Being that I'm recently diagnosed, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the way I grew up. Many "ohhhhh so that explains it!" moments. I moved around a lot and it was almost like I was numb to all the change, while we know that change is super hard for many autistics, I think after a while you get used to those changes if they happen often enough... or like I did, have a sort of numbness to it all. I never really fit in, I never really understood anyone. I never really cared to either. I think I tried to socialize every now and then but failed miserably.. but it wasn't really an important thing to me as far as I can remember. Things always felt super alien to me, but I always assumed it was because I am Icelandic in a foreign country.. and I decided to own that difference, not just being Icelandic but just being different from everyone else. I have met an Icelander here and there along the way and even they were not much like myself. So at those times I realized it was just me.
Socializing is hard, to put it simply. There are so many unspoken rules and I wonder, is there a class that non autistics go to and I just wasn't invited? Because holy shit. Girl politics is one of the most difficult for me to understand, and that is not for lack of trying either.
When I was around 8 years old or so, I lived in Utah. And because I was from another country there were so many damn questions, I got tired of answering them all. I had no idea that it would reach into adulthood... the stupid questions. Anyway, very often kids would literally circle around me. If I sat down anywhere they gathered around me asking questions. I am not even joking or exaggerating. It was weird and uncomfortable, but at the same time I felt pretty damn special so I went with it. People have always told me things. Like super personal things. I have no idea why. Maybe the fact that I don't talk that much-- I seem to be a good listener (just a guess). I have no idea why, again. I have tried to figure it out, but I think it's just more of that unspoken rule crap. If I was an outspoken person, constantly yammering on about myself others might consider me self centered and not willing to confide in me.... another guess. Because there have been times when I've tried to relate to someone and in so doing I bring up a situation I was in that might seem similar but then suddenly I'm told I am making it about myself when that wasn't what I was trying to do. I have also been way to quick to answer any questions honestly, which also bites me in the ass for years to come. But anyway, I digress.
Let's go ahead and skip to junior high. That is when the socializing becomes increasingly difficult, and popularity becomes important to most. I started noticing the popularity thing around fifth grade but never really gave it that much thought. I tried sometimes to jump into the girl group but Id always say the wrong thing and get a look from all of them.. and then they'd go back to what they were doing. They also didn't notice when I walked away... or maybe they did and were wondering what I was doing there in the first place. IDK. But around that age the girls weren't that bad, really, it wasn't until around seventh grade (when I moved to Germany) that popularity and the social construct of school became painfully obvious... and I was at the bottom. I was not cool. But I wasn't exactly that upset about it. I spent one year in a large school being the not so popular girl, pretty much unnoticed. Then I moved to a smaller school and made friends with the "bad kids". There wasn't as much of that hierarchy in that school. And to this day it was my favorite. But it was also when I saw the ugly side of girl politics, truly, for the first time. I didn't have many female friends, if at all. Most of my friends were guys, I am way too literal and don't give a shit about fashion and hair and whatever the girls gave a crap about. Mostly things were good. But this was also the time when liking boys was a thing for most girls. And if I liked a boy another girl liked she would get her big sister to come bully me about it. Which, by the way, is low as shit. I hope she reads this. You suck, you know who you are. Moving on.
Around this time a bunch of us were put into therapy in school. I talked too much to be in the group therapy and was given one on one time. I think it was mainly because I just didnt know when to stop and let others speak, or I didn't care... I don't know. But I do know that one girl didn't like it and confronted me about it (in group) in a stupid exercise that I thought was a waste of time. I also thought it was weird to be upset by such a thing. Why didn't she just say hey let the rest of us speak, in the damn group session? I would have said oh, sorry. And that would have been it. Why make such a dramatic deal out of it? See these things made no sense to me. Just say what you mean at the time and be done with it. How hard is that?? lol this is my point. Everyone's behavior was a mystery to me. And I began to loathe the evil that is girl politics. Because I caught onto the fact that it was mostly girls who did this sort of thing. Made a big deal out of the strangest things. I know that most of them, or probably all of them, didn't like me. I didn't know why but I also didn't care. Maybe that is why, that I didn't care. High school politics either way never mattered that much to me. If I didn't care about something I couldn't pretend that I did care. I couldn't even try. It was that hard. Like why the hell do you care about what clothes someone else is wearing? WHY do you care why she has her hair like that? Why do you feel like you need to talk about everyone else all the time and make assumptions and rumors and blahhhhh... It was all pointless, trivial, bullshit. At least when hanging out with my guy friends we were doing fun things and laughing and joking about silly stuff. Whenever it was a gaggle of giggly girls it was talking about those very same boys and hair and clothes and omg like totally... ugh. Man I tried... I tried so hard to care about these things. But when I realized I really couldn't, and didn't, I decided to just be myself and like what I like, everyone else be damned. I new I was weird. I knew I was different. I was fine with it. I had weird hair, I wore whatever the hell I wanted, and I talked to whoever the hell I wanted if it came to socializing. At this time I tried alcohol, started smoking cigarettes, and I was basically the ultimate rebel and didn't give a fuck about anything. (Having trouble at home, long story, wont go into, tends to make you want to rebel I think)
After that, we moved to Arkansas. I really did NOT want to go there. I expected horse buggies and cowboy hats. Seriously. End of eighth grade, we moved to a small town in Southern Arkansas. Me with my jet black hair, undercut, pale as a ghost, jnco jeans... yea. At first people were scared to talk to me since my resting bitch face was strong and I looked probably like the weirdest thing they'd ever seen. When the initial shock of such a strange creature entering their school wore off I became the talk of the school (or so other kids told me) and so many had so many STUPID questions about Iceland it was unreal. I couldn't believe it. Does Iceland have electricity? Do you live in igloos? Do you hunt polar bears...? Now I never could tell if people were joking. But they just HAD to be joking, right? The questions just got worse. My brother got the idea to internet and show them what Iceland looks like to stop the questions. Why didn't I think of that? Ugh. Anyhoo...
