Avalikia
October 2nd, 2008, 02:35 PM
Well, since I've been here for a bit I thought it was about time that I shared my story. It's a long one, but it has a happy ending. :) If you have any questions about anything, let me know; I'm an open book.
It all started when I was 8, though technically it really started when I was born but I'll explain that later. It was during the summer before I started third grade when my family moved because my dad switched jobs and had a very long commute, and my oldest brother was about to go into junior high and the area we lived in was... not good. (More recently we've heard news reports about gangs, murders, etc. near where we used to live, so it's a good thing we left.) Like any eight year-old I was very unhappy about this but my parents kept telling me that I'd make new friends and I'd be fine. Unfortunately, they were wrong. For the first couple months of third grade I had absolutely no friends and gained the reputation of being a crybaby, because I could not help crying when teased. I was completely unable to defend myself either physically (I was really wimpy) or socially. I couldn't figure out how to make teasing me not fun for bullies myself, I couldn't get myself to do anything my parents or other adults advised (such as ignoring them), and I had no friends to back me up. Eventually I made a few friends - sort of. Three other kids were also bully-targets and they let me play with them during recess, but they never defended me when I was teased.
Fourth grade was even worse. The bullying escalated until sometimes they'd kick me or spit on me. When I complained to the yard teacher, she told me to run away from them (impossible because I was the slowest runner in my class). I also heard "sticks and stones" all the time. By the second half of fourth grade I was faking illness so that I woudln't have to go to school, begging my teachers to not make me go to recess (they did anyway: apparently it was school policy), and my parents knew there was something seriously wrong. They took me to a psycologist, who diagnosed me with depression (with some thoughts of suicide) and anxiety. They also tested me for learning disablities and found mostly the opposite. I tested at a tenth grade level in most areas, but the tests also showed that I almost qualified as having a social learning disability. They recommended that I be placed in a program where I could take classes for gifted children part of the day, and resource classes where I could learn social skills. But there were no schools anywhere within driving distance that had both reasource classes and gifted programs, and almost all of the reasource programs didn't have a social skills program. My school district reccommended that I remain where I was; I think they assumed that my talents and deficiences would even eachother out somehow. But at this point my parents knew that was unacceptable so they looked for alternatives.
In fifth grade I was moved to a private school, where they hoped that the increased discipline would stop the bullying. And it did, for the most part. I still had no real friends, but a few of the students were the sort of people who were nice to absolutely everyone so that was good. I still got teased once in a while, but not nearly as often and the kids doing the teasing actually got punished for it. I could even stay in during recess if I wanted to! That was a great year, but things went downhill quickly during sixth grade. The teacher wasn't any more strict, but her methods were harsher and I didn't like hear nearly as much as my fifth grade teacher. Long story short, she ended up triggering my first panic attack (which I've tended to get ever since when I'm overly stressed) when I apparently gave her a "dirty look" after she punished the entire class for something only a few students, not including me, did. (At the time I had absolutely no control over my facial expressions, but more on that later.) That combined with my irregular social behavior apparently made me "disruptive" and the school's principal decided that I was no longer welcome.
Fortunately, by this time my mom had pretty much figured out what was going on with me. One of my brothers had be diagnosed with autism, and in an effort to make sure she was doing everything she could for him she was reading everything she could get her hands on about it. It was during this that she learned about a related mental disorder called asperger's syndrome. It's been discovered that the part of the brain that specializes in social functioning doesn't work in someone with aspergers. That means that any social skill people naturally pick up as infants and children (tone of voice, personal space, knowing when it's your turn to talk, lying, sarcasm, jokes, using and reading facial expressions, using and reading body language, etc.) aren't naturally picked up by someone with aspergers. Now someone with aspergers can learn these things, but instead of being processed in the specialized area designed for it, instead they have to conciously think about it and that is very difficult and mentally exhausting. (I like to describe it as the mental equivalent of doing calculus for someone who's not good at doing calculus. If you're good at calculus, it's like writing poetry. If you're good at both, I hate you.) At this point my mom pretty much knew this was what I had, so she found someone who specialized in it and I was officially diagnosed with it. I was a difficult case because at the time it was a fairly new diagnosis, I was a bit older than most of kids being diagnosed (though it's a life-long thing that you're born with - it's just easier to see in children), and I had already learned enough social skills the hard way that it masked some of the symptoms. However, once the diagnosis was confirmed we knew exactly what was going on and what to do about it.
