Hello Everybody,
First, I want to say that I love the name of this site. I used to have recurring
dreams as a child that I was a human specimen in a zoo on an alien planet. I lived
in a "cage" that was modeled on a human home on earth, but the walls in every
room were transparent and all the aliens (bipedal lizard people) would come by
every day and peer in through the walls at me. Now I feel like I know why I had
that dream so often.
I'm a little new here. I browsed the forums a few years ago when I first learned
about AS. When I first started looking up the subject, I just knew, about 85%
certain, that I was on to something. I brought it to the attention of my mother
and other relatives, people who have known me all my life, thinking they would
be the best judge of whether this was a fitting condition for me. Each of them
denied it, and my mother was frankly a little hostile about it. At first I
believed she was mocking me, but now I'm of the suspicion that she felt a little
guily about it. So, I let it drop and went back to my routine of thinking I was
making it all up and trying to be "normal".
This past weekend my interest was renewed in the subject of AS when I was
talking to a woman I met at a bar. At first I was pretty closed up conversationally
as usual until the subject of AS came up. She mentioned that she had been tested
when she was young but with negative results, but that her son was diagnosed with
AS. We talked about that, and maybe it was the beer but it was like a dam had
broken and everything I had ever thought, felt, or experienced came gushing out in
our conversation. I had never connected with anybody like that in my life, and I
felt a true kinship with this woman. For the first time in my life I felt connected
to somebody, and what's more, that I wasn't alone and that I wasn't a mistake. There
were more like me out there. We talked about religion, relationships, tattoos and
quantum physics. I was blown away by how much we clicked, and although one could
argue that you could find an NT person with the same interests, it wouldn't
negate the fact that we both spoke all night barely making eye contact, and we
both preferred it that way. I wouldn't have kept talking if she had started using
body/facial language in place of spoken words at any point in our talk. It was
one of the most special nights of my life, and I will always remember her with
a great deal of admiration and gratitude. She even picked my name for me. If
you ever read this, please send me a PM. I'd love to keep our conversation going.
At present, I am signing up for benefits with the Veterans Administration and
am going to see about being diagnosed. If there is anybody from the forums with
experience with the VA or military experience with AS I'd certainly appreciate
a PM. I don't even know if they offer this test, and Google doesn't turn up
any useful results. But I want this test, even if I come up negative, just so
I can know. Just knowing that there could be an explanation for the odd parts
of my life would let me move forward with renewed purpose. And I have a cousin
of the same age who is showing signs as well, and I'd like for him to get
himself tested too.
Some of my red flags for self-diagnosis:
--I am completely unable to read face/body language. The most egregious example
of this would be a girl I knew many years ago, who after telling her I had
never had sex (I was age 19) she jumped on me, pinned me to the ground, and
had a huge smile on her face. My immediate reaction was "What the heck are you
doing?" She frowned, got off me, and we never talked about it. Five years later
I was thinking about it, and I was like "Oh, she wanted to have sex with me."
Epiphanies are fun.
--More social cluelessness: At first I take statements from people very literally.
Again, avoiding eye contact and taking a second or two to rationally determine
whether they're being literal or making a joke. Over the years I've learned
quite a few skills at masking my real reactions, and although I pass these
little tests most of the time I still slip up from time to time. And, what's
probably worse, I've always felt like a fake. I always am silent around new
people at a new job until I get a feel for their personalities, and am always
trying to mold my personality to fit what I've observed of them. It doesn't
make me happy, and often I feel exhausted just from trying to keep up appear-
ances.
--I tend to speak in precise, literal terms when describing something, using words
you might encounter in highly technical books and are never used in everyday
conversation. "Yes, there's a scientific precedent for that. It's called
quantum entanglement of photons and there have been very exciting discoveries
recently in the field." I typically keep my mouth shut around people I don't
know in order to avoid this potentially embarrassing situation, and seldom
speak to people I don't know. When I must speak, I avoid eye contact and
mentally edit everything I'm going to say so that I don't sound strange.
This tends to make me look like I'm being duplicitous, and then there are
trust issues.
--I obsess over details in life, books, movies, conversations. Things that literally
bore everybody I know to tears. In contrast, people talking about their day
or gossiping about somebody holds absolutely no interest for me.
--I've been told "I hate it when you give me that dumb look." Apparently, I have
a staring problem and my face goes expressionless from time to time when making
eye contact. This has happened many times over the years, but I just learned
to avoid making eye contact without knowing why I do it.
--There were times during my service in the army that I would blow up at superiors
for giving stupid, meaningless orders. That's really not the reaction to have
in that environment. I was sent to anger management classes, and I never had
a good explanation for my outbursts before now. It was one of the main reasons
I didn't re-enlist. Although things were fine in the army for many years, and
I took orders without question all that time, at some point I just became
obstinate and refused to deal with people I considered irrational. To this
day I'm afraid to get regular work someplace because I dread the idea of
working for somebody who could fire me for any reason, whether for substantial or
personal issues. I take odd jobs fixing peoples' computers now, but it really doesn't
pay the bills.
--I have odd emotional reactions to strange situations I don't understand. If
something really bugs me I'll spend three or four days with little to no sleep
wrestling with emotions that I have no explanation for. Eventually, after about
fifty sudoku puzzles and lots of music to keep out foreign noises my rational
mind and irrational emotions will come to some sort of understanding and there
will be peace once more.
--I get a little annoyed with people who don't understand the things I do. I've
read that a common AS trait is believing that people have the same knowledge
that I do. Knowing how to get to that third sub-menu in your cell phone to
deactivate Bluetooth seems like something everybody should know, right?
--I freak out a little in crowds, they make me very anxious. I hate going to the
store, especially with someone else because they don't want to hurry up and
get out of there as quickly as I do. I hate noises that I don't want to hear.
I'm afraid of hearing loss because I've gotten into the habit of cranking
my iPod to drown out sounds that I don't want to hear.
--The longest relationship I've had was three months, and she didn't speak
English. I think it lasted so long because we had to use fun, alternate
ways of communicating with each other.
I'm sorry if this is a little long-winded. I never share like this with anybody,
on or off the net. I just feel emboldened after that truly mind-altering talk I
had less than a week ago, and really feel like I can connect with people like
me for the first time in my life.
This seems like a good, welcoming community and I'm very pleased to be here.
Drummer
09 Sep 2010, 11:38 pm
