Entry 34: Breaking My Silence

May. 6. 2013

Dear Diary: 
I am copying and editing a comment in response to a question, which prompted me to break my silence. It’s about the painful event that occurred in April. I have been trying for a few days now to find the right words, and this is the best I can come up with. I did not, and could not, process it properly. It has nearly broken me apart and threatened to shut down what I have, and was working towards.

However, I have chosen to not allow it to destroy me any further. I now realize that is actually a classic example of an Aspergirl in a state of challenge, speaking her mind too much, could get misinterpreted and judged so brutally. I was too ashamed and hurting to see it before. 
It was a hard hit to take, when I was and am (more than ever since this setback) admittedly still not through my inner conflicts/traumas as it is.

Outside The Box is and always will be part of my mission to heal, make reasonable sense of things and the fact that I'm autistic and that many of us are (and what this means) and to ultimately find peace. I have hoped it might help others.

Early this year, I was having a hard time mentally dealing with my health and chronic pain issues, and not coping all the best. I found myself briefly falling back into medicating, on pain medication that is. I was frustrated. I didn’t want to be doing that; it went against my attempt to be healthy. I felt so guilty, and ashamed. I felt so held back... helpless by a lack of finances for alternative healthcare that I need and isn't covered, no support in the public system, and scared by it…albeit trying to put on a good face.

I thought I should go for help and deal with it before it got worse. I truly though I did the appropriate thing, but I made a misstep, and it was “pathologized.” So Instead, I received the most extreme harshness one could ever imagine.

I was not doing so well in my presentation there, and this was (rather than understood) judged and misinterpreted in the worst way possible. I think I am ready to share this. I feel I need to get this out. It's not just support for me, but support for taking a stance against this kind of thing. I am (maybe naively?) trusting that people, especially those who know and love me well enough, will get my true drift.

My brain lacks that theory of mind, but basically I think I'm just being a kid looking for a hug or something...some support, as well as eventual justice.

In the mean time, peace has to be made with the universe and myself. I don't feel I'm trying to victimize myself really; I'm just trying to share what's not okay. I get that I sort of got myself into this; but I was pushed from lack of support even before this attack. I just don't understand why, when somebody sees somebody struggling, they don't offer understanding and compassion. This is the way I operate, but I guess many don't.

Anyways, Here what the comment spurred, containing what happened in April: 


I have a lawyer on board to help me at this time, and he's my dad. Although he is retired he can still advise and support me. I have a very serious issue. It’s regarding a very serious, defamatory and incredibly untrue misdiagnosis report. A psychiatrist wrote it up. I had only agreed to see her because I was told she might be "helpful" to me i.e. how my health and situational stressors have been affecting me. Instead, she basically shot me in the f*cking leg which, in the position I am in, seems pretty sadistic.

I'm having a hard time with the fact that someone could do that to someone else who is asking for help and already weakened and trying to reach out. I feel it is lacking empathy to the point of cruelty... (And they say aspies lack empathy??) It's the pot calling the kettle black really. It's actually mind blowing.

There's a battle before me; that I have to fight without fighting in a way that'll paralyze or destroy me first. 
I need removed something very serious, untrue, and safety compromising from my file. I have to share it now.


This woman put on my public file that I am a sick in the head; a pathological, histrionic borderline who has "factitious disorder; of both the “physical and psychological type." It means I am fake; I am not real in any way. I intentionally make up all my health issues (umm..I have actual proof of them, including X-rays that show injury hence chronic pain.) It means I may go as far as to do thing to make myself sick on purpose (good god! My husband and friends are saying “is that woman nuts??”

It is described that I "enjoy talking about decontextualized medical information in which "she believes to be expertise" (because I talk about holistic health and the autoimmune autism connection.) Yes, I was branded a fraud and a fake.

It says that I have "created my own fantasy life of now and the past, of being "A girl outside the box; with late diagnosed Asperger’s' (in which I have convinced myself that I have.)
Even worse: I have faux PTSD. In other words, it's implied that I've made in my "sick head" a fake past of having been through "hardships.” What???

It's written that "she says she is 'suffering from the Triple Ms’ in which she deems Misunderstood, Misinterpreted, Misdiagnosed"...the term that I had coined (not to "think I'm so smart") to describe what aspies like me go through. It, and I, is completely ridiculed in this report.

