What Good Does it do to Know That You Have Asperger’s?
Childhood was a very difficult time for me. I had repeated meltdowns as far back as I could remember. I was held back in first grade and made to repeat the year, though my parents never actually told me why. I did not learn to ride a bike until 3rd grade, in spite of repeated attempts to do so. I could not hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow or rifle until high school, though that did have something to do with my being brought up right handed even though I am naturally left handed. My parents had me change Catholic schools in between 4th and 5th grade in hopes that the smaller class sizes of the new school would help me in school. In 6th grade I was told by a psychologist who my parents had me seeing that I was a full two years behind everyone else my age in maturity. There were multiple tell tale signs that I had Asperger’s Syndrome that were completely overlooked. The closest I came to getting diagnosed properly was when I was a senior in high school getting falsely diagnosed with ADD (not ADHD), but I clearly do not have ADD.
It has only been in the past month that I have begun talking to my mom again and begun explaining my childhood in light of having Asperger’s Syndrome that the struggles of my childhood have begun to make sense to my parents. My mom had actually openly stopped talking to me last spring when I refused to accept her theory that all of the struggles of my childhood were adoption based. It took my dad being in the hospital in January and my Aunt Kathy begging me to put aside the war with my mom for the sake of my dad’s health to get my mom and I talking again. It is not that I did not try. I spent most of December trying to get her to listen to me about Asperger’s, but everything that I said fell on deaf ears. The knowledge that what I was struggling with as a child was not my being a spoiled, temperamental brat who was self absorbed and standoffish but rather struggling with a sensory disorder has seriously helped in the healing of my relationship with my mom.
In this case, the knowledge that I have Asperger’s Syndrome is power. It gives me the power to understand what I struggled with my entire childhood and why I was always wondering why I was not like everyone else. It has given me the power to explain my childhood to my mom in such a way that she understands that I was not being bad, but struggling with something that I did not understand. This understanding is the key to being able to love and accept myself as a good person.
This is why a proper diagnosis of someone who might have Asperger’s is so important. It is not to get medication (I personally hate psych drugs) but rather to get access to counselors who are trained in the disorder and know what tools to give you to work around the effects of it. Had my parents discovered that I have Asperger’s when I was a child my life might have been a whole lot less stressful to me…
