She Has Aspergers

Penni wrote "She Has Aspergers" on Watch Me As I Fall Apart

The elder of my two half sisters that is. My mother text me today.

“Have I told you that L has a diagnosis at last? She’s got Asperger’s Syndrome, altho scored high enuf to be classed as plain old autistic! Love Mum. XXXX (((Hugs)))”
Now first a little about my family. My mother and father split when I was tiny, so that I could stay with my dad rather than being adopted. When I was about eight my mother remarried and had to children with a man she met in hospital. These children were two lovely girls, named L and N. A few years ago she divorced that man, he was  bad for her, and my sisters mental health. They all live with my grandfather Oop North. They used to live in the south near me, but Grandpa offered them to live with him, in the countryside, because he was too old to manage on his own anymore, mum asked me if it was ok with me, of course I said yes, because I wanted the best for her and my half-sisters, but it still hurt, felt like I was being left again.

L, like me has had problems from a young age. I was given a Special Educational Needs label of “Emotional and behavioural difficulties” at the age of six or seven. L’s problems were spotted when she was about eight. She had counselling and stuff through her school.
But there is quite some difference in the way we were dealt with. Eight years difference. A Fuckload of difference.

I was dealt with, dealt with is definitely the correct word, by being taught to shut up and hide my problems. Being told to behave. Being sent to a special school for three days a week. Being given endless acronyms explaining how to control my emotions, nobody asked why I was feeling like that though. Being bribed and punished into not being myself, into hiding all of me. Having a Learning Support Assistant sat next to be all through primary school, made me more a freak. She was helped with some counselling. With people trying to figure out why she was acting as she was. She was assessed for various things. She is borderline dyspraxic. And now has been diagnosed with Asperger’s. She has been helped in situ, not taken out of school, not sat alone in the classroom with a grown up next to her. But helped to cope where she is and tried to understand why she is like she is.

L is exactly like I was when I was younger. Always she has been the mirror of me. Just Eight years in the past.

So I was not surprised when my mother text me this info this morning. So many people seem to think that I’m a bit Aspergersish. L so similar to me, she is basically me with the advantage of the world having eight more years to understand this stuff between us. The description of Aspergers fits me like a glove, so to hear that the girl who matches me so closely has been diagnosed with it makes total sense.

I just hope that now she can get the right help and support, so that she does not end up as mad as me.