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Other behaviors/conditions associated with AS

L

Le Roche

Active Member
Curious to know if anyone has dealt with these:

Pica- basically eating non-food items. I was heavily afflicted by this as a child. I would mostly eat paper, usually tearing the corners off the pages of my books. Occasionally I would eat stuff like pencil erasers, staples, plastic pen lids, sticky tack and loose threads from my blue jeans. I did this from the ages of about 6 to 11, but cut it out after extensive scolding from my parents.

Misophonia- I've only recently discovered that there's an actual word for an aversion to the sound of someone eating, snoring, coughing etc. My main issue is eating noises. My flight sets in hardcore when I can hear anyone chewing/slurping their food or when someone talks to me with food in their mouth; I have to leave the room. For me personally, there is a large amount of guilt associated with this issue because people think I'm overreacting. Snoring bothers me a great deal as well, but it's not as bad because I sleep with ear plugs. I have had this aversion as long as I can remember and it has intensified in the past few years.

Skin picking- A terrible lifelong habit. I don't make myself bleed, but my face is scarred as a result. This behavior intensified when I was abusing crystal meth, now I do it when I'm stressed out.

There are a few other things I'm curious about, but these are the ones that interest me the most as I've never met anyone else who has issues with this stuff.
 
I am a skin picker, but I almost exclusively pick my feet. Like you stress is the main trigger of this behaviour. I will often pick until I bleed, and my feet look horrible as a result.

I also used to peel the skin off of my lips and eat it. Thankfully I never scared myself.
 
Yes snoring drives me crazy I wear earplugs when my husband starts,also I hate heavy breathing which I feel bad because some people cannot help it,also someone who makes loud chewing noises while they eat can get on my nerves.
 
well the sking picking, is like nail biting, it as a name dermatillomania our escoriation disorder. I dont think it as to do, with As but I could be wrong. If you dont know about dermatillomania, you can go on youtube, there are tons of vídeos about it... if you dont know about it already :)
 
OMG, the more I read through this forum the more I see of myself. Misophonia, that's not even in my dictionary but it's a definite trigger for me. The sound of people eating, slurping and chewing really gets to me and it's all I can hear and think about until it stops or I get up and leave the room.

I too am a life long skin picker, mainly around finger nails.
 
Trichotillomania is defined as a self-induced and recurrent loss of hair.

Looking on wikipedia I found the term for what I do. Trichotillomania: defined as a self-induced and recurrent loss of hair. I like to have some form of facial hair, light beard or goatee usually. But when the hairs reach a certain length, I'll begin to pluck them out, one at at time. I've gotten skilled at spreading it around enough so as not to cause bare patches, and if I keep things trimmed short, I won't do it. It has to be of a certain length or it fails to give the desired sensations. If it gets bad, sometimes when working at a computer for long periods I'll really go at it, then I need to shave it off.
 
Fellow skin picker here, I bite and pick my lips almost constantly. It doesn't bother me, aside from not being able to wear lipstick, but I've had a dozen people try and get me to quit by either telling me to stop when I do it or smacking my hand down.
 
I skin pick a bit, though I'm trying to stop. I developed the habit because I was incredibly bored in my classes and couldn't sit still during lectures. I don't deal with pice and misophonia, but my brother has. He eats things like napkins and drinking straw wrappers. He also can't stand to be around half eaten food. It's a miracle if we can get him to stay with the rest of the family for all of dinner without walking away.
 
I used to eat paper when I was younger and I am also a skin picker and I nibble the bits of skin next to the fingernails.

One of the sweets that I used to eat as a child was a chewy strawberry bar wrapped in paper and used to eat it with the paper wrapper on.

I'm not sure if I have misophonia but when I hear people eating I can't focus on anything else but the noises coming from their mouths (sometimes I hear myself eating and it bothers me) but I just have to try and be rational.
 
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I also had pica as a child. I had no idea it was related to autism in any way. I ate playdough, paper, grass. Lots of weird things.

I also have misophonia and up until just today I had no idea there was a name for it! It turns my stomach to hear someone chewing, and hearing a cough usually is just so loud and obnoxious that it bothers me greatly. My S.O snores and I have to put pillows over his head or fluff his pillow in the right way to make it stop, some nights we have to sleep apart or I won't get any sleep at all.

