Can somebody please explain the feeling of it being right?

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Guys, I think the OP is a little bit tired of the mass psychoanalysis. Can we maybe stop doing that, please?

I don't think like that but my mother says I have OCD.

I was even diagnosed with it in 6th grade.

^This.

I don't know what it feels like to be "at peace." I'm not sure if I ever have been. Routines help me to feel a sense of control, but if something deviates, I get very agitated. But even the routines are just to keep things from getting bad - not for being good. I hate to throw in another diagnosis, but it could be general anxiety disorder. This is what I have.

Again, this type of anxiety linked to routine is typical of ASD routines. "Just right" feelings are not usually indicative of ASD routines.

I don't see what's wrong with pointing out that the symptoms they're describing aren't those of autism. This is an autism forum. Perhaps the OP is mistakenly confusing autism with OCD, or thinks they are one and the same. If we can help them understand that they're not the same, it will help them understand their problem better, surely?

It's hard to tell the difference between OCD and autism routines. I mean most of us have rituals like how we do things in certain order or like things in order and my OCD stuff has been called autism. Like always needing to shower at eight. I always had to shower at that time even on a none school night. It was my routine and I was set with it. OCD or autism?

People with autism get upset with change and isn't that a distress and anxiety? I have been told that OCD was a component with autism and I always thought OCD was basically an autism symptom where the person has routines and obsessions but they lack social and communication issues and sensory issues and lack poor coordination and motor skills and other autism symptoms. So it becomes OCD. Everyone needs a label right for their problems?

I always saw it as this, you can have poor social skills and not have autism. You can have dyspraxia and not have autism. You can have sensory issues and not have autism, but these are all part of the spectrum and you can have all these and not be on it because you lack other components. Heck you can have body movement disorder and not be on the spectrum. But it wouldn't make sense to diagnose someone with all these labels so mind as well give them one label and call it autism. But yet if they are talking about a specific trait like sensory issues, they say they have sensory processing disorder. Just like how my mom will say I have OCD when she talks about a specific symptom.

As already stated, it depends on the reason behind the need to always shower at the same time. OCD and autism may produce the same symptoms but the repetitive behaviours will be for different underlying reasons.

Aspie having shower every day at same time = because it feels nice and familiar and comforting to always do things the same way.

OCD person having shower every day at same time = because "something" is compelling you to do so.

There's also a difference in the emotions present when carrying out the routine. As someone already pointed out, Aspie routines are comforting and make us feel content. Observing the routine gives a sense of satisfaction and reassurance.

OCD routines are (so I'm told) like a curse that make you wish you could stop and just be "normal," but you can't. If you don't follow the compulsion, you feel even worse than when you do.

I guess my rituals and stuff is all OCD than autism. I do feel trap in them and would like to break out of them and it's not always easy. If an autistic person wanted to break out of them, can they do it that easily then and they feel fine and it's not stressful to change their routines just like that?

I don't have to shower at eight anymore because I trained myself to think it doesn't matter how late I shower because I am not in school anymore and I can shower anytime now because I am an adult now and make my own decisions. Me working a swing shift job got me over that.

I am suspecting I have had OCD my whole life because even as a young child I had to do things a certain way and didn't feel comfortable doing it another way. It was also my way or the highway and how other people did things was "wrong." I just had to learn to deal with it and be flexible but it was called Asperger's in the past. My mother makes OCD and autism rituals and obsessions sound the same. My psychiatrist was an autism specialist too and how could he say they were both the same? I assume he told my mother OCD was part of Asperger's because my mother says that.

Gee maybe I don't meet that part of the aspie/autistic criteria. That is why we have autism specialists because anyone can think they meet the criteria but it turns out they don't because they have other conditions that mimic it.

Maybe I am misdiagnosed with ASD and sometimes I do wonder it just like I sometimes wonder if I was truly misdiagnosed with ADD meaning I never had it. If I ever have to get retested when the new DSM comes out, I will be happy with whatever accurate label I have. But of course I will still come here but I might have NT in my profile instead and saying in my sig what conditions I have.

It's stressful at first, but once the new routine becomes familiar, it's fine. It's not so much what the routine is; it's just the fact that you have a routine at all that's comforting.

For example, here's an imaginary scenario:

If I always wear the same pair of special red slippers but one day they wear out, I will go to the shops and try and find some identical red slippers to replace them, but there are none. I will have to buy yellow slippers instead. At first, this will be unsettling and make me very upset that things are suddenly not the same any more, but after a while I will become used to the yellow slippers I now have, and when they run out, I will be upset if there are no yellow replacements and I have to buy red.

