An 'Aspie' Tells What It's Like To Live With Asperger's...

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me. See the link at the bottom of the page to read the full article, as the article had too many characters to post in its entirety).


This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Gabi DiCiolli, diagnosed ASD.

When I was diagnosed after my testing, my neuropsychologist said I had textbook Asperger's. She pointed out the following traits as examples.

• Extreme social awkwardness. I take things literally & at face value unless I consciously focus on observing for signs of subtext. For example, yesterday my dog's vet asked if my blue hair was natural. Without thinking I responded no, but my dark roots were... of course, 1 nanosecond later I realized he HAD to have been joking- cue the wave of embarrassment!! I avoid unstructured social situations whenever possible and have serious difficulty making friends or relating to people in person. I do not spontaneously share my interests with my coworkers and prefer to be left alone to my own devices as much as possible while working. I also sometimes have trouble with auditory processing and hear English sentences as mere sounds; movies are best watched with subtitles for this reason.
• A love of knowledge, facts, lists (hehe), & objective data. I've collected binders of information since I was a child, and I recall once spending my hard-earned class points on an enormous complete, unabridged English dictionary in 3rd grade. I would read encyclopedias and product labels for fun, especially when my parents grounded me from reading books as punishment for my frequent rebellion.
• Narrow, obsessive interests. For me this is genetics, animals and their behavior/psychology, human sexuality, speed & efficiency/time management, and matters of social justice. If I contract a disease or medical condition, I pore over all of the credible information I can possibly find on it. And before I purchased one of my first house bunnies, a mini lop named Pixie, I read 7 or 8 books and a plethora of websites on raising house rabbits to ensure I could give her the best life possible. I can also spend several hours on a single task I find interesting without a break; some Aspies are known to get so highly absorbed in their projects they need to be reminded to eat!
• Enjoyment of routine. I take the exact same route to and from work, and clock in/out at the exact same time. (If traffic delays me a minute or two, I feel far more stressed than is logical.) I also plan ahead my workday and break up time into chunks assigned to completing certain tasks. If my time allotment is intruded upon by a chatty stranger, I have to stifle very strong feelings of anger and annoyance.
• Penchant for self-soothing, repetitive behavior. This one's one of weirdest quirks, but I have satin-lined baby blankets from my childhood that I physically manipulate to calm myself down. This could include scratching the satin, tying knots in its strings and rubbing them against my fingers or upper lip, or spraying it with good smells and covering my face with it. I also jiggle my right foot constantly and have mild restless legs syndrome at night.
• Over-sensitivity . If someone suddenly yells loudly right behind me, as is wont to happen at a pep rally for example, it literally feels like someone jabbed a needle of sound into my eardrum. It HURTS, and I have to suppress a disturbingly violent urge to retaliate to the perceived attack. On some days when I feel especially drained, voices are so stimulating and exhausting to process that even the sound of fiancé's voice irks me. (To prevent damaging our relationship, I warn him to leave me alone in advance when I start feeling like this. Zoloft helps somewhat.)
• Sensory cross-wiring. Some ASD people experience forms of synesthesia, so they might read numbers as colors, "see" music, or have words provoke entirely unrelated mental images. I have a mild degree of this. I enjoy repeating certain words I read outloud quietly to myself because I can almost "taste" them and like the way they feel in my mouth. In childhood, a friend once caught me softly repeating the word "cake" and when I couldn't explain myself I felt very embarrassed. I also involuntarily associate certain words with images completely unrelated to their meaning. I theorize this is due to the fact that autistic brains have more neural connections (and often in inappropriate places) than neurotypical folks.
• Generalized lack of coordination & strange posture/gaits. I have very little proprioception, so I have a hard time telling where my body is in 3D space. Learning dance moves is extremely hard, which is a shame because I find dancing beautiful and a great stress outlet. My fiancé has had a difficult time teaching me correct postural form at the gym too. I also speed-walk everywhere I go while keeping my eyes tunnel-visioned directly towards my goal, a mannerism I know baffles my coworkers. (The doctors sure do appreciate my speed, though!)
• Extreme stubbornness and insistence on routine. I'm not comfortable eating in public, and I employ various rituals at meals to ensure a maximally satisfying culinary experience. I can be illogically inflexible sometimes since control and routine make me feel safe, but since I am lower on the spectrum, I am self-aware of this and can consciously work to combat it after the initial rush of "NO!!" feelings subside. I am also very, very strong-willed and persistent once I decide something is worth my time, with an obsessive, single-minded focus on my goal.

