Hi. I'm new to the forums. Been lurking a little here and there.
I found this place searching for information on Aspie information. A few years back me and my wife moved in together and got into a new neighborhood. One day I'm out working in the garage for the first time all excited that it's summer time. Randomly this guy walks up and starts talking about cars. We get to talking and I could tell he was really excited to talk to someone about cars but he came off to me at least as pretty shy. A week went by, about the same time I'd be out working on the car he'd be going by, he seemed like he wanted to talk but sort of avoided contact, I figured maybe I offended him somehow.
One day I said hi to him as he walked by and asked if I could get his help on the car real quick. He said he wasn't sure if he was welcome to come hang out and wanted to say hi really bad but wasn't sure if he should, etc etc. I thought "Hm, that's new to me." He told me about 5 minutes later he had Asperger's. I had no idea what it was or what it meant, I asked him if he could explain, and that's how I ended up learning a little bit about it. Then I understood a little bit better.
I recall when I was growing up I always wished people had taken the time to learn more about my ADHD so they wouldn't get so frustrated with me thinking I just didn't want to pay attention. I had teachers telling me I was incapable of grasping things, but it seemed like several of them just didn't really get it. I figured "Well, this guy wants to be friends and hang out, I figure I owe it to him to at least understand this better so I can understand him better." What are friends for?
I came here to learn more about Asperger's, and also learn more about myself since I saw there is discussion of ADHD as well.
Before he told me about his syndrome, we found out we had a LOT in common with cars and computers and music. I have a crazy fascination with cars. In fact, it is my primary hobby and most of what I do once I am not working is work on cars. It has been nearly impossible for me to meet anyone locally who has the same crazy interest in mechanics and cars. I take them apart, put them together, restore them, maintain them, modify them. It calms me down and I greatly enjoy it. He enjoys cars as well, so we just sort of got along due to both being obsessed with mechanical things.
When I was a kid I was diagnosed with very bad ADHD and also other issues with learning disabilities, although I felt like I never really got a handle on all of it. I have always had a hard time concentrating on things or keeping attention on stuff, always off tangent on stuff and I'm insanely disorganized which has not changed over the years.
Medications did not seem to help, nor did i get any better. Over the past many years I have noticed that I have developed weird tics in my right hand. I don't recall tics being part of ADHD and can't really explain them. I have always had a hell of a time explaining things to people without either using analogies or my own method of explaining something. If for instance someone wants me to learn a new program, I need to understand how it works, why, and the process of things so that I can then in turn do it my own way. Even if something is step by step and has pictures, I don't always put two and two together unless it makes sense to me in a way I can see the overall picture or unless I can for some reason actually enjoy learning it otherwise I just lose interest and have no motivation to bother with it. But if someone asks me to explain it back to them I either need to make my own diagram, or my own way of doing it, and sort of have to hope they get it or perhaps show them as I explain it so they can see it from my perspective.
I find even at work often times I have a hard time concentrating on multiple things. It's kind of an office joke, though an embarrassing once, since at times I have a hard time coping with it and it still is quite a struggle. For instance, the other day a coworker is talking to me as I'm typing an email on the computer. He can tell I'm pretty much phased out and then randomly goes "And so then i started running around naked and laughed at everyone in the room." And then says "Right? Don't you agree?" i said "Yeah, sorry what?" and he told me what he said and I went "Yeah I definitely didn't catch that, I wasn't paying attention, sorry." So there are times when my ADHD kicks in that bad.
I think though, that perhaps this is why cars are fun to me. I enjoy taking things apart and learning them. I enjoy tinkering on cars and have my own method of doing things. Because of that I have wrote a lot of tutorials and stuff on auto forums I visited because I liked helping people. So my fascination with cars has always been higher and higher as time has progressed. I can read a manual on a fuel injection system and go work on a car with a little bit of work. Just last month I took the engine out of one of my cars just to do the engine out maintenance and put in a new clutch. It's just become something I enjoy doing.
Anyway... I'll stop rambling. If I don't stop talking cars I will go on forever lol. Unless there is some car fanatics here?
I'm very open minded and here to learn.
Hoping I'll learn more so I can understand my friend better, but I also see there are some resources here on ADHD and such as well, so hopefully I can educate myself a lot better with that and the other traits I'm seeing popping up as time progresses so I can also figure out "What the dealio is" lol.
/end long winded post....
19 Jun 2011, 3:15 am
