Hello
I am obviously new here. I'm currently re-facing the fact that I am not like normal people due to one or two acute predicaments that made me re-analyze why I acted and felt certain ways which others could not understand.
After reading as much literature as I can, I am fairly certain that I have some form of autistic spectrum disorder. My sister's Nephew has been clinically diagnozed, and I'm fairly certain my Mother has it. I have fair hair, freckles, a big head and RH- blood factor also, which I read here are possible indicators.
It is hard for me, as I have always shied away from labels, I think that perhaps it is a form of inner denial. But I'm so tired now. I just can't keep up a facade anymore, I can't be not me anymore, I can't do it.
I am told I have a high IQ. My vocabulary and spelling were of an adult level by the time I was 8 or so. I didn't realize it at all, but I was apparently a problem child at Primary School, constantly causing trouble. I recall being perplexed when dragged out of class to see a child psychologist of some description. It was all a million miles away to me, like a movie playing on a television in the background. I feel guilty in that don't think I ever had a proper friendship, and that my demands were somewhat rude and callous (wanting their toys to complete my own sets, etc) I genuinely liked my friends but didn't even see then that my behaviour was wrong. They took me out of Primary School and put me into High School. I was bullied and harassed constantly. Even beaten and spat upon right in front of Teachers. I was unable to socialise at all, and barely spoke (Even today, I can't speak for long periods with people, I try to describe it to them as my speaking gland drying up, and having no more word-juice left in it. That's what it feels like)
I wore whatever clothes were nearest to hand, and was totally perplexed by trends and such, making even more of a fool of myself trying to fit in and roll with them, precipitating more harassment etc.
I look, and act, alot younger than I am, and always did so. I was still playing with toys, and playing "War" with sticks well into my late teens, early twenties. It was only when it was pointed out to me that I realized it might not seem quite normal to normal people.
I didn't learn to drive until I was 26, and even then it was only by grim force of will, as I could not let other people hold it over my head. And I think I was still desperately trying to fit in. I did not touch alcohol until I was about that same age, and again only as I thought that perhaps I might then "get it".
An example, I always feel on the outer. And I always have. I used to tell my parents that I was a NEBO, or Non Evolutionary Biological Organism. A casual, flippant experiment of Mother Nature that would pass on if useful, or languish and fade from time in a cul de sac if not. I have been signing things as "other" or "Astronaut Angus" since as long as I can remember.
I observed in myself when 13 or 14 or so the pleasure I gained from "patterns". Whether in collecting something, loops of behaviour.
But because I have tried so hard to understand social situations, females, and humans in general, I can now, if I have the energy, appear normal, say the right things, seem genial and polite, and even have people like me. But it takes such an effort, it makes me tired even thinking about it.
It annoys people when I analytically explain why I said such and such, or why I avoided such and such. I remember being told to "Chill out, and just have fun" which made me realize, in realtime, that these people around me truly were cruising at this altitude with no effort or self-consciousness at all, and that was the shape. And it was forever.
I avoid situations and people alot because I can't compete with them, I've realized. If I say a thing, or advise a course of action or strategy, it is because that is how it is. Some of my violent episodes have been when forced, or ambushed, into an unwanted interaction, where my thoughts or opinion are solicited from me, then the person twists what I say, or wants to argue the point. If they didn't want my advice, or input, why did they ask me? And furthermore, if they disgreed with it, why argue the point openly when they could effortlessly and simply disregard it? I reasoned that my input was not required at all, and that it was the act of disagreement itself that they desired, in an effort to "put me down" or "win" against me for the purposes of social heirarchy. A free meal. The degree of absurdity and insistence in such incidents seemed to be based upon the magnitude of the social setting, their perceived sense of potential gain, or a perceived sense of my weakness to resist (the opportunistic ones, like savannah scavengers).
It feels like a grinding dentist's drill is in my head in such times. My mind is a blank, with a sheet of rusty iron through it on an angle. What can I present other than what I've presented to them already? I think, from reading here over the past few days, that this is some kind of breakdown, or overload. The ambush might be concealed behind smiles, and delivered via genial banter, but it is nothing more than an attack whose objective is to gain social status and prestige with others, and over me, via my diminishment. Primate Boss Politics in the Raw. Language exposed, in their hands, as nothing but another tool of their brain stems. And since they were attacking me, I'd attack back, which was frequently ugly.
I am angry at the moment as I have tried to explain to the few "friends" that I have, etc, all the above, to try to help them understand why I am unable to be a "Friend" in return, no matter how much I'd like to, or how guilty I feel that I can't, and they just seem to think that I am mistaken, that I am gravitating to a label, and that if I just "let go" I'd swim as naturally as anyone else in the river of the world. I've spent my life avoiding labels, feeling that I would "get it" someday. I left home in my early twenties and have TRIED to "let go" to life, going along with situations, taking sociabilizers like MDMA, GHB, enduring countless horrible, awkward soul-draining nights at clubs and pubs, thinking that with enough practice the behaviour would become learned and subconscious. Like writing or swimming. I religiously worked out to maintain a physique attractive to females, tried to dress congruently, etc.
I recall with clarity, when amidst a sea of intermingling people, all having a good time, a "friend's" girlfriend pointed at me and said in sing-song "Angus has no friends". It didn't wound me as such, I remember it simply because it was like a little epiphany that, despite my years of arduous, diligent and focused efforts, I was not one millimetre closer to fitting in or understanding the flow than I was at the beginning, and that however I looked or dressed, or tried to act, I couldn't hide it from them either. I was outside of them.
And they have the gall forcefully inform me that I just haven't tried yet? I am tired, I don't even want to speak anymore. I only see my "friends" once every fortnight or so, but even then I try to avoid them. They only want money or something from me generally anyway, as I have no real interests in common with them, they aren't interested in the subjects that interst me, and I have no interest in popular culture or anything like that.
I want to buy an island, or move to a rural, coastal area, and live there with my dogs, where no one can get to me.
Anyway, that is me. That's life. It just is.
09 Dec 2006, 6:26 am
