I have PDD-NOS. At the moment, my life is okay because I have friends and coworkers that seem to treat me better than how I get treated at home. Though, overall my life has been up and down like an emotional roller coaster. In preschool and early elementary school I started off in special education because I was learning delayed. Those were the best days of my childhood, because I didn't have problems making friends and I didn't feel that different from everyone around me. However, my parents took me to a 2nd psychologist that said I wasn't autistic, even though the school psychologist said that I was. After that, I was fully mainstreamed by the 3rd grade, and from 4th grade through high school I felt different than everyone around me and had problems with fitting in. Starting at late childhood my depression started kicking in and I felt as if I were slowly falling deeper into a black hole as my classmates got meaner each year. My parents simply assumed that every awkward behavior of mine was picked up by my classmates in special ed.
I attended college at another city that was much more open minded, and valued individualism over conformity and my social life improved again, and I didn't feel that different anymore. However, I still haven't found a way to completely get over my depression left over from the past, and during my college years I was also diagnosed as being on the spectrum. And now I think I also have OCD.
I thought that being diagnosed would make me feel better at 1st, but so far I'm not sure if it has. Now that I've been diagnosed, it's hard for me to not be mad at my parents for never getting over their denial that I'm on the spectrum, or at the very least admitting that my behaviors weren't picked up. I tried to explain to them that I've been diagnosed again in college. They said that they didn't like the way my previous elementary school treated autism like a disease, and then they saw an autism advocacy video and started denying that I'm on the spectrum again because I'm not like anyone I saw in the video. They then forgot everything I previously told them and didn't even bother with further research. It also bugs me how they don't find it that wrong with the way my sister criticizes me and tries to control me all the time. My sister either assumes that I'm lazy or stupid and she told them that it would be a good way to force me to become more independent and start meeting people and dating if they kick me out of the house. (I wish I could live on my own but I don't even make anywhere near the amount of money required to live on my own.) They didn't agree but told me that she meant well when she said that.
I often wish that my parents realized that there's all kinds of degrees on the spectrum, and that I knew that I at least had some characteristics of it when I was a teenager. I think maybe it would have made my life easier, but then again, when I think of how my classmates treated one of my previous friends from special ed that was known to be autistic I wonder whether that would really be the case. He wasn't even aggressive, and the whole class would boo at him as he'd walk out the door.
20 Apr 2010, 9:53 pm
