Do you need to know "details" about everything?

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Not all autistic people hoard. Many are actually compulsively neat(as with OCD).

Here is a link to the DSM5 proposed criteria for hoarding disorder.

Autistic collecting comes from having an extreme interest in something. It tends to be focused on specific subjects. Hoarding tends to come from a fear of throwing things away. It tends to be unfocused.

I have to know all the details, if I am invited to something that sounds very vague I either try and pin them down on details or I decline the invitation. My social nightmare is when a plan is made, and all the details worked out and then I get a text saying 'Actually, we're not going to the cinema after all, thought we would just meet in town and decide then'. That is when I have meltdowns and can't leave the house. I'm not good when things are short notice either, I need a few days to get used to the idea.

We aspies sometimes go 50-50 on a topic. It's kinda refreshing to see how we all practically agree on this details business. I never thought it was an aspie thing. I figured it's just me. As kids, for Christmas one day, the local fire dept. gave us toy cars. I immediately took the car apart because I just had to know how everything worked in that poor little car. If someone tells me they'll be coming to visit it's an absolute must for me to know the details. That's in stone.

Well it is, it means two. But people don't always mean two when they say it. They mean "a few". When I hear "a couple" I think of two, and sometimes this results in awkward situations. Like for example if I was at the physio and they told me to bend my knee "a couple of times", I would stop after two bends and they would wonder why I stopped and tell me to keep going. Frustrating.

"Detail oriented" is the nice way of putting it... I try to make clarifying questions sound sarcastic enough that if they're awkward I can play like I didn't really want an answer.

No, just the stuff I'm interested in. Even if that weren't the case, the details of "everything" presents quite a challenge for anyone, don't you think?

I answered no, not on most everything. But if something interests me, I usually want more details than I get at first. I have to dig for them, research, just keep at it until my curiosity is satisfied. Sometimes it never is.

Absolutely! If I don't have a good picture of the future, I get pretty anxious. It's not a direct relationship--the anxiety isn't triggered by not knowing--it's just that when I don't know something, I don't have adequate information to make decisions about it, and I'm caught in the middle trying to understand something without having enough information. That's a very unpleasant situation and the "lost" feeling eventually turns into anxiety. So, finding information about new things is one of my most important life skills.

yes, I am the same. my family thinks it's very "quirky" that I wouldn't even go visit my grandma without calling first to ask if I should go. I think it's makes sense to call first.

Yep. I want to know absolutely everything. It's frustrating for me, because everyone seems to underestimate how many details I want, and frustrating for other people, because I constantly pester them for more details. Part of it is because I have a lot of anxiety and I need to know everything possible beforehand so it will go predictably and I won't have surprises catch me off guard. Also simply because I like to have as many variables known as possible simply because it's easier to figure things out with more details and I'll have a better understanding. I don't understand why other people wouldn't want to know all the details.

Yes, totally.

Yes, very much! I really appreciate when people use explicit detail. It make me feel more comfortable. I also don't like people touching my stuff. I live alone and am almost 40 and it is a good thing that nobody wants to "straighten things up here".

Last edited by jackbus01 on 10 May 2012, 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Funny, that was my gut reaction too! Seriously, nobody enters my place and I like it that way.

I absolutely need details or I start to feel total anxiety. It really bugs my husband, but he's starting to understand after we've been together for 9 years.

As for my stuff, I had a total meltdown when my husband surprised me and started to clean my closet by clearing out boxes and some of my clothes. I truly lost it and couldn't quit crying. I became so irrational and couldn't control my reaction. Not one of my finer moments!

Aspie score: 176/200
NT score: 35/200
AQ score: 38/50

(I went in to be diagnosed two days ago. After 1 hour, the psychologist intern said that I can't have Asperger's because I am extremely compassionate and am capable to read other people's emotions. Seems like a questionable diagnosis to me, since I seem to have many of the other traits. Oh well.)

Not "EVERYTHING", but many things I do. Some of those interest include the Civil War, American History, cultures, certain people, TV programs, movies, music, and books, religion, the Holocaust, different cultures, dinosaurs, animals like dophins, horses, sharks among many others, babies and children, human development, phsycology, socialology, just to name a few.

Right now I'm having a depressive episode because I don't know what will happen next with regards to my SSI hearing. Not knowing almost seems worse than outright denial (although that will be pretty terrible if it happens).