Understand Me. Story from my book.

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Hi everyone. I am still new to the forum community. However, I wanted to share with you a story from the book I am working on about what it has personally been like for me to live with asperger's syndrome on a daily basis. This story is called Understand Me and I hope after you read it that you might provide some feeback. Thanks and hope you enjoy it.

Understand Me

I cannot tell you how many times I feel like I have been living in my own world. In this world no one knows that I exist and that they do not want to take the time to get to know THE REAL ME . When I am feeling like I am alone in this world a lot of the time I feel like no one want to take the time to love and accept me for me as well as no one wants to take the time to support and understand me as well.

From the second of UNDERSTANDING in Vern McLellan's book called, “ Wise Words and Quotes there is a quote that states, “ the best way to understand is to be understanding.”

But you are probably wondering how does this quote apply to my high functioning autism as well as having to live with the recent diagnosis of depression on the bipolar spectrum.

As you have read in the introduction my book as I was living with the high functioning autism on a daily basis I shared with you that a lot of the time I felt like I was showing a lot of the signs and symptoms of having bipolar disorder and how that I wish that I could go back in time and find a doctor who could have diagnosed me sooner rather than later. But what done is done and you cannot focus on the past because for me it will affect my mood and make me question why is my life so hard to live and what is my purpose in life?

When I was in junior high school I would attend Sunday School at the church that I grew up in and still go to today. However, my high functioning autism affected me so much that I feel that a lot of the people who I was in my churches youth group with were slowly pulling away from me because they did not understand why I would act the way that I did sometimes.

The Asperger's Syndrome caused me to grow up at a must faster pace than my peers. I remember I was sitting in Sunday School one day and I remember that we were trying to complete the days lesson and that there was a lot of side bar conversations going on and it began to annoy me as you can imagine because a lot of the time since the high functioning autism has caused me to grow up at a much faster rate than my peers I remember a lot of the time I would take on the role as that of an authority figure since none of the teacher would try and control the situation at the time that it was occurring and that made me really frustrated to the point where I would storm out of the Sunday School room and one of my friends would try to come after me. This occurred over a long period of time as long as I could remember and then all of a sudden when I would start taking on the role of an authority figure and storm out of the room my friends would stop coming after me because they did not understand why I was acting the way I was.

At the time that this was happening to me there was not a lot of information available to anyone who had be diagnosed with the high functioning form of autism called, “ Asperger's Syndrome” and I keep wondering why they decided to give up on me instead of offering to help me or ask me why I was beginning to act the way I was acting and beginning to take on the role as that of an authority figure.

Times have changed since then and there is a lot more information that has come out about the high functioning autism of which I have been diagnosed with.

Like I said earlier in this story about how I told you about how I was recently diagnosed with depression on the bipolar spectrum I figured that since I would not really get angry per say I would get more frustrated a lot of the time I think that would push the people who I was friends with in my churches youth group away from me because they were probably either scared of me for one or did not understand what was going on with me as well as how they could probably help me out to make me feel better because a lot of the time I have always felt like I was an outsider that never really belonged to a particular crowd.

In the story called, “WHICH CROWD?” I shared with you the experiences that I had during Sunday School when I was involved with the youth group at my church. The next experience that I am going to share with you is about when I was in school which also comes from the story, “ which crowd” however, I feel it also goes really well when it comes to understanding someone who has been diagnosed with a hidden disability.

Some of the other experiences that really stick out in my mind is when I was in school. Because I was different I would get picked on a lot because a lot of the students at the time knew that they could get a reaction out of me no matter what they did to make fun of me or whatever they chose to do at the time, a lot of the time I would feel like an outsider especially during Physical Education class because a lot of the time I would always be the last one to be picked for on a team because no one wanted a geeky or nerdy kid on their time at the time.

I just do not ever want to feel like I am living in my own world ever again. I am now 22 years old and sometimes I think that because of my hidden disability I feel that it scares people because of the way I react in certain situations. However, with the Asperger's Syndrome, the depression on the bipolar spectrum there comes another factor which is another recent professional diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder and a lot of the time from what I know about it when something does not go my way it triggers something in my brain which causes me to get defensive as well as lash out like I am a two year old throwing a temper tantrum and believe me I wish I could say that those days were over for me but sometimes they do come back and not only does it frighten the people who I may be angry at it also frightens me as well.

So, yeah at times it may be hard to understand why I tend to act the way that I do sometimes. Just because I am different does not mean I am a bad person whatsoever. It means that someone has given me my life to live for a reason and I am sure eventually I will be able to understand why I was given that life as well. Don't ever be afraid to get to know someone who may be different from you because you may never know what someone might be going through whether they share it with you or not it might make there day.

I would like to end with this quote and when I was in junior high the principal at the school at the time who would come over the loud speaker and share the morning announcements would end them by saying,” make it a great day or not the choice is always yours.” I challenge and encourage you to take the time to get to know someone who is different from you because you may not know what kind of impact it will have on them and you never know what kind of impact it may have on you as well.

Just take a few minutes to understand me.

I not only understand you, I am you. I hope you don't have too much despair from not being diagnosed early. I had to live with out knowing why people shunned me for almost 60 years. You can think that 'oh, you are old, you got used to it' but no, I didn't.

I understood you when you say people dropped away from you because they didn't know how to soothe and comfort you. I understand when you wondered why they were looking at you and you couldn't know that they were using facial expressions or body language that would have communicated that comfort and ease to you, but you were not able to sense it, not able to feel it, not able to be soothed and comforted.

I know your heart was broken when they left off coming after you, when they stopped coming, you thought they stopped caring. But it wasn't that, dear one, it was because they were inadequate to the task. Forgive them, they were never trained to help, they only knew how to work with people they could work with.
I am certain their prayers for you have helped you in ways you may never know and for that be grateful.

As for your book, I would start out with your early memories, and let us know about the inner you, so as you build your tale we get to know you, and as we get to know about you, then we start caring about your story. We need a gut reason to want to understand you, and not just because you are begging us to. All the behavioral health labels sorta clutter up the narrative, and embarrass people that don't know what they mean, and don't get the meanings by context. If you are telling this story to professionals, or families that have people on the Autistic and Bi-Polar spectrum then it will probably go over quite well.

Have you shown your writing to someone that is thinking of publishing?

Merle