Basically, it's written that everything I really did go through and have been earnestly trying to heal from is a lie and never f***** happened!! Everything that I shared from the heart to this woman, in trust and naiveté, has been perverted in words. They are words that went into my heart like a dagger.

Anyways I won't repeat them all, or I might throw up. It's actually caused me to have a month long internal meltdown in which my self-care has been extremely challenged. I’d been trying to divert it in every way I can, but I can’t “keep it together” anymore. I'm only human. I cannot process this!

I'm a pretty strong person, but this thing has driven me (almost) over the edge. I created a communal blog because of this. It's for aspires to tell their horror stories. But, if I break apart, I have nowhere to go because the psych facilities have this right on their file, hence you can imagine how I'd be treated.

It's the same if I had an actual medical emergency. Just to top it off, she went on to say something horrific, because I talked about gluten/dairy free diet, and the kids' maybe having Ehlers-Danlos (in which the pediatrician told me; they are referred to genetics by him.)

She wrote
she is "concerned about how I extend my need to be sick onto my children and could be developing Munchausen’s' by proxy."  Excuse me???

This then extends her defamation to my innocent kids, because if something were to happen to them, and I needed to take them to the hospital for real; this is how the situation would be erroneously treated. 

I'm finally breaking my silence because this is outrageous and I am preparing an addendum file package which includes actual medical proof that I actually do have fibro, arthritis, and EDS (by a dermatologist) and hopefully too, a support letter from my pediatrician. Gosh, the info I told her came from him, not me

I have not one, but 3 reports diagnosing and confirming my Asperger’s. I have acceptance into a support program, which is hard to get into (although it’s not that great, look at what’s happened, and they let it.) One can only get into that program if they confirm you truly are eligible.

Honestly...this person went way too far and I believe justice has to prevail somehow. I am actually going to my fathers' this coming week for 5 days. He lives by the beach, and I need the powers of nature at this time, to recover enough to try and regain some composure and process this hellish ordeal in quiet.

This is so I can be in a better shape for my family. I have tried to be, very hard, but I’m folding. 
We are putting the file together then because I got very close to a serious breaking point. It'll help me feel like things are moving towards righting this wrong, and be calming for that reason. I'm a pretty strong person but I think most people would agree that the way I feel is a bit understandable?

I have to remember that I know the truth in my heart, and that if I the let the anger, extreme hurt, and grief which I have get turned onto myself and take me down any longer; I will not make it. So I have to get up and continue on what I was doing, and what I love doing; being an Au self advocate, a mama, a writer/poet, and sharing my true story of experience, and help others.

I must have been punished for this, and it’s now clear. However, damage done, why not keep going. I can’t help but think this has something to do with it, though. I talked too much. I’m a fool, I didn’t realize they’d hurt me that bad. But, I can’t go back now. I can’t take it back. Had I known this could happen, I maybe wouldn’t have made the decision I made.

I try and pray to stay strong, in love and peace, and without "fighting fire with fire." The only way for me to get through this is to basically be Ghandi or something. I have to have faith that I'll make it, and that this will get turned around.

I also feel I should use this as a horrific example of just how badly an Aspergirl can get misunderstood and mistreated by the system. I know I made some mistakes myself. First of all, I naively over shared with her thinking she would be helpful to me for real. I was also in a slump and an over obsessive depression regarding my health.

I was feeling that I was getting nowhere with my doctor, no support from him, or rather the healthcare system (which I need to accept will never be an option for healing, it's just about pills.)

I was perseverating. Honestly, I really was expecting her to say that to me and offer me actual help and guidance, especially because I was mislead to believe it would be so.

I did not expect a dagger wound in which has, over the past month, has become infected. I have to survive this.

It's time to take a few days at my dads', by the beach…to meditate, pray, be healthy again, and find trust in the universe, somehow.

I have no other option if I choose life, and I do. My kids need me, and I need to keep doing what I was doing, because it's the truth. I can't lose what I had. She’s tried to take it from me. The system has. That’s how it feels.

So there it is. This is the first time I've found words for it…words for this absolute nightmare which I felt like I could never wake up from. This is first time since it happened...and I needed to get it out.

(update blog here: http://outsidetheboxgirl.blogspot.ca/2014/09/entry-72-update-regarding-breaking-my.html)

Scarlit-Rose Ashcraft

aka "Rosie"

www.scarlitrose.org