Diagnosed as an adult: What were you like as a child?

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I'm sure I'm not the only one who's read them.

Haha, you never know!

Some of those stories about your experiences with birthday parties were pretty heartbreaking though. And I can relate to taking things personally, like when you got the broken lollipop!

I'm kind of like the others... Diagnosed with ADD and Auditory Processing Disorder prior to 1990, but it never really fit right. Doctors described me as quiet, lost in my own thoughts, and low self-esteem and low vocabulary which they blamed on my mother having too many children (whatever....I love my siblings....even if it is sensory overload anytime we all get together!! !). Delayed walking, delayed talking, poop flinger, sleeping issues as a baby (used to trace the animals on my sheets instead of sleeping...mom got me plain white sheets after that), LOTS of difficulty in school with learning letters, colors, shapes, sightwords, math facts....and it took me ALL of kindergarten to understand the concept of writing numbers....you were supposed to write 0-100 then 101-200, etc on up to the thousands....I kept writing 0-100 over and over and over again all year!! ! Social problems most of my school years.... Ritalin did help some with the academic and social issues, but I was always socially behind. I HATED shopping and trying on clothes....major sensory issues with tags and fabric!! Sensory overload every day after school in junior high (I don't think hormones helped). I think that's most of my childhood. On the bright side I was a sensory seeker most of the time so that helped...and my flat affect is a smile....which works most of the time (unless someone tells you that someone died....that doesn't go over very well....) (see what I mean? I almost always use smiley faces....even when typing!! !)

From the ages of 5-10 or so, I used to get bored a lot if I was not at home, I hated having to go places. I used to act very strangely to say the least. I rolled around on the floor and made noises and such because I was so bored, and it didn't matter what situation it was. I also used to make animal noises for fun, but only in my own house while no visitors were around. This behaviour stopped at about the age of 9 or 10.

Infact, funny story looking back when I was about 8 or 9. My older sister who was 14 or so at the time went to see a psychologist with the family as she was going into some teen help program, because she had issues with depression and self harm. Anyway, during the interview/evaluation sort of thing, where the whole family was included, I didn't understand what was going on and I wanted to go home, so after 20-30 minutes I became incredibly bored and started rolling around on the floor and making weird noises (out of boredom). Looking back, I bet the psychologist thought something was wrong in our household haha.

My parents said that I was extremely excited to go to school, but after the first day I hated it, and said that I didn't learn anything because it was all far too easy. They said I was extremely disappointed, and had expected to learn something. The dislike of school definitely stayed true for all of my schooling years, aside from the middle of Primary School. In high school, essays were always one thing I hated. I loved writing, but teachers taught essays as needing to have a structure with 'exactly' this many paragraphs, and 'exactly' this many references and 'exactly' this many repetitions. It confused me, because having the same layout for EVERY single essay gives very little variety and gives little to no room for refining. It's just the same thing worded differently. I did enjoy creative pieces though, where I was able to write what I wanted in my own way.

Another one that I always had, and continue to have is 'horrible' hand writing, as well as difficulty with knots and ties and such. Tying shoes was a major problem, I didn't catch on with how to do that until early-mid high school. I usually never tied my shoes, I just left them tied how they came and slid my foot into them.

There were also other situations where I didn't understand people's feelings. One example is when someone was telling me about their sister who'd passed away. I was curious, so I kept asking questions about her (what she was like and such) and they continued to answer. It was clear that they were getting visibly upset and wanted me to stop talking about it, but at that age I didn't catch those obvious signs and continued to ask questions. My sister who heard the conversation told me that it was very rude and that I should have stopped talking about it, but I was completely confused because no-one had asked me to stop talking about it at the time.

That all sort of changed around the age of 11-13 due to bullying and general peer neglect, at the start of high school. I became much less social and basically built a shell. I started to avoid social contact and learned to keep to myself. To this day I continue to keep to myself a lot, and I prefer not to give my opinions in almost all cases, the exception being if it has the capacity to help someone or is required of me.

