Post ONE fact about yourself (and your asperger's)

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I could read newspapers when I was 3 but have the maths ability of an 8 year old.

Im pretty convinced that both my mother and father have autism of some degree. Double whammy!

I've been living with AS since once I came out from a river in my childhood.

When I was even younger I liked singing and playing with tape recorders. At that time I was able to remember the lyrics of the songs although I wasn't able to fully understand them.

I also enjoyed breaking up small electricity-driven devices such as tape recoders, clocks, and I also liked playing with (without taking) all sorts of medicine.

When I grew up I came to computer science and since I entered the junior high school maths has been one of my favorites. (Now) In school I'm good at maths and English, average at biology and physics, and bad at Chinese language arts and chemistry.

I begun to learn to become more social when at the end of 15 (soon after I entered the senior high school) but now I'm still not as skilled as I hoped to be.

I can easily remember some people's birthdays and voices but it's rather difficult for me to recall the faces of those who are new to me. I can also replay or sometimes create music in my head.

I heard of Asperger's Syndrome several days ago from a television program introducing Mozart. Then I found myself also an instance of AS.

I have mild AS, i find eye contact quite hard.

I'm composer.

When I hear music, I see the scores in front of me - I also can name a tune if I hear it.

I'm self diagnosed, somewhere on the spectrum, HFA or AS maybe, and have lived a semi-normal life already, at 50, not knowing exactly what was different about me, but always finding some of the "silliest" things difficult to cope with.

My mind is pictures, both sights and sounds and visual/aural info is intermingled and gets mixed up sometmes, but usually I can call up a remembered picture and literally re-read things with amazing accuracy. People think I have some type of photographic elephant memory or something, but truly I just re-examine pictorial representations in my mind and the words come out right most of the time.

I have learned that many of my social challenges have come from sensory integration problems and wearing my feelings on my sleeve. That's one VERY bad combination.

I eat very boring and bland foods, no salt/spices; my tastebuds are stuck on max! Garlic/Onions, forget about it...

I dont like to be in a crowd.
I dont really like eye contact.
I love playing basketball alone and practicing my jumpshot.
I love quiz shows.
I joined school spelling bees a lot when I was younger.
Im 26 but I feel like Im 10.
Im not 100% sure if I have AS.

I'm not entirely sure I have/am Asperger's...

Things that "fit":
- Obsessive special interests as a child.
- Loner, very un-social as a kid. Now I've started to "get" a lot about social interaction, up to a certain point. Still find social situations enormously draining.
- Perfectionist. Have to stop myself from smashing stuff and starting all over again if something goes wrong.
- Love patterns/regularities etc. Sometimes dream of abstract patterns. Serves me well in my work.
- Motorically extremely clumsy.
- Finding myself quickly "overloaded" sensorically in situations where a lot is happening at the same time, such as traffic.
- High pain barrier, but hideously sensitive to soft touch. Like "rough" touch a lot more.
- Obsessive anxieties. Usually "what-if" scenarios running wild in my mind.
- Have a tendency to withdraw in my own mind. Building elaborate imaginative worlds there. Also, I often find I'm carrying on a different conversation than the group around me, and am inserting information relating to what I want to talk about, rather than what the rest is talking about.

Things that do not "fit"
- I like some measure of routine, but not to the point of obsession or ritual.
- No problems with eye contact. Though when I was younger, people complained a bit about my stare.
- To a big extent, I "get" social stuff, and can even do a bit of small talk, though I don't enjoy it very much. I think my social asperger issues were much more pronounced in the past but they are hidden more "deeply" now.
- I only every now and then find myself interpreting something literally which was not meant literally.
- I do not have special, obsessive interests at the moment to the extent I had them as a kid. I still have obsessive tendencies (including anxieties), and can focus very well on my work.

PS To Romana: I like it you mention Process Philosophy/Theology. It might start to become a special interest for me: I notice I am steering conversations with people in that direction Somehow I succeeded including Whitehead and process in my Ph.D. manuscript on a linguistic subject - basically just because it fascinates me and I have a tendency to try and "synthesize" all kinds of stuff.

Random Fact:
I've coasted through life. I've made it to grad school, and will finish in 2 weeks, but I've never put more than the minimum effort into studying. So often times, I see myself as a failure. I've no amazing math abilities or xray eyes, just a lot of social problems.

Random fact:
I hate it (the feeling I get, not you people with skills) when I read about people with AS having skills I envy. That be: high IQ, programming, math, physics, rote memory, language..........

Random fact, people on history forums often ask me what universities are good and where I got my education, but I am a highschool dropout (though I do visit the university library often)

I've made much progress in my personal development, but sometimes I'm still very naïve about how people will respond to things I say or do.

When I went outside tonight to walk with my dog it was dark and silent, no one on the street, only sounds far away and I felt a mild wind and I felt intense peace. I wish I could bottle that peace for worse times.

I'm a psychology/neurology freak and can lecture anyone into the ground.

I'm also an incredible artist (2-D). I'm minoring in art and love torturing all my art professors with the fact I'm not a major and won't be going on to graduate school and making art my life. One of my art professors continually asks me if I'm going up for Major Acceptance Review every semester, as though somehow by him forgetting, my major will miraculously change.

Instead, I'll be going on to graduate school to get my PhD in Experimental Psych and do research.

I'm one of the most anal (if not the anal) people in the art deparment. The stereotypical "artist" personality with all its care-free disorganization drives me I-N-S-A-N-E.