Asperger's & Autism Forum

Does anyone find it easier to maintain eye contact with people you are comfortable/familiar with i.e. family and friends? I definitely do. Usually I can look them in the eye when they’re speaking and be able to focus on what they’re saying, whereas with people I’m not completely comfortable with I will comprehend maybe every third word they speak because I’ll be focusing on trying to look like I’m listening while also enduring the discomfort the eye contact is causing me. In both cases, though, I still have to look away when they finish speaking so that I can let what they said sink in and try to organize my thoughts and decide on a response.

And as with listening, I maintain eye contact better when speaking to family and friends.

Also, has practicing maintaining eye contact helped anyone become better at it (“better at it” meaning that you can maintain it and still listen and speak without too much difficulty)?

I was wondering, what will you be for Halloween 2019?

I will be a male pink fairy. My outfit will consist of a light pink interlock polo shirt, light pink chino shorts, a pair of light pink fairy wings, a light pink baseball cap, and a pink glow wand from the dollar store. I once had a dream that I was a handsome male pink fairy with a beautiful fairy wife; my outfit will be what I think would be the ideal look for myself as a male pink fairy. The pink interlock polo is the perfect outfit for a male fairy to wear due to its soft smooth texture.

Hi all,

I have looked around the forums for a few days and there is something I noticed. Many people here don’t like to be touched, apart from people they know well.

For me, it’s the other way around. I like being touched when a connection to me is not the point of the action. Things like running a hand over my arm because my shirt looked soft or over my back because I was wearing a fake fur cape for Halloween are acceptable to me.

The people closest to me don’t get to touch me. I will hug people I meet through hobbies (dancers are super huggy) as a greeting ritual. Once they know me better, I ask them to greet me differently. I do this because I have an extremely low tolerance for awkwardness. Asking people not to hug me right away tends to get really awkward. They usually worry that something has happened to me in the past.

Emotional intimacy and vulnerability are things I that make me extremely uncomfortable. The closer someone is to me emotionally, the less they get to...

Just wondering, while making big and small decisions on a day to day basis, do you prefer thinking or intuition?

Personally I like to think about the cause & effect of everything before deciding on what to do, but I've seen way too much people around me repeatedly making decisions based solely on their gut feelings. Most of these occasions did not end well for them.

Hi all,

Please may I ask, if the phrase 'Things not quite right' is acceptable to describe a person on the autistic spectrum? I ask, as a member of staff at the aspie drop-in centre where I attend, was conversing with two people from a group who offer support to parents, partners, siblings and carers of adults (over 16) on the autism spectrum, who use the drop-in centre too. One of the persons from the group used the phrase 'things not quite right'. A member of staff from the drop-in centre then said the person who made this comment was referring to his Daughter who is on the autistic spectrum, I then asked another member of staff from the drop-in centre if he thought some Aspies may be offended by this comment, he answered 'Yes'.

Hello. I never used to have a problem with this but now I find leaving my home to be very stressful and it is getting worse. When I was pretty young I used to always go outside and find a quiet spot to read in the bushes, then up until a couple years ago I used to like to go on long, multi-hour walks and just listen to music if the paths were busy or nature if empty and just daydream while I walked, nowadays leaving to go get food is a challenge and sometimes I've been known to miss a meal or two because going out is just too much sometimes.

Logically I guess I just have to push myself in the reverse direction and start going out for walks but it's so hard, and also now it's winter so it's pretty cold, and I don't want my cat to be lonely, and a thousand other excuses.

Does anyone have any experience with this and/or advice? I'm going to have to be out looking for a job in a few months and it's a terrifying prospect when even leaving to get groceries is a multi-day process to...

poll.

If you have one parent that accepts and/or understands and one that does not (or you don’t know or “other”) you may select two options - one option for each parent.

If your parents are deceased then please answer the questions in past sense - answer for if they understood when they were alive.

Here is a thing - I hate certain opinions and it's really hard for me to respect them.

I put the "(and very stupid)" in the title which seems kinda unfair because it looks like I call all opiniona that differ from mine stupid. But when I say stupid, I mean really awful opinions, like - for example - some racist and homophobic and xenophobic and all these extreme things.

So imagine you have some really good and close friend and you've been friends for years now. And suddenly he comes with some really REALLY horrible opinion that you can't stand. It's an opinion that you really hate.

So how to reply to such a thing? Usually I want to scream in anger "Are you serious? What a stupid opinion. What is wrong with you?!" and sometimes I do. Mostly because I am totally disappointed, hurt, sad...

Someone could say "But you should respect a different opinion from yours!" but it really hard because it's really something I deeply hate.

And even though I kinda... respect it and say myself...

I bet I am not the only one here who feels this way. I try to be myself , but I find it difficult to be ignored and not listened to.

I mean I thought “being yourself” and “just be yourself” was a way for people to fit in ? Instead of be yourself, but not the part that annoys others or questions everything.

This causes great anxiety in myself, so I take medication, but that doesn’t really fix the issue. I still don’t belong “here.”

What I am talking about is stuff you own? Example my glasses when they get one little scratch on them it bothers me to the point where I want to get them replaced. Also my cat scratched my Sony Bravia Anroid TV screen which still irritates me. You can still see out of it and only see the scratches in the light close up but it still bothers me to the point I want to replace the TV. I also tried those dumb fixes using toothpaste and other abrasions and they don't work.

Luckily my phone which is easy to prevent scratches I put it in an case and glass screen protector so it is still in mint condition.

I am just asking if this is a ASD thing or do things like this bother others too?