Family Support

I dont have much in personal support/understanding from my family, some of them try, but I think having gone nearly 40 years being considered just a little eccentric but "normal" and hiding my true self so that I would be accepted as "normal", then makes it hard for people to adjust to the fact that I do have issues.

I had a major meltdown before christmas and instead of getting understanding and help I was made to feel at fault and so lonely that death was somthing I thought about a great deal.

All because I tried to be funny and make a family member feel better... my fault was using a saying I had seen someone else mention in a post before and it was taken by my family member as funny, so I assumed that I could use the saying and it would be taken the same way... big mistake on my part obviously, as my family member took offence, at which point I got upset at that offence, but my family member went so far as to remove me from the friends list.

We were both in the wrong but this action hurt me so much as to me it was like saying I was no longer family and that is what caused my major meltdown, as I find it hard enough to connect to people as it is, so to have one of my family members who I was only just starting to feel a connection with drop me like that was so hurtful to me.

I take so much literally so when I see something is considered funny by others, I asume that it is always considered funny. When you unfriend me on Facebook I take that literally also as you no longer want me in your life becaue you no longer care about me or consider me a friend / family member.

I ran away from home and spent the night in the car, I just needed to be alone to think and to calm down as I didnt feel safe in my own home anymore, this of course then made other family members upset at me.
Of course I went into my "protect those I care about" mode and made them feel better about the situation, all the while being made to feel worse by them, like it was all my fault.

This was from family who had experience with autism, but it made me realise that yes they have experience but its with a different form of autism, so they really dont know anything about autism, like mine.
Its like when people come to me to vent their problems, but no one realises that all that venting affects me so much, because I absorb it and I worry about it, when it affects the people I care about... But I do not understand people's need to vent to me about people I do not know or do not have a connection to. If I was an NT I'm sure I would understand that and get it and even be interested in hearing about these strangers, but I am an aspie and I dont get it.

I think in my life I get denial of my autism because people have seen me as like them for so long... but denial is not helpful to me. I don't need anyone to "do" anything for me and I don't want to be treated as broken or retarded either. But to be understood is AMAZING and I do not think I am over stating that.

There isn't much I can do to change the aspie tendencies I have, but to find acceptance and understanding, to know that those I care about realise that I'm not broken, not crazy, just slightly different to what they beleived, makes me feel so much stronger in myself belief.

Of course some people simply don't accept it, maybe because I don't sit and rock in a corner or maybe because I can carry on an intelligent conversation, or I am not like the person with Autism/Aspergers that they know, so then I'm obviously "normal".

But maybe the acceptance that I am different, that I may be lonely, isolated and at times suffering, means that they would have to take some responsibility for turning a blind eye to the fact that they allowed me to be so alone all my life.

Not noticing and not doing anything to try and fix that, meant I spent my whole life alone, hiding in my room or playing alone my whole childhood and hiding the way I thought and felt my whole adult life and never once did anyone ever bothered to ask why or to try and help.

Would they have been able to have helped, probably not, but in trying at least I would have been noticed and could now be accepted as having autism.

Just like someone, with the type of autism that most people think of when they hear that word, is locked in their own world, I am also locked in my own world, but my world gives me the ability to interact with people in a way that can hide my autism.

Imagine being in a bubble made of cling wrap that cant be broken... you can see and hear everyone around you, you can be a part of the world, but not completely... no one else can see the bubble but you can see it and feel it and it stops you from completely being part of and understanding everything that others do.

Thats the best way for me to explain what having aspergers is like for me, maybe if you can put yourself in that bubble you will understand much better.

Now in the words of a Linkin Park song...

"Let me apologize to begin with
Let me apologize for what I'm about to say

But trying to be someone else was harder than it seemed
And somehow I got caught up in between
The things I want to say to you get lost before they come
The only thing that's worse than one is none
The only thing that's worse than one is none"

Those words hit home with me, as I feel like I have to apologize for things I say because they are taken wrong, and trying to be "normal" is harder than it seems when you dont fit the idea of "normal" so you sometimes get caught in between trying to be "normal" and being yourself... and I feel like I am alone that I dont even have a single friend in the world.

So yes I do come across as depressed at times, maybe even a lot, but unless you are me or can truely understand what its like, please dont judge me in a negative way.