intense bullying?

[Misty Avich]

You seem to be taking on the responsibility of those in charge of looking after you. Some of what you describe sounds more like abuse to me.
Also, bear in mind memories are very malleable and we alter them through our lives for all sorts of reasons. This is how brains work. In fact every time you recall a memory it's altered in some way, and you have almost no way of know that's happened.
This occurs for good reason, but we tend to think our memories are inviolate which is absolutely not the case. Don't make too much of what your childhood memories tell you, as you'll quite possibly have altered them unknowingly (and subconsciously) to fit your later understanding of what happened, regardless of the accuracy of that.

Not the case for me. My memory is pretty accurate. I write memoirs of my life and when my aunts read them they remember the memories exactly the same as I do. My long-term memory is the only quality my brain has to offer, please don't doubt me on that (even though you weren't doing it intentionally, I'm just speaking in general).

Regardless of all that anyway, beating yourself up for simply being a child in bad circumstances isn't likely to help you move forward now. Put it this way, would you blame a random school child for the same behaviour as you blame your younger self for?

No, but I just can't feel the same compassion towards myself as I can towards others. It's the butterfly effect. If I hadn't have acted like I did then I would have been like everyone else here and not gotten diagnosed until adulthood.

 

[Boogs]

Not the case for me. My memory is pretty accurate. I write memoirs of my life and when my aunts read them they remember the memories exactly the same as I do. My long-term memory is the only quality my brain has to offer, please don't doubt me on that (even though you weren't doing it intentionally, I'm just speaking in general).

I'm merely talking about the latest work on memory and cognition built on years of study and research, and often demonstrated to peer reviewed acceptance, and something I spent considerable time learning about due to my own memory anomalies.
But it's not for me to comment on any particular persons memories and their perception of them, so it's not really appropriate for me to argue the case whatever I believe I know, who am I to say what your memories are or are not?

No, but I just can't feel the same compassion towards myself as I can towards others. It's the butterfly effect. If I hadn't have acted like I did then I would have been like everyone else here and not gotten diagnosed until adulthood.

Ah! Interesting, you are consciously aware that you're treating yourself unfairly compared to any other person who could have been in that same situation!
But how could you possibly know that if you had not acted as you did (I presume you refer to that first day at age 4?) how things would have turned out? The butterfly effect is actually all about chaos and unpredictability. No-one could possibly know that - it could have ended up worse, or better, or the same, but there is no way to know how things would have worked out.

Oh, and don't imagine not being diagnosed until adulthood doesn't bring some pretty crushing pain and damage of it's own! I don't say that for sympathy, but I think you may to some degree, however genuinely horrible your experiences may have been and still are, think that the grass may be greener elsewhere? It's a normal thing to think, and I too have spent many years having similar feelings, along with punishing myself for not matching up to what I thought I was meant to, and what I was told I should. It's impossible to measure personal pain, impossible to compare from one person to another, but sometimes maybe the pains we have can blind us to what other pains we could have had instead?

 

[Misty Avich]

Ah! Interesting, you are consciously aware that you're treating yourself unfairly compared to any other person who could have been in that same situation!
But how could you possibly know that if you had not acted as you did (I presume you refer to that first day at age 4?) how things would have turned out? The butterfly effect is actually all about chaos and unpredictability. No-one could possibly know that - it could have ended up worse, or better, or the same, but there is no way to know how things would have worked out.

It's very rare for a female with non-obvious ASD to be diagnosed so young, even those of us who grew up in the 90s. Even NOW there are lots of undiagnosed adolescents and adults younger than me who are starting to realise they're on the spectrum. I read it every day on this forum.
So I know that if I hadn't of acted out when I was 4, I probably would have slipped through the net like seemingly everyone else on the spectrum. I just know that things would have been different if I'd just been discreet like other ASDers seem to be all through school. Even my mum said so (I once asked her if I would have gone unrecognised and therefore undiagnosed if I hadn't of behaved like I did on my first day at school). She said, "most definitely".

