"I didn’t know my life was a lie. Living with a disability I didn't know I had. When I look back that is exactly what it was, but the not knowing did spurt me on – to work through my bad days. I wasn't done. Living a lie transformed me into the person everyone expected me to be, but that wasn't me.
However hard it is for a parent to deal with their child with a disability, it’s even harder for the child. I was made to live a lie, every choice and decision that was made for me, was based on a lie. Thinking I was normal, and then finding out decades later that I wasn’t.
The deceit was based around a disability, a deceit that was continually being played out that I didn't know about. I was misunderstood. Not knowing I had autism meant I was continually being labelled in and out of school. I was labelled as lazy, stupid, stubborn and argumentative.
Knowing something but knowing nothing went against the very heart of my integrity and I wasn't in a position to change that. Everything I tried my hand at and to stand for – I failed at. I wasn't living the life I was supposed to live, and that wasn't normal. I was expected to fall into line.
Living a lie was exactly how I was raised, so I haven't known anything different. I too think it's worse when you know that something is seriously wrong, but everybody acts like nothing is wrong.
People always treated me like I was so spoiled and lazy when in reality I was paralysed by my fears, doubts and insecurities to the point where I couldn't function.
My mother expected me to be her perfect little servant and my dad didn't seem to really care, as long as she left him alone so it's no wonder I was so extremely confused.
Everybody expected me to act normally too, when in reality I know that I was anything but normal. It's sad when parents go so far out of their way to make their own children suffer, because of their issues.
Thanks Randy. We can resonate with each other. All we can do is work to change things for our own family.
Generally, we must all work hard at changing things and not rely on our parents parenting, and their parents parenting them. Behaviour traits pass through the generations.
Through lots of research into my childhood and the neglect around my disability, I now have the answers and although the initial reasoning doesn't sit comfortably, I also know I couldn't or wouldn't be doing what I do, without my experiences.
And although I will never condone such actions and it's wrong, in my case, I see the positive side of these being my experiences.
When we better ourselves and find the understanding, we change the way for a better future for our children and ourselves as part of that scenario.