My entire childhood, for the most part, was one long, horrible, desperate cry for help that seemed to go unheard. I carried the resentment about that well into adulthood. But since my all-too-recent autism diagnosis, I now know what I needed help with, and, with hindsight, I realize that the help I needed didn’t exist in my younger years.
I remember, when I was about 8 years old, crying hysterically, and my mother asking what was wrong. I replied, “I don’t have the words!”
I really didn’t, back then, and it frustrated me. I didn’t know words like autism and overstimulation and neurodivergent and ostracized and dissociation and mood dysregulation. All I knew was that I wasn’t functioning like the “normal” people around me. I felt broken and scared and all alone in trying to figure out why I’m so different. It’s really hard to get answers when you don’t know what questions to ask, especially when you’re 8 years old.
I begged for therapy and antidepressants, but we were poor, and my mother didn’t comprehend the depth of my dysfunction. The minute I turned 19 and got a job with insurance, I got a therapist and was put on antidepressants, and that’s been the case for most of my adult life. Granted, the therapists I had, with the exception of my current one, didn’t have a clue about autism, and misdiagnosed me. Since the “solutions” for these misdiagnoses didn’t work for me, I felt like a failure, and therefore those therapists quite often did more harm than good.
Post autism diagnosis, for the first time in my life, I don’t feel so out of control. Yes, I’m still extremely different, but at least I know why. I’m learning coping skills and finding people who can relate to what I go through, so I don’t feel like such a freak. I’m finally piloting my own ship, despite stormy seas. It sure beats tying myself to the mast and hoping for the best, as in times past.
I used to say that stray cats were better mothers than mine was. She seemed indifferent to my needs and deaf to my fears. She seemed hellbent on torturing me, despite my pleas.
But now, looking back through an autism lens, I realize that not only did she want the best for me, but she spent a huge amount of time and energy trying to “fix” me. (I can be a lot.)
Because she didn’t have the autism information she needed to cope with me, the ideas she came up with were ultimately destructive. But now I see that she didn’t intend them to be. She was just terrified about what my future would hold and willing to try anything to improve my chances.
For example, she constantly thrust me into social situations that were destined to set me up for failure and humiliation. Dance class. Science Day-Camp. Inviting girls to my house for sleepovers, even though they weren’t my friends, and in fact, saw me as their primary target for ridicule. Birthday parties that no one attended. Brownies.
She just wanted me to get some social skills and make friends. She constantly told me just that, in those rare moments when she could get me to come up for air while I was off in some corner reading a book. (Books were my sanctuary. People were painful. They still are, much of the time.)
I begged my mother to let me be home schooled. Throughout primary and secondary school, I was bullied and beat up and outcast and laughed at and excluded. I was the last person chosen in every schoolyard pick. “Who would you rather kiss, Barb or a pig?” “I’d rather kiss a pig!” Laughs all around.
My mother would not budge on the issue. At the time I thought that was because she feared home schooling would be too much work for her. Now I realize that she most likely believed that if she gave in, then all hope of me being socialized would go out the window. So even when I came home bruised and bloody, she made me attend school. I called in “sick” at least one day a week, though. (I can still see her handwriting in my head. “Please excuse Barbara for yesterday. She was ill.”) I still managed to get straight A’s. (What can I say? It was a rural Florida education.)
No one ever explained to me how different I was. All the family discussions about me (that I now know had to have occurred) were strictly out of my earshot. I just thought I was introverted, and I knew I was smarter than my peers. (However, I didn’t know that I should keep that information to myself. I have no filter to this day.)
I thought everyone was going through what I went through, and somehow they all just knew how to deal with it better than I did. I thought I got along with adults better, but now I see that they were just more patient with me. I would usually have one friend my age at a time, and I’d cling to that friend like a limpet until they got tired of me and pushed me away. In retrospect, I can see how draining I must have been to them. I really wish I could go back and apologize.
As I got older, I was more able to actively rebel against my mother’s efforts to thrust me headlong into the neurotypical world. After enduring the Brownies, I told her that if she made me go into the Girl Scouts I would run away and never come back. I intentionally failed my interview for Job Corps so that I wouldn’t have to spend the entire summer feeling like an outcast. I’d make the sleepover invitations that she insisted I make, but I’d make it clear that they weren’t my idea, so they stopped happening.
Now I understand that my autism leaves me with very little energy for social stimulation. People suck the life out of me, so if I’m making the effort, I must really, really like you. Even so, I’m content to go weeks without human contact.
Hell yes, I’m lonely a lot of the time. But the remedy for that feels like acid on my skin, so I’ve learned to cope. I do have quite a few friends that I interact with online, and that suits me just fine. If it gets to be too much, I can simply log off. And I can do all of that from the comfort of my home, while cuddling with my dogs.
The people I’m closest to have taken a lot of time to educate themselves about autism, and I truly do appreciate that. Many of them get it, intellectually, but for the most part they don’t get it emotionally. They still wish I would become someone I’m not. They want me to get “better” rather than accepting me for who I am.
If someone ever sincerely said, “I love you just the way you are,” I’d probably burst into tears. I’d cry for a week, just from the blessed release from that burden. The weight of trying to be the way everyone wants me to be can be exhausting, and that’s not even taking into account the pity that comes from all sides and seems to cover me like a wet wool blanket.
It’s hard, feeling like a burden, and hearing people say that I’m just not trying hard enough. Pre-diagnosis, I thought they were right. Back then I felt they were pointing out the painful truth about me.
Now I know they misunderstand me, and frankly, it increasingly pisses me off. But that doesn’t change their perception of me, so what’s the point of trying to defend myself? It’s too much, expecting me to carve out the perfect neurotypical life when I’ve been given a spoon rather than a knife.
I wish I could tell my mother that I understand why she emphasized my intelligence, and made me think that the grade after 12th was, of course, freshman in college. I get why she kept telling me that I could be the CEO of a fortune 500 company, even though it was blatantly obvious that that would never happen.
She anticipated my future, and it scared her half to death, so I think she believed that she had to push as hard as she could just to squeeze a drop of normalcy out of me, so that I’d survive. I used to look back at her and see all the damage she had done to me. Now I see how hard she was trying. Now I understand that she meant well, and did the best she could with the cards she was dealt.
Believe me, ma, now I know that you were infinitely better at mothering than a stray cat. I’m sorry it took me 59 years to figure that out. I’m sure that I owe what functionality I do have to all of your efforts. I’m so sorry you had to try so hard. I bet you felt very alone, too, in that struggle, and that must have been horrible.
For what it’s worth, I have survived, and in fact I’m thriving way beyond my expectations, even though “normalcy” continues to elude me. I’ll be okay. I love you, and I hope you are resting in peace.
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