ago however my life changed for the better. My partner of 6 years gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby boy and I became a dad for the first time. My partner was afraid that I would be a bad person to have at the birth as the autism affects my ability to feel/express emotion and be empathetic or supportive. To her surprise I was none of that and from the moment I looked into his tiny eyes I was a smitten. I even cried a couple of tears of joy when he finally emerged. I swear to be the best dad I can possibly be every day but not even that can fix me. As much as I want to be the awesome father and provider I never had my symptoms keep dragging me back down.
I have received almost no support in my life for my condition. When I was young I was in denial therefore rejected any treatment. Now I am older my 2 diagnosis have been lost in the system and I have no paperwork of either. I'm unable to afford to be diagnosed again and therefore I'm unable to be given a disability unemployment allowance or medication. I never was really fussed about receiving a disability allowance as what I really want to is work a normal 9 to 5 like everyone else, if only it was that easy. I've always received a barely livable unemployment allowance when I'm out of a job just like everyone else. It has strict conditions I have trouble meeting in regards to finding work etc. but I'm proud to say I've asked for no more assistance than the average person in my country gets.

Where I want assistance is in kicking my remaining symptoms in the butt for good. I first started taking MDMA, Methamphetamine and Speed about 2 years ago when I live in a really bad neighbourhood. Now the amazing thing is that when I'm under the influence of such drugs my symptoms almost completely disappear. I'm able empathise with people better, my social skills improve and I can be the life of a party. I become more happy and confident and my depression and anxiety fade away almost instantly. I am open to open up my feelings and even write my partner love letters or tell her what I'm really feeling. My concentration improves dramatically... for example I'm a gamer and I have access to many games. Most games even new releases will not hold my attention for than an hour, I will play for 1 hour get bored and never touch that game again. Multiplayer games are the only games that keep my interest and I will play them multiple times. Under the influence of amphetamines however and I'm suddenly Mr concentration and I will read, play or do things without getting bored straight away.

The sad reality is that when life gets too hard for me living with aspergers I turn to amphetamines so for maybe half a day I can feel like a normal person. It's like I'm the real me... the me that's hidden under the anxiety, the depression, the autistic symptoms. It really does make me a better person in almost every way for the duration of its effects. There are downsides though. Just like everyone else I struggle when the effects are wearing off and I am coming down. I can become addicted very quickly if i'm not careful and of course its a very expensive and acquiring it is very illegal. Of course I understand the link between the medications I was prescribed as a kid (Dexamphetamine and Ritalin) and other amphetamines. I just really wish there was a way I could get myself re-diagnosed or the people with my paperwork would find it. The fact that I split from my family at 13 means I never had my own paperwork to begin with so it's not even as if I lost it. If anyone out there has an opinion or any advice or even their own story they would like to share please comment away. Everybody is welcome to weigh in and sorry for you guys who have read this far. Grammar and writing were always my weakest subjects

P.S I am writing this while under the influence right now, for the first time in 6 months. It's the only reliable way I can express what I'm really feeling. If I wasn't I couldn't of written this post. Normally I'm not emotional enough and the anxiety of posting this on the internet would be all too much.