Hello, I am Ruire. =] I am a self diagnosed aspie, and aiming to try and see a psychologist, to see what they think.
I first got put on the "special bus" when i was in kindergarten, after a little incident...
All the kindergarteners had a "bus buddy" that was in the highest grade, and were supposed to take care of us, hold our hand. Mine wouldn't. Didn't want to be bothered with me. I spaced, i came back to, didn't recognize anyone (I have trouble recognizing people, my lil bro is the most generic looking kid ever, and i can not pick him out of a crowd of kids to save my life... ) and thought i was in the wrong line, so i backed off, and tried to find my bus buddy in one of the lines. there was a guy behind us that was paying attention. he tried to bring attention to me leaving and tried telling me to stay, and get on the bus, but i didn't listen. I wondered around, looking. he kept an eye out on me, and when my buddy finally noticed, helped them find me =D it was a bit of a big deal though and they put me on the special bus afterward.
;
First grade was put into special ed automatically, but wasn't tested till third grade.
The results were i had a processing disorder, attention disorder, but they didn't bother learning what they were... was in special ed for all of elementary school.
I read the psych eval recently, it had a few signs of aspergers. First page describing me, said i seemed flat emotionally, and they had to redirect my attention multiple times. Also, umm, kinda embarrassing now i'm older and more socially aware, I rocked. It's a form of stimming. That was also mentioned in the report from my parents and teachers.
When i first started researching aspergers I came across the term "meltdowns" and thought, I don't have that, at all, if anything I have the exact opposite, I shut down my body. My mind and emotions are still there, they are not disconnected from me, they still feel like a storm. It is just my body i am not connected to, i get black around my vision, can't see as well. Any movement takes great concentration and effort and I don't like it. In my head i feel like hitting someone or yelling, but outside it's just so hard to do. Later, i regret it. All my regrets in life are inaction. During i will be in my head, thinking and imagining what i should do, and how it turns out. I'll be tearing someone's throat out with my teeth if angry, or screaming in terror, or bawling inside, but outside? People don't seem to notice that anything is wrong.
In 8th grade, i had a huge problem with bullying. I got it really bad... Besides the basic name calling, they took my things, right in front of me taunted me with it. They took to taking my calculator before math/science tests. First few times this happened i tried asking the teacher for one... his reply was no, it was my responsibility, and i would have to try my best without. even with the trigonometry, angles and stuff. Easy questions that were designed to give the points away i couldn't get because there was no way to do them without a calculator.
They sabotaged all in class projects as well, they would smash my projects right in front of my face, and as long as the teacher didn't see (they didn't) they didn't get in trouble.
I dunno why, but i wasn't able to say anything to anyone about it... I just couldn't.
Until, one day in the halls, one of the bullies in my class grabbed some candy i had, knocked me down, thanked me for the candy, and walked off. Wasn't the first time i had something taken right from me, but another student not in my class saw, and couldn't believe that that just happened, and dragged me to the office to tell on them. They told the story to the secretary, and when I was asked for my story, I tried to talk but ended up just bawling uncontrollably... the others student was sent off, and i was made to sit to see the principle.
Wanna guess what happened? I was still crying at the time, but the principle went into how DISAPPOINTING it was to see me SO upset over "a little bit of candy" and not seem to care at all about my grades.
so few points for this, number one, it wasn't just about the candy... it was everything! I was dealing with so much **** everyday... to the point where if i was more action oriented, i would of committed suicide several times over, not cuz i wanted to die, but because nothing was worth having to go through that **** every day...
number two, i DID care about my grades, so much. I tried to be normal, tried to be smart. I wasn't just bullied by the kids at school, i got it at home as well from my stepdad, who didn't go a day without making fun of me for something, usually for how stupid or retarded I was (even though i had stopped that rocking thing many years ago). I didn't want people to know i was stupid, pretending I was smart became my great lie. I tried in school. I was good enough at it the other years, it was just this year, I couldn't recover from all the damage the kids did to my grades, by not having projects to hand in because they were smashed, not having the same tools to work with for tests, I wasn't given a fair chance at things. and these bad grades just gave my stepdad more ammunition to use against me. For me, it was shocking that she COULDN'T see during those meetings how miserable I was. How could anyone not see?!
In my head I was raging so hard at her, I was daydreaming of wrecking her office, throw a temper tantrum, slashing my wrists right in front of her, SHOW HER how upset I was and how it was so much more than candy... What i did? I waited patiently to be dismissed, was dismissed. Nothing happened. They didn't do anything to the student.
