Now, in all the books and articles I’d read about Asperger Syndrome, none of them had mentioned fatigue. Many had talked about the act of processing things by intellect, but none had talked about this causing fatigue. But now this lecturer mentioned it, it made so much sense – and explained so much.
Fatigue became a huge part of my life when I lived in Canada for a few years. I went there at age 21, after completing my first undergraduate degree. Before that, I’d been a very solitary person, not really having a lot of awareness of what was going on around me, and not really needing to. I spent my time reading, in a world of my own. But when I was doing my undergraduate degree I started to realise that I wouldn’t survive in the world if I continued like this. I needed to learn social skills. So this is one reason I went to Canada, so I could have a new start, in a different country, and try to learn how to be social there.
I found it fascinating and fun, but after a while I noticed something strange started to happen. I would get incredibly tired throughout the day. I’d go out with friends and find myself falling asleep instead of chatting. If ever I went to anyone’s house, I would invariably fall asleep on the sofa.
The tiredness only lessened when I spent a lot of time alone. I observed the same when I returned to England. The jobs I chose were all working with people – because I wanted to learn how to do this – and whenever I had days off work, I would spend the time alone at home, completely exhausted, sleeping a lot. I made myself do overtime a lot, to save money, and would get even more exhausted, and often have to take time off sick, because I would become dizzy and unwell from the mental overload.