Dealing with the Diagnosis

I have had a long break from this blog, partly due to the fact that I was getting no feedback as to my blog, partly because of other things happening in my life, but mostly because I did not know how to begin to tackle the issue which I intend to focus on most - dealing with the diagnosis. I shall now make an attempt to begin to do so.

One of the many interesting ironies of the condition is that quite often, though not always, people with autism see things as either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. However, autism itself falls into a grey area. It is wholly impossible to separate the bits that are autism and the bits that are not. You cannot simply draw an imaginary line down the middle of your mind and say, all that is on this side is bad, and all that is on the other is good. The same is true of autism. Because autism is a condition of the mind, it blurs together with the mind and is impossible to see and quantify.

This can often lead to great confusion in understanding it and how to deal with it, particularly to the logical minds that often characterise autistic people. Very often I have found that confusion and anger go hand in hand and that is what happened to me.

I struggled desperately to come to terms with what autism was. I could not. There was no-one to tell me, 'That's autism and you cannot help it, that's autism and you can help it, that's not autism and you have to change it'. It drove me wild. I needed someone to understand. Not be understanding, to understand. To have been through it and to tell me what's what. there was no such person. The anger that was born of this confusion built up inside me and bubbled over the top. I pushed my friends away and I had regular shouting matches with my parents.

At last, everything reached a head when I was walking home from school. For months now, my friends had been pointing out things I did wrong socially. At last they hit a nerve, and I broke. I yelled myself hoarse, I laughed hysterically, I opened my arms to the world and spat in its face. Finally, I collapsed, weeping on the grass. I cried for a half an hour. I felt like nothing, but once I was done, I saw everything more clearly, no longer clouded by anger and self-pity. I was given a window of clarity, and I used it.

I wrote down everything I felt, and I can see no better way of explaining how it felt than to simply write out those words anew.

"Every day is still a battle. Every day. Every night I lie awake, I cannot sleep. I feel  cannot do anything right. I have lost my way. I have no idea how to find it again. I feel I am adrift in a sea of expectations. Now that I have been diagnosed, it feels like everybody has more expectations of me. I have more expectations of me. I think everyone expects me to fight this, and win. I do not know how. I am an expert at seeing the strengths of others" (here I went on to write a list of people around me whose redeeming traits I saw) "However, I seem unable to find my own redeeming traits. I can see only pessimism, an argumentative streak and a sense of humour most people hate. I know I should get rid of those darker traits, but I cannot."

Here I reached a turning point: "But I WILL keep strong, whatever happens, I will not allow myself to fade into the background. I will learn from my mistakes and grow. If I should lose friends because of it then so be it. I have been alone before, I can survive it again. I WILL keep on fighting this autism thing, until I am happy that I have gotten it beaten, until I feel that I am who I want to be, not who I am told to be".

That was the point that I began to understand autism. You cannot learn it, you can only learn to deal with it. When a trait you do not like crops up, you smash it. You keep on smashing traits until you are happy with yourself. At that point, the anger dropped away, replaced by a determination. The strongest in my life. I may be unble to understand autism, but I can and will combat the bits of me I do not like, autistic traits or not.

That is the best advice I can give to anyone who finds out they are autistic - do not try to understand it, it is part of you, but instead, improve you whole self. That way you can not only fight the elusive autism, but you can also improve youself.

There will be days where it will feel impossible. There will be days when you think that you haven't the strength to continue. But there will also be days where you win. Those days are worth the bad ones.

As always, question me in the comments, I will help in any way I can. If you would like help nuetralising a particular trait, I'll try and give you tips if I can. If I cannot, I will talk you through the situation. Do not feel alone like I did, let me be the person who understands.

How to recognise autism.

I decided to make my first blog about how to recognise autism because it is often very difficult to spot and thus there are many people who are thought to be "Weird" or even "a freak" because of this.

I understand that it can be very difficult to see autism - especially with my diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome - because the signs are often very subtle and easily written off as personal quirks.

But that's all autism really is, a personal quirk. An eccentricity if you like. However, there are several common "traits" which can be used to recognise autism. Firstly, the most obvious sign is if you see a person who walks on their toes. This can vary in severity from constant tip-toeing to a small rocking on the toes instead of the heels. Some people (including an acquaintance of mine) have leaned to completely neutralise this trait. However, he has countered this by a very noticeable swaying of the shoulders and an obvious slouching of the back, both of which become increasingly severe when he feels watched, nervous or angry.

Aside from walking, there are several other, less prevalent signs. One of which is the way we talk. Its not that we have a specific accent or even dialect, its rather that we have an accent that, though recognisable as being from a certain area, is indescribably different. The best way to describe it is like hearing the same note from a xylophone and a glockenspiel. Despite being the same note, its easy to tell that they are different.

Now I don't expect for you to be a musical critic, I'm simply asking you to try.

We also have a tendency to be a socially nervous bunch (perhaps due to being rejected by many people) thus are afraid to actually talk to others. Very often we hide this. Some people use humour, others use manners. There are many different masks we wear, but all to many use a facade of confidence which (all too often) can come across as over-confidence or even vanity and arrogance. If you are able to continue talking to us for a few minutes, an hour, a week, then I'm sure you will find that there is not such an arrogant person hiding behind the turtle's shell.

Have you ever talked to someone who cannot follow the flow of a conversation and continues to return to previous topics and yet still manages to fly around the place within that topic? They may well have been autistic. Even if they did not know it.

I'm not saying for one second that every autistic person displays every one of these symptoms, nor can I say that every autistic person displays none of them. All I'm saying is that if someone displays combinations of them, they may well be autistic.

I hope you have found this interesting and helpful. I sincerely desire to answer many questions on what I have discussed and of course any other queries. That's what I'm here for!

The first blog

I have been bullied for the biggest chunk of my life. The bullies have now backed off however, the expience has affected me profoundly. I want to - I need to - help those in a similar position as I was. I was bullied for being who I am, bullied for something I could not, cannot, control. I was bullied for the way I talked, walked, and on my views. I was bullied because of Asperger's Syndrome.

I only found out I had autism a year hence, and I still struggle to come to terms with it. I think the best thing i could do is to help those in a similar position, as a kind of closure that I am not alone. I also urge people who are not autistic or "normal" people to read this. I put inverted commas around "normal" to emhasise the fact that we are all different - none of us are "normal". The biggest difference for austistic people is that out differences are more noticeable.

Please help me help you to face autism. Please help me help you to understand.

I intend to post every week or two and check more regularly than that. Please ask questions in the comment box and I will do my best to answer.