If You Looked Autism in the Face… Would You Recognize It?
| April 17, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iRant |
So those of you who follow both my husband and I on twitter will likely recall a recent back-and-forth from some issues going on right now, that all relate to my “neurodiversities” and my being upset with his sharing there some pretty deep issues that are affecting our marriage. Not “call the lawyer for divorce papers” issues, because I am not about to run away from this, but serious enough that it leads to extra stress and chaos in our day to day living.
So….ya.. here’s the deal. I’ve sort of covered the topic lightly before WAY back here in a blog post. But I’ve only ever glossed over it and not took the idea seriously at all when doing the whole ” name it to claim it, claim it to change it” deal.
Now it is clear that the struggles we are having are because I am Autistic. High functioning, verbal, able to be independent in adulthood, above average intelligence autistic.
The above average intelligence is apparently a given because without it I’d be less functional in society if I didn’t have that going for me to have been able to learn and adjust on how to cope in life, and appear relatively “normal” from a glance, with all the things I have going against me, but from what my dr and husband tell me I’m somewhere between on or around “superior to high average” intelligence.
But, I don’t test well due to dyslexia, and verbal auditory issues and such, so my IQ level has never been measured properly, and noone has seen a need to really find out.
So, if you looked Autism in the face ….would you recognize it? well, you do now.
We’ve just made the connections. My Dr has alluded to “traits” in the last 4 years I’ve been seeing her, but she is more of a “let them figure it out for themselves” kind of Dr. who makes suggestions, but doesn’t push.
So ya….a “label” doesn’t change who I am, or make me different from yesterday when we didn’t have a label, but currently I feel worthless knowing. I’ve known all along you can’t change brain wiring, but until now, I’ve been thinking I could sorta train the ADHD to stay in a small part of ym brain where it wouldbe more good than disruptive.
But now the struggles I have, over and over, all my life are clearer and easier to understand.
I basically have felt worthless all my life, and my existence has been trying to prove my worthiness. I feel like a fraud to my husband, and think if he had known when he got involved with me, he would have run away as fast as he could, and now 11 years and two kids and a physical disability later, he’s essentially trapped with a relatively functional retard.*
I feel like a failure at life due to the deep anxiety that is a constant in my life making basic day to day functioning very very difficult. I have panic attacks, can’t think, and then come here to the computer to calm down.
I feel mad because I’m only finding out all the issues i have NOW in my 30’s, and dealing with a lot of deep emotional crap from my life for EVERY event that probably occurred due to my brain wiring, and it being blamed on me for being stupid, but smart enough to know better,and therefore feeling bad, and guilty for doing stuff I had no explanation for.
They literally are replaying in my mind and the connection of shit that happened to me and being autistic without knowing it is being made. and I feel every emotion going….mad, sad, relief, confusion, etc.
I debated about sharing here…but I’m not gonna “hide it” I’ve always said I’m open and honest… I was told all my life “not rock the boat”, to “smile and forget about it”. I was always made to shut up and not share any negative emotions, and I just cannot be that way. I refuse to hide, or be shut up in my life. And so even if I am embarassed, or sad, or hurt or whatever, I need to remain true. If that gathers me critics, or loss of people I know/enjoy in my life then I’ll just have to deal with it.
I’ve always talked about my ADHD, my dyslexia, my learning disabilities… all this shit was stuff I never knew about me as a child. I grew up in an family of self medicating drinkers. I admit I have a hard time dealing with people in my life who medicate their lives heavily with alcohol. It is basically burying your head in the sand to avoid shit, and I refuse to avoid shit. It would be SOO much easier to just drink or be high all the time, but I don’t…because of basically paralysing fear of becoming a dysfunctional alcoholic, and causing my kids an adult life of grief trying to figure out their shit because I changed them with drinking.
I’ve done a LOT of healing and growing from my childhood, and the constant bullying I endured in school, being suicidal at 15 and making a lie up to not admit I’m suicidal, but to get me to a therapist anyway.
So, what I struggle with a lot now is brain wiring and natural chemistry makeup and trying to change the ingrained taught behaviours I was provided to “cope” and “appear normal” to society. I also am having to learn how to cope with over exposure to sensory things that bother me, and not take it out on others. I never made the connections before, I was just bitchy…but not realizing it was due to too much noise, or people being clingy around me, or too much light.
Some days sound is so painful to my ears I need everyone to shut up, or I desire being alone, and therefore become VERY agitated. I don’t know how to show emotions properly in person, so though people get to know the real me on the internet, when they meet me in person, I appear odd, or aloof, and stand offish. This is because of the level of anxiety I have trying to hear conversations due to my CAPD , and understand people’s facial expressions etc, and then they think I am a fraud because I’m nothing like I am on the internet. I don’t understand non verbal communication and misread people all the time, and it drives me crazy. it’s taken me a long time to admit and realize at the same time that these are issues for me. Because of spending 35 years trying to prove I’m “normal”
Like most adults who discover such debilitating neurodiversities at this point in their lives. It has come to the front and has been recognized because I could cope better when I was single, or just a couple with no kids… or even when I was a couple with one child under 2…but now with two children with very similar neurodiversities, a husband who’s physical abilities are diminished, and worsening brain chemistry because I’m peri-menopausal, I’m basically a bumbling idiot, and a lot of day I can hardly pull off the things that everyone does in their normal day to day and do on autopilot.
Last night I took three hours to make a pizza, which I then promptly left in the oven ( had the sense to turn off the oven when the timer went) because I got pulled away trying to figure out the downed internet issue calling the ISP…. but let it get brown in the oven’s residual heat to make it like cardboard.
This seems “minor” but when you make these kinds of mistakes EVERY DAY….multiple times a day…leaving people hungry, waiting for you to fix your mistakes, living your life as a failure makes one feel pretty fucked up, useless, unwanted, and like I should just go away, because I can’t make it any better, so being gone could not make it any worse.
If there is a Hell it is being smart enough to know you’re retarded, so you cannot live simply and unaware of your shit, and be the “cute little retarded girl” with no anxiety or awareness that what you do/cannot do is outside the “norm”.
sorry if this is incoherent.. this took me 2 hours to write, through tears, yelling at a 5 year old spinning in the living room playing Luke Skywalker with a drumstick, and dealing with a 9 year old who STILL cannot change gears and is melting on the floor.
*Don’t get on my ass about calling myself a retard… retarded means.. slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress.. look it up…literally I’m retarded. It takes me longer to “get it”. So, get over yourself if that offended you… and no, I’m not THAT “retarded” to not know that YOU think *I* should be offended by the word retarded, and that THAT really means you’re anal retentive. NOT MY PROBLEM