9-12th grade was a little rough at times. Basically I became the devil worshiping lesbian whore and whatever else the kids could come up with. I wasn't very pleasant. But I never really tried to be. At that point I didn't care at all what people thought of me. But I did get into a few altercations, mostly confrontations with talking involved and I never did do so well with that. My brain would just scatter. I would have preferred to just fight them. When it came to talking, nope. So that is when I started writing. It also got me into trouble because I got the bright idea of putting my thoughts to paper and giving it to the object of my anger... which usually put me in the counselors office. One time a fight did happen.. well sort of. Again that sort of fugue state took hold and while I didn't know what to do next it had nothing to do with any emotion. I wasn't scared or even mad... it was just odd. It was like I wasn't even in my body anymore. I was never hit, the teacher did stop that from happening.. but I did swing once and I missed the person and hit the teacher. Not my finest moment. Still in this weird state, things moving rather slowly, I remember someone thanking me for not fighting (a student)... but I was suspended anyway. I spent the next four days at home just not doing anything. Sitting in my room listening to music. This is when I started to be more withdrawn. At home I stayed in my room, music blasting, I didn't want to talk to anyone about anything. I think around the age of 16 or so my parents sat me down and asked me if I was gay because I never had any boyfriends. I didn't care about that, anyway, but I couldn't answer them because I didn't know what I was. It was kind of funny though, honestly. And awkward. Incredibly awkward because like I was going to tell my parents that shit.
I did find myself in situations, usually with boys, that I didn't know how I got into in the first place, but apparently I had given hints that I never gave and boom there I am in a position which I did not want to be in. Being friends with the bad kids also I guess didn't help matters much. But I could be myself around these people. They didn't give a shit, they were weird too. I went to a lot of parties and did a lot of drinking. I think had I not, I never would have "socialized" with anyone ever. I had basically free range on the weekend as a teen. I left on Friday and came home on Sunday. Usually amazed that I was still alive or that I wasn't in jail. There weren't many boundaries around that time, but if ever my parents would try to enforce some boundaries or rules that weren't the norm it never went well. I internalized it all, my brother reacted differently... but his isn't my story to tell. Let's just stick to me. Mostly I would internalize it and put it in writing. Expressing myself or my emotions at all was incredibly hard. I had a LOT of violent destructive meltdowns at that age but mostly it involved destroying my own stuff and feeling like shit about it afterward. I always said the wrong thing at the wrong time, blurted out things that were TMI or made others uncomfortable. I was known as the crazy one among those who knew me well enough for me to actually talk to. I was vulgar (still am) and didn't give a fuck. In class I was the withdrawn, quiet one. The teachers pretty much thought I was an angel. Whenever that was brought up in front of the class everyone would disagree. If I wasn't known by them personally, they had all heard something about me to indicate I was no angel. I was fine with that. The reputation I had wasn't perfect, but it did keep others away sometimes. I had one friend, a best friend, the only person I've ever known to have such an easy friendship with (back then anyway). The only female I really connected with, in some way. While I never did connect with anyone, not really, at least with this one individual I could be myself, had things in common with, and vice versa. We heard a lot of things like you look like sisters etc. from other people around that time.
When I was recently diagnosed she informed me that she knew, ever since we met, that I had trouble understanding emotion among other things, so the dx made perfect sense. And she is right, it makes perfect sense. I look back at my life and realize so many things that I went through or put myself into were because of my misunderstandings of the socializing aspect of every day life. I got into fights, arguments, confrontations for misunderstandings alone. I didn't know what boundaries were where. I didn't understand why people reacted to things the way that they did because I never reacted at all to begin with. I couldn't place myself in anyone's shoes and I thought trivial conversation was complete bullshit. I never hid my distaste for things that other people liked. I never pretended to like someone that I didn't. Whenever I heard a new rumor about me I was so surprised by them and had no idea how anyone had come to that conclusion. Who knows, maybe there was a reason, maybe I made people think these things, but I wasn't aware of how. Many read into things I said that simply weren't there. And I never bothered explaining they were wrong, either. Had I known these unspoken rules of social stuffs, things might have been different, maybe... but there is nothing to be done about it now.
So that is just when I was younger. I have plenty more to talk about when I reached adulthood.. but that is for another post. At this point I think I will end this here, it has gotten rather long and I believe I rambled way too much. I feel like I may have been too honest as well but oh well, it is what it is.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment