I wonder...
Hi all. I am new to this forum, and there are some things I'd like to share and find out about myself that I haven't really been able to due to me not really being able to share it with anybody. At first, I thought there was no way I could have AS because I'm a very creative and highly imaginative person and I've heard aspies are known to be lacking in this part of development? (I dunno, I'm thinking it's a myth) But then I took the RDOS and was surprised that I was able to relate to a lot of the questions on it, but then there were some that didn't fit me at all. Still, I actually scored 142/200 for AS and 74/200 for NT on it, and a 32/50 for the AQ test(I'm sorry, test but I'm bad with math and numbers.). I dunno, there's some things I do/feel that I haven't really been able to attribute to my ADHD-PI (and surely not my Dyscalculia).
I'll try to make a list of some of the things I do and maybe you guys could help me?
1. Social situations I'm okay with. Well, kind of. I dunno, I've always felt a disconnect with people, like I didn't belong, but I'm at least able to function somewhat normally around them. I have no problems reading people's faces or telling how they're feeling, although stuff like sarcasm and certain social cues will still tend to go over my head sometimes unless they're obvious. As for speaking, the main problem I have is saying the words I want to say in a coherent sentence. Like even though English is my native language, I still feel like I say things weird compared to others. Like in sentence ordering and such, though it doesn't seem like anyone has seemed to notice. I'm also terrible at explaining things and expessing myself, unless it's something of personal interest to me. Despite all this, people like talking to me and I still fail to see why as I fail to see anything special going on about me, other than me having a tendency to be random and stuff, to the point where I'll say things weirdly due to my train of thought switching halfway through, similar to the language issue. I think that's more my ADD acting up though. They also say I'm a good listener, which I think I can agree with. But those aside, it feels like when I'm socializing, I'm not being my true self and that it's more or less an image I've developed over time to get people to like me. This is further proven when there are times I'll lapse and end up being my spacy/childish true self and people think I'm not all there or something because of it, and on days when I'm not up to pretending, I just won't talk at all. It also took me a particularly long time to get over certain things I find people take for granted. I wasn't able to go to a fast food spot and order something from the cashier until I was 17. I still can't make eye contact with people much, and I still feel very uncomfortable when I have to do "grown-up" things like going to the financial aid office and talking with an advisor, or even withdrawing/depositing money at the bank. I find it funny because I don't actually fear people, just the idea of having to discuss and talk with them unsettles me, especially if it's someone who's older or has a higher social status than me. Authority figures scare the heck out of me.
1b. I don't like large group events either, since I feel so lost when I'm there, and people tend to bug me for keeping to myself at said events. I don't understand the entertainment value of parties, and have never been to any outside of my own birthday's and a few friend's parties I was forced to go to. I'm currently a trustee of the anime club at my school(I think they were impressed with my dedication to it or something), but I don't talk to people there much, even though they're really friendly to me and we have stuff in common. I want to be really friendly back but like I said, I always feel some sort of disconnect, although I still try to be nice regardless. When I was younger, I was bullied by the kids at our church for being weird and a crybaby. When we got older, it didn't get much better. I remember two instances that were hell for me. The first was a sleepover/retreat event where all the girls from our church spent a weekend upstate. I was constantly called "socially squared" and they made me their doormat and the girls' parents who hosted it never did s**t about it. Instead, they complained to my parents how I never wanted to participate with anyone else and how I always kept to myself. Thankfully, my parents already know how I am so they never punished me for it or anything. A second time was a one night sleepover where they more or less did the same thing to me. This was over two years later but it still had the same outcome. Parents ended up picking me up early due to their bullying. I always disliked church in general, but stuff like this just made it unbearable. I refuse to go there now and my parents think I'm being selfish or something. Still, why would I go there when I'm always mistreated and no one does anything about it? Besides, I hardly even believe in God at this point. I don't care for major holidays either and I don't like the family gatherings that come along with them. Thanksgiving and Christmas are only good for the breaks you get from school as a result. If someone gives me a present and I tell them how I'm genuinely excited or thankful for it,people will usually tell me "you don't sound excited". I'm a very emotional person, but it doesn't seem to show up in my voice much. I'll also get this if someone asks me how I'm doing and I'll tell them I'm fine and they proceed with "Really? You don't sound fine." Because of this, I'll tend to overact emotionally when talking people so they don't feel bad or anything. It seems to work so I guess I'm doing something right in that respect.