Sounds about right :@

Little kid = was worst
Kid = same
Teenager = same

No point explaining how I was; read the DSM.

I was severely autistic and non-verbal until I was 5. At 4 the diagnosis autism was given, together with very high intelligence.

When I start talking, my intelligence became even clearer. I was nonverbally extraverted. I started to smile when people looked at me. Unfortunately, I also attracted bullies, so I stopped smiling when people looked at me. I had strange interests and I endlessly talked about it with others. I didn't check whether they are interested. My socializing slowed down due to being bullied. I was very serious and behaved like a "little professor". I harshly criticized others when they broke the rule.

I didn't trust people when they were friendly. Their friendliness could well be fake.

Talking about teenager life and during my young-adulthood, I never understood girls and women. They told me I am very attractive: slightly skinny, pretty face and kissable lips and tall. But I never managed to seduce a girl. Later on - in the same way - I never managed to seduce a woman. When I am so pretty, why are girls and - later on - women a problem? So, if a woman shows interest in me, I may notice that, but... I will ignore her, even if she is very pretty. Showing interest is not the same as being interested. Showing can be faked, being can't.

I think I wasn't much different to what I'm like now.

Still lost, still alone, still trying to find a way.

Nothing much has changed except I do talk a bit more now and I do try and think about how I feel and how I might be making other people feel.

It's hard for me to say because I don't have people in my life who can tell me what I was like as a child so I presume I've just always been like I am now but just a smaller version.

I was considered very sensitive. I screamed and cried when I heard loud noises (such as the vacuum cleaner) or saw things that looked scary to me (including the drain in the bathtub which I was sure led to some sort of evil underworld). I was very anxious, and easily overwhelmed. I learned to read when I was 2 years old, and was almost always seen reading. I was a serious sensory seeker and loved nothing more than I loved rocking on my rocking horse, or swinging on our swingset!

I think one reason I didn't get diagnosed is because people still didn't really know about Aspergers. Also, my parents were very strict. I am definitely not saying that autism is caused by parents who aren't strict enough! What I mean is that, for a child who was sensitive and easily intimidated, that knowledge that I was NOT to cause any sort of inconvenience to anyone or make any sort of spectacle of myself, was enough to keep me quiet and toeing the line at school. When I did get in trouble for some minor infraction... for instance I remember in kindergarten for some reason I took a handful of paste and smeared it on a friend's shirt... I was terrified and upset, and tried to hide it from my parents. I saved my worst behavior for the comfort of my home, although even there I always ran the risk of a spanking. It is also worth noting that many people with Aspergers are very serious about following rules, which made me even more careful about staying out of trouble.

The behaviors that DID get noticed were my lack of organizational skills, the difficulty I had learning certain things like math, and my tendency to space out and forget what I was supposed to be doing or miss information given by teachers. But they just assumed I was a "space-cadet" kid. As I got older and my difficulty with social skills became more obvious, my parents and teachers just got irritated with me and assumed I wasn't trying harder. I guess they knew all of these different things about me... I had difficulty learning despite my supposedly high IQ, I had no organizational skills, I spaced out, I had zero interest in the things my typical peers were interested in, I had weird obsessions, I stimmed (back then my mom just called them "bad habits"), I was always anxious, etc, etc, etc. And they just thought they had an odd kid on their hands. It just never occured to them that I might actually have a diagnosable condition.

