'Jake's Story'
Hi, not sure why I'm doing this . I don't usually have anything to do with AS stuff but my mum sent me this. I don't know how it got onto her radar and why I let it under mine .. I usually bin such stuff quick but...
I got hooked in by the stuff on suicide and depression then moved onto Finn's story and thought geez that's sad. But it was the letter he wrote that got me. I thought I could have written that and he wrote it weeks before his death. That got me thinking about As and I don't do that often . It pulled up lots of memories and made me aware of how good life is now but maybe also how precarious that is.
To start at the beginning...
Well I'm a one off, the only child. Don't know why. I think it might have something to do with my Dad. He's not a child person but then he's not a people person either.
All I know is that we seemed to roll along quite well for a while when I was a little kid. My earliest memories are beside him at the computer..games, just messing . Not a lot of talking but I was so good with computers by five they didn't know what had hit them when I started school. Starting school was the high point of my educational career. Within a day or two I was bored. Everything was moving so slow but then when you did get into something some bell would go or another kid would muscle in. Somehow I seemed to be getting grief all the time either off the other kids or teachers.
Don was good, when I found him we paired off and went into our own world. Without him school would have been hell. But then school did became hell when his family moved and at 10 I was on my own again. The next two years were truly grim. I learnt to be a good runner, it was the only way to survive beyond the school gates. That didn't stop me getting pasted a few times. An arrogant sod they called me but then the teachers had their own word for it. Attitude, didn't like my attitude. Why didn't I look at them when they spoke ? At twelve it hit me that I didn't have to put up with the aggravation any longer. I just simply stopped going. Stashed some day clothes in a hideaway, changed and told any one who took too much interest in me that I was home schooled and out working on a project. It didn't last long. That's when the rows started , my mum crying, saying I would end up in care. The endless trail through pyschiatrists. They came and went. All I needed to do was clam up and stay silent ..that wasn't hard. About fourteen I hit one who was different. He fought back with silence. We would sit together in silence, it felt quite companionable after a while. I started to talk to him a bit , not much. He suggested I might like to write about what made me angry. I told him I wasn't angry, just tired of people and aggravation. Writing was fine, seemed to make things easier. Mum lightened up. She seemed more relaxed. Then a few months down the road she started talking about Aspergers Syndrome. It made no sense to me. I wasn't the problem, the rest of the world was the problem. I still feel that way.
There's just so much madness, people are inconsistent and false. I looked at the stuff she gave me and then on the net and yes I suppose others saw me as a loner but I wasn't alone. I shared a virtual world, I had plenty of contacts they were just all on line.
Sixteen came and I couldn't move fast enough out of those school gates.
Mum didn't put up a fight, I think she was as relieved as me. Then my nocturnal life started, just crept up on me. As the questions and arguments about my future raged on I slipped into an existence whereby I could escape by sleeping the days through. My Dad works in IT and seemed to be spending longer and longer at his office. My mum only had the stamina for a few hours wrangling after work. I walked at night,listened to music, started to watch films. Slept with the dawn. Saw no one, talked to no one.
Things started to go badly, kept getting ill then depression started to take grip. Couldn't see a future, everything felt black. There just seemed to be pain everywhere and I was the cause of it.
Things came to a head when I went looking for food one night and found my mum crying fit to bust in the kitchen.
I'd never seen that before. I never realised how much I was hurting her. I didn't know what to do about it, didn't know how to help her or myself but something must have broken through a bit cause when two days later she started to talk to me about a job advertised in a local bike shop I didn't close off.
I let her talk me into going along. I wouldn't let her come in with me but she waited round the corner.
I wouldn't say my interview was a great success, I mumbled, shuffled, probably looked at my feet a lot. John must have been desperate but he took me on trial. I owe him one and lots more.
Four years on, the business has grown to four of us and I'm the best bike technician in the shop, better than John. What he doesn't know is that I've started designing in my free time. As it is I do lots of customizing and adaptions for customers. I don't really do the customer bit but I deal with anyone who wants the technical info. Through that I got in with a group who ride at weekends, they accept me as I am and value my technical skills. We speak a language of bikes ,that's fine. I've got my own place. I'm on my second girlfriend. The first I met at the Film club I started going to I didn't ask her out , we just got talking about films but it didn't go far. She liked to hangout with a crowd and I don't do well with lots of people around me.
Lou turned up on one of the rides. She's good, she lets me be and makes me laugh. She's the only one I've ever talked to about Aspergers. I think she's maybe read up on it . That's okay. She gives me grief if I neglect her . She just generally keeps me on message around other people. I don't want her to move in but I do want her to stay around . I have plans to stick at the shop for a few more years, save more, then look for some finance and either open my own shop or start building bikes.