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What did you assume was responsible for your behavioural issues prior to diagnosis?

SciFiGreg
over 6 years ago

I had the following problems as a child:

  • I used to run away from home while I was in late juniors / early high school because of the excessively controlling environment I was raised in

  • Had a very toxic relationship with my mum, who is excessively controlling and being a fundamentalist evangelical christian who imposed many pointless and bizarre rules on what I could and couldn't do [such as not being allowed to listen to "worldly music" or watch / play TV series, movies or video games that included occult imagery, sexual contact, excessive violence or swearing]

  • I was bullied by people I called friends as well as the kids at school because my parents bought me second hand clothes which was perceived as "uncool" by others, these people also discovered that I was easily triggered into becoming very frustrated and ultimately angry and violent, which seemed to motivate them to push me even more

  • I was kicked out of my junior school towards the end of my time and then high school at the beginning of year 8 there because I was always getting into fights, being a class clown and disrespecting teachers


I now have the following problems as an adult:


  • Because of many negative experiences both at work and in social circles I have very little tolerance for bullies, users and work colleagues with an abrasive management style or unearned sense of entitlement / superiority - usually the types of people that end up in management positions by brown-nosing their way up the ladder, in my observation these people lack management skills and instead think they can treat staff in whatever manner they choose just because they have a title

    I end up being very direct with people like this, which generally results in me being targeted as they're typically manipulative lying bullies - people I have no respect for but apparently want me to disregard their behaviour and accept it because they're a manager

  • I no longer care about socialisation. I've had a few circles of friends in my lifetime and they never seem to make the same level of effort I do, only bothering when they want something. I've had "friends" rip me off, ones that can't even be bothered to visit you, it always has to be you that makes the effort. People that just seem to use you for what they can get

    As an example I recently invited a friend to visit, she lives 20 miles away and doesn't drive but there is a bus service to my local town and I told her I could pick her up from there. I sent her timetables and a route planner but she never took me up on my offer. This is someone I've talked to about other people doing the exact same thing in the past and how it ends with me cutting communication with them and yet here we are. I realise that people have their own lives to live but if you're relying on me to give you a lift I'm afraid that's not going to happen

    I no longer have any motivation to bother trying to make friends. I get on well with my team at work but if invited to a social gathering, work related or otherwise, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach and feel completely disinterested

    I feel that another contributing factor to my current lack of motivation is likely the deterioration of my relationship with my parents, who have both been fundamentalist evangelical christians for about 30 years and how their single-mindedness and complete [and misplaced] confidence in their beliefs apparently made them feel like they [well, my mum specifically] were in a position to judge my life, specifically how when I moved in with my current girlfriend they called into question the validity our relationship because we're not married and of course they focused primarily on the sexual side of things, as religious people often tend to do

    I had no choice but to accept their lifestyle while living with them but even after I'd left I never really questioned their beliefs and just accepted them. Until I became more scientifically literate and realised that they were trying to convince me to believe in baseless lies and that they were deluding themselves and ultimately harming our relationship and limiting their own life experiences by believing in the supernatural

Prior to my recent diagnosis I attributed my frustrations / behavioural issues to my home environment and the bullying I suffered as when I'd left home [which I did at 17 because I just couldn't bare it any more) I found that I wasn't frustrated or angry any more, until over time I've become frustrated with people generally and think that most are selfish and manipulative.

Now that I have been diagnosed things make more sense, I actually think that my mum is also on the spectrum but communicating that to her would be impossible as she'd most likely attribute it to demonic activity.

It doesn't really change the way I feel about people but I at least understand myself a little better and place issues within the context of ASC.

What are your experiences?

Parents
  • over 6 years ago

    A very interesting question. I certainly had my own explanations for a lot of my autistic experiences before autism was suggested.

