The easy answer to the title is of course, nowhere. The slightly more realistic answer to the title is, a pile of questions you don't (and in my case can't) know the answer to.
Armed with my new knowledge and my questions, I decided to go back and talk to the man in the shirt and tie and also a woman who also wore a shirt but who's tie was conspicuously absent. The thing they said to me changed everything, like someone had finally used the clutch to try and changed gears for once.
They told me about the 'everyone is different' issue but then explained to me that I was considered a special case even within my own little special new graph. As a general rule, they said, people who have aspergers tend to be diagnosed early in life (as in before they were 10) and as a result have that to hold on to (or hold you back as the case may be). I of course did not have this. I was diagnosed at 28 years old. What I did have is an 80s childhood in what most would consider one of the rougher, less privileged outer suburbs of Adelaide named Salisbury. Now I certainly had never heard of autism or aspergers as a kid and I'm pretty sure that my parents had never heard of them either, it was something of an age of ignorance to a syndrome that quite frankly is still not properly understood today. And so I do not blame my folks for not seeking the answers it took me so long to look for myself. Instead of a kid who has aspergers what they saw was this.
These are actual quotes from my parents...
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Don't you realise what it feels like to have someone do that to you?"
"He's just really quiet and well behaved, he doesn't bother anyone, just sits in his room and reads, draws, and plays by himself all day."
"We can't send him to his room to be alone as punishment, he enjoys that too much!"
And this one from my grandmother...
"You're a very odd child and I can not handle watching you eat. Go eat in the other room by yourself so that I don't have to look at you."
Now, these probably sound mean, and when they are said to a kid that has aspergers they are kind of are, but they didn't know that I had it. They thought they were talking to a kid that "was being weird to get attention".
Salisbury is the home of the Holden Commodore that has a mismatched panel, the Escort reds, the mullet hair cut, the stubbies short, the bonds singlet and the black as night ACDC shirt. To say that I struggled to find my niche would be an understatement of grand proportions, so I was forced to adapt in order to survive the bullying that was to come. Adapting is the least natural thing you could possibly ask someone on the spectrum to do...
But I didn't know that I was on the spectrum yet.
Survival instincts started to kick in, and even though inside my own head I had to wrestle with every single thing I did in public, I fought back. I figured out little ways that I could do the things I needed to do to keep my brain from leaping out of my skull in frustration. I built walls that would protect me against those who I just could not understand (everyone). I developed a security blanket based sense of humour that would allow me to laugh and shake things off that no 8 year old should ever have to deal with. I spent my lunch times listening to music that the other kids had not heard of on a walkman by myself.
And then... well then I started to play sports.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment