A little bit concerning my youth.

Post three, Part one: A little bit concerning my youth.

Growing up, I was homeschooled. I was pretty adept at making friends, but keeping them was difficult. while I was very friendly, I always had a hard time understanding things like sarcasm, social interractions, and I always had a tennancy to take things litterally and at face value. for example, I can remember being on a PeeWee baseball team, and some of the boys talking about "multiplication tables" and I sat trying to figure out why the heck kids were building replicas of tables in schools. These problems plagued me into my teen years. I was always awkward, I would often say innapropreate things and not realize it. I also tended to be very physical; I would beat up on my friends for no reason, and not mean to.

I would also have violent outbursts. My strong desire to cover my ears and rock back and forth when things upset me, or stim, was rivaled only by my fear I was "crazy" because of it. as such, stress and anxiety would build until I would lash out violently......I have broken knuckles punching walls, doors, tables, and even people more times than I would care to admit.

These outbursts obviousely concerned my parrents, who did what any concerned, carring parents would have done: They got me in to theripists.Despite my protests, and saying I wasn't depressed. I was soon diagnosed with everything from ADD, ADHD, Manic Depression, social anxiety disorder, turett's, bipolar disorder, every Psychological, or social disorder you could think of, axcept of corse for what I actually had.Needless to say I was given drugs for each syndrome, which had horrible adverse effects; But eventually my parrents saw that The help they so desperately wanted for me, was doing more harm than good, and I was taken off of every drug, and before long I was back to more or less normal.

Part two: "All my life I have been an observer of human nature, but not much of a participant.

"That's what I told my mother in my teenage years when we were discussing how I wasn't like other kids. Growing up autistic, for me was all very anthropological. A study of social dynamics. I could see how it worked, but couldn't make it work for me. I was different. I had very narrow interrests.

Part Three: Fixations and obsessions.

I don't choose my fixations, I just wake up one day obsessed with something new.

My earliest fixation which I can recall was Dinosaurs. At age five, my mother gave me a book called "The Dinosaur encyclopedia" (yes I could read, and read quite well at five) It was a book for adults, about 500 pages or so; I litterally memorized it. I didn't even mean to. I couldn't remember my friends names, or my street address, but reading once through that book I had memorized all the facts about every dinosaur in that book.Unfortunately, I can no longer remember much from that book. every time I get a new fixation, I forget everything from the last.
I don't know the order of all my fixations, but there have been a few, Dinosaurs, airplanes, guns, automobiles, ska music, american history, the list goes on, but it always involves learning everything I can about the history of whatever it is with which I fiind myself obsessed.