What was your childhood like? 2015

[jayster]

I'm currently writing down what mine was like to make it easier to describe come an assessment

I've started thinking about this, I have a date for an assessment, January 2016.
I think one of the reasons it took me so long to work out, is there is so much odd stuff contributed by my family.
I was bullied by my brothers ( 5 & 6 years older) from day 1 until I was 9 or 10. It ranged from relentless verbal to making me smoke a tissue stuffed cardboard roll, aged 8. At that age, I was also taught to tie a noose & encouraged to use it.
In reaction to persistent abuse about a birthmark on my face, I started to pick, aged 4. My parents would shout at me, slap my hands away from my face. My face was a mess of scabs until I was about 8.
Being female was one of my crimes. I was never going to be a girly girl, but in an effort to fit in, I insisted on giving away my dolls and refused to wear skirts or dresses. I was about 3 or 4.
In the playground, the sound of the other kids shrieking made me hurt, so I would squat in a corner with my coat over my head.
I tried hard to have friends; I always had a couple but never very many and that's true to this day.
At home, I would zone out, daydreaming, drawing or cutting paper into tiny bits. (There were no video games then)
I would "play out" whenever I could but I spent most of my time building dens, alone. Somewhere safer than home.
When I was 7 my Gran realised I couldn't read (I had them fooled by remembering the pages / pictures) because she got some books for me that I had not seen before.
I was put in remedial class & made to feel a thicko. Within 1 year I had developed an interest in Greek mythology and was reading all about it.
I didn't get too badly bullied in school, I was a tough girl. Verbal insults from strangers don't matter when you have so much experience of taking it from people who are supposed to love you.
I know I had begun to feel "different" when I was 3 or 4 - I can remember understanding mortality then ( I was told - you die, you decay, there is nothing after). At first I felt sad but then a mighty relief. I began to live solidly with the idea that I wish I had never been born, which has been with me ever since. I can remember the raw, hollow, empty feelings from then, the ones I recognise now as extreme anxiety.
In adulthood, when i'm suffering a breakdown, I'm often plagued by vivid memories of childhood. I hated myself, telling myself that I should be over it by now, I'm being petty and I should just forget about it.
In short, I was attributing my mental problems to the sibling bullying - it was acting as a "blind" to my ASD

 

[Southern Discomfort]

I'll go now.

I couldn't speak single words until I was four; I used to make echolalic sounds mimicking walkie talkies when they went out of signal and the wood pigeons nearby. I went to a special speech and language unit for the first two years of school. This helped me immeasurably in my ability to communicate and I was able to join mainstream school in Year 2. I had one friend, we used to play games using our imaginations with each other usually revolving around a James Bond theme. I was around the age of 7 I developed an intense interest in computer games, starting with my brother's PlayStation, this dominated conversations with friends. For the duration of primary school I had some verbal and physical bully happen and other children would avoid me because I spoke funny, this continued until I left primary school.

Life at home was okay, I'd get into fights with one of my brothers, he'd try to play with me but it needed to go his way and I didn't like it so it usually ended in arguments. It wasn't easy because he had ADHD. I'd happily just spend my free time playing with legos on my own or gaming.

Secondary school started quite difficultly. By this stage I had lost the strange way I talked, but I started off with no friends and was bullied for being a pariah. I spent time in the library reading comic books in the quiet section. I did slowly make a few acquaintances though because of my deep interest in computer games, this helped my situation. Year 8 was a game changer. The boy who became my best friend to this day moved into the area. And I started to observe other people, how they behaved and questioned what they were looking for in someone, I had a eureka moment and realised if I reflected their own personalities back at them I would be able to fit in so I did and I worked marvellously and even turned a few heads who, at the start of school, had picked on me - I wasn't going to be vengeful of these people, I was just happy I had friends now! While this worked well and served its purpose, I started becoming exhausted with the acting and became depressed, I couldn't go over friend's houses at the end of the long school ever with just how fatigued I was, I just wanted to go home and spend the rest of the day in solitude playing on my PlayStation 2. I rarely visited friends outside of school, partly because of the distance but mostly because I needed my alone time to recharge. This was my situation through the rest of school, I was still picked on at times but those groups of arseholes (you all know them) but it was manageable.

My schoolwork was okay, I was a fairly bright kid but I always struggled with homework, always leaving it to the last moment, never being able to organise myself to do it as a result I didn't do well with GCSE coursework and left school with not so good grades.

