This one might be a bit hard for me to write at first, it’s not a topic I’ve written about yet. Also, today my mind is a little distracted, so please excuse me if this becomes a rambling mess of thoughts.
I have Autism Spectrum Disorder, commonly known as Asperger Syndrome. I was diagnosed in January 2016 at the age of 27. The main criteria that I have difficulties with are;
- Social Communication
- Social Interaction
- Flexibility of Thought
- Unusual Sensory Experience
The diagnosis was reached using information provided by my parents and myself, and a developmental questionnaire which highlighted these difficulties having been present from a young age. (Side note, I plan on posting a quick article on a new biological test for detecting autism in infants).
In this first part, I’d like to talk about my youth, growing up and I guess my relationship with my siblings and peers. In the second part, I will talk about how these issues have impacted my adult life, and what made me seek out a diagnosis later in life.
From my first day of school, I had the feeling I was different from my peers. I mean, who doesn’t feel like that really? I was fairly bright, was picking things up quickly, but I had struggles writing. Not spelling, but the actual fine motor skills required to hold a pencil properly and write just weren’t there. I was given a little rubber triangle that went over the pencil, and taught me how to write but in a different way to my peers. Even now, I’m very aware that I hold a pen differently to most other people.
I have three younger siblings, a brother who is 18 months younger than me, and two sisters one 4 years younger and the other six years younger. Ever since I can remember, a large part of my childhood revolved around my brother. He was diagnosed at a young age as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I know some people don’t “believe” in ADHD or ADD, but trust me when I say, he bloody well had it.
Shortly after my first sister was born, he moved from his own bedroom to share mine (it was a 3 bedroom house at the time). That’s when the nightmare really began. To describe him as disruptive would be an understatement. Long nights of him endlessly kicking the top bunk (where I tried to sleep), me shouting at him, followed by my Dad coming in and bollocking the two of us.
At school, he’d fight with other kids. Once he rammed a pencil right into a kids butt cheek. We could never quite figure out why. Constantly having his friends coming up to me saying “Your brother says this” and “Your brother says that”. Whatever it was they were asking about, it was almost always some kind of bullshit tale he’d spun them.
ADHD has a roughly 60 - 70% genetic similarity with ASD. His ADHD contributed towards me getting a diagnosis. The elder of the two sisters, well I dunno, I have my theories but something just ain't right. Without going in to too much detail here, she's got some kind of personality disorder. We've never really seen eye to eye. I'd defend both of them growing up if they got into fights, because that's what big brothers do. But I can honestly say looking back, I was never particularly fond of them. I think I tried, I think. Now, I only keep in touch with the youngest sister. We're very similar.
At the age of roughly 7, both me and my brother moved school. Not because we’d moved house, but because the school couldn’t cope with him anymore. My parents couldn’t take us to two different schools for logistical reasons, so I had to leave my friends. There was only really one person I didn’t want to leave, and that was my best friend Andy.
We’d been friends since the first day of Reception (I think that’s the equivalent of Kindergarten roughly). I am who I am today because of that guy. I owe so much to him. In many ways, he was my real brother. I know, that sounds so, so harsh towards my little brother. Hopefully that’ll make more sense later on.
Luckily, after I’d moved school, I still kept in touch with Andy. I’d spend most weekends staying at his house, we’d go camping in Wales with his Dad and Uncle at least twice a year (and that was the beginning of my love for the great outdoors, particularly Wales). As High School came around, we made sure we were going to the same one. We did, and although we were in different classes and had different groups of friends, we still remained best friends. We’d still spent the majority of weekends at his, staying up all night arguing over monopoly or watching quite frankly strange things on Channel 4 early in the morning.
You see, all this time, I was the “normal one” out of me and my brother. I made friends, maybe not as quickly as some people, but I always did. Internally, certain things were tough. I’ve always had a morbid fear of public speaking. Having to speak in class, or even worse in some kind of assembly was just a horrifying experience. At our High School, they had a merit system, and you’d get certificates and badges for achieving and just being a good student I guess.
I’m gonna backtrack a bit here, and mention my last year of Primary school. I became Head Boy (I don’t know if that’s a thing they have anywhere else, but it’s like Head Prefect or Valedictorian for the young ‘uns). I achieved the highest SATs results in my school, straight L6s. I regretted that so much. I had to give a small talk in front of everyone in the end of year assembly, and I still get horrible flashbacks to that moment. It really did traumatise me, way way more than it should. After this, I didn’t want to do better than anyone else. I didn’t want the attention. And so, my High school years started off with a chronic case of underachieving. In fact, that was a pattern that followed through the rest of my education.
I did fine, was still in top sets for subjects, but I just stopped bothering. Subjects that used to intrigue me became boring and unimportant. I instead focused my attention on the social side of school. I made some great friends and had some great times. But then, smack bang in the middle of High School, year 9, we were moving away from the area. So another new school for me. The problem this time was, I wouldn’t be near Andy. He was always like my rock, anchored me and told me I was a dickhead when I was being a dickhead.
We moved to Yorkshire, which I in no way regret, as it was a new chapter in my life. It’s that new start that we’ve all wished for at one point in time. I love Yorkshire, I really do. Such a beautiful part of the country. New school, but for the first year I didn’t really make any friends. There were a couple, but most kids had already formed their social groups at this point, and any confidence I had in myself just disappeared. I’d spend most lunch times trying to hide throughout the school (there was one particular toilets in the science block that was hardly ever used, so that became my favourite hiding hole).
I refocused for a short while on the academic side of things, and after a while I started making good friends again. I even got a girlfriend, which was something I didn’t think I’d manage. Through my GCSE and A-Level years, I was doing good. I was in a beautiful part of the world, surrounded by the North Yorkshire Moors, had friends and all seemed good.
I’m gonna leave it there I think, I’ve not really touched too much upon the Autism side of things here, but I will get to it. I promise.
Let me know what you think down in the comments section, I really like to hear your opinions on things. I will write a further article on this subject for next week, so follow me if you’d be interested in reading that. This whole Steemit experience is a bit of an experiment for me. I’m testing my social skills, my abilities to interact with others, and hopefully I’ll learn a thing or two. If you’ve got this far, I just wanna say thank you. It really means a lot to me. Peace!