So you see, what's important is not the actual colour of the slippers. What matters is not the routine itself, but the fact that the routine remains constant. Before, I wanted the slippers always to be red, but when I was forced to switch to yellow and now I've got used to that, now I want them to go on being yellow.

As for "breaking free," well, as an Aspie I have no desire to "break free" from my routines, because I do not feel trapped by them. Aspie routines are not "rituals." The very fact that you call yours a "ritual" and talk of "breaking free" is ringing OCD alarm bells.

My routines do not control me; I control them. That's what routines are all about: controlling life and making things predictable. I decide what colour I want my slippers to be, and what to eat and what to wear and what time to have my showers. No one is telling me I have to wear a black T-shirt or red slippers. If I wear red slippers it's just because I like them so I wear them a lot and they become familiar and comforting. Whereas with OCD, it's the other way round: the compulsions are controlling YOU. The compulsion is ordering you: you must ONLY wear black T-shirts. And you have no idea why.

What happens if you do something different? I know you say it "feels right" to do it a certain way, but could train your brain to say I must try it this way sometimes or something to that effect. I do know what you mean about sometimes do something a certain way just "feels right." I do not fully understand the definition of OCD and have read that it is due to anxiety and a person with OCD may for example, have to walk up and down the stairs eight times every day before they can go outside.

I can relate. I get stressed out and feels stressful when my routine changes but then I get comfortable with it. Like at work for example. My boss with give me light work when someone is out sick or on a vacation I am familiar with and it's not something totally new. Plus he will do a walk through with me to show me so I get familiar with it and it be less stressful.

If aspie routines are not rituals, then why are they called that in the DSM and by doctors and other people?

It sounds like we are both getting different information about OCD and ASD from doctors or whoever. Strange isn't it?

I definitely don't have that. I don't have the stereotypical OCD traits like having to go up and down the stairs certain times or having to repeatedly check locks on doors or knobs on stoves or have to wash my hands over and over or not being able to step on cracks. I do say that is definitely OCD than autism. I do have moments where I don't want to step on a crack and I do get moments where I want to take a certain step before getting on the bus or when I go up the stairs. But I never have to repeat myself before doing it. It's just something I never share because I find it very private and personal. But I can break out of it or else it would run my life.

When it was first suggested to me that I might be autistic, I rejected the idea. My first thought no way can have autism, because I don't have any OCD. I still don't think I do.

For my experience with people who have OCD, it would be virtually impossible to pull them away from their obsessive compulsion. They need to be doing, what they need to do, when they need to do it. They can't help doing it, that way. Change for them doesn't seem to be an option. I can't even really comprehend the concept of OCD.

An autism routine is an entirely different thing, at least for me. If my routine is to take my shower at eight, it no big deal if I can't do it at that time. I'll just do it at nine or ten. The problem will be, that it will probably push my bedtime way back. I wont get very much sleep, and I'll be so tired the next day, that I'll have to take a nap. The nap will make it difficult for me to go to sleep the next night. Its like a domino effect. Not taking that one shower on time, ends up wrecking my entire schedule. It can take weeks to get back into my routine. Meanwhile I just shut down and don't get anything done.

At least thats the way it is for me.

Last edited by Max000 on 27 Apr 2012, 9:13 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Thats one of the side effects of posting things in a public forum. People comment on it, and sometimes the OP doesn't like the advice given.

I don't so much mind "the mass psychoanalysis", it's the mass psychoanalysis without all of the facts that bother me. None of you know me and how I am and to try to diagnose me over the internet is silly. I was asking a simple question and it turned into some of you (in my mind) telling me I don't have AS because of this post. I am not here to try to convince anybody of what I do or do not have. I am a person who has never fit in ANYWHERE and have finally found a place where I thought I could be accepted and felt very happy about that. I'm not leaving here because I truly love it here but I now know when to keep my thoughts and questions to myself.

I don't think it's really fair to discount the OP completely. I'm not diagnosed with AS yet but I can understand these feelings and can differentiate them from the feeling of enjoying routine. I also have a friend who's HFA and can also relate to such feelings. I believe it could be possible it's something some autistics experience while others don't. A wanting for routine could be the component that drives OCD minus the anxiety, but for some people on the spectrum the anxiety may not be fully removed. I know I have some OCD tendencies like checking and re-checking the locks before leaving and engaging in small rituals before doing certain things, but I did that more as a kid and the majority of those compulsions are gone now, although I still have a few. I still have a liking for routine though and can differentiate these feelings from those that go along with my compulsions. I also don't have a fear of something bad happening if I don't engage myself in rituals. I like listening to the same songs, and dressing the same way, and doing things at a certain time. So maybe the two feelings aren't completely exclusive of each other. Just my two cents.