 

[Walsie]

Thanks, should hopefully be months away, looking into it at the moment.

Like you, I had speech problems. I couldn't speak single words until I was four, I went to a speech and language unit for the first year or two of school which really helped me along. It wasn't the end of it though because I would get picked on at school for the way I talked up until I left primary school, thankfully I could then blend in at that time. I still have the odd verbal 'hiccup' though, getting words the wrong way around or just saying the complete wrong thing.

Do you know yet when your assessment will be? It looks like a few of us had remedial training.

As for homework, I had the same issue, mainly since I didn't see much point in it. I spent the time watching documentaries instead! No video games, either.

James Bond!

Childhood was alright until I was placed in a foster home. I didn't have many friends. I think the only main thing I was able to relate to with people was video games.

That must have been awful.

In middle school I started having problems at school, both in terms of discipline and schoolwork. I had private remedial teaching to catch up, and the private tutor I had suspected autism. According to my class teacher's report, I was "a rather moody, erratic child" who doesn't think that tidiness and neatness are important. I started to have or two friends who I saw outside of school, but never joined in group play. I didn't like to go outside onto the playground and prefered to stay indoors during breaks.

Ah, yes, tidiness and neatness. Always got complaints about that, too. We girls are supposed to be neat and tidy, after all.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Do you know yet when your assessment will be? It looks like a few of us had remedial training.

As for homework, I had the same issue, mainly since I didn't see much point in it. I spent the time watching documentaries instead! No video games, either.

James Bond!

I don't know quite yet, I expect it'll be sometime in early 2016; I have no idea what the workload is like for my psychiatrist. The ball is rolling though, I completed the AQ and EQ tests for him and have given him them.

 

[Walsie]

I don't know quite yet, I expect it'll be sometime in early 2016; I have no idea what the workload is like for my psychiatrist. the ball is rolling though, I completed the AQ and EQ tests for him and have given him them.

That's good. What were the tests like? Were they anything like the online tests, or perhaps the exact same tests?

 

[Walsie]

I've started thinking about this, I have a date for an assessment, January 2016.
I think one of the reasons it took me so long to work out, is there is so much odd stuff contributed by my family.
I was bullied by my brothers ( 5 & 6 years older) from day 1 until I was 9 or 10. It ranged from relentless verbal to making me smoke a tissue stuffed cardboard roll, aged 8. At that age, I was also taught to tie a noose & encouraged to use it.
In reaction to persistent abuse about a birthmark on my face, I started to pick, aged 4. My parents would shout at me, slap my hands away from my face. My face was a mess of scabs until I was about 8.
Being female was one of my crimes. I was never going to be a girly girl, but in an effort to fit in, I insisted on giving away my dolls and refused to wear skirts or dresses. I was about 3 or 4.
In the playground, the sound of the other kids shrieking made me hurt, so I would squat in a corner with my coat over my head.
I tried hard to have friends; I always had a couple but never very many and that's true to this day.
At home, I would zone out, daydreaming, drawing or cutting paper into tiny bits. (There were no video games then)
I would "play out" whenever I could but I spent most of my time building dens, alone. Somewhere safer than home.
When I was 7 my Gran realised I couldn't read (I had them fooled by remembering the pages / pictures) because she got some books for me that I had not seen before.
I was put in remedial class & made to feel a thicko. Within 1 year I had developed an interest in Greek mythology and was reading all about it.
I didn't get too badly bullied in school, I was a tough girl. Verbal insults from strangers don't matter when you have so much experience of taking it from people who are supposed to love you.
I know I had begun to feel "different" when I was 3 or 4 - I can remember understanding mortality then ( I was told - you die, you decay, there is nothing after). At first I felt sad but then a mighty relief. I began to live solidly with the idea that I wish I had never been born, which has been with me ever since. I can remember the raw, hollow, empty feelings from then, the ones I recognise now as extreme anxiety.
In adulthood, when i'm suffering a breakdown, I'm often plagued by vivid memories of childhood. I hated myself, telling myself that I should be over it by now, I'm being petty and I should just forget about it.
In short, I was attributing my mental problems to the sibling bullying - it was acting as a "blind" to my ASD

I hope you're now a long long way from those brothers. They sound like sociopaths. Your home life sounded like something outta hell, so am glad it toughened you up instead of destroying you. This is not something you 'just get over'. It takes a lifetime to come to terms with abuse.

