My life with Aspergers (high functioning autism)
image By inspire uplift: butterfly in a jar
An introduction to me
Since moving to Western Australia in 2012 from England (which despite its stereotype is not anywhere near as miserable as people think it is) life has definitely not been uneventful.
Within a year of moving here shit had well and truly hit the fan: hopefully, you will excuse the use of a cliché since it fits so well. Don’t get me wrong moving to Aus was brilliant everyone who has ever done it will agree that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity and even if they don’t end up staying most people usually look back on it fondly. I am definitely glad that it is something I got to experience. But on the other hand, there’s nothing like a move to the other side of the world to flip your reasonably normal life upside down.
Of course, most of the things that happened to me and my family would have probably happened if we stayed in England, but it would have been under quite different circumstances, for instance me and my Mom would’ve had much better access to family members that due to living 14,500 km away in a country we barely knew, we often go years without seeing . Moving countries is difficult no matter who you are it doesn’t matter how well it goes, or why you moved. Culture shock, tax laws, distance, strained relationships and general everyday life, are just some of the things that will affect everyone who moves country and the reasons why they effect them will be different in each case. Personally i often dont know how to react to things and i definitely didn’t know how to react to moving to Australia! I have Asperger's which to me means that i react to and experience the world in a different way to others. I love structure and therefore i hate change, but i was so aware as a child that i was different that i constantly tried (failed but tried) to react in a way that would be seen as socially acceptable or understandable. I was already seen as being the odd one out or the slightly ‘weird’ one so i often tried to hide my feelings either because i wasn’t sure i had understood what was happening correctly; as i often find it difficult to read facial expressions or judge vocal tone, or because i didn’t want to standout anymore than i already did.
But in order to explain who i am and why i am that person, I’ll go into more detail about our first few years in Australia in a later post, because its definitely not a one paragraph type of topic!
So here it is! My first blog post and i honestly have no idea how to properly begin , So I’ll just start by introducing myself, although it does seem, a bit new girl on a primary school playground to me…
Hello to anyone out there who has been unfortunate or fortunate enough to have stumbled upon this blog!
Just a brief warning this first blog; although you should’ve really guessed this from the above paragraphs,will probably a lot more wordy than any blog I write after this, I just wanted you to know as much about me personally before I delved into writing on the list of topics I have come up with.
So hello everyone, I’m Ellie-Jane (or Elle, or EJ but definitely not Ellie unless you’re one of the few people that I love enough to allow to call me that), I’m 23 and as mentioned above I’m a Brit living in Australia. and just to be clear, when I say British, i mean so British I can trace my father’s family back to before the War of the Roses, and both sides of my family get their names from specific locations in England. All this has resulted in me having pale skin that never tans, rosy (let’s be honest tomato) red cheeks and wavy curly brown hair with a slight red tinge that goes into shock every time its exposed to the slightest bit humidity. Overall, as much as I would like to have an ancestral connection to anything else, I think the best I can hope for is a whole lot of Celtic and possibly tiny bit of Germanic or french ancestry! So yeah ridiculously British.
I have a degree in Modern History, with a personal affinity for the French Revolution. I’m currently studying a Graduate Diploma in Classics at the University of Western Australia, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Ancient History online through Macquarie University. I have almost finished both courses and I plan to study a graduate certificate in forensic anthropology also at UWA. This combined with my historical knowledge, will with any luck lead to me studying Archaeology possibly combined with Anthropology for masters, and I’ll hopefully go for my PHD afterward. The overall goal is to become a lecturer, although I do want to work out in the field, on research or digs.
I’m an avid reader who always has two books in her bag, one non-fiction which is currently Great Cities by John Julius Norwich and one fiction. Now I tend to alternate between the more modern fantasy books and the classics. Honestly, although given my age it’s probably not that surprising, I’m a huge harry potter fan, it was a considerable part of my childhood and yes J.K Rowling’s recent comments on Transgender people definitely caused some personal conflict between my love for the potter universe and my strong disagreement with her views. The book I am currently reading however falls more into the classics department. Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem written by some writer whose name we will probably never know, but it is a kind of brilliant and one of a kind masterpiece that I encourage anyone interested in British literature to read. Shakespeare and Chaucer are one thing, but Beowulf is the epitome of early English writing.
moving on from my love of literature, I also play the guitar, not as well as I would like to as I rarely have time to practice anymore. I constantly have earphones in, something which can irritate others, but helps me immensely because as I mentioned above i have Asperger's , which is actually what this blog will mostly focus on.
I’m hoping to cover my personal experiences with dealing with Asperger’s, from how I clean my room to studying at university and coping with solo travelling. I have always enjoyed writing and I’ve recently become more open about having Asperger’s, so I thought that a blog would be a great opportunity to explain this condition from a more personal viewpoint to others. and hopefully I can also clear up confusion or misconceptions around this topic as well.
So, this is where I leave you for today. I will be posting at least once a week at first, but hopefully that will increase once I get more used to it.
hope you all enjoyed my first slightly rambling post, feel free to leave comments, and ask any questions you may have.
talk soon everyone
EJ