Closest i had gotten to telling someone about what happened, and it was done by someone else, and I got told off more than the offender, cuz of course, as i was told in another school meeting, it was my own fault about with the kids because I was passive-aggresive, and should look at the chart on what a positive student does to make more friends. HA! Yeah that kid just put hotglue on a popsicle stick and stuck it in my hair, I should totally smile and ask him if he wants to come over to play after school. =/ Cuz, ya know, i am sure he didn't mean it. Maybe he actually likes me and that's why he does it. Can you feel the sarcasm yet? Oh yes so much sarcasm you can drown in it... and the scary thing is that those sentences actually came from adults. and I am pretty sure they were ACTUALLY SERIOUS! but, I am the dumb one, obviously. *facepalm*
Anyhow. I learned of "mutism" and "shutdowns" being a form, variation, of meltdowns. If this is true, and aspergers is what I have, it would explain all my inabilities to tell anyone, and how i reacted.
Pretty much all the research I did on aspergers fits, and the few things i found that didn't, I later learned further into those things and found how it did fit, it was just a little different. Example on the list attention was one thing, and I always found that part of psych evals wrong. Yes, i had a bit of a problem with inattention, but it wasn't like ADHD or something, when it came to certain things I was concentrating to the exclusion of everything else. I could sit for hours and hours no sleep or food and work on what i was doing. Hell, one time i got into a creative drive on something on the computer, i stayed up 2 nights in a row, to finish it. Did not touch anything else, only stopped to eat, drink, and go pee. Did not sleep. So when i first saw that as part of aspergers, in a list, i was like "don't have it" then i learned that my attention only certain things, is an aspie thing. that is what attention meant on the list, what it was doing there. So something i dismissed as "don't have" is now "I have it..." this goes for several things.
So, with all my research, and every story I hear, I just find more and more that i relate too and find in myself. I am sure right now, that I have aspergers.
My next step, is I want to go try to get a diagnosis. For now though, I am in these forums to... I dunno really I already learned a lot about it? I guess I am just going through looking back at my life and seeing it a new way, and want to talk to people who are familiar with all this... Makes sense?
I first got put on the "special bus" when i was in kindergarten, after a little incident...
All the kindergarteners had a "bus buddy" that was in the highest grade, and were supposed to take care of us, hold our hand. Mine wouldn't. Didn't want to be bothered with me. I spaced, i came back to, didn't recognize anyone (I have trouble recognizing people, my lil bro is the most generic looking kid ever, and i can not pick him out of a crowd of kids to save my life... ) and thought i was in the wrong line, so i backed off, and tried to find my bus buddy in one of the lines. there was a guy behind us that was paying attention. he tried to bring attention to me leaving and tried telling me to stay, and get on the bus, but i didn't listen. I wondered around, looking. he kept an eye out on me, and when my buddy finally noticed, helped them find me =D it was a bit of a big deal though and they put me on the special bus afterward.
;First grade was put into special ed automatically, but wasn't tested till third grade.
The results were i had a processing disorder, attention disorder, but they didn't bother learning what they were... was in special ed for all of elementary school.
I read the psych eval recently, it had a few signs of aspergers. First page describing me, said i seemed flat emotionally, and they had to redirect my attention multiple times. Also, umm, kinda embarrassing now i'm older and more socially aware, I rocked. It's a form of stimming. That was also mentioned in the report from my parents and teachers.
When i first started researching aspergers I came across the term "meltdowns" and thought, I don't have that, at all, if anything I have the exact opposite, I shut down my body. My mind and emotions are still there, they are not disconnected from me, they still feel like a storm. It is just my body i am not connected to, i get black around my vision, can't see as well. Any movement takes great concentration and effort and I don't like it. In my head i feel like hitting someone or yelling, but outside it's just so hard to do. Later, i regret it. All my regrets in life are inaction. During i will be in my head, thinking and imagining what i should do, and how it turns out. I'll be tearing someone's throat out with my teeth if angry, or screaming in terror, or bawling inside, but outside? People don't seem to notice that anything is wrong.
