Asperger Syndrome- My Childhood Part 2- Copyright- Robert Fullarton 2012

Asperger Syndrome Childhood Part 2-  Copyright Robert Fullarton 2012

At this early stage in life the innocence and the beauty of nature is indescribable, it is almost a state of edenic bliss in the midst of the child’s sense of all that is precious and valuable. Everything is wonderfully detailed by a fantastical mind that engages in play and even creative time and this is precisely the reason why from an early age I said to myself that I wanted to be an artist. 

Every child has its fascinations, but mine were to leave me spellbound. The seasons were as magical as certain sites, certain smells, sounds and memories and this is a crucial insight into Asperger Syndrome, our thoughts are associated from early childhood with happenings that are often far removed or they are the simple day dreams that our over active mind can conjure up. Our thought associations are for the most part the starting point of our obsessional interests and hobbies that we manoeuvre around, develop and pursue. The curtailment of academic interests and the early distractions of life, have an importance for us to retrospectively observe, for this is our extended period and play into imaginative time, the games of youth and discovery and yet they are the foetus of our developing interests, in the womb of everyday experience.

My father struggled for years with his job, the strain of trying to achieve in the face of managerial pressure took its toll on him, his fiery countenance, his often volcanic temper and his eternally secretive nature, made me a target from an early age, the fire of his anger, once I had provoked him with an act of clumsiness or by breaking something in the house. 

My father’s obsession with money and his inability to understand came flooding forward and so this is why I have always contained a cautious reserve and an inner fear with regards to my father. This fear has indeed remained and my father’s autonomy and dominance has been matched by sibling protests and even by my own revolts against parental control. 

But indeed there has always been a deep love within me for my father, as I have struggled in vain to win the true attention, the adulation that I strive for and in recent years I have tried to do this through my own writings and my intellectual life. 

We have bonded and we have broken each other’s hearts and we have understood and then again we have misunderstood our wavelengths and ourselves too many times. But still I try and long to mature the bonds of this aspiring hope. In some ways the bonds have grown and the rift has lessened but I cannot be so completely sure as to what precise forecast can be made to the future of this relationship and my own development itself.

If one wants to know what army life was like for a child then perhaps one can ask me to recollect the rigours of my youth, that was dispensed and controlled through fear.

But indeed my early childhood can be in some ways called the happiest time of my life, it was in some way an ideal, nostalgic, sentimental dream that passed by like a morning’s moment in the day of the human life, it vanished and disappeared so quickly. My troubles seemed so small, for my mood was usually good, I hated anyone to touch my food – especially my father- I hated the shape of certain inanimate objects- quite often refused to eat my food and had to be coaxed and even forced to eat my food properly. 

I think that I caught the concern of my parents, rather early on in life and my parents suspected that I might have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, due to my poor attention span, poor concentration, poor social skills, failure to responds and comply with commands given by my parents. I do believe that my mother once had thought that I was going deaf, slowly but surely, on one occasion when I repeatedly refused to answer her calls from up the stairs. I cannot fully remember my motive for this, but I think that I was angry with something, and I wanted to express my anger through silence, irresolutely by ignoring my mom for attention even perhaps for solitude. I worked best in solitude, played the greatest games with my toys, pretended that my back garden was a jungle, an enchanted forest

an untamed wilderness, the Serengeti or an equatorial paradise of some sort.

My late grandmother from my maternal side, regularly used to visit our house on Wednesday afternoons, at around five o’clock. I have fond memories of her, her kindness, her presents, her graceful company and her stories all part of my early fondest recollections. Sweets, presents, gifts, little books and toys were presented to me by grandmother and my mother and I think that I my first few years of life my older brother John was envious of the new found attention that had come with my arrival. Even from my earliest school days a sort of trepidation for social occasions grew within me and my anxiety bore its earliest manifestations in these days.

It is an uncomfortable thing to contemplate, for a child that was made to feel different in some form or persuasion of thought.

I seemed to be miles behind the other children academically, the teachers themselves spoke privately with my parents about my hyperactivity, my uncontrollable methods of madness and zaniness. I think from an early age I was perceived as weird, by my class mates, but nothing sinister happened during these early days, I would perform in the school plays, partake in the school outings and occasions and I have to state that in some ways these were the happiest days of my life. 

They were burdened with discipline and often with loneliness, but indeed I found love through many carers and supporters, one of whom is my beloved aunt Rena Fitzgerald, I spent many weekends out in her home in the restful surroundings of Newcastle co. Dublin, enjoying many daytrips, surprises and sleep- overs. My aunt has remained to be one of the dearest people, whom I whole-heartedly cherish and I believe that I have been a sort of surrogate son to her. Her immense sunny nature would lift me up out of any depression, her unequivocal levels of kindness and her purity have always inspired me in the darkest moments, both her and her husband Harry, have been dear to me. What I lacked with peers and friends my own age, I found in the warmth of much familial love from certain members of my family.

I played with certain boys off the road, tolerated the insolence of one of the fathers of a certain friend and found an early source of prejudice arising. The father simply wanted his own son to befriend another boy and to dump me, these were his precise inclinations and his expectations were not denied over time. My childhood friendships with these local boys last over ten years, but they were always filled with a fragility, since these boys, though they were younger than me, they seemed to be more mature and steadfast than I could ever be.

My behaviour was perceived to be peculiar, I was tactless, naïve and could easily be wound up with a joke into having a tantrum and that was one way for people to get pleasure out of my general irritability. I was very sensitive, afraid of girls from an early age and was horrified to see a classmate kiss a girl when I was ten years of age. I simply did not comprehend what the fuss was about over kissing and found a strange sense of focus and peculiarity in the act itself. But of course I was never chosen for this and anyway I don’t think that I was overly enthused about it at such an early stage in my development.