But as anyone with a mental disorder knows, getting the diagnosis doesn't solve the problem. After getting kicked out of the private school we decided to try public school again for the last half of sixth grade, which was a mistake. Three girls pretended to be my friends for almost three months just so that they could laugh at me when they dumped me at the end. Upon reflection they weren't being very subtle about it, but between my inability to read people and desperation for friends I fell for it. This pretty much destroyed my trust in people aside from anyone I've known my entire life (like my parents) and I'm struggling with that to this day. I also couldn't get myself to go back after all that, so I essentially homeschooled myself by reading my old textbooks for the rest of that year. (My parents weren't worried about me falling behind because I was still testing above my grade and my IQ was officially testing at 136.) Seventh grade we decided to try public school again, hoping things would be better because there wasn't any recess. It was just bearable, even though I took only half a day of school and had a standing agreement with my teachers that I could leave class and go to the counseling office no questions asked whenever I wanted. Part of the reason it worked was because I avoided absolutely anyone, whether they acted nicely or not because I didn't trust anyone not to betray me. Eighth grade I took a full schedule, but I was only able to attend my classes about half the time because of the social stress - a lot of teenage girls are not nice people, especially during Jr. High/middle school and it was doubly hard for me. Things gradually improved between ninth and twelveth grade, though I still ended up in the counseling office a lot. I did eventually open up enough to make a few friends (though almost of them are scattered into different colleges now). As distracted as I was by the social situation, I did terribly in all of my classes and barely got my diploma. I graduated about a month after my class, with the assistance of getting my GED and using that for part of the required credits. (On the GED I tested above the 90th percentile in 3, almost 4 of the 5 areas tested.) My GPA at graduation was 2.1.
Now for what might be the start of a happy ending: The local college literally accepts anyone with a diploma, so I'm now attending classes there. College is an absolute dream compared to high school! There are no cliques, everyone is way too mature to make fun of anyone, a lot of people spend a lot of time alone studying (so I fit right in), and people aren't afraid to act wierd if they feel like acting wierd so nobody notices if I act wierd (which happens whether I want to or not). Plus I'm finding it a lot easier to think through situations that used to cause me to fall apart - I think it's because I've reached the age where your frontal lobe is supposed start it's final development. I'm discovering that my social skills are now to the point that people who don't know me very well think I'm completely normal, people who sort of know me think I'm quirky, and only the people who know me best can tell that I'm abnormal enough to have a mental disorder. Interacting with people is still mentally exhausting and that's probably not going to change, but I'm getting better and better at coping with that. Also, after all the time I've spent in the past being friends with dogs (since they're so much easier to get along with than people), I've discovered that I have a real knack for understanding them so I'm working on becoming a dog trainer. But it's an expensive field to get into, and it's really hard for me to find a job to earn that money that doesn't require too much social interaction so I'm planning on getting my associate's so that I can be more competative when I'm going after the few jobs I could handle. So far my GPA is a 4.0. I'm still working with my psycologist, and I'm pretty much cured of the depression; though it tends to resurface when I'm stressed, I can handle it now. The anxiety is still there but now it's manageable even without medication. You can't cure aspergers, but I'm learning to live with that.
It all started when I was 8, though technically it really started when I was born but I'll explain that later. It was during the summer before I started third grade when my family moved because my dad switched jobs and had a very long commute, and my oldest brother was about to go into junior high and the area we lived in was... not good. (More recently we've heard news reports about gangs, murders, etc. near where we used to live, so it's a good thing we left.) Like any eight year-old I was very unhappy about this but my parents kept telling me that I'd make new friends and I'd be fine. Unfortunately, they were wrong. For the first couple months of third grade I had absolutely no friends and gained the reputation of being a crybaby, because I could not help crying when teased. I was completely unable to defend myself either physically (I was really wimpy) or socially. I couldn't figure out how to make teasing me not fun for bullies myself, I couldn't get myself to do anything my parents or other adults advised (such as ignoring them), and I had no friends to back me up. Eventually I made a few friends - sort of. Three other kids were also bully-targets and they let me play with them during recess, but they never defended me when I was teased.
Fourth grade was even worse. The bullying escalated until sometimes they'd kick me or spit on me. When I complained to the yard teacher, she told me to run away from them (impossible because I was the slowest runner in my class). I also heard "sticks and stones" all the time. By the second half of fourth grade I was faking illness so that I woudln't have to go to school, begging my teachers to not make me go to recess (they did anyway: apparently it was school policy), and my parents knew there was something seriously wrong. They took me to a psycologist, who diagnosed me with depression (with some thoughts of suicide) and anxiety. They also tested me for learning disablities and found mostly the opposite. I tested at a tenth grade level in most areas, but the tests also showed that I almost qualified as having a social learning disability. They recommended that I be placed in a program where I could take classes for gifted children part of the day, and resource classes where I could learn social skills. But there were no schools anywhere within driving distance that had both reasource classes and gifted programs, and almost all of the reasource programs didn't have a social skills program. My school district reccommended that I remain where I was; I think they assumed that my talents and deficiences would even eachother out somehow. But at this point my parents knew that was unacceptable so they looked for alternatives.
