I wish I could read books

[Rogue Princess]

I've got AuDHD and I can't read good

I think Zoolander had my brand of airhead autism lol. The thinking of things literally aspect amongst other things lol.

Anyway, my American friend told me he came across a book he thought I would like yesterday: Leviathans Deep. He told me he didn't get it because he knew I probably wouldn't be able to read it anyway. He knows how I feel about Leviathan and my special interest for sea monsters (including sharks and angler fish) [it's funny being sea monster girl around lady friends that are mermaid girls].
So I'm a bit depressed over the whole thing. It is upsetting and frustrating having the autistic special interests mixed with the learning disability of processing words. I can't read a book, I'm illiterate. Can't read much more than a newspaper or magazine article. I can manage short stories, fairy tales and I'm pretty much restricted to children's books.

So I label myself an airhead to avoid being called retarded or getting patronised, humiliated or pitied for having an intellectual handicap.

I'm trying to get back on Concerta or Adderall in the hopes it will help me read books, watch movies and be able to play my video games again... But they don't have any of my medical records pre 2017 because they didn't get transferred when I moved from my hometown. So I have to go through a lengthy rediagnosis process to get prescriptions for AuDHD and funding for a second support worker :-(

I want to read Hesiod's Theogony and Plato's Timeus also

That sums up my special interests... God's and Monsters

 

[Tristan_USA]

I hope everything goes well with your re-diagnoses and medication process. Maybe at some point before or after you could try audiobooks? I know I can prefer them at times.

 

[Swansong]

Yeah, that's a rough place to be in.

I don't suffer from anything specially related to attention but I suppose a life of anxiety and depression have left me unable to focus on anything, so no books, no movies/TV, even playing games is a challenge. Being alone is difficult but when you can't even distract yourself then that's something else, even just a few years back I could easily focus enough for even relative complex novels like Malazan, now my brain is just cooked.

I do find it odd that one's medical records can just be "lost" like that. I'm from a very poor country and even here you get a copy of your medical history every time you go to an appointment and most places will email you a copy if you send them a signed letter requesting them.

 

[Darkkin]

Audio books are a plentiful, easy option for those who struggle with standard books. Graphic novels are another avenue to consider, as well. Roughly 40% of the population are more visual than verbal, meaning a visual processor can get as much information from a single image as a verbal processor can get from a page of text.

 

[Rogue Princess]

Yeah, that's a rough place to be in.

I don't suffer from anything specially related to attention but I suppose a life of anxiety and depression have left me unable to focus on anything, so no books, no movies/TV, even playing games is a challenge. Being alone is difficult but when you can't even distract yourself then that's something else, even just a few years back I could easily focus enough for even relative complex novels like Malazan, now my brain is just cooked.

I do find it odd that one's medical records can just be "lost" like that. I'm from a very poor country and even here you get a copy of your medical history every time you go to an appointment and most places will email you a copy if you send them a signed letter requesting them.

It is strange. Feels like I moved to another country or I didn't exist before 2017. My GP from my hometown retired shortly after I left my mother told me he got senile one day and just stopped coming in. It's sad. He was such a good doctor. He delivered me as a baby

 

[Rogue Princess]

Audio books are a plentiful, easy option for those who struggle with standard books. Graphic novels are another avenue to consider, as well. Roughly 40% of the population are more visual than verbal, meaning a visual processor can get as much information from a single image as a verbal processor can get from a page of text.

As a teenager I read The Sandman graphic novels. Even then I struggled... I would keep missing things and have to go back a few pages.

That's what I'm like with reading... Sometimes I have to read the same paragraph 10x for it to sink in.

I'm like that with movies too. I always miss the important things and don't understand the story. I have to watch things with subtitles because of APD and I get easily distracted with SPD

Why I love Charlie Chaplin and his silent movies

 

[Rogue Princess]

I may as well be deaf and dyslexic

 

[Rodafina]

I have a similarly hard time reading. Among my family and in school intelligence was highly valued and I got pretty good at pretending and seeking praise for being “smart.”

Just like many other autistics though, I had an imbalance in my intelligence. Reading was always incredibly difficult for me, and it still is. I very rarely read books and if I do, it takes me years to finish them.

This was difficult for me to admit up until just last year, when I could finally say “reading is hard for me.“

For me, it’s a processing issue as I don’t have any symptoms of ADHD. It’s just so dang hard to get through a book. Since the dawn of audiobooks, I have almost entirely switched to those, although I still tend to stick to short format media like podcasts.

graphic novels and mental health articles are the two things that I can get through. With the mental health articles, they are often bulleted or highly organized in such a way that I can process them a bit easier.