Hi, this is my first post! I dont have many memories from my early childhood but I do remember that I have been fascinated by minerals and rocks from a very early age, and anything that sparkled I found captivating, I once stole a diamond ring from my mums jewellery box and took it into school with me, I had no bad intentions and I was only borrowing it! because I liked the way the diamond sparkled! and and my security objects were lumps of rocks or chunks of cable sections that my dad occasionally brought home from work for me. I remember I had bed wetting problems up till about age 9 and I also remember being clumsy and not able to do certain things with the ease of my friends, simple things such as holding a knife and fork, or pens and pencils, I used to have a special rubber grip which slid onto my pens and pencils which helped me to hold them properly and my knife and fork and these strange twisty chunky plastic handles, I had to have them at school to as I had school meals, i did get teased for that, I would have got teased even worse if they knew I still needed my mum to dress me! I dont know how much of that was early signs of having A.S but from my understanding quite a lot of my problems were due to a condition called Dyspraxia which I only got diagnosed with last year along with a diagnosis of A.S, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. My mum says when I was a baby I was happy to sit with a toy and would occupy myself with it, I wouldn't play with it, I would just stare at it, for hours! And apparently I had an unusual way of moving around, I never crawled, i shuffled along on my bum! As I got older I did play but it was not imaginative play, my play was almost scripted, I planned what each toy would be doing, it was almost as if I was directing a film! I actually remember that if I was disturbed during such a game, i would always say...to be continued! There were other things to and mum was concerned but back in the 70's and 80's I do not think many people knew much about ASDs and neurodiversity, they just said she was an over anxious parent and that i was a bit "behind" eventually it was the head teacher of my primary school who noticed my peculiar behaviour at school such as always bringing in a object (a mineral or bit of cable) my inability to concentrate when I was in a larger group, occasionally disrupting the class if an aircraft flew over, at that time i had started to develop an interest in aircraft and as we have an airport close by there was always something to distract me, although it was only certain aircraft that would affect me, I could tell the type of plane from the noise and if I heard something that I was not familiar with my standard reaction would be to run from my desk to the window to see what it is, and then usually yelling about it as I got very excited! I also had a really bad habit of chewing my pens, pencils my shirt cuffs and the end of my tie! My head teacher was the first person other than my mum to acknowledge there was something different about me and he specifically mentioned it to mum, who was relieved that at last it was not just her who thought that. After that I got my own special teacher who i would have one to one lessons with, and that's when i got my specialised pencil grip and knife and fork. Even so I was still never given any diagnosis, other than having poor motor coordination skills and learning disability. I cant beleive it has taken this long to finally get a diagnosis which was last year when I was 38!

I'm 51 and I wasn't diagnosed until 15 years ago.

When I was a child, I was in and out of special schools and institutions...and my parents were told I was 'mildly autistic'...but back in the 70's not much was known about this and my parents preferred their own diagnosis of 'bad/abnormal behaviour' and punished me for it...constantly...

I was very introverted and stubborn...not playing with other kids and burying my head in books instead...I was reading Shakespeare (and understanding it) by 8 and I moved on to Chaucer at 9...

Apart from that, I would never do anything anybody asked me to do (probably more of a 'kid thing') and my parents would often find milk in the cupboard or salt in the fridge...or me making sculptures out of matchsticks or trying to translate archaelogical hieroglyphs...

Whenever they went to hug me, I would scream...and they quickly found out that if they didn't let me go fast enough, I'd sit there, bashing my head against a wall until it bled.

Still, I went on with life...not knowing much about it...

Then in my adulthood, I went though 4 jobs in one month and kept going back on unemployment benefits because I couldn't handle the workload, unrealistic demands, impatient people, multitasking, a hierarchy system, office politics, social outings etc etc...

So the Social Security Dept (Centrelink) wanted to know why this was (and why they had to pay me), so they sent me off to a psychologist and a psychiatrist, where both independently diagnosed 'Asperger's Disorder, PTSD and SPD'.

Still not happy, Centrelink had their own doctors and psychiatrists study me...and they went 'the original diagnosis is correct...this lady cannot work at all'.

I was taken off the dole and placed on a pension...that was 15 years ago.

I'm forty-three, still seeking an official diagnosis. I have two children (out of four) who have been diagnosed ASD.