Too bad your Gran didn't teach you to read after she found out. Did you get moved from remedial class eventually?

Anyhow, good luck with your assessment.

 

[unsurewhattoname]

That's good. What were the tests like? Were they anything like the online tests, or perhaps the exact same tests?

I also did EQ and AQ - they need to be done in a clinical setting to be accurate. It is very easy to misunderstand what each part means or what counts into it. So doing it online won't be as accurate as the psychologist going through it. My parents also helped in answering it.

I scored 43 on the AQ and 10 on the EQ.

 

[Walsie]

I also did EQ and AQ - they need to be done in a clinical setting to be accurate. It is very easy to misunderstand what each part means or what counts into it. So doing it online won't be as accurate as the psychologist going through it. My parents also helped in answering it.

I scored 43 on the AQ and 10 on the EQ.

What do those scores mean?

I took that spidy one once, and came up as an NT, since I have no gifts typical of most autistics, can navigate phone conversations OK (although I hate the phone), and eye contact and small talk is not an issue; I like meeting new people. I recall not understanding the implications of many of the questions; they seemed too broad, vague and general, so I agree you have to go through them with a psychologist.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

That's good. What were the tests like? Were they anything like the online tests, or perhaps the exact same tests?

They're the same as the online ones so I already know what I've roughly scored. I don't know if I'll have to do any other ones now. Have to wait and see!

 

[unsurewhattoname]

What do those scores mean?

I took that spidy one once, and came up as an NT, since I have no gifts typical of most autistics, can navigate phone conversations OK (although I hate the phone), and eye contact and small talk is not an issue; I like meeting new people. I recall not understanding the implications of many of the questions; they seemed too broad, vague and general, so I agree you have to go through them with a psychologist.

Thresholds are above 32 for AQ and below 30 for EQ.

 

[TSS]

I'll go now.

I couldn't speak single words until I was four; I used to make echolalic sounds mimicking walkie talkies when they went out of signal and the wood pigeons nearby. I went to a special speech and language unit for the first two years of school. This helped me immeasurably in my ability to communicate and I was able to join mainstream school in Year 2. I had one friend, we used to play games using our imaginations with each other usually revolving around a James Bond theme. I was around the age of 7 I developed an intense interest in computer games, starting with my brother's PlayStation, this dominated conversations with friends. For the duration of primary school I had some verbal and physical bully happen and other children would avoid me because I spoke funny, this continued until I left primary school.

Life at home was okay, I'd get into fights with one of my brothers, he'd try to play with me but it needed to go his way and I didn't like it so it usually ended in arguments. It wasn't easy because he had ADHD. I'd happily just spend my free time playing with legos on my own or gaming.

Secondary school started quite difficultly. By this stage I had lost the strange way I talked, but I started off with no friends and was bullied for being a pariah. I spent time in the library reading comic books in the quiet section. I did slowly make a few acquaintances though because of my deep interest in computer games, this helped my situation. Year 8 was a game changer. The boy who became my best friend to this day moved into the area. And I started to observe other people, how they behaved and questioned what they were looking for in someone, I had a eureka moment and realised if I reflected their own personalities back at them I would be able to fit in so I did and I worked marvellously and even turned a few heads who, at the start of school, had picked on me - I wasn't going to be vengeful of these people, I was just happy I had friends now! While this worked well and served its purpose, I started becoming exhausted with the acting and became depressed, I couldn't go over friend's houses at the end of the long school ever with just how fatigued I was, I just wanted to go home and spend the rest of the day in solitude playing on my PlayStation 2. I rarely visited friends outside of school, partly because of the distance but mostly because I needed my alone time to recharge. This was my situation through the rest of school, I was still picked on at times but those groups of arseholes (you all know them) but it was manageable.

My schoolwork was okay, I was a fairly bright kid but I always struggled with homework, always leaving it to the last moment, never being able to organise myself to do it as a result I didn't do well with GCSE coursework and left school with not so good grades.

I started to speak late too. Around four. My mother asked the pediatrician about the problem, but was told I was just spoiled and refused to talk because I had older siblings. I didn't really start to talk until I started school. I was quite and didn't upset the class, so I was able to get by with out doing much talking.

