At least I made it as far as Sheffield this time. The last time I tried, they told me not to
bother
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I hadn’t had an easy time of it recently. Having lost my job, I had to sell my house
and move back home. And when I say home, I mean Preston, a town in which I
hadn’t lived since just past my eleventh birthday. My parents, for all their many and enormous
flaws had given me their spare room. I
spent many hours in there.
I had no money by this stage, as I was waiting for the
house sale to clear. I’d like to say I
was starving in a garret somewhere for the sake of my art, but I wasn’t. Starving I was, but mainly because I didn’t
feel particularly like eating. Never a
big eater, me. In fact, I usually
stayed in bed with my head under the covers for most of the day. My weight eventually ended up around just
under 9 stone. Probably not the
healthiest weight for someone who’s 5 feet 11 inches.
My parents went on holiday, presuming that a grown man at
31 could look after himself, even one that was in my state. I cannot remember the exact circumstances,
but I took a reasonable amount of Paracetamol/Aspirin caffeine tablets.
My sister, 19 at the time, simply looked at me and said she couldn’t
deal with this sort of thing and left me to it.
The shame precluded me from swallowing any more.
The following Monday, the Doctor said that, yes, there
probably was something wrong. So here’s a speedy referral to the psychiatric
outpatient department at the hospital.
“If all else fails, try psychiatry”, as they say. I cannot remember the shrink’s name, but he
did give me plenty of mirtazapine, and a fun time queueing up at the hospital
pharmacy to get it. It just made me feel
tired but not sleepy. I was hoping for
something stronger.
Having been treated with little else but pills for nearly
a decade, he decided to actually listen to what I had to say. Previous assessors just seemed to assume I
was just unhappy and gave me Prozac (ineffective) and group therapy
(inappropriate). He agreed that there
were probably other issues than the obvious ones and looked at the next thing
on the list. Autistic Spectrum Testing.
-
For as long as I could remember, I always knew there was
something not quite right about me.
There were the other children, and there was me. We never met in the middle. Neither I nor they could figure out what the
other was doing. So, children being the
cute little darlings they are, they decided to ostracise me for their own
personal amusement. I’ve read in certain places that some theorists consider
bullying an essential part of socialisation.
In order to fit in, you have to be made to fit. I can only say that they never had to go
through what I did.
Were they ever in a corner of the classroom, panicking
about being forced to interact with others?
Were they ever mocked daily by the kind of pupils the teachers believed
could do no wrong? Did they ever shut
themselves in their room and refuse to go to school, yet have their mother drag
them out, despite her being told what was happening? I can’t say for sure they didn’t, but judging
by their successful and prominent lives, I’m guessing not.
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I was scheduled an appointment at the nearest place that
did testing for Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Sheffield, in my case. My parents were given a questionnaire to fill
in about my early life. As anyone who’s
had to go through this will know, the whole AS Testing industry is based around
diagnosing small children, as in the 21st century that’s generally
when it’s picked up. The specialists
haven’t done enough research to deal with the level of differentiation in
symptoms observed in adults. So what
they do is get the best picture of what they patient was like as a child, and
figure it out from there.
My mother filled it out. I sent it off without
reading. I didn’t want to know what
she’d written.
I made it to the Medical Centre at the second attempt, 90
minutes early. (The first time, the train was cancelled after I reached
Manchester Piccadilly. When I phoned to
explain my absence, they told me I should have left more time. I knew I’d planned to arrive an hour before
my appointment, but I didn’t argue and just accepted when they said it’d be
easier to reschedule me rather than accept me being 45 minutes late.) I played Tetris on my iPod while
waiting. I presume the Consultant had no
other pressing matters that day as he saw me after I’d been waiting half an
hour.
He went through all his questions. I went through all my answers. It was easy enough, as I’d been through
enough therapy and assessment sessions that I’d said it all many, many times
before. He said he’d read what my mother
had put on the questionnaire, but thankfully didn’t elaborate. And then he announced that, yes, his opinion
was that I had Asperger Syndrome. I’d
suspected as much for a while, but unlike thousands of others in this age of
internet diagnosis surveys and Dr. Google, I hesitated from saying anything as,
well, I’m not medically qualified, am I?
He said he’d send a letter to my GP confirming his
diagnosis and any recommendations for further treatment, if any. My guess was he knew little could be done in
my situation. A diagnosis of Asperger’s,
for a person in their thirties, is pretty much for information purposes only.
I left and walked back to the train station. What to do now? Nothing had changed, yet everything had. Welcome to being an Official Basket Case, Mr.
Lawrenson.
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