ILoveTacoBell24
New Member
Hi! I'm 24 years old, female. I've been to several psychologists and doctors looking for an answer and they either tell me they've never heard of my symptoms before, or they disagree on diagnoses. Sorry if this seems all over the place!
Since I was a baby, I've always had little repetitive behaviors. My earliest repetitive behavior was folding my ear cartilage inside my ear canal. There's even a sonogram of me that my mom saw with my hand over my ear (so she assumes I was probably folding my ear inside before I was born!) At 24, I still fold my cold ears inside my ear canal...and I do it for hours at a time while driving, while bored, while stressed, while watching tv. It feels good, and I feel like I kind of need to do it. If I'm not playing with my ears, I'm playing with my Chihuahua's ears in between my fingers (if his ears are cold). I do this with my husband's ears sometimes too, lol.
Around 7-9, I developed a few more repetitive behaviors- pressing my bottom lip over my teeth with my finger and rubbing back and forth for hours, sticking my bottom jaw out and to the side and rubbing my back gums together back and forth, and squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as possible over and over again and I chronically have little coughs all day long, unrelated to any sickness. Again, at 24, I still do all of these things (mainly squeezing my eyes shut repeatedly as hard as I can, and rubbing my bottom lip into my bottom teeth and coughing).
At 8, I washed my hands to the point of being raw sometimes. I also would refuse to go poop, so I'd accidentally poop in my pants after trying to hold it. My mom said I looked sad often, and upon asking me why I was sad, I would always say, "I'm not sad."
I've always felt "different." In fact, in 9th grade, I felt so different that I coped by telling myself that I'm just an alien and I'll get secret super powers soon (like Clark Kent in Smallville), and that's why I'm so different from everyone. (It wasn't really a delusion; it was more of a coping mechanism that I convinced myself of).
Sometimes I don't understand conversations... I normally just nod my head and mimic their facial expressions because I lose track of how they got to that topic, and I also often don't care what they're talking about. If they said something like, "So I wrote her off", I literally would picture and think that he was writing her name down on a piece of paper. Once I learn the expression tho, it eventually clicks. Like, I've understood "it's raining cats and dogs" since the first time I was told the meaning of it as a little kid.
In middle school, all my friends started going along with the fads, and I refused to go with what was popular. To this day, if something is highly rated among everyone (like Victoria's Secret, coffee, holey jeans, converses, popular songs, etc) I usually detest them and refuse to be like everyone else. I genuinely don't like those things tho; I'm not just trying to be different.
I can't tell when people are lying,
ever. I can't even tell when a kid is lying. I've always assumed people are completely honest, but I'm discovering people lie about the most random things all the time. I'm a good liar, but I am usually an overly honest person.
I think I am really good at psychoanalyzing people though. I'm often able to tell if someone is depressed when no one else can tell. I'm very good at reading facial expressions, body language, and tones of voices.
I've had bouts of severe religious OCD for years, severe panic disorder, depression. I also have trouble taking personality tests because I feel like I don't know what I think many times (so problems with identity maybe)? I think I was close to having Borderline PD at one point, but I don't think I have it. (It was during a time I was manipulated and used repeatedly, then rejected, so I naturally had a right to feel this way).
I always am in a state of derealization even when I'm not anxious at all. It's been like this 24/7 since I was 16.
I am sensitive to smells- like I cough around cigarette smoke, and I run away to breathe. Part of it is an OCD thing (I'm contaminating my lungs with toxic chemicals) and the other part is it smells so badly and I start itching all inside my sinus cavities. I can also smell when an animal is about to die (like baby kittens that aren't going to make it)...I will know that they aren't going to live and die within a few hours or so.
I have hearing issues. I can't hear anything if there's any white noise going on. I have to have captions on the tv, and I am constantly looking at people's lips when they talk so I can read their lips. I'm technically in the normal range though during hearing tests.
Fluorescent lights make me even make brain foggy and derealization-feeling than usual. My memory gets worse than usual when I'm around fluorescent lighting.
I'm constantly tired all the time. Like extremely tired. For years.
I am a redhead but everyone calls me a blonde because I have so many "blonde moments." I'm intelligent, but I look so stupid to everyone because I suddenly can't think of the word, "restaurant" while talking to them, or I notice that a pole barn is being built right beside the store I'm working at (weeks after it's standing). I'm clumsy...I trip, walk into the sides of the door entrances often, wake up with bruises often and I can't remember how they got there, lol.