The teenage children in my family have totally surpassed me in terms of reading skills.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

When I felt isolated, books were my escape. Through books I learned about the world, ways of living, and the human condition. My current read is A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore.

 

[Rogue Princess]

People thought I was smart at school. I excelled in math and science but I started failing in English when it stopped being about spelling and big words.

I do get praised for emotional intelligence and my insight now. It confuses me a bit because I struggle understanding empathy and having innapropriate responses. I do get in trouble sometimes.

 

[Outdated]

Reading is about the only format that I'm comfortable with. It might be partly because when I was a kid we didn't have computers or DVDs or video games, books were the only place where I could escape.

I have the same trouble as you with videos, I can watch the same movie several times and see different things in it every time. There's a whole world of youtube tutorials out there that are completely useless to me, it takes me about 45 mins to watch a 15 minute video because I have to keep replaying bits of it.

I can't do any training courses any more because instead of handing you a book with words in it they tell you to watch a video. I have that same problem processing information over the phone too, and I have to keep asking people to repeat themselves or just pretend I heard what they said. Audio books are also completely useless to me.

I communicate pretty well when I'm face to face with people though.

 

[Rogue Princess]

It's a comfort to know I'm not alone in this

AutismNZ offer education classes and have a program to help us find employment and they even help the employers learn how to deal with us. I'm planning on checking it out.

 

[Outdated]

AutismNZ offer education classes and have a program to help us find employment and they even help the employers learn how to deal with us.

I'm still waiting to hear back from one of these organisations, submissions of interest only closes today. If I get accepted they'll send me on a training course and I'll be one of those advocates talking to employers in seminars.

I hope I get it because that's something I'd really enjoy doing.

 

[Rogue Princess]

I hope you get it too.

Someone offered me a tourism job on Instagram but it turned out to be a scam. I got excited thinking I was going to show people all the beautiful places in my country

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

my special interest for sea monsters (including sharks and angler fish)

Do you dive? I enjoy seeing most sharks. One I remember was on a blue water dive with my spouse. I had to stop descending because I was getting queasy (no visual reference) and my spouse was about 25 feet below me. I watched as a 9 to 10 foot leopard shark came swimming up to her within touching distance. Usually they are too timid to approach. An elegantly beautiful shark.

Then there are frogfish, a type of angler fish that waves a wormlike appendage in front of their mouth. Here is a brilliant one I found in Sulawesi.

 

[Rogue Princess]

@Gerald Wilgus I would love to dive with the sharks one day, that's the only thing on my bucket list. (I would like to try skydiving but I'll be okay if that doesn't happen).

You're very lucky. My support worker was going to take me to Kelly Taltons to see the sharks on my birthday but it didn't work out. I wanted a new shark plushy from the gift shop too :-(

I've been on disability my whole adult life so I don't really get the chance to have the money for that kind of stuff. Just surviving.

I need a rich boyfriend to look after me

 

[Rogue Princess]

A message from my friend. I'm sad now... It sounds like the book was written for me. A Goddess, Leviathan and it being provocative. The last book I read was a romance novel about a ballet dancer in Paris (that was 5 years ago). I like provocative

 

[Misery]

What about audiobooks? They can just narrate you a story, no need to read said story.

And heck, you can do other things while that's going on (so your focus doesnt wander all over the place).

 

[Rogue Princess]

I guess it could be worth trying again... But as I said: Auditory processing disorder. A few years ago I tried Homers Odyssey as an audiobook. The words didn't really sink in but I knew the story so I didn't get so lost. I tried Aesop's fables also

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

@Gerald Wilgus I would love to dive with the sharks one day, that's the only thing on my bucket list. (I would like to try skydiving but I'll be okay if that doesn't happen).

You're very lucky. My support worker was going to take me to Kelly Taltons to see the sharks on my birthday but it didn't work out. I wanted a new shark plushy from the gift shop too :-(

I've been on disability my whole adult life so I don't really get the chance to have the money for that kind of stuff. Just surviving.

I need a rich boyfriend to look after me

I was fortunate that not knowing I was autistic, I worked to realize goals I was interested in attaining and just surviving was not in the cards for me as I harnessed my anger at life to push my boundaries. Very hard at times.