The Wrong Child?

Yeah, yeah, poor poor pitiful Pearl. Put a sock into it. Don't read if you don't want. I'ma spew pity party chunks all over this here screed.

Still convinced that as a youngster, I was dealing with a mild form of autism...perhaps Asperger's or even a bit milder. Reading The Autism Revolution kinda clued me into that. I was reading it on the recommendation of a patient of mine. But it makes me wonder why in the world I was not taken in for evaluation. Strange mood swings that seemingly came out of nowhere, self-absorption, some rather significant aversion to social situations, occasional absence spells (mild seizures?) that drove my parents nuts, a few fainting spells, evidence of "stimming" (repetitive actions that serve to release neural excitement), and some idiot savant-ish qualities (absent-mindedness right alongside academic excellence). Lots of these have persisted to the present day: the stimming (on a daily basis, no less, whenever I get happy or overexcited), absence/mind drifting, some moderate antisocial tendencies, more self-absorption, and perhaps worst of all, those mild seizures eventually developed into full-blown grand mal seizures. First one was probably around 10, the next about 5 years later (while snowboarding! Thank GOD I was on terra firm and not on the chairlift!), and another five scattered between then and 2005...including two in one day. So yeah, I'm not all neurologically sound. In one rare instance of acknowledgment of conventional medicine, I have to say I'm grateful for my antiseizure meds...even if it means that my liver is very unhappy with me all the time. (Chronically elevated liver enzymes = slow destruction of the liver. Perhaps I should be on some milk thistle or other liver regenerative therapy.)

Of course, getting into a fight with Mr. Man didn't help matters last night. Compound the two, and you've got yourself one seriously insecure kid inside a grown man's body. You get to wondering...if I have this much of an issue with being social, and am this screwed up, am I really the right kind of person to be in a relationship? Don't get me wrong: Mr. Man is all kinds of awesome. He's just so social, and I come in on the opposite end of the spectrum. Can't help but feel insignificant in such a situation. And I have dreams and ambitions, but I feel like they've been lost in the shuffle of being in a relationship with someone else. I look back on the only 6 months of my adult life where I was living on my own, and I really, really flourished. It's occasionally tempting to chuck it all, especially when I look at my interests vs. his, and there is very little overlap.

God. Just want to crawl back into bed. Particularly since I slept like shit last night...tossed and turned, finally fell asleep around 2, and woke up at 7. (I'm not one of these people who can thrive on 5 or fewer hours of sleep a night.) Hmm...maybe I will. After a good full lunch.