 

[ancusmitis]

Well, the second part of mine is in the "childhood problems" thread. But what I consider my real childhood is growing to the ripe old age of six in Maryland. We lived near the water (not on it) and there was an old wooden dock and some marshy muddy areas, and lots of trees and wild raspberries. We had a boat back then, and sometimes my dad would take us out to the islands and beaches in the bay and in the river. We had real Maryland style crab cakes and scrapple and grilled cheese sandwiches. I loved the pattern on the vinyl floor we had in the kitchen. Except we called it linoleum even though it wasn't actually linoleum. We would get frogs in the windows in the basement. I got attacked by hornets once and was afraid to go outside for weeks. I used to walk around the great big yard by myself with all the trees and bushes and thorns. We had a split-rail fence with steel mesh bolted onto it. I found the wreckage of a crib in the back yard once. It fascinated me. I remembered it years later when I took classes in anthropology. I was holding a remnant of the past in my hands.

Not everything was perfect, but I was as much of a kid as any autistic can expect to be. My parents never understood my continuing opposition to Knoxville. Perhaps by now they think I've gotten over it. And even if we'd stayed, the developers would still have moved in and wrecked everything. I still believe my life took a turn for the worse after that move.

 

[mikie1011]

what was your childhood like?

i like my bedroom its cool

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Pretty standard for a typical child actually. Sure, I had speech problems when I started school and I was placed in a speech and language unit before going on to mainstream but I had a good friend that I'd play imaginary games with usually involved in a James Bond-esque world. I suffered verbal and physical bullying through school, most verbal, it near stopped me for attending school though. Secondary school was hard at first, I had to make a new group of friends completely and this took a while but I found a group of acquaintances and made a good friend in year 8 who I'm still friends with.

At home I just wanted to play on my own, first with legos then my interests slowly shifted onto a all day fixation of computer games. I didn't visit friends all that often because my mindset was that home time was my time. I'd often get in fights with my second oldest brother, he has ADHD so it wasn't easy with his frequent anger outbursts that I'd usually get a brunt of.

 

[tfwo]

Pretty standard for a typical child actually. Sure, I had speech problems when I started school and I was placed in a speech and language unit before going on to mainstream but I had a good friend that I'd play imaginary games with usually involved in a James Bond-esque world. I suffered verbal and physical bullying through school, most verbal, it near stopped me for attending school though. Secondary school was hard at first, I had to make a new group of friends completely and this took a while but I found a group of acquaintances and made a good friend in year 8 who I'm still friends with.

At home I just wanted to play on my own, first with legos then my interests slowly shifted onto a all day fixation of computer games. I didn't visit friends all that often because my mindset was that home time was my time. I'd often get in fights with my second oldest brother, he has ADHD so it wasn't easy with his frequent anger outbursts that I'd usually get a brunt of.

I actually made this thread back in November if you want a more detailed account of my childhood, it's a page or two in. https://www.aspiescentral.com/threads/what-was-your-childhood-like.14070/

Want you posted here sound similar to my childhood, but with different interests and minor details. I did not have a speech problem, but my younger brother did. He has ADHD, and was constantly causing problem for my parents. As a result, I as the good kid didn't attract much attention, and suspect that my parents were glad that I kept to myself and didn't create more work for them. I played by myself most of the time. I started taking things apart to try to figure out how things work, when ever I could get my hands on something. As I got older I began to isolate myself more. I took over our bedroom closet, and used it as my quiet room. In my adolescent years I walled off an unused section of the basement with some discarded paneling and cardboard. It was obviously done to be difficult to get into. You had to slide a box to the side and crawl through an opening at the floor, in rather tight quarters. I would sit down there in the silence to do my homework, without all of the distraction upstairs. I also would sit in there to unwind and listen to my stereo. I would also enjoy recording records onto cassette tapes just for the fun of it. I often recorded the same record onto the same tape repeatedly, because I found it relaxing to sit there watching the analog meters bounce to the rhythm.

 

[Judge]

The inner sanctum.

 

[Judge]

Oh, now that's just showing off.

Not when you occasionally have to move. Trust me.

 

[Judge]

Yeah, I wondered what sort of challenge it would be to move. It reminds me of a German schrank. They're a good looking piece of furniture, but big, heavy, and a pain to move.

It disassembles, but it's still a monster to put together.

Downright dangerous to do so entirely on my own. Especially as I get older.

 

[Judge]

I know what you mean. That's why I have cheap Walmart press-board stuff. I can just leave it when I move.

LOL. This is pressboard/veneer as well. Just not the really cheap kind. But it's held up since 1992. Still it can easily be damaged if not properly handled. And of course movers contractually limit their liability over such things in the event of damage.