I'm an Aspie. Not the stereotype, which I hate, but an Aspie nonetheless. I am lucky to have benefited in my youth from very, very good cognitive behavioral therapy, which largely helps me to blend in and function in society without attracting the wrong kind of attention. But this also has to do with medication, in a big way. I do not want to speculate where I'd be without my meds.
I have an awesome job. I work as an ICM. This stands for Intensive Case Manager. The healthcare network I worked for hired me specifically as an ASD specialist, and they don't know (though I wonder if they sometimes suspect, given my ease of rapport with my clients) that I'm on the Spectrum myself.
I love my job, but it's turned my life into an urban soap opera. Nearly all the kids on my caseload and very high-need and very low income. I work with kids all over the spectrum, from the lowest functioning to the kids much like I used to be.
It's that last part that forces me to confront a number of personal demons and leads to periods of occasional depression that last for weeks. Especially because my role is to provide the kind of supports that, frankly, I wish I had when I was their age. But I never had a "Mr. Barry" (that's what the kids call me); I had a supportive family, but even they were ignorant of the exact nature of what I was going through, despite my Dad dealing with his own major anxiety issues and my mom being a special ed teacher and later administrator.
At school, my behavioral problems overshadowed my academic gifts. I was held back a year in kindergarten, due to my emotional immaturity. I don't think any of my teachers or the administrators even knew what Asperger's was, then. It wasn't on their radar. I was "emotional." I was very, very sensitive, and harder on myself than anyone else, with the exception of the myriad of bullies that preyed on my insecurities, pushing my buttons and provoking me into reacting. So they held me back, which only added drastically to my insecurities. Because the next year, in first grade, when the other kids were months, even up to a year younger than myself, they were still all bigger than I was, and I still got picked last in teams. Not that I appreciated much else about gym class anyway. But I was a Straight A kid, with the exception of Gym and Math, and yet for my "emotional/behavioral problems" (meltdowns), I was sent to a LEARNING SUPPORT room. I had to go to the Resource Room! This was humiliating, because all the bullies called me a ret*d, and with the school excluding me from Gifted on the basis of my emotional problems (which I believe to have been discriminatory), they just reinforced the schoolyard taunts.
And now as an adult I go into schools and homes and I see the Wraparound Teams, and the Family Based counselors, and the Autistic Support Programs, the AWARENESS, and it fills me with a reservoir of anger and regret at all my missed opportunities. Like I said, I love my job, but it's probably taking a toll on my own mental health right now.
But I have learned to hide my Asperger's very well. I don't want it to be the first thing people, especially cowwokers, think about when they see me. I look young enough as it is. I'm 27 and shorter than most middle schoolers.
So my work is extremely stressful, and would be even without the personal aspect of that complex or regret and anger.
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And if I ever do go out, I'm positive it will be in a blaze of glory. I consider myself a warrior navigating the labyrinth of mental heath, slaying one minotaur at a time.
However, I am very anxious, because at one time I did go inpatient (voluntarily), but I was the victim of medical insurance fraud, and was kept inpatient far longer than I should have been, and accused of skipping meds that I hadn't skipped (this was all due to a botched lab test, which under pressure from my parents, the hospital redid and the results showed acceptable levels of Tegretol in the blood. They also misdiagnosed me. I love my job over this (I was working as a TSS), but I recovered in a few weeks when I got hired by an Autistic Support afterschool program. A bout a little over a year later I was hired by the Healthcare Network that I work for now: I have benefits, an office, and a company car so I don't have to put all those extra miles on my poor little Honda.
My job is to coordinate services, and link families to those services and Autism/low income assistance resources. I'm basically a social worker in training. my plan is to go back to school and pursue a Master's in Clinical Social Work, while simultaneously earning my BCBA credits too (board certified behavioral analyst).
14 Oct 2012, 1:55 pm
