When You're Mind Plays Tricks on You

After an extremely difficult year with my business, marriage, and life in general, I finally gave up. Whatever it was that has plagued my life, since I could remember that is, was finally going to be dealt with. I had spent a good year in counseling learning more about myself and the subsequent choices that had affected my life up until this day. At the end of a forty five minute session, my psychologist asked me a question. "When I say that its raining cats and dogs, what do you think of?" I said "well, at first I think of cats and dogs falling from the sky, perhaps holding umbrellas, yet I am intelligent enough to know that you are saying that it is raining very hard." Still, I couldn't move past the thought of cats and dogs falling from the sky with umbrellas. The cats screeching, dogs yelping. Finally, I realized why my psychologist was asking the question.

My psychologist smiled and then his face turned serious. "Whatever you need me to write up, let me know, because I'm diagnosing you with Asperger's Syndrome." Finally, I felt what seemed like a one hundred pound weight off of my shoulders. Every painful experience, relationship, shortcoming; my severe anxiety, social anxiety, depression, passive-agressiveness, paranoia...there was a reason. My brain is wired differently. I am not naturally intuitive, I learn by watching, studying, analyzing everything. People, social groups, ideologies; they all formulate what I could only explain as some type of collective reasoning. Imagine approaching all of life in the context of cognitive reasoning. God made me different, just like my Aspie peers. We think in pictures, it is natural for us to seek solitude. We learn social realities the hard way, by trial and error. After years of coping this way, we finally break down.

I learned the hard way, with no early intervention, no counseling, no accomodations for my learning dissibilites. My family wasn't very communicative growing up. I know that my father is an Aspie, yet he would never realize it. I was innately introverted, yet I longed to be extroverted. I botteled everything up. I wasn't connected to anything. I felt like a balloon floating through the world with nothing to connect to. I couldn't keep my feet on the ground, and I couldn't form a healthy relationship with anyone. I couldn't confide in anyone about my depression, anxiety or pain. Everything to me was embarassing.

I was targeted by a colleague whom seemed to know exactly what to say and how to act. I didn't know how to connect with my husband, and my husband had no idea to connect with me. When you know nothing of social relationships to begin with, how can you have a healthy marriage? My new friend became a regular at my business, offering me understanding, attention and friendship. Something didn't seem right to me. I looked at him as a person, and the clues that he was giving me, yet I was putting two and two together. I easily began to fall for his charm, and when I tried to stay away from him he would try to get closer. When I got close to him, he would pretend to push me away.

I was entangled in a social game that I knew nothing about. I didn't have the tools to protect myself. I had no idea that I didn't pick up on social cues, hidden agendas or manipulation. He used his tactics to take advantage of my obsessive compulsiveness (another common Aspie trait) and I got so used to him coming around every single day that I couldn't tell him to stay away. Even when I thought that I was starting to realize that something wasn't right, I would second guess myself. I couldn't trust my intuition. I could notice when one person is attracted to another, or when someone was obviously trying to flirt with someone else. I could even recognize when my friends boyfriend was a creep, yet when it was happening to me I didn't. I finally cut the friendship off and realized that I could have ruined my entire life. I thank God that this situation was exactly what I needed to get me to a good psychologist.

That's where and when this article finds me now. Finally my psychologist and I have a context in which to explore new ways in helping myself to decompress from each weeks challenges. Now I expect complexities and anxieties to rear their heads at me, yet I have the power to get through them with out shutting down as I previously did. I am finding what my God given talents are and learning about what I can and can't handle. My familial relationships have never been better. I still don't maintain any close friendships because I don't have the mental energy, and I have learned that I need back up from my husband to help guide and protect me. If you have a friend or family member with AS, please do you're best to understand them. Asperger's is as complex as it is engaging. All of us Aspies have a continuum of individualities, strengths and weaknesses; yet we are a part of a truly unique community in which we can boast that we are not disabled, we are just differently abled.