Oh, and don't imagine not being diagnosed until adulthood doesn't bring some pretty crushing pain and damage of it's own! I don't say that for sympathy, but I think you may to some degree, however genuinely horrible your experiences may have been and still are, think that the grass may be greener elsewhere? It's a normal thing to think, and I too have spent many years having similar feelings, along with punishing myself for not matching up to what I thought I was meant to, and what I was told I should. It's impossible to measure personal pain, impossible to compare from one person to another, but sometimes maybe the pains we have can blind us to what other pains we could have had instead?

It seems that when adults are diagnosed they're all happy and relieved. Also, I know, it does seem to be a grass is greener situation, but just being diagnosed at 8 years old doesn't make me feel "lucky", it makes me feel like I'm a more severely autistic person.

My mum is the only person in the world who has the most answers to all this, but there are some questions I never got to ask her and she's sadly no longer around now. I never spoke much about it until my mid-20s, because I used to just pretend it never happened.

 

[jsilver256]

Misty, I say this so you can stop treating your childhood self so harshly.

I am a parent. Trust me when I say it takes a repeated pattern to have the intervention which you did. It was not "one day." And they almost certainly had some system in place to re-evaluate support needs on an ongoing basis, so it's not like you act up at age 4 and then you get stuck with a full time aide for the next 8 years.

This doesn't make you a bad child, nor does it make you "severe." (And I recall you were diagnosed at age 8, not 4?)

Most likely your teachers were ill-equipped to deal with ADHD children, and likely had a bias against girls acting up (as opposed to boys).

As my therapist explains it - schools are like grooves in a race track, built to accommodate most cars. Most kids have a tire size that fit in those grooves. Teachers dislike having kids who have "tires" that do not fit in these grooves. That's neurodivergent. The school system wasn't built for your ADHD.

It seems that when adults are diagnosed they're all happy and relieved

Are we reading the same forum?

 

[Misty Avich]

Misty, I say this so you can stop treating your childhood self so harshly.

I am a parent. Trust me when I say it takes a repeated pattern to have the intervention which you did. It was not "one day." And they almost certainly had some system in place to re-evaluate support needs on an ongoing basis, so it's not like you act up at age 4 and then you get stuck with a full time aide for the next 8 years.

Well I wasn't saying it literally happened just that one day. It went on for a week or so. I was the youngest child in the class. They then moved me to the nursery class, which was part-time and I was no longer the youngest. I settled down a lot when I went into the nursery class, as in I was more co-operative and engaging and I coped surprisingly well. Then each year from then I got praised up by my parents and my teachers for ''coming a long, long way'', and this was when I was just 6. When I was 5 I remember having a screaming tantrum a couple of times when I didn't want to do something and felt helpless. I remember one time I was bored during storytime, so I began poking the girl in front of me to get her attention. Then when the teacher got a kid to go and fetch the teacher's assistant, I suddenly sat very still and quietly, because I didn't want to be removed from the storytime so I thought by doing that they would change their mind and let me stay. But the assistant made me go with her, and as she picked me up I SCREAMED for all I was worth and I had to be put in timeout. By the time I was 6 I had learnt by the timeouts that screaming will not get what I wanted, and instead I became more well-behaved until I became TOO well-behaved, so well-behaved that I began to mask too much in school. But the behaviour I displayed on my first week of school was enough to get people's attention on to me and why I was behaving like that, so ever since then they insisted on getting me labelled instead of just leaving me be once I had settled.

This doesn't make you a bad child, nor does it make you "severe." (And I recall you were diagnosed at age 8, not 4?)

Most likely your teachers were ill-equipped to deal with ADHD children, and likely had a bias against girls acting up (as opposed to boys).



Are we reading the same forum?

 

[Aspychata]

Nope, last l checked, l am still have severe anxiety and pretty much hate myself at times, no relief here. Knowing that l have that label isn't like a winning lottery ticket to happiness. My mom basically unparented me, she didn't even really function as a parent even when others were around. I had someone point out how horrible my father treated me at one of their anniversary parties. I realize now l acted out for attention because l was so starved for affection. Now l am fiercely protective of whoever is my partner and l dislike people who bully. But l do stand up to bullies.

 

[honeytoast]

Misty, you were only 4 years old and didn't know any better. You were barely getting out of your toddler years. You only had 4 years of life on this world, you were sort of a new person trying to do the best you can and what you knew to go about your life thus far.

