Greetings! I'm in my mid twenties and I am pretty sure I'm an aspie (haven't been diagnosed officially but considering going to a local specialist.) A lot of the online test things show that I am super-heavily leaning on the non neurotypical side of traits. I've been living on my own trying to figure out/finding out a lot about myself... and there have been lots of frustrating discoveries!
So I'm trying to learn/deal with the way I am. My favorite area of study and interest is primarily music. I play piano, drums, bass, and guitar and love to learn/figure out and also make music. A thing I love is that I get lost listening to music - I love dissecting how songs are put together and picking out what each instrument is doing in a song. I've been learning for a good ten or eleven years and the passion is still the same!
My initial suspicions of being an aspie had to do I was looking up things that make people hyper sensitive to certain things, like taste of food. Now I have an extremely picky taste of food which always tortures me! I hate going over people's houses for dinner because I don't like 95% of the stuff on the table! But amongst when reading about what could cause picky tastes, I ran into asperger's syndrome symptoms. It was like reading my stats in a video game!
I have huge social anxiety in groups of like five or more and have a hard time making friends with people. That being said, I do have a group of four or five friends whom I've known for well over ten years are some of the closest people in my life. And I have a very loving family that knows how I am and usually has an easy time understanding me patiently. I don't know if they think I have asperger's though. The crappy thing is that when it's time for all of the friends or family to hang out, the people I am very comfortable with in small groups are suddenly very uncomfortable to be around! I am also really close with my family, but I have a really hard time living with people at the same time. Immediate family occasions are the longest I can be in a big group of people, but it is only for a few hours at best. Then I have to withdraw somewhere else to read or something. What stinks is I really love to be with some people, but when there are a lot of people I find it hard to be around long periods of time - even if I was best friends with everyone in the room!
I get a bit upset because I daydream a lot and forget a lot of things at work. I have a hard time focusing on what I want to do! I have a one track mind that is always jumping tracks! I think a part of being in public is that I zone out into my own little world to escape from being in a socially uncomfortable situation. But that makes me forget about what I'm currently occupied with! That and I have a hard time at home focusing on doing one thing. I'm trying to teach myself to focus on doing one thing by trying to have fun playing a single video game! I said "Okay, I'm going to just play this video game when I get home, there's not reason I don't want to play it!"... but I end up doing everything but that!
I think some people I know would be surprised to hear I had asperger's (though I'm not entirely certain at this point.) I hate crowds of people but at the same time I love being a goofball sometimes and making people laugh. I hate the attention I get from it but at the same time I love doing it because I simply love to get a good laugh going. So because of my weird fake extrovertive persona I adapt when going into "entertainment" mode, I am very shy when it comes to actual communication. I think some people are surprised when they find out I am very introverted because of my fake extrovertive way of being ridiculous. I do function a lot better at work then I did when I first started working because I have to look at my interactions with people as some weird "acting" I have to put on in order not to seem rude and aloof. I can small talk but it still feels insincere most of the time, and I do it mostly for the other person's sake when I do (hopefully they appreciate it!) I just imagine I'm some character in some in between scene in a movie or a video game and it makes it easier, haha.
Blah blah blah anyway. I could rant forever about these things. But I'm glad to see there are some people out there that share more then just a few of my little quirks. My other interests are reading books and playing video games. I actually watch very little TV now though I probably watched too many cartoons when I was a kid. I really wish I could find a job making music or playing music, but these things have to sort out over time I guess. Nice to meet you all.
07 Aug 2011, 10:42 pm