    • Sleep deprivation. I've had severe late-onset insomnia for as long as I (and my parents) can remember; going to school after only a couple of hours sleep was always "normal" for me. I blamed most of my perceptual and cognitive difficulties on this for a long time; the dissociation; poor situational awareness; getting lost in conversations; sensory differences, stress of needing to be consciously vigilant all the time; etc.
    • Social isolation. I was convinced that my poor social awareness was simply down to lack of practice. I kicked myself for all those hours in my childhood totally absorbed in my Lego, computer programming, reading, and just general introversion. Because my interests were so academic and technical, they were never questioned; my Mum has a very similar character (and, I discovered much later, autistic traits), and my Dad seemed obsessed with the idea of me being the first in the family to study at University. School always took the same attitude. My lack of socialisation bothered nobody so long as I kept up the good grades.
    • Mental health. My mental health problems first became apparent in my mid-teens, and have been present to a greater or lesser extent ever since. The "experts" in these things convinced me that my diagnoses of GAD, treatment-resistant depression, etc. were primary conditions; that there was no underlying cause, just a predisposition to negative thinking and the mulling over of bad memories. I accepted that my autistic traits were just aberrations caused by depressive perceptions, and beat myself up for being too weak of will to make the suggested interventions work, and that other people faced exactly the same problems as me but overcame them through a strength which I lacked.
    • Too many questions. I long believed my academic intelligence to be a curse, not a gift. It seemed that my cynicism and nihilism were simply the result of an innate curiosity about things which other people had no interest in, and my "depressive realism" was just the result of being unable to stop questioning things which others always took for granted. I was aware from quite a young age that my academic intelligence often led other people to have unrealistic expectations of me in other areas, and felt that the bullying and rejection were consequences of this which just had to be accepted and endured. I often wished that I could discover how "faith" worked, how to just blindly accept things without question.
Reply
  • over 6 years ago

    A very interesting question. I certainly had my own explanations for a lot of my autistic experiences before autism was suggested.

    • Sleep deprivation. I've had severe late-onset insomnia for as long as I (and my parents) can remember; going to school after only a couple of hours sleep was always "normal" for me. I blamed most of my perceptual and cognitive difficulties on this for a long time; the dissociation; poor situational awareness; getting lost in conversations; sensory differences, stress of needing to be consciously vigilant all the time; etc.
    • Social isolation. I was convinced that my poor social awareness was simply down to lack of practice. I kicked myself for all those hours in my childhood totally absorbed in my Lego, computer programming, reading, and just general introversion. Because my interests were so academic and technical, they were never questioned; my Mum has a very similar character (and, I discovered much later, autistic traits), and my Dad seemed obsessed with the idea of me being the first in the family to study at University. School always took the same attitude. My lack of socialisation bothered nobody so long as I kept up the good grades.
    • Mental health. My mental health problems first became apparent in my mid-teens, and have been present to a greater or lesser extent ever since. The "experts" in these things convinced me that my diagnoses of GAD, treatment-resistant depression, etc. were primary conditions; that there was no underlying cause, just a predisposition to negative thinking and the mulling over of bad memories. I accepted that my autistic traits were just aberrations caused by depressive perceptions, and beat myself up for being too weak of will to make the suggested interventions work, and that other people faced exactly the same problems as me but overcame them through a strength which I lacked.
    • Too many questions. I long believed my academic intelligence to be a curse, not a gift. It seemed that my cynicism and nihilism were simply the result of an innate curiosity about things which other people had no interest in, and my "depressive realism" was just the result of being unable to stop questioning things which others always took for granted. I was aware from quite a young age that my academic intelligence often led other people to have unrealistic expectations of me in other areas, and felt that the bullying and rejection were consequences of this which just had to be accepted and endured. I often wished that I could discover how "faith" worked, how to just blindly accept things without question.
Children
  • over 6 years ago in reply to Trogluddite

    Is it self isolation, or societal rejection... or both..or neither..? The odd looking Lego brick that gets chucked back in the box or maybe we come across as threatening? Re you point about your dad and your university career.. I.e were not able to work you out,... but these people might! Shrugs shoulders... wanders off..