Kouzai

My name is Samantha, please call me Sam or Sami, and I am 28 years old. Twenty-three years ago, at the age of five, my personality switched from being the most perfect child to devil's own child. It was like a lightswitch was flipped and it never returned to how it once was. Since then I have run the gamut of diagnosis and medicines. I have been labeled bipolar, depressed, hyperactive, ADHD, etc. I have had medication that has made me anoerxic to the point of near death (and was ignored by said doctor's for years), built up poisoning over years to the point of having major mental breaks (hallucinations, voices, delusions, etc) and at present I have no medication. I had long given up on my local mental health services when they outright denied my SSD and dismissed me when I couldn't pay for help. Several months later (two years ago) I got a package from Easter Seals Michigan that had my final evaluation from my high school days at a mental hospital day program: I had aspergers and depression

Not once since I was diagnosed by Havenwyck and later by Easter Seals Adult Services was I told I had aspergers. As such I have no knowledge of any of these terms (like I don't know what NT ), how people live it it, know of anyone with it or autism in general, and in general how to function.

Last September my mother, who was my only immediate family member who gave a damn about me and my problems, died from several cancers but most importantly malpractice and delaying of aid from Beaumont doctor's. She was the only person I had since my father died when I was eleven and I had no siblings. My family suddenly seemed to give a damn but that's an entirely different thing and too complicated right now. I was sheltered all my life from real world and now I was tossed into the deep end with no help or understanding.

Because I do not know about autism and aspergers in general and for others, I will tell you a little about myself and how I act and react. Maybe it will help, or maybe someone can explain that there was something normal about it.

I was often described as someone laughing if someone got hurt or other bad times. Partly because I found such things funny in a way. I can not taste or smell things at all usually (other times it gets so sensitive at certain objects that I cringe like a garbage truck two blocks away). I also feel pain weirdly: back pain is constant but I wake up with injuries (bruises and cuts) for no apparent reason never feeling them happen. Other times I get a paper cut or other superficial wounds and it is the end of the world. Major injuries like a huge piece of glass in my foot are unfelt as it calloused over when I was a child.

I am very curious, morbidly so. I could, and have, wondered aloud 'why is the sky and water blue' in the same breath of 'can someone breath underwater for x amount of time's. At times I have even acted out the logical conclusion of such things. I am fascinated by things others don't or ignore: death, time, the mind, perception, and so all have been studied and researched from theories to myths in an attempt to understand myself.

One of my major problems is I think of many things logically. I am uninterested in romance since I've been used and abused several times, and more so I felt nothing at all. Relationships from romance to friends are broken down to "like and ignore/hate", and I tend to weigh them as a cost benefit analysis before doing anything. I can see the benefits of having relationships (support: physical, financial etc) but are often too much for me to maintain for long periods of time.

The second (if not hugest problem) are my emotions. For the most part I am unable to understand my own at all (other people are better since trained myself to look for cues) and in fact feel emotionally numb or empty as the default mood. I used to have black outs as a child (dissociation) when emotions (especially anger) became to much for me. I've been told all my life: "stop grinning like that. Stop laughing. Stop crying. Stop being so angry." (Mainly by my teachers, mental staff family and mother) that I have been further repressed to the point I don't know how to feel when I am alone. When I am with others, I can mimic them and their emotions to fit in and at times I am even feeling the genuine article. It also doesn't help that I do not care about the rest of the world, as long as it doesn't affect me and mine.

I have motor speech disorder (my brain can't move my tongue to the right sound in time for the word) and have been mistreated all my life for that so it's stuck. I was part of talented and gifted as a child and have always been bright. I am clumsy and forget things easily. Flow charts, calendars, and outlines never help me but in fact worsen the problem. I don't trust or like easily (or at all) since I have been betrayed: by the courts (taken away several times over my problems), the government, the school system, the mental health services, family and friends.

My only really good thing about myself that I like is the fact I can write a bit. Writing calms me down, clears my thoughts and allows me to indulge in things that I have been told are bad. Hence why everything I say or write about dark, twisted, off, etc.

There are times I wake up and can't go back to sleep until I have gotten to what was bothering me with someone else (formerly my mother). That takes about three hours (on average) of building background information to get to the point.

Also I have moderate to high social phobia and tend to literally breakdown when I am in crowds of hundreds to thousands. As such working and even college is undoable at present.

I don't have hyperfocused fields of research since I research anything I think is relevant. Writing (fanfiction and fiction) is my main field of obsession, research and reading helps expand it. I love playing video games, reading, watching TV or movies, anime, manga etc. But even they range in topic, field, genre etc.

I don't know what else to say at this point. I will answer questions if needed.