I'm also a horrible skin picker! I spend a good hour a day picking at my face. :/
 
Thanks for the replies, guys! I should've specified that I have no idea if any of these behaviors ARE actually spectrum-related, but knowing that some people have had similar experiences is a step in the right direction for me.
 
Mesophonia is a prodoct of hypersensitivity and skin picking is a form of stim. I'm not sure how pica fits with the core symptoms of ASD, but it also seems to be relatively common.
 
Le Roche said:
Curious to know if anyone has dealt with these:

There are a few other things I'm curious about, but these are the ones that interest me the most as I've never met anyone else who has issues with this stuff.
Click to expand...


Just perusing the Internet, they all appear to be comorbid conditions one can have with Aspergers Syndrome. Clearly you're not alone. But no, they aren't my comorbids (chronic clinical depression, social anxiety, OCD).

http://www.myaspergerschild.com/2010/10/aspergers-children-and-pica.html
http://www.misophonia.com/resources/letters/research/
http://www.trichstop.com/trichotillomania-and-autism
 
I sometimes pick at my hair - I make conscious effort not to do so, not only because its an unsightly habit, but because it can be unhealthy (increasing risk for infection or just causing uncomfortable scabs if I'm not careful).

Other than that, I don't know what this is (maybe you guys know), but sometimes sound gets garbled. It's not that I don't hear well, it's that sometimes the sound reaches me in a way that I interpret wrong, or might not interpret at all. Like I can't count how many times I've heard something like a ceiling fan, but mistook it for someone calling my name. I'll sometimes put on subtitles, much to the confusion of my family. And following conversations with three or more people involved? Can be difficult.
 
granolaturtle said:
Other than that, I don't know what this is (maybe you guys know), but sometimes sound gets garbled. It's not that I don't hear well, it's that sometimes the sound reaches me in a way that I interpret wrong, or might not interpret at all. Like I can't count how many times I've heard something like a ceiling fan, but mistook it for someone calling my name. I'll sometimes put on subtitles, much to the confusion of my family. And following conversations with three or more people involved? Can be difficult.
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I have the same problem. I'm not sure if it's part of aspergers or APD.

http://www.ldonline.org/article/5919/

http://m.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/ears/central_auditory.html
 
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granolaturtle said:
Other than that, I don't know what this is (maybe you guys know), but sometimes sound gets garbled. It's not that I don't hear well, it's that sometimes the sound reaches me in a way that I interpret wrong, or might not interpret at all. Like I can't count how many times I've heard something like a ceiling fan, but mistook it for someone calling my name. I'll sometimes put on subtitles, much to the confusion of my family. And following conversations with three or more people involved? Can be difficult.
Click to expand...
That's part of Sensory Processing Disorder, a common comorbid of ASD. SPD accounts for many aspergic traits, such as: poor motor coordination, sensitivity to certain textures, and an aversion to public spaces, and that's just for starters.

I personally have the same issue with listening to multiple people in a conversation. I hear the sound, but my mind can't make sense of it. The same thing happens if I am trying to listen to someone and there is a radio or TV on in the background.
 
Picking at my face is a really bad habit of mine. I never had acne as a teen, but when I started college, it came out of nowhere and was so difficult to keep under control that I considered trying Accutane. Ten years later and I still deal with it, though it has thankfully calmed down a lot. That is interesting about the chewing thing. While I have never had to leave the room because of it before, I will turn the TV up more than I usually would while eating and watching TV with my roommate and/or friends.
 
I plucked hairs as a kid, I still sift for loose hairs. Some picking but not much. Question, is the ability to spot loose hairs on someone from a distance an ASD thing? I'm legally blind, but have eagle vision when hair is involved!
 
EricD said:
I plucked hairs as a kid, I still sift for loose hairs. Some picking but not much. Question, is the ability to spot loose hairs on someone from a distance an ASD thing? I'm legally blind, but have eagle vision when hair is involved!
Click to expand...

OK, this is weird, but time to come clean. I still pluck hairs, if I have facial hair of a particular length I will start to pull them out, so I keep it trimmed when I grow a beard. But here is the weird part, I look at other guys with long beards and wonder how they can resist plucking them out.
 
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