Things I remember from my childhood:

1) I always wanted to talk to adults more than other kids.
2) I frequently got called a "little professor" or just "professor" by older people.
3) I taught myself to read using the Sunday funnies by age four.
4) When I saw Star Wars in 1977 my hero wasn't Luke or Han, it was John Dykstra, the man who oversaw the visual effects and invented the motion-control camera system they used to film the models. I watched the movie endlessly, not for the story but for the small visual details and patterns everywhere. I was obsessed with how they made the movie, particularly the visual effects.
5) For many years about the only thing I ever wanted to talk about was Star Wars and/or visual effects.
6) I spent most of Kindergarten without any work to do because I sat down on the first day and read the entire year's materials. By second grade I was sitting at a table by myself reading my own materials, because I'd already done the curriculum work. I was reading middle-school level fiction, and even some adult-level ficiton by that point.
7) I never had many friends, just acquaintances. In many cases I didn't realize the difference until years later.
I was always fascinated by patterns in sidewalks, in floor tiles, in ceiling panels, etc. I would look for variations and for larger over-arching patterns.
9) Always been very musically inclined.
10) I frequently got into arguments or conflicts without knowing why or how they started, especially in group settings.
11) I could never tell if people were joking with me in a good-natured way, or laughing at me maliciously.
12) I almost never knew when people were lying.

I'm in the middle of the diagnostic process at 32 years old (almost 33), as a married woman with two children. I recently spoke with my ex-stepmother regarding my earlier childhood behavior for clarification. To preface this lengthy list, I was raised in a very verbally and physically abusive household that was either phobic or cultish in its avoidance of psychological intervention/diagnosis.
1. I was called 'foghorn' by my biological mother because of the obnoxious tone and volume of my speech. I also had a speech impediment that took 6 or more years to remedy. While I say my 'R' sounds correctly now, I still have a very minor lisp.
2. I began reading before 3 (at 3 I was constructing sentences out of flash cards). In Kindergarten I was punished for locking myself in the bathroom and reading "Little House on the Prairie". In first grade, I would get timed to see how fast I could finish a book. One Babysitters Club book could be finished on a bus ride (45 minutes). My parents despaired of buying me books for holidays as I would finish a large pile in a few days, rendering their costly purchase pointless. As a high school graduate, my best graduation present was from my school's librarian, who gifted me with 30 Classic Literature books that she, and the school, had no need of. I read them that summer.
3. I have always had a fear of loud sounds. Yelling, fireworks, slamming doors, stomping, bikes, clapping, screaming, barking, etc.
4. I read obsessively, and have since a young age. It was the only 'effective' grounding for me up through high school. My father, as a compliment, likened me to Disney's Belle, both for my propensity for reading, and for living in my 'own world'.
5. My ex-stop mom told me that, as a child, when my sisters would show behavioral signs of high anxiety because of my father (one would rub her feet together until they bled), I would just "sit there and take it", and not react. As a teenager, many of my punishments would increase because they wanted me to react in some way, and when I wouldn't it made them angry.
6. I was considered argumentative.
7. I was punished for correcting adults/teachers/friends. Labeled with "Know-it-all" for longer than I can remember.
8. Monopolized the conversation, or didn't speak. I was quiet, nearly silent at home, and in classes, but on certain 'topics' I was verbose.
9. I wet my pants until I was 9. I have no recollection of actually doing this, but I remember getting in trouble for peeing, although I didn't remember doing so.
10. I learned to speak with proper cadence and variations by studying the pitch and rhythm of speech and using that to guide my own, not-unlike learning a song.
11. I memorized and repeated songs easily. Not so instructions. However written instruction is seldom forgotten (I still remember chore lists from my childhood).
12. I also repeat jokes ad nauseam until they become obnoxious. I stop once someone tells me they aren't funny any more (usually my husband).
13. I have, and always have had, little social acumen. I ask awkward questions (so I'm told), have insulted people, started fights, etc. (As an adult I manage this by not talking to people without my husband there to 'signal' me as to when to stop.)
14. I gave sermons/bible lessons/etc at an early age in church, and in school (more than once) received letters and calls to my parents to ensure that they hadn't done my work for me. At the same time, I nearly failed each grade for lack of homework.
15. Facial expression and whatnot was learned in college (not completed) where I took classes for Interpreting for the Deaf.
16. I hated then, and tolerate now, brushing my hair. I have a very sensitive scalp and skin although I do not bruise easily. I also either have to shower and bathe once or twice a day, or I will go a very long time without it because the pressure of the water hurts my skin if I am not seemingly desensitized.
17. Few food aversions, but the ones I have are mostly related to texture. Still cannot eat oatmeal, for example. Not in cookies or almost anything. Unless it is made crispy, like in granola.
18. I was exceedingly clumsy. I broke every glass my mother owned, as well as plates, bowls, and more. It became a running family joke that if something broke, Brittnie must have been nearby.
19. I was exceedingly cautious. My father loved to recount to anyone, even when I was an adult, how I was nearly 12 before I stopped riding on the 'kiddie rides' at amusement parks.
20. Frequently in trouble for missing information in school, or misunderstanding what I was told. I was grounded, spanked/beaten, and more as a result.
21. I was bullied on the bus and alienated at school. My only 'friends' were other kids either in my gifted program, or those as much of a misfit as myself. This started in 1st grade, and in 3rd my biological mother stepped in.
22. I don't know about stimming, but I have always been a nail biter. A serious one, and would move to my cuticles when my nails were bitten to the point of bleeding. I also scratch/itch, fidget, shake, tap, subvocal sounds (got me in trouble when they got too loud), teeth grinding (in rhythms) and, once I learned, I would fingerspell everything I saw, thought, or read without conscious thought from about 8 years old until about 19 when I started college with deaf adults and realized I was basically speaking out loud. The fingerspelling changed to a circular pattern at that point.