It is a bit interesting to read about you saying that things were more discreet - I'd say that things weren't as recognizable - at least for me in my case. I had similar instances like yours: I would cry an unusual amount. Like I was a huge crybaby, it was pretty bad. I would have to have the teacher's assistance or a daycare worker sit with me in a corner as I had a meltdown. I can't remember if anything was ever done or if my mother was called. I wouldn't be surprised if she was but never really was looked into.

I think for the relief part, it isn't a good relief. More of a "huh that's why I'm so f**ked up." There is an answer to questions we've had forever, the biggest being "why do I act this way?"

 

[Misty Avich]

It just sounds discreet the way many spectrumers just go through childhood without being recognised as different. I wanted to be one of them.

It wasn't just down to my behaviour at school. I had settled down and coped really well all through school. It was how I was at home too. I was very hyperactive. Very. In school I was more ADD, at home I was severe ADHD. But the doctors couldn't medicate me because I didn't have a diagnosis of ADHD and irritatingly nobody thought to get me diagnosed with ADHD. They were all just focused on Asperger's.

ADHD answers all my questions and I was really relieved when I got that diagnosis. But ASD has never really answered many questions, except the way I was treated by my peers. But I wasn't treated differently by my peers until around 10 or 11 years old when word got around almost the whole school that I had that embarrassing label (it was embarrassing for me, at the time). Kids and labels don't mix. Many adults think that if the whole class knows about a child's (invisible) condition then they will be accepted and everyone will be happy. Um, no, it doesn't quite work like that. An NT girl I know was born with type 1 diabetes, and some genius thought it was a good idea to tell the whole class about her condition. Since then she began getting bullied and rejected, because the other kids thought that her having a label meant she had the plague or something. Same happened to me at school but with ASD.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I always attracted the bullies. I've semi seriously said that I'm pretty sure I give off a pheromone that makes people attack me. When I was a kid, I could be walking down the road with two other kids back from school and there was a high chance someone would swoop in from nowhere and start physically attacking me. The other two of my "friends" seemed invisible to my attacker.

When I was 12 I was attacked by two 17 year olds and ended up with concussion and a bad cut and bruises to my face.

Another time I was hit so hard in the school playground that I ended up in intensive care at hospital, where the only thing that I understood in a semi lucid moment was that the doctors were planning to drill a hole in my head.

It was often me that was singled out. The thing that still makes me quite angry is that I was always asked "What did you do to them to make them hurt you?", like people desperately wanted to rationalise what was done to me in a way that made it "my fault".

The worst thing was that whenever I tried to defend myself apparently that was unacceptable and wrong. Everyone knew there was never going to be consequences for harming me and if I tried to stop it, I'd be punished "for retaliating" or told that I in particular "deserved It".

I don't know if I will ever get over the trauma I experienced and I'm still terrified of defending myself, even verbally. I can do it, but I've very much internalised the gaslighting and the feeling that I "must deserve it".

I find that very sad. I hope that you are feeling welcome on this site. Many ND, myself included, internalized negative messages about ourselves that are actually wrong.

 

[jsilver256]

It just sounds discreet the way many spectrumers just go through childhood without being recognised as different. I wanted to be one of them.

That might be a good thread to start. I think you would be surprised.

 

[Misty Avich]

Could you start a thread on my behalf? I'm scared I'm going to inadvertently offend someone. It helps me to talk about this subject. Yes it was 30 years ago but there's still no harm in trying to make sense of one's past if it was what had caused things to turn out the way they did.

 

[Boogs]

It seems that when adults are diagnosed they're all happy and relieved.

I can absolutely assure you it is far from that simple. Maybe for some it's all laughter and lightness, but it most certainly was not for me, and for any ups, there were some truly dismal downs.
That said I don't regret finding out, the randomness of how I found out and pain of knowing how much difference it could have made maybe 30 or 40 years earlier is just one small bite of a really sour apple. But in the end I thrive on gaining knowledge including self knowledge, and so the idea of still not knowing is totally abhorrent, so I'm glad I know, but easy or nice? Not so much then and still isn't now!