An Awkward Little Girl

Recently, I learned something about myself that I wish I had learned years ago.  I’ve talked about my birth defect in another post, and explained exactly what was entailed with that.  I’ve always had a few neurological impairments from this, but most of them were never all that troubling.  For example, walking a straight line is impossible for me.  If I’m walking beside someone, I either bump into them eventually, or I end up five feet away from them.

I also have some trouble with judging distances.  Do you know that obnoxious person at the stop sign in front of you, who waits to make a left turn until he or she has an area large enough to land a 747?  That’s me!  I am also very careful when driving, because I would flunk the field sobriety test stone cold sober.  If I try to walk heel to toe, I tip over… every.  single. time.  Not only that, I can’t do the one where they have you tilt your head back, close your eyes, and touch your nose.  If I don’t tip over from my vertigo, I miss my nose!  Luckily, this has never been an issue, and I am able to laugh about it.

Before I talk about the information I recently learned, I need to give you some background information.  During my surgery, the brain tissue protruding from my nose was simply cut off.  They really weren’t sure at the time what this tissue might have done, but they had no other choice but to remove it.  The doctor told my parents that I might have some issues from this, and I will get to that soon.

According to my mother, our minister and various teachers, I was a very interesting child.  By the time I was three, I could already read.  By the time I was four, I had already formed an opinion on the Viet Nam War.  Around this time my aunt, who was studying for her Ph.D in Special Education, used me as her guinea pig to administer standardized IQ tests.  According to the Stanford-Binet, I had an IQ of 158 at four years of age!

In school, I was always one of the smartest kids in the class, and in fact, my minister used to say that I was the only four year old adult he had ever met.  Sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t?  There was just one problem.  I was extremely immature socially.  I never fit in with the other kids, I never knew how to interact with them.  I always claimed that I simply preferred the company of adults, which is true, but the reason is that I had no clue what to do with people my own age.

Because I was so awkward, it was very hard for me to make friends, and the ones I did make, would often disappear after a few weeks, or months, if I was lucky.  I had a tendency to just blurt out what I was thinking, and I frequently got laughed at.  Children made me a target for their abuse, because it was just so easy.  I was quick to cry, and frequently spent recess by myself, watching all of the other girls playing jump rope, or swinging, wishing that I was one of them.  But I didn’t have a clue how.

Things just got worse the older I got.  By junior high school, I had developed social anxiety disorder.  People used to joke and say that the only thing I ever saw when I was at school was the tops of my shoes, because I never made eye contact.  I was still considered a cry baby, and people knew that if they made fun of me, they would get a reaction, which is what children of that age want.

It got so bad, that I developed agoraphobia during my first year of high school.  At 15, I quit going to school completely.  I rarely stepped foot out of my room, and the only place I would go with my parents was to my grandparent’s house.  Luckily, my mother got me into therapy immediately, and within a year, I was able to attend a boarding school where I graduated with my class.  I survived!

Now, back to the thing that I recently learned.  My mother and I were talking just a week or so ago.  I brought up how socially awkward I was, and that I never felt as old as the other kids my age.  I told her that I never fit in, and I could never figure out why.  My mother got very quiet for a few minutes, and then she told me that when I had my surgery, the doctor’s had warned them that this might happen!

I was completely shocked!  No one had ever told me this, and I was now even more confused than I was before.  My mom explained that they decided not to tell me that I had this “handicap” because they didn’t want me to be able to use it as an excuse.  They felt that if I didn’t know it might happen, then it wouldn’t happen.    The first emotion that I felt upon learning this was a flash of anger.  I thought that it explained so much!  I wasn’t just the freak that everyone decided to pick on!  To a certain extent, I couldn’t help the way I was.

And then, I was confused.  I asked Mom why they hadn’t gotten me in counseling or something as soon as they saw that I was having these sorts of problems, and she explained that at the time, no one thought of that as being an option.  Crazy people went to psychiatrists, not socially immature little girls.  Intellectually, I understood this, but the little girl in me still felt like she had been thrown in the deep end of the pool, and told to sink or swim.

Even now, as an adult, I still deal with a certain amount of social ineptitude.  I’m pretty good one on one, but I am terribly uncomfortable around large groups of people.  Small talk is easy for me, but I often don’t know what to say once you get into the deeper stuff.  And, I either try too hard and come off as annoying, or I don’t try at all and I can come off as very stand offish.  But now, I know that there is a reason for it.  I’m not using this as an excuse, but now that I understand it, I’m learning to compensate for it.  And I am no longer ashamed of that lonesome little girl.