All in all, my ex-step mother (has known me since I was 18 months), said that while I was a good child, I was wearisome, difficult, and required (and received) more attention than any of my siblings. They are starting to believe me when I talk about Asperger's/Autism. Especially when the same reasons it applies to me also apply to three of my siblings, and my father. Coincidentally, the four of us with high ASD traits also experienced a much crueler upbringing than the other two. For two of us (older than the other two), the physical abuse was unbelievably worse for us than for our two starkly NT siblings, to the point that we have been named compulsive liars because they can conceive of no other rationale for the different experiences.
Sorry for the length.

Snap.

I remember crying a lot at secondary school because I frequently got scared, overwhelmed or depressed, but I was well behaved and quiet so no-one cared and they didn't bother to ask "what's wrong?" Even if they did, they wouldn't have worked out I was autistic because knowledge of mild autism was (and still is) appalling.

I've always been a quiet loner, even as a child. My interests were reading, writing, and animals. I had few friends and was prone to bullying due to my physical appearance and social awkwardness.

Overall, I did well in school. My second grade teacher wanted me to go to a gifted school, but my mom never followed through. To this day I wish she would have. Academically, I did the worst in 3rd and 4th grades. Both teachers bullied me along with my classmates. It was hell.

I was very bad at sports, hated gym, and was always chosen last in gym class. I hated recess and spent my time wandering alone. I daydreamed a lot. I actually had a hard time being present in the real world. I preferred being alone in my own little world or reading.

I also had lots of GI issues and some sensory issues. I hated turtle neck sweaters, tights, socks, and some name tags. Often, I bit my nails until I bled. Some foods such as eggs, hot dogs, and bologna made me gag. I still have these same food and clothing aversions. I've always hated loud noises, too.

At the age of 14 I started cutting myself mostly in response to being bullied. As a result, I spent a lot of my high school years in and out of psych wards. None of the many therapists and psychiatrists that I saw suspected that I could be autistic. They thought I was purposely being difficult. They referred to me as separating myself from others and being manipulative. They told me everything was my fault. A few therapists referred to me as socially awkward and not being mentally present in my environment. I was medicated against my will with various antipsychotics, sedatives, and mood stabilizers.

