Asperger's? Or, is it just me?
If it really bothers you, then just bring the topic up to your wife plainly. Something like, "I was offended when you said such and such, because I don't agree with that statement. Here's why.... What do you think? How would you suggest I go about planning my next month? I'm open to suggestions and improvement."
If you go to your wife with that, she may actually be sympathetic give you her honest thoughts and advice, or she might just reconsider her words and apologize. Honesty is the best practice in any relationship. It can help keep resentment from building up.
But try to approach the situation in a gentle manner.
Honestly, I don't have all the details, and cannot tell who was in the wrong, or if there even was a wrong in the first place. So take what I say with a grain of salt.
This is good. I will try. I get way too emotional or something. I get all worked up when I try to talk about anything with her. It is difficult to stay calm. She has a habit of interrupting me so I feel there is not enough time to say what I want. If I can't cram everything into one sentence, we end up arguing about why we can't talk to eachother. We have only been married for three years and it feels like trying to kick water uphill.
Asperger's? Or, is it just me?
I read captions too slow. I can not watch some movies because I have to pause before the caption changes to finish reading it in time. I think too long about the words and the possible reasons for choosing them. The angles and tones of the characters. Is this common with Aspies or could I possibly have some kind of reading disorder?
I think that everybody is always doing tracking, they just misread the signals as they blend well with their own. Tracking seems just as natural as hearing music and distinguishing the instruments. No magic, just listen.
I think, you´re right.
When I am in good contact with a friend, we often call each other at the same time.
Some times, when I think of something very intensely, some people seem to pick it up:
I sat in the train one day and thought intensely of fishing- and a guy suddenly moved over to my seat and began talking about fishing as if we had been talking for a while.
Another time I was on the bus and Mozart played in my head. I was actully totally absorbed, but I looked out the window and didn´t move. Suddenly this man, who was getting off, smiled at me and whistled the same piece.
I think, we can subconciously signal our thoughts so strong, that certain others pick them up and there is really nothing strange about it, when you think of it.
We´re a species, that naturally live and move in groups. What could be more natural than being able to communicate at a subconcious level to regulate group behavior and keep the individuals together? The shared subconcious.
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Femaline
Special Interest: Beethoven
You asked "can people get detail like that from body language?" and now you're arguing that they can.
I see a natural mechanism behind distinguishing the sound of individual instruments from a mix, but I see no natural mechanism for your knowing that your co-worker was thinking about his mother, except either that it was a lucky guess or he didn't tell you the truth for some reason (I'm assuming that you told us the truth). Neurotypical "mind-reading" (as it's called) is about reading emotions, intentions and "subtext" via body language and verbal cues. The kind of mind-reading you described (ESP) is the stuff of "magic" conjuring tricks. Conjurers make money out of it because it's entertaining and impressive to see the "impossible" happen, and if people knew how it was done (i.e. what the deception was), it would be seen as natural, i.e. mundane, and they wouldn't pay to see it.
I met some spiritual mediums who said that their ability to convey messages from the dead to their surviving relatives was not a supernatural power but a natural skill that everybody has. They said they were also so used to being able to do ESP tests that the matter bored them and they couldn't be bothered to do them any more. But their apparent mediumship abilities were impressive to me, until I researched cold-reading and found a natural explanation for it. At that point I agreed with them that their mediumship skills were indeed natural, and they ceased to impress me. Thing is, their claim that they weren't doing anything magical or supernatural had something of a double-bluff about it, because they were never going to tell their audience that there was a trick behind it, so the audience would still consider it supernatural, and at the same time the mediums were coming across as unpretentious and down-to-earth.
All I get from this is your wife is mean. I don't know how long you were doing your calendar or how detailed you were. If it was like planning every meal and every minute of your day for the next 30 days it might have been taking too long for her patience. But, I don't care if you were doing that. I don't care if it was taking you all day like a full 24 hours to do. She handled it in an abusive way. If she wanted to spend time with you and thought you were to preoccupied she could have sat down with you and asked if you needed help. She could have said don't worry about all the meals on the calendar I got those. Or whatever, blowing up and storming off is never the right thing to do unless of course you said something horrible to her first like yes honey that dress does accentuate your fat.
