Hello, all. I am here because I'm curious about Asperger's. And because, though he hasn't been formally diagnosed, my boyfriend has a pretty clear cut case. But the more I learn about autism, the more suspicious I become that I'm facing a lot of the same problems he is.
Certainly my mother always thought my father and I were both "mildly" autistic. We've learnt to compensate for our shyness and various social ineptitudes, and I've got to the point where I can even be 'very gracious' in social situations, but I don't really like social niceties and I'm always eager to avoid them. Without exception, my close friends are people who find things like small talk and pleasantries a waste of time and would rather discuss, well, things that are real. I don't have many, and I don't really have acquaintances. I prefer either to be bluntly open about myself or to communicate nothing at all, and for the longest time I was very unclear on what was or wasn't appropriate to reveal. I still make people uncomfortable on occasion.
I recall being incredibly clumsy as a child. Any attempt at learning a sport would lead to bruises. I still can't ride a bike or catch a ball and I understand this might possibly be a symptom. And of course I was clumsy socially. I didn't know how to approach other people my age and would always come on too strong, asking "Let's be friends!" instead of letting a friendship develop at its own pace. I was obsessed with birds and it was very difficult to get me to talk about anything other than ornithology, and it always surprised me that the other children in my class didn't have some particular subject they were just as keen on, because I thought that was how all humans worked. I would also become frustrated with them because they didn't understand me; I preferred using long words and was unwilling or unable to tone down my vocabulary. I preferred the company of adults, partly because they weren't so unpredictable and partly because I grew up in an academic environment, where nearly everyone had some particular subject they could hold forth upon for hours on end. I remember my father and I used to lecture each other; he would talk about geology for a half hour straight and then I would regale him with more information about ducks or thrushes or finches than he ever wanted to know. I always became excited when I had a listener, and would get progressively harder to shut up.
Even now, I remain obsessive. I have a habit of becoming very focused on whatever it is I am doing. I write poetry and can niggle over a single word for half an hour, and become very agitated, even irate, if I'm disturbed. I'll persist until the thing is finished, forgetting to eat and studiously ignoring other sensory inputs. I'm the same way if I'm learning about something that interests me. My current obsession is medieval architecture and I don't like being pulled out of a book of it. I feel an almost violent sensation when my train of thought is derailed; it's the mental and emotional equivalent of being shoved, and I somehow feel as if someone is impinging on my personal space.
Personal space is something I'm very particular about. I don't like to be touched. I abhor crowds because there's so much sensory input, so much noise and so many disparate emotions from so many people, and not least because someone brushes up against me sooner or later no matter how hard I try to avoid it. I know it isn't intended as a slight, but my instinctive response is anger.
There are many things that most people take in stride but that can suddenly make me snappish, or simply fed up. I dabble in sarcasm and irony but generally don't like joking around; I just see no point to it and feel that it wastes an inordinate amount of time. I prefer people to say what they mean instead of beating around the bush and trying to be delicate. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to be social and get miffed if friends call up or ask me how I'm doing, though I know there's no way they can tell precisely what state of mind I'm in. I've even been known to hide from people I know if I'm out on the street and not prepared to exchange pleasantries.
But on the other hand, I've never had a problem sympathising with people. I do genuinely like people... it's just that their moods and complexities can be too much for me sometimes. I suppose I could easily find a doctor who would diagnose me with Asperger's and just as easily find someone who would not. The symptoms flummox me because they don't seem clear-cut at all. I'm curious to hear what others think.
20 May 2008, 7:10 am