Full Article: An 'Aspie' Tells What It's Like To Live With Asperger's

 

[kris]

I know every aspie is different but I sure have a lot in common with the author.

 

[Suzanne]

Oh so very, very close to how life is with me!

I did laugh at the bit: is your blue hair natural, because I reacted EXACTLY the same way she did and it was a split second later that: oh of course, he was joking. Yes, I am very literal. Not so long ago, someone said: I can smell when a person is England and I immediately said: oh what do we smell like and got: oh goodness sake, I was JOKING and I felt so embarrassed. It does seem that taking things literally is seen as some kind of "idiot formula".

Like the author, I can realise that my behaviour is not right or fair and try to adapt and like her, if someone behind shouted, yes, indeed it does feel like a piecing pain and I actually shudder and yep, want to attack.

Some words are so obhorrant to me, that even seeing them makes me feel sick, but mostly these words are defamatery anyway and I do feel blessed that not just random words do this to me.

I have to wait and hope that it does happen, to receive a formal diagnosis.

 

[dragonwolf]

I proverbially play hopscotch on the line between AS/D and NT, so I can't relate to as much stuff as the previous two, but I can relate to some of it.

Left to my own devices, I've always been a literal person by default. As I got older, the people that tended to be in my social circle were the snarky, sarcastic types. As a result, I learned to essentially change my default interpretation to "joke" under certain circumstances. The "certain circumstances" started with just those people, until I learned the types of mannerisms associated with that personality type (and I had a lot of practice over the years). As a result, if something seems off when considered literally, I assume it's a joke (even if I don't immediately understand how/why/what with it), unless I have reason to believe otherwise.

I do the same fact gathering thing, too, usually as a sort of coping mechanism. Something happens to me, I react by learning all I can about it. I remember doing this as a kid, too, before I knew I was on the spectrum. I often wondered why I was such a target to other kids, because I didn't understand at the time and no one would/could explain anything to me. The worst time for me, especially, was early grade school, because this was pre 1994, so AS wasn't even an officially recognized thing, let alone something anyone would be familiar with, especially in a gifted girl. I was pretty much at the intersection of everything possible that would render me invisible to the diagnostic system while still suffering from the issues of being autistic, and the resources didn't even exist yet for me to find that information out for myself.

Oversensitivity? Check. On some things, anyway. Sudden loud sounds don't generally bother me, but my issue is generally too much input. A room full of people (kids, especially, but adults, too) with a lot going on tends to max out my input capacity pretty quickly. Learning this very quickly explained why I would frequently melt down as a child (and why I was always scolded for "causing a scene," which at the time didn't make sense, especially when no one was around to see it).

As an adult, it makes the open office floorplan hell for me. I've coped at my current job with a desk by the wall, two large monitors, and getting in early enough to get some good productivity time in and able to leave before things get too loud and force my concentration to tank.

I've found recently that tactile input helps me deal with my auditory processing issues. I have a slight auditory processing delay, and it takes increasing amounts of energy to focus on a spoken conversation and actually retain anything. I'm very much a visual person, but visual input trumps auditory every time (which also means that taking notes tends to leave me even further behind). However, I've found that keeping my hands busy with something seems to help (I actually stumbled upon this when I was crocheting during a phone meeting; doing something relatively mindless with my hands helped me focus on the conversation; it also suddenly made sense why I felt the need to doodle during class and why I did best in the classes that allowed me to do so).