Asperger's? Or, is it just me?
Holidays. I hate holidays. They make no sense. Espescially the egg laying rabbit that killed god with sticks, the unilateral gender coersion in Febuary, the people who celebrate independence in more fear of their own government than anything else, or, the one where you lie to your kids to embrace emotional dependency on materialism.
Tradition too. I don't say anything when people sneeze, why should I? It makes no sense to me. And can we please stop changing the clocks. WTF? Is it just me?
Uh,
your aspergers (I'll assume you have it) IS you.
if your aspergers were separate from you, it wouldn't be you.
basically, everything that is going on in you, is you.
How your body functions, how your mind functions (aspergers or not), how your immune system works, etc.
it's all one system.
So , if you have aspergers, most of the time, (like in my case), it's really hard to realize that you're acting "asperger-ish". Some people can notice easily I guess, maybe due to severity of aspergers and it's contrast to his/her surrounding environment. Some are lucky and notice it early on, or have parents that are kind and will point it out , nicely, to them.
your aspergers (I'll assume you have it) IS you.
if your aspergers were separate from you, it wouldn't be you.
basically, everything that is going on in you, is you.
How your body functions, how your mind functions (aspergers or not), how your immune system works, etc.
it's all one system.
So , if you have aspergers, most of the time, (like in my case), it's really hard to realize that you're acting "asperger-ish". Some people can notice easily I guess, maybe due to severity of aspergers and it's contrast to his/her surrounding environment. Some are lucky and notice it early on, or have parents that are kind and will point it out , nicely, to them.
Yes, I think that I get that. I love me. I see Asperger's as just another human classification that goes beneath skin color. It's just that, I've spent nearly fourty years wondering why I am different and now that there is a word for it, I wish to define those parimeters personally. It is starting to seem to me that what I am asking is foolish but I feel that I must follow my natural impulses as accurately honest as possible. I have been holding back these questions for a very long time. This discovery is new to me right now and I am just trying to get a grip on what is what. I am very excited to discover people who understand things that I was completely alone on until recently.
Asperger's? Or, is it just me?
Insomnia. I can not sleep more than three or four hours a night. My body is tired my eyelids feel heavy but when I close them, my mind just keeps going. I don't fall asleep for a long time. When I wake in the middle of the night, it just takes off in random directions until the sun shines in and I get up. Is this something shared by Aspies or is it just me?
What were you putting on the calendar? Appointment? I thought this was normal so she could have been using it against you.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
I like this quote from the book Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate to sum up how I feel about the whole "is it me, or Asperger's" question:
“Before I studied Zen, mountains were mountains, and water was water. After studying Zen for some time, mountains were no longer mountains, and water no longer water. But now, after studying Zen longer, mountains are just mountains, and water is just water.” (Ch'ing-yüan Wei-hsin)
An autism diagnosis is a lot like this. Inevitably, there is Before and After.
Before, I was me and Asperger’s was Asperger’s… I thought of [my thoughts and actions] as my own. Asperger’s Syndrome was something that described other people.
After receiving my diagnosis, I was no longer me and Asperger’s was no longer a label applied to others. Suddenly, I was Asperger’s and Asperger’s was me.
After, everything I do, say, think, feel, experience is Aspergerized…. I no longer knew where Asperger’s ended and I began.
-Cynthia Kim
Give it some time (maybe with a gentle reminder every once in a while). Eventually she'll stop seeing everything through the "Asperger's glasses" and just start seeing you as you again.
And yes, it's completely normal to plan out your monthly calendar.
My family was coming and I wanted to know what days she would take our daughter so I could go hiking with them. I told her to think about it for a while if she needed but she just got mad. I want every day of my daughter's care to be accounted for. Not just for her safety but so I can look forward to a day off and figure out how to use it (on my own).
Gamerdad,
Thank you. It makes me feel better knowing I am not the only one to feel like I do now.