Imaginary friendships and Dyslexic-Aspie escape

Hello my lovely Bloggy friends,

I didn’t realise until today just how much my dyslexia has affected my life. I see my Aspergers traits as a gift from God, because both my kids are Aspie and I see them as a gift from God. I love everything about them and their Aspie ways are also my ways so I find it easy to see the blessing through having them bless my life.

Neither of my kids struggle to read,

*AJ is extremely bright, he studies Maths, History, Business studies and is doing so well at college.

*CAL at eleven can read brilliantly. In fact when I read to her and we lay side by side, she has read both pages and I am still on the second paragraph. She loves reading and writes poetry, she is gifted in art and music.

My lovely friend Angel wrote to me today

She gave me some wonderful links that I intend to read and digest. Angel sees her dyslexia as a gift and as one of my best friends she knows me well enough to know when I hurt. She also prays for me and understands because we are very alike.

Today I was saddened to hear of the death of Whitney Houston,

I was even more saddened by how I found out. I read a status on fb by someone I once imitated and this person condemned Whitney for how she “chose” to live. I feel that all people can be led astray or do things they never intended to do. I know what it is like to have my faith destroyed and to look in wrong places for relief. I also know that God loves all people and we should show this love to one another. As a small child I loved and imitated Shirley Bassey, as a teen Whitney Houston was how I escaped. She became like a friend to me, to Aspies special interests are our friends.

I read this by a new Bloggy friend yesterday

This is a small part of an excellent post. I think she actually wrote it from inside my head.

Here is a link to the rest of her post.

Aspergers Traits (Women, Females, Girls)

3) We are escape artists….

We escaped our own identity by taking on one friend’s identity. We dressed like her, spoke like her, adapted our own self to her (or his) likes and dislikes. We became masters at imitation, without recognizing what we were doing. We escaped through music. Through the repeated lyrics or rhythm of a song–through everything that song stirred in us. We escaped into fantasies, what could be, projections, dreams, and fairy-tale-endings. We obsessed over collecting objects, maybe stickers, mystical unicorns, or books. We may have escaped through a relationship with a lover. We delve into an alternate state of mind, so we could breathe, maybe momentarily taking on another dialect, personality, or view of the world. Numbers brought ease. Counting, categorizing, organizing, rearranging. At parties, if we went, we might have escaped into a closet, the outskirts, outdoors, or at the side of our best friend.

I decided to share some of my reply to my lovely friend Angel

(I need to find healing with this. I best do this when my friends are praying with me)

I think you are right, no I KNOW you are right about my dyslexia.

It’s always got me down, it caused teasing and bullying at school.

The fear of having to read out loud is intense because I stutter and can’t speak the words.

It stopped me from joining in with games as a teen, trivial pursuit and any other game with reading. My friends would play and I would always go off and do the washing up or find another excuse, headaches, I have forgotten my glasses. Each time I felt so excluded, not just because of my Aspie ways but because I wanted so much to be able to read. I’d sit up the corner and know the answers to the questions and never be able to join in.

Learning was impossible, I knew I was clever at school but I was put in bottom group for everything. The kids in that group were not well behaved and for me not to get bullied I had to become like them. This destroyed me at school, I hated being part of a bully group but the alternative was to be bullied, I never joined in but I was there. Then I’d feel so bad that I didn’t stop what was going on, I’d go home and sob my heart out.

I remember one girl, she had the most beautiful opera singing voice. We were all older than her and they teased her till she cried. She never sang on the school stage after that and I often think of her and wish so much I would have told her how beautiful her voice was.

It stopped me going to college to do art. Then as an adult, single Mom it stopped me from finishing an access course that I really wanted to do. It has dictated the types of jobs I can even think of trying to hold. It was also the reason I became homeless and lost my belongings.

Even as a school dinner lady, when they moved me to infants and we had wet playtime I was terrified. The kids wanted a story and the teachers would tell me to read to them. I couldn’t do it and it was horrible having to explain again to a teacher that I struggle to read. It pushed me into eventually melting down and then being too embarrassed and afraid to go back to work.

I see my dyslexia as the thorn in my side, but I also see that God uses it to protect me. Protect my brain from overloading. I hate not being able to read quickly and not always reading correctly. I love to learn, but I can’t learn at the speed my mind wants to learn at. I can’t read all the blogs I want to read. I can’t even read your blogs on some days and I really want to. You are one of my best friends, I hate not being able to read how your days have been. I will pray about this, and I know you will too.

 A tribute to my teenage “friend” Whitney

As I grab my hairbrush, get into my time machine and happy-dance in my bedroom.

RIP Whitney Houston, you helped me as a kid and you have helped me today too.