In fifth grade I was moved to a private school, where they hoped that the increased discipline would stop the bullying. And it did, for the most part. I still had no real friends, but a few of the students were the sort of people who were nice to absolutely everyone so that was good. I still got teased once in a while, but not nearly as often and the kids doing the teasing actually got punished for it. I could even stay in during recess if I wanted to! That was a great year, but things went downhill quickly during sixth grade. The teacher wasn't any more strict, but her methods were harsher and I didn't like hear nearly as much as my fifth grade teacher. Long story short, she ended up triggering my first panic attack (which I've tended to get ever since when I'm overly stressed) when I apparently gave her a "dirty look" after she punished the entire class for something only a few students, not including me, did. (At the time I had absolutely no control over my facial expressions, but more on that later.) That combined with my irregular social behavior apparently made me "disruptive" and the school's principal decided that I was no longer welcome.
Fortunately, by this time my mom had pretty much figured out what was going on with me. One of my brothers had be diagnosed with autism, and in an effort to make sure she was doing everything she could for him she was reading everything she could get her hands on about it. It was during this that she learned about a related mental disorder called asperger's syndrome. It's been discovered that the part of the brain that specializes in social functioning doesn't work in someone with aspergers. That means that any social skill people naturally pick up as infants and children (tone of voice, personal space, knowing when it's your turn to talk, lying, sarcasm, jokes, using and reading facial expressions, using and reading body language, etc.) aren't naturally picked up by someone with aspergers. Now someone with aspergers can learn these things, but instead of being processed in the specialized area designed for it, instead they have to conciously think about it and that is very difficult and mentally exhausting. (I like to describe it as the mental equivalent of doing calculus for someone who's not good at doing calculus. If you're good at calculus, it's like writing poetry. If you're good at both, I hate you.) At this point my mom pretty much knew this was what I had, so she found someone who specialized in it and I was officially diagnosed with it. I was a difficult case because at the time it was a fairly new diagnosis, I was a bit older than most of kids being diagnosed (though it's a life-long thing that you're born with - it's just easier to see in children), and I had already learned enough social skills the hard way that it masked some of the symptoms. However, once the diagnosis was confirmed we knew exactly what was going on and what to do about it.
But as anyone with a mental disorder knows, getting the diagnosis doesn't solve the problem. After getting kicked out of the private school we decided to try public school again for the last half of sixth grade, which was a mistake. Three girls pretended to be my friends for almost three months just so that they could laugh at me when they dumped me at the end. Upon reflection they weren't being very subtle about it, but between my inability to read people and desperation for friends I fell for it. This pretty much destroyed my trust in people aside from anyone I've known my entire life (like my parents) and I'm struggling with that to this day. I also couldn't get myself to go back after all that, so I essentially homeschooled myself by reading my old textbooks for the rest of that year. (My parents weren't worried about me falling behind because I was still testing above my grade and my IQ was officially testing at 136.) Seventh grade we decided to try public school again, hoping things would be better because there wasn't any recess. It was just bearable, even though I took only half a day of school and had a standing agreement with my teachers that I could leave class and go to the counseling office no questions asked whenever I wanted. Part of the reason it worked was because I avoided absolutely anyone, whether they acted nicely or not because I didn't trust anyone not to betray me. Eighth grade I took a full schedule, but I was only able to attend my classes about half the time because of the social stress - a lot of teenage girls are not nice people, especially during Jr. High/middle school and it was doubly hard for me. Things gradually improved between ninth and twelveth grade, though I still ended up in the counseling office a lot. I did eventually open up enough to make a few friends (though almost of them are scattered into different colleges now). As distracted as I was by the social situation, I did terribly in all of my classes and barely got my diploma. I graduated about a month after my class, with the assistance of getting my GED and using that for part of the required credits. (On the GED I tested above the 90th percentile in 3, almost 4 of the 5 areas tested.) My GPA at graduation was 2.1.
Now for what might be the start of a happy ending: The local college literally accepts anyone with a diploma, so I'm now attending classes there. College is an absolute dream compared to high school! There are no cliques, everyone is way too mature to make fun of anyone, a lot of people spend a lot of time alone studying (so I fit right in), and people aren't afraid to act wierd if they feel like acting wierd so nobody notices if I act wierd (which happens whether I want to or not). Plus I'm finding it a lot easier to think through situations that used to cause me to fall apart - I think it's because I've reached the age where your frontal lobe is supposed start it's final development. I'm discovering that my social skills are now to the point that people who don't know me very well think I'm completely normal, people who sort of know me think I'm quirky, and only the people who know me best can tell that I'm abnormal enough to have a mental disorder. Interacting with people is still mentally exhausting and that's probably not going to change, but I'm getting better and better at coping with that. Also, after all the time I've spent in the past being friends with dogs (since they're so much easier to get along with than people), I've discovered that I have a real knack for understanding them so I'm working on becoming a dog trainer. But it's an expensive field to get into, and it's really hard for me to find a job to earn that money that doesn't require too much social interaction so I'm planning on getting my associate's so that I can be more competative when I'm going after the few jobs I could handle. So far my GPA is a 4.0. I'm still working with my psycologist, and I'm pretty much cured of the depression; though it tends to resurface when I'm stressed, I can handle it now. The anxiety is still there but now it's manageable even without medication. You can't cure aspergers, but I'm learning to live with that.