Boy Have Things Changed

I remember when I was growing up and being misunderstood by people, I wanted and needed people there for me and I always felt like something was always missing. Be it guidance from someone or some kind of attention, I always felt as though a void was missing from my life. Everyday that had passed I tried to spend those passing days attempting to achieve the missing organism from my life. I would act funny in class to get attention, and do whatever it took to get noticed by girls and the "popular" crowd alike. I always felt different and hated feeling that way so I concentrated on filling the void that was missing. Not until I was an adult, and past my childhood did I realize what exactly I had and before being diagnosed with Asperger's, I had already done a self diagnosis just by researching on the internet. I had been in and out of neurologist's offices all my childhood and constantly had problems with depression. Everyone treated me normally growing up, and because of my siblings I had been treated just like them and that disguised my true self and I would sometimes forget that I had problems. Feeling normal and being treated normal is great therapy for psychological problems. Those times have come and gone though, and I've realized something over the years. Each year more and more money from charities and the government itself has put money into treatment for Autism and you even see advertisements through media of outfits like Autism Speaks! and National Autism Society. With those outfits, more research is put into the cause and the next generation of children will have help with their problems. Well here's my question; What about my problems growing up? What about the people like me and their problems? The help wasn't there, not unil the mid 1990's was there even an inkling of hope or even an idea of Autism in general. It has been very frustrating knowing that I did not have that help growing up, and instead of wasting my time being in and out of neurologist's offices, I could have had the right research done to prevent most of my psychological problems. Do not get me wrong, I love today's children and think they have tons of promise in this world of ours and think they will do some amazing things with all the education resources offered to them nowadays. I just feel as though to be fair for all generations, it never should have taken this long for disorders like this to get noticed or come to fruition. I hope to give back one day and help as best I can based on life experience alone and show the next generation that even though they have problems right now, they'll eventually surpass and things will get better. For right now I'm just venting my frustration and sending a message to the research analysts out there that they should put together more opportunities for adults like me and those that I know. Hopefully this gets the point across, if not, I will keep pulling, like I've always done. Remember, its great therapy to feel a sense of normalcy in this world.