Ok so in my previous blog entry I talked a lot about my school life and how it has shaped me into who I am today, but I want to talk about the psychological effect that a lot of what I went through still continues to have on me.
I mentioned that I didn't have many friends and that my parents took me to social groups for kids with Asperger's syndrome. I also talked a lot about being home-schooled, and I mentioned that my problems really weren't academic, they were social. Looking back, I doubt I had Asperger's, perhaps maybe I had some Asperger-ish behavior when I was younger but I definitely didn't have the same problems that a lot of those kids had.
I felt like I was normal, but to have a label like that slapped upon me really damaged my self esteem quite a bit. If my parents hadn't gotten so concerned about my anxieties I would have grown up differently. Yes it's true I have quite a lot of anxieties but my parents gave them too much power by catering to their needs.
I love my mom and dad a lot and they have done a lot for me and I can't blame them for all this. They were simply following their intuition as parents. It wasn't them really, I had a lot to do with it.
I would get really anxious and miss a lot of school. I would BEG my parents to let me stay home from school. This happened when I was only going to school for part of the day, and continued even when I was attending Del Amigo (the school that I give the most credit to helping me re-gain control of my life). By missing so much school, and especially when I was home-schooled I fell way behind socially, and the Asperger groups only made me feel like I was a retard.
I really can't describe in detail the amount of anxiety I felt over school. Basically every morning I felt sick to my stomach (I never actually threw up but the knot in my stomach would make it difficult for me to eat). During school I would spend a lot of time hiding in the bathroom. It was mainly to get out of interacting with the other kids. I would lock myself in a stall and wait for the school day to end.
I remember when I was in fifth grade. It was when I was going to Monte Gardens for 2 hours and being home-schooled the rest of the day. There was this lady there who was a behavioral specialist who wanted me to socialize with the other kids. She felt that recess would be a good time for me to do things with the other kids. So at recess she would have me pick one activity for me to do and I would have to do that same activity for the duration of recess. Well there was this girl who I liked named Kristina, and long story short I had an incident with her one day that started with me teasing her and ended up with me beating her up (yes, I beat up a girl. I am not proud of this, she was really the only person who I ever got into a physical alteration with, unless you count my parents). Anyway since that incident I felt really awkward around her and was afraid of being in situations where I had to see her. So one day when that behavioral specialist was there I knew she was going to make me do something with the other kids and I really wasn't in the mood, so while everyone else was playing and having a good time I locked myself in the bathroom stall and waited for recess to end. When it was over the behavioral specialist talked to me and asked what I did during recess. And I told her the truth, I hid in the bathroom. She was very disappointed in me.
It was my lack of friends and socializing that had my parents so concerned, and not just about me but the whole family. I remember my dad telling one of the psychologists "You know, I was just thinking about it the other day, and I realized that we don't have any friends". Well, we did have some friends, but no one who lived really close to us, mainly people who my parents knew from college who lived in Southern California. But my dad did have a colleague who had a daughter who was around my age, and like me she was an only child and on top of that was home-schooled through the same place that I was. Her mom actually was heavily involved with the home-schooling program. We would invite her over periodically, but because of my anxieties (mainly because she was a girl and I had these weird intrusive thoughts about girls) it didn't last.
Come to think of it I did invite a few kids over to my house...over the course of several years. There was this girl named Anna who lived down the street who I would periodically invite over, this was when I was pretty young, like 6. I never really was all that good of friends with her. Then there was DJ, this kid who was a few years older than me, he lived across the street, at first he was quite friendly but then for some reason he started to not like me, I think because of my insecurities.I think I may have been about 7 or 8. Then there was Sean, who was in my first grade class with me. He lived down the street and I would have him over quite often, we would play computer games and play outside on my swing set. I thought we were starting to become pretty good friends. Then one day we got into a stupid argument over a skateboard, and after that I stopped hanging out with him. I think I was around 8 or 9. And there was Katie, the daughter of my dad's colleague who I mentioned earlier. This was when I was 10.
There were other kids too who I went to their houses...occasionally, mostly kids from the Asperger groups, but I didn't have a lot of interaction with them, and when I stopped seeing the doctor who made me go to those groups we lost touch with most of them.
Fast forward to the summer of 2008, I was getting ready to graduate high school and felt that unless I made the effort now I would spend the rest of my life friendless. The first person from school who I went over to their house was Russell. It was very, very, VERY difficult for me to do, I felt that he would be like everyone else who I considered to be one of the "cool kids", I feared he would reject me, but he didn't, he welcomed me with open arms, and I am really glad I made that effort, one of the best decisions I could have made. Russell and Bela were the first people in several years, since Katie, who I invited over to my house. Finally I had the friends I needed. And yes, I they are the best friends I could have, they know what it feels like to grow up without a lot of friends.
This doesn't mean I still struggle. I worry constantly about having arguments with friends because somehow I have it in my head that arguments mean the end of friendships (I think it's because of what happened with Sean). My friends all have demonstrated how loyal they are and I take their word for it. It's just difficult making up for 18 years with very limited interaction with people my own age.
