Sharing aspects of my Aspergian life through age 8
The following, a hastily scribbled sketch, is just part of my subjective experience as an Aspergian child. I was only recently diagnosed and do not yet know how typical this is for an Aspergian child. I very much hope that others are not offended by my sharing a bit.
I hope the below is helpful to someone in some way. Please feel free to ask questions and to comment and I will respond. I realize this is incomplete. I hope to soon add more and to clarify. Thank you so much.
As a young Aspergian child in Australia, I long did not understand the usual social cues at all. [I also had extremely little contact with other children when very young.]
It was like I looked at a person and I only saw his/her x-ray. I didn't know how, I just often felt powerful raw emotions emanating from that person, sometimes almost knocking me over striking like lightning or freezing me. Whether that reading of emotions was correct or not is another question. .
And the overall vibration from an environment had a tremendous effect on my behavior.
As a young child of 4 or 5, one place where I felt wonderful vibrations during the short I was there was a kindergarten focusing on painting and drawing. The woman in charge, Myra Morgan, who came from Vancouver was magic. I was utterly thrilled that my questions were always answered. I would draw a grandmother or grandfather and had to run and ask for the spelling. I picked up about numbers and how to write them. At first I wandered if a number could even exist if no one had ever counted to it, though I got bored of creating numbers for myself shortly after counting to a thousand. I asked and learned about placeholders, larger and larger, a million, a billion. What on earth would the largest number look like? I realized it could never exist, and struggled to understand how the word "infinity" could not ever come to exist, and how could we have a name for something that did not exist? I picked up how to read and spell a whole lot.
When I started first grade in public school, the chaos almost all seemed so violent and I was utterly frozen. It seemed like an atomic bomb. Almost all rational thought became vaporized. I had to write with my right hand and had no idea how to write or read anything. I couldn't speak. I barely understood a word that anyone said. The teachers called me retarded. Besides the children who bullied me, I only remember there was one very gentle girl, Helen Brown, who I loved inside and seemed my one sunshine.
In second grade in a different public school where I was also judged retarded [they wanted to put me back in first grad]), I was seemingly nonstop knocked on the ground, until I began to physically fight back nonstop until I was never let out for lunch.
I understood nothing about social cues. I was just knocked down by what I sensed as people's raw emotions.
When I started first grade in public school, the chaos almost all seemed so violent and I was utterly frozen. It seemed like an atomic bomb. Almost all rational thought became vaporized. I had to write with my right hand and had no idea how to write or read anything. I couldn't speak. I barely understood a word that anyone said. The teachers called me retarded. Besides the children who bullied me, I only remember there was one very gentle girl, Helen Brown, who I loved inside and seemed my one sunshine.
In second grade in a different public school where I was also judged retarded [they wanted to put me back in first grad]), I was seemingly nonstop knocked on the ground, until I began to physically fight back nonstop until I was never let out for lunch.
I understood nothing about social cues. I was just knocked down by what I sensed as people's raw emotions.
When I was foiled in an attempt to commit suicide with enough poison to kill and elephant, among other things I was given an IQ test, which made me laugh because it seemed like a really retarded test.
I was shortly afterward moved to an advanced private school and also skipped two grades... graduating valedictorian, for whatever it was worth.
When I started reading books, a vast new world opened for me vividly. The feelings in the imagination it awoke in me also evoked extreme emotions of wonder or also terrors which left me sleepless and then at times obsessively think of suicide. I absolutely had to avoid certain books.
Yet at 7 I loved devouring Homer's prose poetry "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," even though it was violent, because of its sheerest poetic beauty. When I read a science fiction story at 7 which made me explode in excitement, I started to write science fiction and to study astronomy and physics with algebra...
When I started reading books, a vast new world opened for me vividly. The feelings in the imagination it awoke in me also evoked extreme emotions of wonder or also terrors which left me sleepless and then at times obsessively think of suicide. I absolutely had to avoid certain books.
Yet at 7 I loved devouring Homer's prose poetry "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," even though it was violent, because of its sheerest poetic beauty. When I read a science fiction story at 7 which made me explode in excitement, I started to write science fiction and to study astronomy and physics with algebra...
And then in realistic novels I finally learned how other people actually truly felt. I understood and deeply felt the characters' emotions which were largely new to me.
However in my world of passionate emotions, I still did not learn much about social cues. And rather than learning from what people talked to me about, I learned mostly about everything including life from books. I learned some things about social interaction from books. But unless I felt very positive things about another person, I would withdraw in spasms of terror that came to cripple me in social life,and I could not apply that knowledge to my life...
However in my world of passionate emotions, I still did not learn much about social cues. And rather than learning from what people talked to me about, I learned mostly about everything including life from books. I learned some things about social interaction from books. But unless I felt very positive things about another person, I would withdraw in spasms of terror that came to cripple me in social life,and I could not apply that knowledge to my life...
Until I deeply realized there were millions others suffering at least as badly like my mirror, and in empathy I had to start reaching out to others so I could reach those people and change my apparent destiny and suffering into a mission.
Repeatedly I would still be knocked into numbness, a senselessness by crushing waves of despair because of my over-sensitivity. But I got up and continued. I was always encouraged by Gandhi's words, "The human spirit is more powerful than the atomic bomb." And I regained a smile to share in the cold so again others could advance with me.
It is easier for me as I do keep struggling in my way, because I have come to believe that everyone possesses a an equal potentially infinite mission on this this rock from such an average-seeming star.
The above, so hastily scribbled, expresses only the very tiniest bit of what I wish to say.
I hope the above is helpful to someone in some way. Please feel free to ask questions and to comment and I will respond. I realize this is utterly incomplete. I hope to soon add more and to clarify. Thank you so much.
I hope the above is helpful to someone in some way. Please feel free to ask questions and to comment and I will respond. I realize this is utterly incomplete. I hope to soon add more and to clarify. Thank you so much.
I am also wondering if any others here have had any similar experiences. I am not asking anyone else to give any personal information. Is there someone here who can give me a general feedback? I hope you do not mind my asking.
Comments
Posted by sabrinag
I think most aspie children have trouble and use sports, books, tv, games, etc as an outlet to go into their "safe" world where they don't have to be confused by the demanding world around them. I have noticed in adulthood, especially at work, aspies are unsatisfied because they are given the work nobody else wants to do because they don't have the skill to craft a good excuse to get out of it. Basically, aspies get picked on by neurotypicals a lot. This is the main reason, why aspies need to band together to get a stronger voice. Hopefully, the computerized future will only serve to make life easier for aspies. I wish more parents could work with their kids to teach them social rules as well, before bad habits become the norm. Me, personally, I just don't agree with neurotypical groupthink strategy and do my own thing. I just don't care to try and fit any mold anymore. It is exhausting to say the least.
Posted by douggiedale
When I was in school b4 I graduated, w/ most kids it was like they had a secret lanuage. Like when it was time for group work, they immediatly pick their friends b4 I could process it. I think reading actually help me get "normal" people better.
Posted by rueiwoqp
Yes, I have problems with strong emotions and not knowing what to do with them. I can't be of much help but wish you well. I love what you said about getting up and continuing. Thank you for sharing.