Just a Little Bit Different

When I was growing up, I always had this feeling that I wasn't quite the same as everyone else. To start with, it was simply that I was the girl, rather than the boy or the Mummy or the Daddy. As I grew older and started to mix with other little girls, the feeling of difference intensified because, although I could never have explained why, I just wasn't the same as them.

It was hard to define just how it felt; I didn't understand them and they didn't understand me but it wasn't clear why. I knew that I found them boring, I was much happier immersed in a book or in the fascinating world of my own thoughts than sitting around chatting about fairies and dolls. Being made to go and play with someone else was rather a chore - unless they had interesting books that I hadn't read or lego to play with. More than once, the child I was visiting went off to play with other people or toys and left me happily browsing through their bookshelves. I assumed that the reason they didn't interest me was simply because they liked different things. I had no interest in ballet or ponies, which seemed to be the popular little-girl interests of my younger days. On the other hand, they had little interest in books or numbers, which were the things that interested me.

I was aware, early on, that I was clever for my age; I could read when I was still at nursery school and I remember being surprised when I discovered, on starting school, that the other children didn't even know their alphabet or their numbers. Even when I had class-mates on a similar level, I didn't have enough in common with them to develop strong friendships. I was described as a "remote" child, who didn't mix well other children. Books and learning gave me stimulation that other people just couldn't provide.

When I think about it now, I feel as though I am a spectator in my own life. I watch the world through eyes that belong to a girl I don't really know; I feel like an alien visitor without a guide book, in a body without an instruction manual. Somewhere along the line my brain was wired up incorrectly and the senses were left on the wrong settings. Sounds can be too loud and intrusive, like the boiler, which has an irritating whistle that no-one else can hear, yet I don't hear the oven timer beeping until my sons point it out because when I concentrate on something else I shut it all out. Smells and tastes are just too strong - the faint whiff of gas when I light a burner makes me fear there is a gas leak. Artificial fragrances and air fresheners can overwhelm me; when bombarded with other people's shampoo, shower gel and deodorant I have to try not to pull away. Too much sensory information will overload me - too much noise and activity will leave me feeling panicked so that I just want to escape.

This feeling of not fitting has been with me as long as I can remember. I am gradually learning to ignore it or override it but it still lingers in the background. It makes it very hard to make friends when I have this overwhelming feeling of not belonging that makes me withdraw before I have really had a chance to get involved. I certainly feel that the description of a square peg in a round hole is perfect for me. Not fitting in with my own body is a harder obstacle to overcome; when I feel little connection to my own body it makes it much harder to behave responsibly towards it. I seem to be missing a connection between my mind and my body - exercise and healthy eating seem to be a little too much effort when I don't feel the reward. My reflection doesn't feel like the real me and changing my body shape makes little difference to my mind. Health problems just feel like persecution from a body that doesn't like me; I blame it and then punish it when I should be trying to heal it.

How will I get over this? I really don't know. Trying to explore my own feelings might give me some insight, some connection. If I can finally accept that this 42-year-old woman really is "Me" then maybe I can try and have a little more sympathy for her and treat her a little better. Meeting other people with similar minds may help too - thanks to the internet we can connect without having to worry about inconveniences like body language and eye contact. Maybe I am just longing for people to understand me, so that I feel less alone, less of an alien in a stranger's body.

A Brief History of Me

I am the eldest of five children, the bossy big sister to two brothers and two sisters, born at the end of the sixties. Dad was in the RAF so we moved house every few years and, as a consequence, I went to four primary and two secondary schools. I became quite good at adapting to new homes and new environments; it was perfectly normal to be taken to an unfamiliar house and told that this was my new home, that was my new bedroom. What I found harder was the changing of schools because I was a quiet, shy child and did not make friends easily. In the absence of a busy social life, I concentrated on my schoolwork and was very successful when it came to my exams. I left school with very pleasing exam results and a place at Oxford to study Chemistry, a subject chosen because I enjoyed it rather than for any reason of professional ambition.

