Growing up with Diagnoses, Misreading Difficulties as Failure, and Rebuilding Through Writing

I hit rock bottom as a child, I just didn’t know I did.

How many of us recognise when we are nearing or reaching rock bottom? And what does rock bottom actually look like?

We often associate rock bottom with extremes – drinking excessively, binge eating, weight loss, or serious mental health decline. These are real and valid experiences of rock bottom.

Mine was different.

I was growing up with things I didn’t know I had.

I watched others around me move forward while I couldn’t do the same. I spent a lot of time on my own, not knowing how to interact, how to play, to communicate, or even how to learn to interact. I was anxious all the time and depression was commonplace.

I didn't not like me – I just didn’t know how to be me.

I couldn’t motivate. I wasn’t able to learn. I was continually failing school and exams, having to find an acceptance on the fact that I was failing and being made to own that I was to blame, because no one else was taking responsibility for my difficulties.

The truth – I had things I was dealing with that were ignored and they were the reason for my failing. In my case, without my difficulties and with parental support, I would likely have done better than outright fail.

I was continually being seen as the problem. I carried anger, and that made it easier for blame to sit with me. Looking back, there were other factors involved that weren’t addressed.

At the time, I didn’t recognise my state – this was rock bottom. Looking back, it was.

Let’s look at other ways rock bottom works. Being able to step back and recognise is important.

• Sometimes rock bottom comes from waiting for situations to work out without recognising that they aren’t. Staying in the same place, hoping something will change, keeps you stuck as you reach rock bottom. If things aren’t working out, it’s important to recognise that and move on, rather than continuing to look for another way to make the same situation work;
• Rock bottom can also be seeing others succeed while failing to change our own circumstances, because we’re stuck in first gear;
• Blaming others also lead to rock bottom. The more we blame others, the more we fail to see how we might – or can – change our own fortunes.

Rock bottom isn’t always visible or extreme.

In my case, it was ongoing and linked to a lack of understanding about what I had to deal with.

That understanding came decades later with a re-diagnosis of cerebral palsy. The diagnosis explained some of the difficulties I had been growing up and, with autism later diagnosed, it gave context to my learning difficulties – on what I had seen as personal failure.

From there, I started to work on my mental health, a way forward through my writing and through The CP Diary.

Finally, by taking back control, I put myself in control.

What you need to do is look at your own life and ask – are you reaching rock bottom, and is it time for you to also make a change?