During this time I was still being bullied at school and I truly couldn't understand what I was doing wrong. I was so frustrated and angry with myself. I remember begging my peers to call me, asking them to go out with me, and asking them why didn't boys like me (I wanted a boyfriend).

The therapists and psychiatrists did so much harm. Prior to going to them I was content with being a loner and didn't even realize having no friends was abnormal. After going to them I felt so awful about myself. I frantically tried to make friends but had no idea how.

I never dated until I was 28. I met my first date, now my husband, online. I find getting into relationships especially hard. I don't understand the nonverbal skills that are required. I've read books and articles but have never been able to successfully implement it.

Career wise, I tend not to fit in at work and am oblivious to office politics. Sometimes, co workers yell at me, call me names, or boss me around. I'm not afraid of them; I just don't always know how to reply. I've had a few melt downs at work. I learned how to act more "normal" by observing others. Work is so stressful to me that I can only do it part time.

Hi! I don't have an official diagnosis, but I have serious concerns that I may have Asperger's. I've talked online with a few people and taken the various online quizzes (all put me in the range for Asperger's), and I'm trying to get more information/insight from other people because I know that it's different for other people.

As a kid, I didn't really have friends. My first and only real friends until I entered higher levels of schooling were my older cousin (3 year age difference) and an adult neighbor with relatively high functioning mental retardation. I preferred reading to interacting with others and I was reading and writing, handling basic numbers and simple math before preschool. In middle school, the bullying stepped it up to a new level (guys were daring and paying each other to be nice to me/flirt with me and girls were faking friendship until they could publicly embarrass me (almost Carrie levels of embarrassment. I got the tack on the seat, gum in my hair, stolen school supplies, you name it). I made a small group of friends in high school, but I didn't really do anything with them outside of the school unless it was a very small group and even then, I felt awkward and uncomfortable. We were the outsiders, and there was a place for everyone in this particular group.

I had a problem with outbursts. I would get violent and out of control (I stabbed my sister in the leg with a pencil once- not proud of that), throw things or break down into uncontrollable sobbing. As I've gotten older, my outbursts are less violent but they are difficult. When I get emotional, it's like my brain shuts down. My partner of five years is a very direct person; he wants to discuss the issue immediately, and my brain can't process. He "yells" at me when I don't respond to him (he says he's not yelling, but that's how I interpret his 'angry tone'). I don't do it on purpose, I just don't know how to express myself in words once I've gotten heated up. It's like I literally can't speak or form a coherent thought to express, and when I force through it, what I end up saying is a confusing mess for the other party to hear. Describing how I feel outside of the basic 'I'm angry" or "I'm depressed" is difficult for me, especially explaining why. I have a hard time distinguishing just how deeply someone else is feeling an emotion unless their reaction is yelling/outright sobbing, etc.

I fidgeted a lot; moving my feet, twisting my fingers, dancing or spinning when I wasn't actively engaged in things (and was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD in '98 because of it). Over the years, I've kind of forced my fidgeting down a bit to less obvious things like rubbing my fingers on the palms of the hand they belong to, rubbing my knuckles or fingertips across my chin or lips, twirling my hair around my fingers. When I'm really nervous (ie. interacting with my boss or speaking to large groups of people, even friends) the finger twisting comes back in full force.

I was incredibly smart, but often in trouble for not paying attention in class or not turning in assignments. The phrase "does not meet her potential" was used frequently though out my entire school career. I would read my textbooks as soon as I got them, pass tests with flying colors, but nearly fail during the year because of homework or class participation. When we were assigned group projects, I would blow my partners off and do the project by myself because I a) didn't trust the quality of their work and b) didn't want to have to interact with them.

I was always the weird kid; I didn't share interests with others, often said things that either didn't make much sense to others, had nothing to do with the topic of conversation or were inappropriate. Kids would go outside and play, and I'd read 30 year old encyclopedias or play on my own in my room, away from others (including my sister).

