UNDERSTANDING ME Part 2

UNDERSTANDING ME PART 2

You can't address my depression or bi polar state without taking into account my Aspergers. I think a lot of my depression stems from having Aspergers. I have spent many years trying to work out why I feel like I do. Sure enough I had plenty of stress and plenty of dramas to last me a life time but it doesn't count for how I felt as child. The eldest of six I grew up in a fairly normal and typical household of the sixties and seventies. We never had much but neither did anyone else. My father worked long hours and my mother worked longer hours looking after the house and myself and my siblings. I always felt different. Probably I felt a tad superior to the others because I was my mothers 'right hand man' when my father was at work. I was always deemed 'grown up and sensible and an invaluable help' to my mother. I could easily do (accompanied) a full grocery shop when mother was busy or having a baby or whatever. I knew exactly what she would buy and what she wouldn't. And my father wouldn't have gotten away with adding anything to the basket that my mother wouldn't have bought. Not on my watch. It was always my mother and I versus them- my father and my siblings. I learnt early on that I had no trouble in taking control of situations and indeed harnessing any emotion. I hated noise, squabbling and silly little girl giggling. I did enjoy role play with my siblings, but I was usually in command. The leader. Mummy or Teacher. I was harsh and tolerated no under disciplined child. My sister and I played with our prams and dolls for ages - I would be Christine, my middle name given to me when I was christened, and she would be Maureen. No reason - she liked the name Maureen. But I liked to keep things relatively real. I was always the controlled one even though she was bossy. I would always achieve my objective without nonense whereas she would cry frequently. She, even now, is oversensitive and more loving and giving to the point of stupidity. She can manipulate and tantrum to have her own way. She is openly defiant. I am opposite. I just say what I want. If I can't have it, well so what? It's not the end of the world. I think she has some of my emotion. I can do emotion. People with Aspergers are often accused of being devoid of emotion. I am not. I just don't see things the way others do. I don't over do the gushy love. I just can't. I can be romantic with my husband and I can tell my children how much I love them. I am just not demonstrative. I don't feel comfortable with it. I think this makes it hard for other people to love me because they think I don't offer enough love in return. Then it seems people shut me out because I am to difficult to love. I think that's how it works. It hurts a lot and I should be used to it. But I am not. Its harder when your own children reject you and people you have invested a lot of time in. Then when I think about that I am suicidal. You can't make people love you or care about you. But you can take yourself out of the world and then it won't matter either way. Not that I advocate suicide you understand. I just understand why some people do it. Others don't. But I do. It seems more of a practical solution than something that is emotional. Sometimes. When one of my children, on a rare occasion visits or tells me that they love me I am on top of the world.

For one reason or another, I guess in a bid to make sure we had the best they could provide, we moved house and schools frequently. I hated it. I loved learning. I have a quest for knowledge. But I didn't want to do it at school. I didn't like the crowds, the closeness of other children. The noise. The smell. The stupid childlike qualities displayed by the other kids. Being part of a big family I should have been used to a busy household, a noisy household. My mother didn't allow uncontolled noise either. But we played out a lot. We didn't have indoor technology to distract us. When the world got too much I took myself off with a book or pen and paper. I was happy just to sit on the kerb and write down registrations of passing cars. Or do some colouring. Anything where I could escape to my own world! I think sometimes it frustrated my mum because she had to drag me out of this world. My even younger sister has had the same problem with two of her children. Of course I now know that this typical of people with Aspergers and I felt like someone had switched a light on when I found out that was what was wrong with me. My entire life my sense and I felt like a weight had been lifted from shoulders. The guilt has gone. The one that says 'you are a miserable so and so and people don't like you because you don't go to them'. I do go to people if they really need me. I am good in a crisis. I don't panic. I stand back, I weigh up the situation and make a cup of tea. Then I work it through it my head. Of course if emergency services are required I call them but not until I am 100% certain that it's not something I can deal with. So please don't rely on me if you are at deaths door because I will need to assess it first over a cuppa tea or two. I just can't deal with people who flap. But watch me if there is a slime or a squirm in my way! Thats the only time I panic. Oh and maybe fire- but only if I can't put it out myself first.

Each time I went to a new school I was thrown into chaos. I fell apart inside. Every time I walked into a new school a little part of me died inside. I didn't mind sitting and learning. As long as no-one looked at me or spoke to me. This same thing applied even if I had been a long time in the same class. I stuck to one friend. It always had to be a loner. Someone with no other friends. I didn't want to be part of a group of friends- I couldn't cope with that. I was happy to speak to some other children but I didn't want to join in and play their games. I didn't get games. I was happy to find a corner of the playground and just sit and wait alone for home time. I understand now but I didn't then. Only when I got to the age of eleven did I truly get the chance to stay at one school. I was settled there. I didn't like having to go - a bigger place, lots of different teachers and different kids and different lessons. I hated things like drama and Physical Exercise (not because I didn't  like exercise. I played out at home, I cycled and skated and played football and badminton with my siblings), I just didn't like group activity. I was often punished for not 'getting' netball at school. I didn't understand it. So I would be made to stand outside the court and send the ball back if it left the court. I was happy with that. I had space of my own that I controlled. But on the whole school, not learning, but the institution made me miserable because of not being able to cope. I wanted to be able to just walk away when it got too much but I knew I would be dragged back. I only did it once when I was attacked by another girl and I had been hurt. I cracked my hip on the hard floor. But I jumped up and screwed her stuck up nose round and whacked her head against the wall. I suffer with my hip to this day. I hope her nose still hurts sometimes.

My world fell apart big time when at the age of 15 my parents decided to move away from the home we had lived in the longest - 5years. The school I had been to for 5 years. My only friend of 5years and there was a boy I was very fond of and he of me and had been for 2 or 3 years. We were moving 150 miles away, for all of our benefits of course, but for me my world fell apart. The week before my move I thought of just refusing to move, running away or even killing myself then. I couldn't face the changes ahead and that for me is when my world truly fell apart and my real depression began.