I have trouble driving because there's so much going on, and I can only seem to notice and focus on what's going on in a tiny tunnel of my vision, lol. (And it has nothing to do with my eyes, 20/20 vision.) I have to remind myself "green means go" and "red means stop" because I truly have trouble remembering each time, and I'm afraid I'll run a stop light.
When people are telling me how to do something, I nod my head, but I truly don't understand what they're talking about. Life seems so easy for everyone, but everything is so hard for me.
After a trip at Walmart, I feel completely mentally and emotionally exhausted, depleted, back aching from the stress. I feel numb emotionally, and so brain foggy that it's harder for me to drive. It's like I'll get so mentally exhausted that my judge of distance will be harder.
Most of my symptoms started in 8th grade tho (besides the repetitive behaviors, and anxiety). Some days, the lightning would look different (and my mom would tell me it was blood sugar)...but then one day, the lighting permanently stayed different (where life feels unreal).
I developed normally as a baby. I was always at the top of my class in elementary and middle school, but I started actually struggling in high school when I became homeschooled. I couldn't focus EVER. I'd stare at a book and realize I'd been moving my eyes over the same paragraph for an hour and I still didn't understand what I had read.
Starting in 10th grade, I had religious OCD without realizing it. I thought everyone else just wasn't taking Jesus seriously enough. I read the Bible all day and prayed along day, refused to hang out with family so I could spend time with God. I memorized SO much scripture, I feel comfortable, to this day, debating any pastor on certain theological views.
My passion before the Bible, was aliens and supernatural stuff. I researched it and talked about it all the time. I even tried seeing if I could heal people and animals, move objects with my mind like I was reading that people could supposedly do online.
Now my obsession is trying to figure out what is wrong with me! Do I have Aspergers? Is it just OCD and anxiety? Do I have tourttes or tics, or are those Asperger-related repetitive behaviors (stimming), or just slightly abnormal soothing behaviors that everyone secretly does in some form?
I used to love dressing up in tight fitting clothing and wearing painful heels. But the past couple of years, I ONLY wear jeggings that are stretchy, and lose shirts (where it doesn't touch the armpits cause I perspire so easily and it's uncomfortable). I also can't stand lace on my back or tags as I itch. J
Thank you for reading this far! If you think I have Aspergers, do you know why it seems like more things are getting worse as I get older? Like, I never used to have difficulty with wearing uncomfortable clothing; now I only wear a few outfits that I find comfy. Aren't sensory issues supposed to be present from childhood?
Please let me know if this sounds like Aspergers or something else. Thank you!
Since I was a baby, I've always had little repetitive behaviors. My earliest repetitive behavior was folding my ear cartilage inside my ear canal. There's even a sonogram of me that my mom saw with my hand over my ear (so she assumes I was probably folding my ear inside before I was born!) At 24, I still fold my cold ears inside my ear canal...and I do it for hours at a time while driving, while bored, while stressed, while watching tv. It feels good, and I feel like I kind of need to do it. If I'm not playing with my ears, I'm playing with my Chihuahua's ears in between my fingers (if his ears are cold). I do this with my husband's ears sometimes too, lol.
Around 7-9, I developed a few more repetitive behaviors- pressing my bottom lip over my teeth with my finger and rubbing back and forth for hours, sticking my bottom jaw out and to the side and rubbing my back gums together back and forth, and squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as possible over and over again and I chronically have little coughs all day long, unrelated to any sickness. Again, at 24, I still do all of these things (mainly squeezing my eyes shut repeatedly as hard as I can, and rubbing my bottom lip into my bottom teeth and coughing).
At 8, I washed my hands to the point of being raw sometimes. I also would refuse to go poop, so I'd accidentally poop in my pants after trying to hold it. My mom said I looked sad often, and upon asking me why I was sad, I would always say, "I'm not sad."
I've always felt "different." In fact, in 9th grade, I felt so different that I coped by telling myself that I'm just an alien and I'll get secret super powers soon (like Clark Kent in Smallville), and that's why I'm so different from everyone. (It wasn't really a delusion; it was more of a coping mechanism that I convinced myself of).
Sometimes I don't understand conversations... I normally just nod my head and mimic their facial expressions because I lose track of how they got to that topic, and I also often don't care what they're talking about. If they said something like, "So I wrote her off", I literally would picture and think that he was writing her name down on a piece of paper. Once I learn the expression tho, it eventually clicks. Like, I've understood "it's raining cats and dogs" since the first time I was told the meaning of it as a little kid.
In middle school, all my friends started going along with the fads, and I refused to go with what was popular. To this day, if something is highly rated among everyone (like Victoria's Secret, coffee, holey jeans, converses, popular songs, etc) I usually detest them and refuse to be like everyone else. I genuinely don't like those things tho; I'm not just trying to be different.
