|
I've been picking and scratching literally as long as I can remember.
I've always felt like the odd duck, as though everybody but me were in on something that I didn't' get.
My younger brother was born premature (he's 4 years younger) and had many problems such as learning disabilities (he would fall in the area just above the highest functioning MR. As such I my issues were largely over looked and/or thought of as something I could control.
I remember family therapy sessions and such that looking back it should have been clear I had mental health problems but they were totally missed.
I would say the real problems started with puberty. I was in my first bra at 10 and had my first period at 11, basically making me a little girl with the physical body of a women.
I was not prepared mentally or emotionally to deal with that, and my very Catholic uptight mother was not able to be of much help. (I pretty much learning everything I needed to know on my own or from friends, took a long time to get truly educated on the actual facts. Luckily I was voracious reader).
I would act weirdly, live in a fantasy world but keep up the appearance of normality and get good grades, though I had only a few friends and didn't participate in many activities.
I would be up all night doing a project or rearranging my room, watching tv, or something else. Then I would be the opposite just barely getting by with the bare minimum. I still managed to graduate with a 93% average. In college things got really bad.
It wasn't until I watched a biography on Patty Duke that it totally hit me that her behavior was almost a mirror of mine, even though our lives were totally different.
I finally was diagnosed in my 30's but was 40 before I was serious about getting help and finding meds that help.
__________________
To thine own self be true, then thoest can not be false to any man.  
|