University was a bittersweet experience; I had many wonderful moments there but felt very stressed with the academic pressure. I felt that I was not adequately equipped for the academic challenges and concentrated instead on trying to develop a social life. I believe that I experienced my first real periods of depression then, although I sought no help for it at the time. I also met a wonderful man, who made me feel so comfortable and alive that we have been married for the full 20 years since I finished my course.

I started my graduate life with a job in polymer chemistry, retraining to work in software engineering after a few years. I enjoyed the software work so much, that I finally felt that I had found my niche and identified the career path I wanted. Unfortunately, I fell ill with glandular fever, which developed into Fibromyalgia and Post-Viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. My career was terminated before it had really even begun and, by the age of 27, I was out of work because of my health.

Ten years on, I had recovered from the CFS and the Fibromyalgia was in remission but they had been replaced by depression, a weight problem and chronically low self esteem. I had two young boys but felt lonely, desperately trying to make friends but unable to keep up with them. I knew my mind needed more than to be a stay-at-home mother but I could not find the motivation to retrain in software, where my knowledge and experience were now obsolete. Antidepressants and counselling appeared to help; Cognitive Analytical Therapy made it apparent that most of my depression stemmed from my childhood difficulties with making friends and from my youthful misunderstanding of the importance of popularity. Allowing myself to enjoy solitude instead of feeling I should always be out seeking friends made me feel much more at ease. I realised that I already had the elusive "best friend" for whom I had been searching; I had been married to him for nearly two decades but had underestimated his value in my life. I started training in tai chi, which instantly felt like the exercise that was best for my body, mind and soul. Before long, I started to feel that I was no longer depressed and would soon be ready to resume living my life.

Life was never meant to be that easy though. A bombshell hit us when my elder son started his middle school at the age of nine and his new teachers suggested that he should be assessed for Asperger's Syndrome. I knew roughly what it meant and the suggestion made a lot of sense. My son had always been academically bright but socially awkward, with a preference for solitary activity and an aversion to busy, noisy, heavily populated environments. What I hadn't expected was for the literature on the subject to be quite so personal to me. Recognition of so many of my own childhood difficulties was very revealing. I knew that friendship issues were the primary cause of my depression; now I had a better understanding of why I had those problems in the first place. By the time my son's diagnosis was formalized, I was experiencing a severe recurrence of depression, probably brought on by a number of factors including, but not limited to, the revelation of AS. I have now taken control of the depression again through medication and a proactive positive-thinking approach and I am ready to deal with the challenges that have been given to me. We have a long way to go but we can go there together.

Introduction

My son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome last year. It was first identified by his teachers when he started at middle school at nine and was formally diagnosed shortly before his eleventh birthday. While waiting for appointments with various paediatric specialists I did a little research but I didn't get beyond the third chapter of Tony Attwood's book before I was in tears. The rush of memories from my own childhood was overwhelming and I began to develop a sense that I had more in common with my son than I had realised. I don't know if I, too, have AS but I certainly have a number of strong traits and can identify very strongly with many of the difficulties that my son is facing. My feeling now, is that through learning about Asperger's Syndrome for my son's benefit, I am learning about myself too. His experience is teaching me to accept and understand those parts of me that always left me feeling uncomfortable and, in return, my experience is helping me to teach him how to adapt to this world that we must live in.

Some of the posts in this blog will deal with my past, with problems I experienced as a child, a teenager and a young adult; others will be more focused on My Boy's story, his early years and the experiences he has in his everyday life as he moves into his secondary school years. Understanding his abilities and disabilities has already helped me to turn the tide on my own depression and now I hope to return the favour. As I see behavioural problems that he has learnt from me, I can attempt to address the issues in my own life and, in doing so, teach him how to correct certain attitudes and habits that will enable him to fit more comfortably into his place in society.

I don't see Asperger's Syndrome as something wrong or as something that needs to be cured. It is simply a way of being. Unfortunately, being that way is uncomfortable in the modern world so there are skills that my Boy will need to learn and fears that he will need to overcome in order to fulfill his potential. There is space in this society for more than one personality type so I don't expect him to conform to the generic "average" but I hope that he can learn to fit in so that he can experience a satisfying and productive life, giving - and getting - as much as anyone else. We all have potential greatness within us and we all have the right to find it, experience it and share it.