From The Mixed Up Mind of a 13 Year Old Aspie

From The Mixed Up Mind of a 13-Year Old Aspie

Please note that any posts with this or a similar title are actual diary entries from my diaries growing up. Names have been changed for privacy purposes, but no editing has been done.

27 February 2003

I think Hillary and I had a fight, but I'm not sure. According to Casey, she told her to tell me that she didn't want to be my friend anymore. Ever again. IS SHE FOR REAL? We finish each other's sentences for goodness sake. She's barely said a word to me in two days. What if she meant it this time? I trusted her with my deepest secrets. We know so much about each other, we could be one person. I haven't talked to her yet. I called, but she was out babysitting. I bet she's not thinking about me right now. She's probably playing with kids and making money while I'm obsessing over this. I just can't help it. She's my best friend. Through good times and bad. I don't know what's happening. It's like my life is falling apart. I'm still good mentally, but even a bookworm like me needs friends. I know I still do, but none of them are close enough with me for us to finish each other's sentences. I need someone that I can always go to. And try as they might, my other friends just don't cut it. Casey's close but we haven't been friends that long. I need someone that I can really trust. I can't help remembering why she originally became my friend. She wanted to come to my birthday party because Ally was coming. I didn't invite her though. We weren't close enough. And all we went through. The day I went over to eat lunch with her and she asked what I was doing sitting at that table and I said I was sitting with my best friend and she said that Ally had replaced me. The night before, she was complaining about Ally. We're close though. Who else would wrap me in a giant hug because I failed a test. Who else would have listened to me obsess over the fight with Hillary? HILLARY HILLARY HILLARY! Why is everything going back to Hillary? I can't stop thinking about her. I was cruel when Casey told me. She gave me a chocolate heart and said that it was Hillary's black heart and I ate it. Earlier but still after Casey told me about what Hillary said, we were talking about pointy things and I said I wanted to break Hillary's window and Casey said that I should break her heart instead like she broke mine. As mad as I am at her, I feel guilty. She wouldn't be doing this without a reason. Unless she never liked me and just wanted to hurt me. Oh my gosh! I can't believe I just wrote that. Even though I'm writing in pencil, I can't erase it. It's how I feel and no one's going to read this except me. I just hope I'm wrong. If everything I think is true, my life would be over. Hillary and I have shared too much for it to have all been fake... right? Maybe she's been trying to tell me something for awhile and I just didn't search to hear it. When she said in early October that she couldn't walk to school with me next year because her brother would be walking with her and he only wanted to walk with her I thought something was up because they didn't get along, but I let it slide because I trusted Hillary. Am I dumber than I thought? Should I have known something was wrong and tried to solve it before it was too late? Would it have worked? Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. I have to be rational. Things weren't that bad. We had  rough times but who doesn't? All best friends fight don't they? I realize that we fight more than others But I've always thought that was because we were like sisters. Something must have happened recently because we were fine a few days ago, but what? As far as I know there was no fight. She just stopped talking to me and told Casey that she didn't want to be my friend. I hope that Casey misunderstood because this can't be happening. It could be but it shouldn't be. OW! I just pinched myself and it hurt! This isn't a nightmare although it feels like one, it's real. It's happening. If everything's the way Casey says it is, I'm about to lose one of the most important things to me. My Best Friend! Someone I walked with every morning to school for the past two years. Someone I laughed with. Someone I cried with. Someone I shared with. My Best Friend! Did you ever notice that when you're upset about something everything reminds you of it? People are responding to my bat mitzvah invitations and I'm worried that Hillary's not responding. And walking to school tomorrow. What if I have to go to school alone? I don't know if Hillary's avoiding me or what. I've called a bunch of times and she's still not back yet. I'm starting to get annoyed. I need to talk to her soon or I'll freak out. I need to know why this is going on. I need to know what I did. It's confusing. I didn't do anything to my knowledge but she's mad at me. I know this may sound weird, but I miss her.

So many things to analyze in this rant I wrote. First off, the conclusion to these events was that my friend "Hillary" had just found out that she was moving and was trying to break ties with all her friends before the move. When I finally reached her that night, she said that she had mentioned not wanting to be my friend anymore but only so it would be easier on me when she moved. I later found out that "Casey" was not a true friend and her goal was to destroy every friendship I had and leave me alone and lost. She almost managed it too. As you can see from the above passage, I was very easily influenced and gullible. 

What bothers me most about this particular journal entry, making it the first one I shared, was that I showed it to my therapist at the time and she saw nothing wrong with it. She just saw a mood-swingy 13-year old's thoughts. Really looking at it though, the possible fight was an obsession. I couldn't forget and I couldn't leave it alone. I called her home too many times, believed she had convinced her mother to lie and tell me she was babysitting when she was actually at home, and could not stop my brain. The passage shows that I did not understand proper socialization and friendships. It shows that I clung to one or two and felt that I was nothing without them. It shows rigidity of thought (I refused to erase what I wrote even though it was in pencil). 

This was how my mind worked. I could never explain it to anyone. It still shocks me to read some of it. There are entries that I will never be able to share, but the ones I do have a purpose. I want parents to get some idea of what their child's brain MIGHT be like. Again, everyone with Aspergers presents differently, but this is how my brain worked at age 13.