In 8th grade, i had a huge problem with bullying. I got it really bad... Besides the basic name calling, they took my things, right in front of me taunted me with it. They took to taking my calculator before math/science tests. First few times this happened i tried asking the teacher for one... his reply was no, it was my responsibility, and i would have to try my best without. even with the trigonometry, angles and stuff. Easy questions that were designed to give the points away i couldn't get because there was no way to do them without a calculator.
They sabotaged all in class projects as well, they would smash my projects right in front of my face, and as long as the teacher didn't see (they didn't) they didn't get in trouble.
I dunno why, but i wasn't able to say anything to anyone about it... I just couldn't.
Until, one day in the halls, one of the bullies in my class grabbed some candy i had, knocked me down, thanked me for the candy, and walked off. Wasn't the first time i had something taken right from me, but another student not in my class saw, and couldn't believe that that just happened, and dragged me to the office to tell on them. They told the story to the secretary, and when I was asked for my story, I tried to talk but ended up just bawling uncontrollably... the others student was sent off, and i was made to sit to see the principle.
Wanna guess what happened? I was still crying at the time, but the principle went into how DISAPPOINTING it was to see me SO upset over "a little bit of candy" and not seem to care at all about my grades.
so few points for this, number one, it wasn't just about the candy... it was everything! I was dealing with so much **** everyday... to the point where if i was more action oriented, i would of committed suicide several times over, not cuz i wanted to die, but because nothing was worth having to go through that **** every day...
number two, i DID care about my grades, so much. I tried to be normal, tried to be smart. I wasn't just bullied by the kids at school, i got it at home as well from my stepdad, who didn't go a day without making fun of me for something, usually for how stupid or retarded I was (even though i had stopped that rocking thing many years ago). I didn't want people to know i was stupid, pretending I was smart became my great lie. I tried in school. I was good enough at it the other years, it was just this year, I couldn't recover from all the damage the kids did to my grades, by not having projects to hand in because they were smashed, not having the same tools to work with for tests, I wasn't given a fair chance at things. and these bad grades just gave my stepdad more ammunition to use against me. For me, it was shocking that she COULDN'T see during those meetings how miserable I was. How could anyone not see?!
In my head I was raging so hard at her, I was daydreaming of wrecking her office, throw a temper tantrum, slashing my wrists right in front of her, SHOW HER how upset I was and how it was so much more than candy... What i did? I waited patiently to be dismissed, was dismissed. Nothing happened. They didn't do anything to the student.
Closest i had gotten to telling someone about what happened, and it was done by someone else, and I got told off more than the offender, cuz of course, as i was told in another school meeting, it was my own fault about with the kids because I was passive-aggresive, and should look at the chart on what a positive student does to make more friends. HA! Yeah that kid just put hotglue on a popsicle stick and stuck it in my hair, I should totally smile and ask him if he wants to come over to play after school. =/ Cuz, ya know, i am sure he didn't mean it. Maybe he actually likes me and that's why he does it. Can you feel the sarcasm yet? Oh yes so much sarcasm you can drown in it... and the scary thing is that those sentences actually came from adults. and I am pretty sure they were ACTUALLY SERIOUS! but, I am the dumb one, obviously. *facepalm*
Anyhow. I learned of "mutism" and "shutdowns" being a form, variation, of meltdowns. If this is true, and aspergers is what I have, it would explain all my inabilities to tell anyone, and how i reacted.
Pretty much all the research I did on aspergers fits, and the few things i found that didn't, I later learned further into those things and found how it did fit, it was just a little different. Example on the list attention was one thing, and I always found that part of psych evals wrong. Yes, i had a bit of a problem with inattention, but it wasn't like ADHD or something, when it came to certain things I was concentrating to the exclusion of everything else. I could sit for hours and hours no sleep or food and work on what i was doing. Hell, one time i got into a creative drive on something on the computer, i stayed up 2 nights in a row, to finish it. Did not touch anything else, only stopped to eat, drink, and go pee. Did not sleep. So when i first saw that as part of aspergers, in a list, i was like "don't have it" then i learned that my attention only certain things, is an aspie thing. that is what attention meant on the list, what it was doing there. So something i dismissed as "don't have" is now "I have it..." this goes for several things.
So, with all my research, and every story I hear, I just find more and more that i relate too and find in myself. I am sure right now, that I have aspergers.
My next step, is I want to go try to get a diagnosis. For now though, I am in these forums to... I dunno really I already learned a lot about it? I guess I am just going through looking back at my life and seeing it a new way, and want to talk to people who are familiar with all this... Makes sense?