If the fabric isn't soft or very tight fitting, it bothers me. Tags definitely bother me (thankfully a lot of companies I buy from have started printing tag info right onto the fabric itself), and I cannot stand scratchy fabrics like wool. I definitely prefer things like velvet, worn out cotton, fleece (the high quality stuff, not the lumpy fleece), silk, etc. Touching cotton balls or swabs makes my skin crawl.

I definitely have displayed age inappropriate behaviors throughout my life. As a child, I was the little grown up; bossy, resistant to interacting with kids my age because adults were more interesting, even if I didn't understand their conversations. As I've reached adulthood, its the opposite. I have very little interest in adult things, preferring to read teen fiction, watch cartoons, and engage in adolescent activities (coloring, playing with stuffed animals, etc). I still sleep with my baby blanket, teddy and baby doll from my early childhood, as well as the first comforter from my "big girl bed", Thomas the Tank Engine. I was COMPLETELY obsessed with TtTE as a kid (I had every vhs tape, all of the metal train figures, plushies and even an actual working train set). I still have most of the stuff (I haven't been able to bear parting with them even though I'm no longer obsessed). Now, my obsessions are My Little Pony, Steven Universe and drag queens (I've watched every season of MLP:FiM, SU, and Rupaul's Drag Race an obscene amount over the last few months while I've been recovering from multiple back surgeries).

I've never had an issue with loud noises with a few exceptions. The loud noises that bother me the most are slammed doors (building AND car), barking, items being banged together loudly (my partner frequently taps his pipe empty directly onto the ashtray and it scares and bothers me every time, even when I watch it happen), the sound of change being poured out (that cascading metal rain sound), police/emergency sirens (I'm sensitive to the lights as well, to the point where I almost had an accident one night because it was so overwhelming that I couldn't process everything else I was seeing), airplanes flying "low" (I live within 10 miles of an international airport; the planes are low enough at this point to cause the house to vibrate and for the sound to overtake moderately volumed sounds like tv or conversation). There are smaller, more discreet noises that bother me equally as much, like the sound of people chewing, the click-clack of high heels (especially if one heel sounds different than the other), creaking doors, clinking dishes and silverware, dropping change or equally small metal bits, cracking knuckles and ticking clocks. The ticking is the worst for me because if it catches my focus and becomes incredibly distracting to the point where I can't think straight. I often end up having music or tv playing constantly to dry it out.

I can often pick out sounds that others near me don't notice. I can tell from two rooms and a closed door away when the cat opens the food cabinet (the softest little click), or when the dog in the lower apartment is scratching himself (his collar jingles and his tail thumps the floor) or a myriad of other things. It amazes my partner when I hear these things and am right upon investigation. I also have this uncanny memory for the locations of objects around me. I'll see something in passing, like a book under the bed or a random items in a drawer and then be able to tell you where the item is hours, days or weeks later when asked. My partner and roommate often use this to their advantage when they lose things in the house, haha.

I have a lot of things that I do for comfort that others find weird. I sleep wrapped up tightly in my childhood blanket, even in the heat of summer, and I prefer to have multiple heavy blankets on me whenever I can get away with it and not overheat. I rewatch cartoons (especially girl power themed ones).

When I was a kid, I would hold in my need to move for comfort until I was alone in my room. I would lay on the bed on my right side with my body perpendicular and my left leg parallel to the edge of the bed and swing my leg back and forth over the edge of the bed like a pendulum while holding my breath as long as I could and stroking this one little seam on my baby blanket. The more I'd held in that day, the longer I would do it. My mother used to worry because it sounded like I'd stopped breathing, so I learned to do the breathing part quieter. I still do this, but with less frequency (more out of a need to hide it from my partner because it's pretty embarrassing) than any actual desire to not do it as it is the thing that brings me the most comfort when I am overloaded.

I am diagnosed as BPII with OCD which is being relatively well managed by medication. It's reduced the frequency of my "outbursts", but it's not a fix for any other the other problems and "quirks" that I have. I don't know how much the diagnosis affects these behaviors, but they don't seem to have changed much over the period of my life.