Finally accepting autism

NotObsessedWithTrains

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I’ve known I have Asperger’s for around 7 years or so and I suspected it was possible even before then but I ruled it out due to my erroneous belief that I could in fact “read people” perfectly well. I always thought I was highly perceptive, and it was echoed by people around me. I attributed this to my intense curiosity coupled with spaciness, but I was also very gullible at times. I was actually shocked when the Seaver Center for Autism Studies at Mt Sinai tested me and found, using thorough clinical research methods, that my ability to read people’s “emotions” (happy, sad, angry, scared etc) was 20% below the average person’s. So there it was, the one thing I said I definitely did not share with others who have Autism Spectrum Disorders was that I could read people, and I was wrong.

I have a great therapist right now while I’m still living with my mom and not yet returned to NY. It really is so important to have a good doctor. I stopped taking my Adderall last week because I decided I couldn’t deal with the side effects of this stimulant, this literal “amphetamine salt” because it sometimes exacerbated my tendency (with me since I can remember) to self injure especially by creating small woulds on my arms, legs, face, and under my fingernails so that I could pick and pull the skin off, in addition to the “tremor” side effect which others noticed in my hands all too often. In New York, had mustered up all my might to admit to the doctors at Mt Sinai when being treated and studied there several years ago that I could hardly function without my Adderall because I simply didn’t have the energy and the focus. It was an incredible relief to me that they said, “It’s ok. Many, many people with Asperger’s say that.” Nevertheless, I stopped taking it because I didn’t want to rely on it anymore and it caused me to have a “breakdown” but I also had a breakthrough at the same time. And maybe it was that I needed to let my mind be clear of this drug to make myself raw enough, vulnerable enough, to accept what I was realizing/ learning/ coming to terms with in a non-medicated state.

I was babbling a lot and hard to keep on one track and was crying a whole lot and confessing to my mom, as if she hadn’t already known it, that I hadn’t been a good person sometimes. I didn’t feel for people and I had hurt people emotionally throughout my life and I didn’t care. I didn’t understand before and I felt horrible for what I believed to be the first time in my life. I told my therapist and she asked, “You mean, you had trouble with empathy?” Yes, that was it exactly. My brain was not letting me make that connection on my own and it was a lucky thing I had my therapist there to help me see what was going on and to tell me to get back on my meds which I reluctantly did, and she was right. Back on my meds I resembled a human being again. She thinks maybe there are non stimulants that can help me but I have to wait for the medicine man (the psychiatrist) to switch me, change the dosage of my meds, or give me another med to help with side effects.

I also realized (and I see now this sounds “crazy” and it is in a way because, like my therapist said, it’s something usually young children go through a phase of believing to be true) that I thought I knew everything. That is, I thought I could understand everything because, well, I am extremely intelligent (in some areas…), and really literally thought that if I could not understand something then it simply did not exist.

It was and is hard and embarrassing to realize this and that I need medications, and that yes, I really have an Autism disorder despite high intelligence. Everything about really, really letting it sink in that I have an “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is and has been very hard. Like I said, I’ve known for about 7 years, but incredibly enough, it was only this week and last week that I was able to really accept it. And it fucking hurts. I know full well how to make this into a nice structured piece about what I’ve been going through this last week (and all other weeks) but I’m letting my writing be as disjointed as I feel because making it all fit to be adapted into a book feels wrong and dishonest. That is as much as I can share about it right now.

Courtesy of Spectrum Publications