Introductions

About me:

Hello there, my name is Rianne and I'm an averrage young woman from the Netherlands, except that I'm a little bit different. I have always known that I was a bit different as a child.

During grade school I would use some expensive words that most of the children my age didn't even know what it meant. My most vivid memory of an example would be in 4th grade when I was doing a talk about gem stones, something really contrary to the pets or sports most of my classmates picked as their subjects. I had said that the stones would be polished to make them prettier, but the teacher told me I shouldn't use a word like polishing when I didn't even know what it meant, but I did know what it meant, so I gave him a look of 'what do you mean?', but it seemed like my classmates didn't know what it meant. Mind you, in English polish is used a lot like in nail polish or shoe polish, but in Dutch, the word 'polish' (polijst) isn't used a lot, we use words that would literally translate to 'lacquer' (lak) instead.

I would also often talk in a slightly poetic way. An example from my memories from grade school would be from I think it was the 6th grade. We had gone on a trip to the zoo and in the shark aquarium I had seen a hammer head shark that kept hiding in the depths of the aquarium, so you could rarely see it. Back at school I told them I had caught a glimpse of it before it disappeared in 'the deep blue' at which the whole class burst into a laughter. Using expensive words or poetic ways of talking caused me to be teased quite a bit. Fortunately it didn't go further than teasing and such, I've heard a lot of worse ways of bullying during grade school.

I also had my own outlook on the world. I loved going around on my own and discovering things. When the meadow behind our house had turned into a barren wasteland with lots of muddy heaps, because it would be turned into a civil area, I would almost go there on a daily basis, crossing the ditch in between with our little rowboat. I was an explorer and the world was mine to discover. I also prefered documentaries about animals and nature over children programms at an early age.

My mother passed away to cancer when I was twelve and my father wasn't the best type of parent around, leaving me with a difficult period as a teenager and in secondary school. Blaming my different personality, my lack of interest, my absentmindedness, etc. on the loss of my mother and my slightly difficult teenage time, I lived on in my own way, never giving up, but fighting completely on my own to overcome my difficulties.

But by the time I reached twenty and after some group therapy to deal with the loss of my mother and with the difficulties I had with my father, nothing had really changed.

When I was twenty, I had a relationship with an older, divorced man whose son was diagnosed with the syndrom of Asperger. He had told me several times that I sometimes did or said things that were typical for people with autism. I never paid it much attention, until later on when we had already parted ways. I was now studying to become a teacher's assistant and with studying about the development of children, we inevitably had to study about developmental disorders as well. I would sometimes joke about how much some symptoms were typically me, but after a classmate of mine gave a presentation about ADD, I told my class "I think I will let myself get tested on ADD" and not very surprising at all, my whole class agreed, especially my coach. And guess what the outcome was, I indeed had ADD or attention deficit disorder.

Knowing what the medication you would get to get you to pay more attention, I refused the medication at first and opted for special training. But it never came to that, because they were always at impossible times for me. A year later I got into a total slump again, struggling with school as well as with my daily life. I got help, something I find really difficult to ask for, I got medication and things were starting to look up again. But after half a year of medication, I was drowning in all my problems yet again. The psychologist that was now treating me, had always wanted to test me on Autism Spectrum Disorder as well, because in the previous tests, I also scored quite high on that disorder. But she had to interview a close family member for that. Knowing how my father, who kind of refuses to believe that I have a disorder, would react, I refused for him to come. In the end my aunt came and she could tell the psychologist some things about me that I myself hadn't noticed were quite different about me. The result, I had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in combination with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Why a combination? Because I show symptoms of both disorders, but I also lack some of the symptoms in both disorders. Unlike the person with ASD who prefers to stay in the safe haven called home, I like to travel like the adventurous person with ADD, as long as I'm guaranteed a certain feeling of safety. And where the person with ASD really likes to keep things in order to the point of being a bit obsessive about it, I'm a bit messy and completely disordered like the chaotic mind of a person with ADD.

The way I talk about it, might make it seem like it all happened a while ago, but I was only diagnosed with ASD back in April this year. Now I'm still struggling with my life, but with the right diagnosis and some help of the people around me, I'm looking forward to a much brighter future.

Why this blog?

Why this blog and why would I want to raise the awareness of developmental disorders? The answer to that is simple. Developmental disorders are being understimated and not recognized enough. Though there may be a lot of teacher that recognize developmental disorders as early as during kindergarten, a lot of parents don't want to recognize disorders in their children. Very understandable, because disorders are taboo. Children with developmental disorders are often less smart than normal children, they can't interact well and they have a less bright future with fewer chances at good jobs, right? And with the current tests, doesn't every child get a lable nowadays? Nothing is less true than this.

In this blog I will give you information about developmental disorders, tell you why I find we should be more open about developmental disorders and from time to time I will tell you about my own experiences and hardships in life because of my developmental disorders.