Being inside my mind

This post is about what it is like to be inside my head. As some of you may know, I have Asperger’s Syndrome, which involves my brain being wired up differently. My mind is unique and can see positives which others may overlook, though I also have days where everything gets too much and I hide away. To start off I will describe how I feel when in a large crowd of people by myself.

I am walking down the high street, I am half aware of the people around me, and they seem to be in always in a hurry and I feel like I am invisible. Some strangers stare at me and I have no clue what they are thinking, so I turn away as I feared I am being judged. Whenever I go to town I always have a rough idea of where I plan to go. I often go to bookshops to look at books; I can be in the bookshop for a quarter of an hour and either buy a book or decide not to. I have never spoken to any strangers in Waterstones apart from the booksellers, I kind of wish I had the confidence to talk to people who share my love of books.

Now I am going to tell you about my experience of being bullied and how it still impacts on me today. At the age of 13 I and my family moved from Banbury to Coventry. The move meant me changing school. I struggle to cope with change and the move from a town to a large city made me anxious. My new school was an all-boys school and I was very nervous on my first day. Unfortunately my strange behaviour started to attract attention and people started to bully me. It started with name calling and messing with my school stuff. However, the bullies then started to purposely distract me in class and physically harm me. Every day I was scared of going into school, I felt like I was living in hell. I had no friends, the teachers did little to deal with the bullies effectively and I felt cut off from society all together. In year 10, when I sat my GCSE’s I fell into depression and felt really unhappy with life. The worst part was that my step-mother took my strange behaviour as being rude, when in reality I felt really unhappy and lost.

I got through my depression through my escape into the world of Harry Potter, family support and by the fact that I had a really bad day at school in year 11. It was a day where it seemed everyone was determined to make my day harder. I was called names, teased, made to feel isolated and hit on the head by some random student on a bicycle. I had hit breaking point, all the tears I had been holding back came out at once and I had to tell my mum my situation. With some support from my teachers I managed to complete year 11, obtaining the grades needed to do A levels but I still lacked real friends and still felt like an outcast.

University unfortunately did not help my social life much. I made friends who lived in my halls during my first year at uni. However, I still suffered from major anxiety attacks and shutdowns daily and hid myself away in my room. My friends took this and me not wanting to be their friend and accused me of being rude. I felt hurt and made no effort to try and be their friend after year one at uni. I understand that nobody can read minds, and I may have had made a mistake by not letting them know that I had Asperger’s, but I did try to be as kind and polite as possible. There are times like it feels like I am hitting a brick wall when trying to make friends.

People may think that because, I struggle to socialise and like to have some alone time, that I have no desire to make friends. No, I really want more friends; I do get lonely and sometimes depressed that I have few close friends. I have my special interests, I have my books but what I really want is more friends. It is often said that you should accept yourself for who you are. I on the other wish I could be less socially awkward and be able to get out more and socialise with people. I am never going to be a loud extroverted person but I am capable of talking to people in small groups.

I am hopeful for the future, thought the past still haunts me, and I am sorry this post is long but I had a lot I needed to say to describe what it is like being me.