Tuesday 27 September 2011

The Flower

The innocent flower sheds a tear at the world destroying her beauty...
Yet although the world destroys her beauty, the innocent flower still remains.
What if the flower were to be destroyed? What would we have then...?
Yet if the flower dies, surely we would be left a leaf? Something to remember it by?
Or would it be better to have the stem, ugly though it is, to bring a new flower to life?
Let us keep the stem and reuse it. But we need good soil to place it in for it to grow...
But where can we find good soil on this Earth? Is there any left that will allow the flower to grow?


I wrote this when I was 15: over three months at the end of some of my diary entries, I'd write one line about this flower, and I've only just put the seven lines together.

I've tried my hand at writing poetry before, and I'm not good at it at all. I can come up with ideas and stories, but I'm not good with words and with phrasing things. I can't remember why I added a picture of a flower at the end of one of my diary entries - I think I was feeling very low at the time, and felt that I was like this flower. With each line, I drew a picture of this flower slowly decaying, then of her leaf, then of the stem being planted in fresh ground. I saw it as being hopeful that I could recover from the depression I felt at the time.

Thinking about it, where is good soil on this Earth for this flower to grow? Assuming that we're using the flower as an analogy for myself as a possible-Aspie, is there somewhere where I could be and develop my full potential? Or will this flower (this sounds a bit pretentious) be in an environment that's unnatural for her, and will she just have to focus her attention to adaptation rather than self-growth? Maybe we're all flowers in this respect: sometimes we develop our full potential, other times we just try to survive and adapt.

I like to think that everybody is capable of reaching their full potential, as long as there is hope (I'm an annoying optimist in some respects).

2005 and 2007 diary entries

Thursday 16th June, 2005
Today Nicki was back at school and I felt shunted again. I think maybe I'm the one being hostile. I don't even try to join Mel and Nicki to make a group. Why? I don't like being in a group. It's either one-to-one or nothing. It's completely mad and I hate it. Why's it like that? I think I'm Asperger's, They have social problems. But I've been diagnosed as borderline, but I'm still 'normal'. I don't get it. I don't understand it. When I try, I end up getting panicky. I know that Asperger's people are like that - I researched it. I'm feeling panicky now, so I'll stop it.


I had a look through my diaries for anything relating to Asperger's: this is the first entry I found, from when I was 14. I'm still looking now, and have just found some poetry that I wrote. I'll put the poetry in a blog post, then keep searching for Asperger's references.

...later...

I found the entry where I talk about finding papers, but no reference is made there to one of the papers being from my childhood assessment for autism. So far I haven't found anything else relating to Asperger's or directly describing social issues (although reading some of the interactions, it seems clearer to me now that social issues did exist).


Wednesday 3rd January, 2007
"So we talked. It wasn't as fluid as I'd hoped. I had trouble starting at first... my mouth and brain didn't really click together. Ella suggested I write it down instead."


I was 16 at this point - this phrase sums up in a way how I sometimes get when trying to initiate conversations. I just don't know where or how to start them, and when I do, sometimes I stumble over words, or don't know when to stop, or it sounds stilted and forced. I wish that this wasn't the case: how can I rely on others to always start conversations? For the most part I get by okay, since a lot of my friends are talkative, however there are some people with whom I just don't know how to talk. If they start the conversation, this works without too much problem, then we go back to silence even though I know it should be my turn to speak. I don't know how to explain this to people, though, without seeming unfriendly and antisocial.

...even later...

I've just skimmed through all of my diaries, and have finished reading the last entry (just before Christmas of my first year at uni). I can't find anything else really relevant to being Aspie or that go into depth about social problems, so I'll leave it at this for now. That, and it's gone 2am and my eye's twitching, so sleep is in order.

Friday 23 September 2011

Telephones and the assessment

Earlier I called home, and had an hour-long chat with my mum. For the most part I dislike phone conversations, especially with people I don't know well - when my friends and I order food, I try to not be the one who has to phone and order (whenever the online ordering service doesn't work), and I'd prefer to send an email or text or handwritten note than call somebody with a message - I remember being about 9 years old and writing out exactly what I was going to say to a girl whose birthday party I couldn't attend, then not knowing what to say when she started speaking and I'd used all of the words on my piece of paper. On the other hand, if I want to talk to somebody rather than just deliver a message, then I quite enjoy speaking on the phone. I sometimes have trouble knowing what to say, though, and knowing whether or not it's my turn to speak. And sometimes when on the phone for a long time, I feel that I need a break - I guess with day-to-day conversations, I tend to do other things while talking to somebody, even if it's just turning away for a minute to put the kettle on, or going to fetch something, so I get 'breaks' from human contact that way.

On a side-note, I had the Lady Gaga song 'Telephone' stuck in my head for two of my exams last summer. This doesn't relate to anything other than the title in this blog post.

Anyway, while talking to Mum, she mentioned that my assessment is in a week's time. She accidentally said diagnosis rather than assessment - and this made me a bit worried. One of the reasons I'm still not sure about getting an assessment is this: what if I don't get the diagnosis that I'm (for want of a better term) hoping for? What if I'm told, at the end of the day, that I'm borderline, or 'normal'? Would that make the assessment a waste? Am I just failing at being, rather than having a condition that makes this so? I will admit that this does quite worry me. I guess we'll just have to wait and see - on the other hand, what if I'm told that I have more difficulties than I think I do? Am I possibly too 'different' to adapt successfully? (I like to think that while I don't fit in, I can and do adapt fairly well).

The psychologist who'll be doing the assessment asked me to bring along papers from my last assessments: Mum said that almost all of them are in boxes (my parents are moving house and have most of their things packed up), however she was preparing something which is coming along so far. I'm a little anxious as to what she means by this - is she listing my traits, or incidents where they've stood out? Is she listing my assessment history? I'd be quite anxious to hear this - sometimes I get anxious listening to stories from my past, especially if they involve large social blunders on my part (I think most people are like this, though). Rationally I shouldn't worry since anything I hear is bound to be something that I already know, or should be made aware of anyway.

It'll be nice seeing Mum and Dad again when they both come up for the assessment: I haven't seen them since I moved into my new house on 1st September. They won't be staying for long though, since they need to go home to look after the dog, and the journey up from where we live is fairly tiring.

The assessment will take place from 10.30am and will last until around 2 or 3pm, I was told. In the evening I'm going to a uni-friend's birthday party, I hope that I'll be happy enough by the assessment's result to enjoy myself fully in the evening.