Floating in the Spectrum.

I have become hooked on figuring out my diagnosis. Obessessing over each mental health disorder to the i have listened to multiple books about different personality disorders, spent hours of research on illnesses and causes and symptoms. Then it hit me....that is my autism. Lmfao. No, I don't like math, I don't need head phones to function, although they help so much...i am just me floating around on this spectrum trying to figure it all out now that I am aware. I don't want to tell people because I know...i feel...that no one will believe me anyways. The old "no you're not," "you don't seem it," "you get by and are normal,"....really am I, do I, Karen? Let's see how well I get by...

I had fears of the doctor, I dont know why, and would literally scream & attack staff and my grown ups. One practice told my mother I wasn't allowed to go there anymore so we changed doctors. I had one doctor tell me he thought I had an eating disorder. Maybe I did then, I am unique with what I eat as an adult but I never had an issue with my weight or image in that way. Maybe they knew more but no one would tell me. I didn't make friends at all. Not easily like it is usually stated, I just didn't make any.

I didn't talk at all as a child. I didn't talk to other kids unless they spoke to me first, even then it was just usually a one word answer and a smile. There was never a back and forth conversation...i didn't understand how or what to say or talk about. Everyone always seemed to have something to say about something they did or a place they went to, anything. I never felt I had anything of interest to tell anyone.

I had this extreme fear for getting in trouble so I always followed the rules and remained silent. It got me good grades and the teachers loved me. I didn't want to be the "bad" kid although it was what I was always told I was at home. The quieter I was in school the less anyone singled me out. I learned to become invisible. Like I really know how to be completely invisible still to this day. In school, I daydreamed most the classes away unless it was something I was really into. I taught myself at home what we learned in school and as years went on I figured out it was just a memory game. So most the classes I "figured" out and would get by that way, while Art and English always caught my atttention. It showed me how to express my emotions which I never knew how to do regulated.

I was constantly tense in public...giving me built up gas in my abdomen all the time. Think about having extreme gas cramps just from holding your breath as to not make too much "noise" and being so completely uneasy about the situation you were in. It's wild thinking about now how uncomfortable I was for so many years all to please others. Getting home I would go right to my room to decompress, fart...a lot...just release and breathe.

I dated any dude that wanted to date me. Everyone thought I was easy in high school...maybe I was. I just didn't care about them. I thought I had to date guys and I that I was really good at it because so many wanted me. That poor child looking at her now. 😢 I think some of them actually did like me...but who was she anyways. I wouldn't call them on the phone or want to hang out with them...it was something I had to do to feel normal. Again I thought I was cool because so many tried to date me. I always found a good quality in each of them though. Some actually taught me things.

Mimicking the people around me to stay unseen and give me some sort of identity. Unseen to my real issues. I wonder still how anyone was ever my friend. I haven't had any real converstations with many people in my life. Once I found someone who let me close a bit I clung to them...usally extroverts so I could hide behind them in the shadows of their need for attention. I was an unruly kid at home and a mute out of the house. Forced into friendships and then I forced myself into friendships.

When the "friendship" started to feel different I would distance myself or rage...no in between with me. Some relationships I had extreme emotions over when they ended or near ended. Sulking and waiting for them to return. Hating and blaming myself for everything and anything. Stalking in my brain without the physical, until social media came around. I could drive past your work or your house just to see who was with you. That was the extent of it but my brain would obsess. I mainly wanted to know who I need to be for that person to like me again. I would change my whole self to fit in with others if that was what they wanted and i chose them as my person. Never to harm, more so to learn from. I felt completely empty and lost with no one giving me an identity or someone else with my person. I would literally jsut wait and wait until they reached out again. Sometimes going into a deep depression for months until it happened.

I have stories and memories of things in my childhood but they are mostly of me being in the background with my person. I barely engaged in anything when out with friends. The strangest thing and I'm sure made me looked weird. I wasn't ever picked on though...was it because they knew I was not "right?"

I hate that most my childhood was spent scared of life, drinking alcohol to fit in, and destorying most everything in my life. WAHHHH!