I can't tell when people are lying,
ever. I can't even tell when a kid is lying. I've always assumed people are completely honest, but I'm discovering people lie about the most random things all the time. I'm a good liar, but I am usually an overly honest person.
I think I am really good at psychoanalyzing people though. I'm often able to tell if someone is depressed when no one else can tell. I'm very good at reading facial expressions, body language, and tones of voices.
I've had bouts of severe religious OCD for years, severe panic disorder, depression. I also have trouble taking personality tests because I feel like I don't know what I think many times (so problems with identity maybe)? I think I was close to having Borderline PD at one point, but I don't think I have it. (It was during a time I was manipulated and used repeatedly, then rejected, so I naturally had a right to feel this way).
I always am in a state of derealization even when I'm not anxious at all. It's been like this 24/7 since I was 16.
I am sensitive to smells- like I cough around cigarette smoke, and I run away to breathe. Part of it is an OCD thing (I'm contaminating my lungs with toxic chemicals) and the other part is it smells so badly and I start itching all inside my sinus cavities. I can also smell when an animal is about to die (like baby kittens that aren't going to make it)...I will know that they aren't going to live and die within a few hours or so.
I have hearing issues. I can't hear anything if there's any white noise going on. I have to have captions on the tv, and I am constantly looking at people's lips when they talk so I can read their lips. I'm technically in the normal range though during hearing tests.
Fluorescent lights make me even make brain foggy and derealization-feeling than usual. My memory gets worse than usual when I'm around fluorescent lighting.
I'm constantly tired all the time. Like extremely tired. For years.
I am a redhead but everyone calls me a blonde because I have so many "blonde moments." I'm intelligent, but I look so stupid to everyone because I suddenly can't think of the word, "restaurant" while talking to them, or I notice that a pole barn is being built right beside the store I'm working at (weeks after it's standing). I'm clumsy...I trip, walk into the sides of the door entrances often, wake up with bruises often and I can't remember how they got there, lol.
I have trouble driving because there's so much going on, and I can only seem to notice and focus on what's going on in a tiny tunnel of my vision, lol. (And it has nothing to do with my eyes, 20/20 vision.) I have to remind myself "green means go" and "red means stop" because I truly have trouble remembering each time, and I'm afraid I'll run a stop light.
When people are telling me how to do something, I nod my head, but I truly don't understand what they're talking about. Life seems so easy for everyone, but everything is so hard for me.
After a trip at Walmart, I feel completely mentally and emotionally exhausted, depleted, back aching from the stress. I feel numb emotionally, and so brain foggy that it's harder for me to drive. It's like I'll get so mentally exhausted that my judge of distance will be harder.
Most of my symptoms started in 8th grade tho (besides the repetitive behaviors, and anxiety). Some days, the lightning would look different (and my mom would tell me it was blood sugar)...but then one day, the lighting permanently stayed different (where life feels unreal).
I developed normally as a baby. I was always at the top of my class in elementary and middle school, but I started actually struggling in high school when I became homeschooled. I couldn't focus EVER. I'd stare at a book and realize I'd been moving my eyes over the same paragraph for an hour and I still didn't understand what I had read.
Starting in 10th grade, I had religious OCD without realizing it. I thought everyone else just wasn't taking Jesus seriously enough. I read the Bible all day and prayed along day, refused to hang out with family so I could spend time with God. I memorized SO much scripture, I feel comfortable, to this day, debating any pastor on certain theological views.
My passion before the Bible, was aliens and supernatural stuff. I researched it and talked about it all the time. I even tried seeing if I could heal people and animals, move objects with my mind like I was reading that people could supposedly do online.
Now my obsession is trying to figure out what is wrong with me! Do I have Aspergers? Is it just OCD and anxiety? Do I have tourttes or tics, or are those Asperger-related repetitive behaviors (stimming), or just slightly abnormal soothing behaviors that everyone secretly does in some form?
I used to love dressing up in tight fitting clothing and wearing painful heels. But the past couple of years, I ONLY wear jeggings that are stretchy, and lose shirts (where it doesn't touch the armpits cause I perspire so easily and it's uncomfortable). I also can't stand lace on my back or tags as I itch. J
Thank you for reading this far! If you think I have Aspergers, do you know why it seems like more things are getting worse as I get older? Like, I never used to have difficulty with wearing uncomfortable clothing; now I only wear a few outfits that I find comfy. Aren't sensory issues supposed to be present from childhood?
Please let me know if this sounds like Aspergers or something else. Thank you!
