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My Life As A Teen

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As a teenager, it is when I found myself at odds with both my being as a teen, as well as an Aspie. Why can't I be like any other person? I feel that I lived through dark ages with little Aspie support, that has only been given after my teenage years (that is, around 3 years ago).

How Parents Can Help Teens With Asperger Syndrome

Isolation from the rest of my peers

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I went to middle school. My parents decided to send me to a school, which is really far away from my elementary school. I feel unhappy. I will miss a lot of my friends from my previous school. I'd very much rather go to another school nearer to my home, which did say 'sorry, we can't give you the support for your autism', than to go to that school, which the principal did assure to my parents, 'just leave your child to us'.

Fortunately, the principal (and the subsequent appointed principal in the school) did keep with his word.

I went on to a high school, though - my parents just say, oh, in High School you don't need support, aren't you an adult preparing for university? Big mistake. (More to follow later.)

While the rest of my peers seems to have a significant other and a good buddy from elementary school, I don't - my autism doesn't help either. I also know two or three other people who go on from my elementary school to my junior high school, but they were girls and they quickly found other friends. I feel lonely.

I really needed a lot of help and support. I need handholding. But most friends I know somehow do not need that much guidance from other people. I still need a listening ear to hear my problems, and my parents are far too busy for my issues. So in a sense, without a real support network of NT friends, I may never function fully in the mainly NT world. I'm working on working better with NTs, but well, there are some issues I make sure I must not share with NTs. Especially my own autism. This hurts, though.

Then 4 sensible male friends became my friends after lots of 'forced coercion' by my teachers. I am happy that they're my friends. Still, later on, I felt too uncomfortable relating my personal struggles.

As a result, I still live under my own rock, despite my outward personality. I think I seem to struggle with my own personal issues, because I don't think I'd dealt with them adequately when I was a teen, or perhaps, when I was a much younger child.

Not Being A Real Teen

I also faced problem because I don't feel I was a real teen.

I don't shave (though I started shaving fairly recently), I love to wear the same clothes, I don't do sports and I am obsessed with maps.

All these are uncool.

When the world is mapped with GPS even a few years back, when I was a teen, I still spend my pocket money on - well - maps. And the same clothes, too, often T-shirts and boardshorts/boardies.

While others spend their monies on band shirts, plaid shirts, whatever shirts, what had I bought?

Sexual issues and criminality

I find these too touchy. Either I am not really aware what went on, or I am naive enough to fall to the 'wrong' crowd because of peer group pressure.

I feel that these underlie an even more pertinent issue to me: I feel having no control in what I am doing in school.

Failure in School

This is right.

How can I manage my irregular energy levels with what society seems to want from students - get A's, get into university, and get into a plum civil service job? My fixated mind and societal perceptions just won't seem to accept other forms of excellence. The civil service seems to be the only job with stability in my country anyway.

Sometimes, I feel so tired that I don't feel like anything, and I was discouraged to do sports, though I do other activities because they're useful for 'scholarships'.

At others, I feel that going through the motions of attending nine or so different classes is a waste of time. I just want to do this certain Maths sums, and get 100% on it if I just had more time for it. I consider, say, Literature to be a waste of time. And I don't see how can I serve people with Literature, in my fixed frame of mind, because I can surely use scientific models to build a tunnel through the busy downtown in Singapore.

Subsequently, I burned out in honors classes, and I didn't get admission to my country's universities, disappointing my parents. I should have known better myself - slow and steady almost always wins the race, if I'm really good. If not, there are always many other models of excellence, the most notable of them being working as a low-level employee in the private sector. I need not to be my highly successful sisters, who work as doctors or something else...

Depression

As a result of my failure in school, I developed depression, and I'm still recovering from depression currently. However, I do not take medication because of adverse reactions to anti-depressants, such as Fluoxetine.

Fortunately, because of high costs of living in my country, I don't drive and I have no desire to drive. And because of my family's religious beliefs, as they are Buddhists, I don't drink and was discouraged to do drugs. Otherwise, things would be better for me in some ways, but much worse in many others, such as perhaps my life being totally ruined.

Comments

I felt very much the same way during my teen years only in my case my autism was the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about. When I was in elementary school I was sent to special ed classes but the time I was in high school whatever "problems" I had were considered "cured" and I was expected to live like "normal" peers.

Except that I was socially isolated from my peers and part of the problem was that my parents refused to acknowledge their role in keeping me socially isolated. I could not go out for any after-school activities because they all cost money and we simply didn't have any. At least not where I was concerned. I don't know if my family really was poorer than other middle class families or they just acted like they were. But because I didn't have money I could not participate in the things other teenagers did. I couldn't hang out at the mall or buy cool clothes. And when it comes to clothes American teenagers can be VERY cruel. I understand it is even worse now. My parents could not or would not understand why these things mattered. Then they wondered why I had no friends.

The worst of it was when I turned 16. Getting a drivers license at 16 is a very important rite of passage to a teenager. But not for me. That isolated me further. My peers did not care or want to hear why I could not drive. The very fact that I was not allowed to made me even more of a pariah in their eyes.

But eventually I graduated, got a job, got a car, and got the hell out.
 
Good for you, Spinning Compass. I'm glad you'd survived through a lot of social isolation to really be the Spinning Compass you are today.

I wish I can break free of the chains holding me back and be truly free, so that I can responsibly do what the world really needs from me - using my inherent gifts and talents for the good of my community and my world.

Contributing to my living space is, to me, success.
 

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Geordie
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