Multitudes
Silver Member
I have known that I'm different since I was five years old - I didn't have the ability to reason then, can only now apply cognition to my experiences, though I have memory of how it felt to want to play with other kids, to find myself alone as they'd lost interest and moved off. I caught up with them, of course, joined in again, only to find myself alone, again.
I remember the need to be in the group, conflict of wanting to be doing something that fulfilled me - they always wanted to make smeary hand paintings, I hated the messiness. I wanted to make long, straight lines of alphabet blocks.. found myself increasingly isolated as my concept of play differed ever more from theirs.
I was eight, lonely, anxious, I forced myself to play 'It', 'Hide and seek', - took awhile to realise that I was a joke, known to everyone but incomprehensible to me, that only engendered further isolation.
I didn't understand, then, that I was already falling behind my peers as they learned the rules and subtleties of social interaction, while I was limited by a neurology capable only of literal interpretation.
I discovered Aspergers Syndrome just a few years ago, have spent some considerable time reframing much of my life in terms of this revelation of what I am!
Along the way I realised that I also suffered with rejection-based General Anxiety Disorder, Severe Depression, and PTSD - result of the terror of ostracism.
I realised, in my mid teens, that, as I was so unlike my Human peers, I must therefore be non-Human. It stuck, and I am unable to consider myself now as anything other than.. alien.
I get odd looks from clinicians, family roll their eyes, friends both make expressionless faces.
This post isn't about the suffering that is Aspergers though, it's about physical and psychological abuse, pain, fear.. The separation and isolation others can never know - in my own experience; childhood mental and emotional abuse, adulthood predation by narcissists who want my very soul, unending loneliness..
I'd like to dip a toe into the pool of members here, maybe find that I'm not so alone.. unless I really am just as weird as they say.
I welcome everyones thoughts, experiences.. can anyone relate?
I remember the need to be in the group, conflict of wanting to be doing something that fulfilled me - they always wanted to make smeary hand paintings, I hated the messiness. I wanted to make long, straight lines of alphabet blocks.. found myself increasingly isolated as my concept of play differed ever more from theirs.
I was eight, lonely, anxious, I forced myself to play 'It', 'Hide and seek', - took awhile to realise that I was a joke, known to everyone but incomprehensible to me, that only engendered further isolation.
I didn't understand, then, that I was already falling behind my peers as they learned the rules and subtleties of social interaction, while I was limited by a neurology capable only of literal interpretation.
I discovered Aspergers Syndrome just a few years ago, have spent some considerable time reframing much of my life in terms of this revelation of what I am!
Along the way I realised that I also suffered with rejection-based General Anxiety Disorder, Severe Depression, and PTSD - result of the terror of ostracism.
I realised, in my mid teens, that, as I was so unlike my Human peers, I must therefore be non-Human. It stuck, and I am unable to consider myself now as anything other than.. alien.
I get odd looks from clinicians, family roll their eyes, friends both make expressionless faces.
This post isn't about the suffering that is Aspergers though, it's about physical and psychological abuse, pain, fear.. The separation and isolation others can never know - in my own experience; childhood mental and emotional abuse, adulthood predation by narcissists who want my very soul, unending loneliness..
I'd like to dip a toe into the pool of members here, maybe find that I'm not so alone.. unless I really am just as weird as they say.
I welcome everyones thoughts, experiences.. can anyone relate?