2. At first, I thought the sameness thing didn't apply to me, but thinking about it now, it really does. I actually don't know where to start. I guess I could start with my eating habits. At home, I have a particular spoon and fork I always use for when I eat. We have forks and spoons with different designs and stuff on them, so when I can't find my favorite spoon or fork, there's usually a back up one I'm okay with using, but if I can't find those either and have to use some other kind, it really ruins my appetite, especially if it's one of the spoons/forks with the designs I hate using to begin with. I drink out of mini bowls instead of cups and I don't like to sit at the table with my parents when I eat, I'd rather just stand by the upstairs counter and eat there instead. Of course this stuff drives my parents mad, but I'm not sure why I'm like this either. In college, we have the privilege of ordering take-out in addition to the normal school food (which is actually pretty tasty), but even then, I always have a tendency to get what I'm familiar with. Pizza, nacho combo dish or tacos, or for chinese, sweet and sour chicken or general tso's, and that's it really. I seldom go outside those choices. The strange thing is however, as long as I activate a change willingly, I'm okay with it, but if I can't, I'll hate it. Does that make any sense? For instance the day before, my friend bought me a hard-to-find book I'd been searching for the longest while for xmas but the back cover had a slight crease in the back. It wasn't used, it was new so it really annoyed me, but I know my friend had the best of intentions and out of his way to get this book for me and I didn't want to come off as a spoiled brat or something so I didn't say anything about it. It still bugged me though. When my parents added an extra mattress to my bed due to lack of storage for the time being, I couldn't stand the increased height. I love my bed low and I refused to sleep in my room for the first couple months or so, and merely slept in the guest room instead until they finally removed the mattress. On internet forums, I hate it when my topic gets derailed. I have enough self control to not lash out at anyone about it(or maybe I'm just slow to react lol), but it hurts. It feels like no one is paying attention to the topic I thought out and stuff. But yeah, when it comes to willingly trying out new things, I'm okay with that. I wouldn't mind trying some new exotic dish or willingly do something I've never done before. It's really mostly change I can't anticipate that I hate.
2b. I feel VERY uncomfortable if I'm walking outside and someone's right behind me, or when I'm doing something and someone's observing me while I do it. I really hate it. I don't know why, I just do. It's because of this why my parents later thought that I was doing bad things online because I'd always ask them if they could leave my room when they entered just because it felt weird having them there while I was on it. I don't like when I'm reading a book and someone's looking over my shoulder either.
3. I really only have two close irl friends. One of them knows how I truly am, weirdness and all, the other I have a front more or less set up for despite him knowing my disabilities. Everyone else is more or less acquiantances, to the point where I believe even my parents and most family members would fall into that category. The fact that my parents are very social and that my mom is addicted to Facebook and always prods me to post useless "happy birthday!" messages on the walls of relatives I barely even know doesn't help matters either. I'm pretty gullible and too trusting of people and have ended up being betrayed more times than I can count. I will also have times where I'll get too clingy and scare potential friends away. Still, I'm really great at making friends online, but why is that? It always feels like if I were to meet them irl, I'd instantly tend to shy away from them like I do with everyone else. But yeah, it's easy to make friends online and I wish there wasn't such a negative stigma attached to it by the media. I'm even actually fairly popular on a particular anime/gaming forum and I strongly believe conversing with people online is what really helped me improve with social situations offline compared to how I was before when I was completely anti-social and stuff. It just kinda showed me that people are people just like you, and they're not all out to make you feel bad. I have a couple online friends from said forum who accept me for who I am, quirks and all, and I can talk to them for hours about my favorite series or whatever. I treasure them like no tomorrow, and incidentally, a few of them happen to be on the spectrum as well. Then there are those who will try to befriend me and I feel no interest in talking to them whatsoever. So yeah, overall I'm pretty talkative online, even if I'm a quiet space cadet offline. I DO love my friends. I just always feel so distant to them is all. It's like it takes mental effort just to play and hang out with them and stuff. I've also mislead people to thinking I'm conceited or uncaring due to my straightforward answers of when they come to me with issues and voice where I think they're at fault. Still, what's wrong with that though? What's wrong with helping them see where they were wrong in the situation so that it doesn't happen again? I've never had a problem admitting to people where I saw I was wrong even when it hurt me, so why is that such a problem for others? You ask me for advice but then you get mad when I give it. I don't get it... I also don't feel I'm always right either, but I do always feel the need to correct someone when I'm sure I am. I always felt that was natural. Why should you allow someone to go on believing something you know for a fact isn't true? That always seemed like common sense to me. But no, people don't like this, even if you're not being rude about it or interrupting them and again, this is something I don't really understand.
3b. I don't stim at all. At least I don't think I do. I do have little mannerisms like clenching or unclenching my fists/cracking my knuckles/tugging at my fingers when I'm nervous, or shaking my leg occasionally but I thought those were just habits I had due to ADD and underarousal, even though I'm not hyper, and they're normal enough that no one has ever called me out on them. Then again, there are things I've done that were outright strange. For one thing, I have is these random verbal tangents I'll go on when no one's home. I'll literally pace around the house and go on this 40 min - 1 hour long tangent where I'll just talk to myself out loud about something that's of interest to me; just a full-on conversation with nobody but me. I'll also do this if there's some interview coming up or I have to meet with a professor or something that I'm freaked out about, and I'll just kinda place out the entire scenario in my head and go from there. I've been doing that for as long as I can remember, and I'm likely to do it when I'm standing and eating, although not necessarily. In middle school and well into high school, I would collect pieces of chalk and then crush them into a powder in class and at home with my pen. I found it to be fun and stress relieving. Of course, everyone else thought I was either a psycho or a future cocain addict. Going way back to childhood, I also chew on toothpicks and those plastic combo floss-toothpick things very often. I also like to shake my teddy bear's(more on that later) head back and forth for a minute or so. It's relaxing. I do find it all a bit strange tbh considering I'm very hypoactive for the most part and don't move around much unless I absolutely need to.
4. I don't think I've ever had meltdowns. Or maybe I have? I'm not sure, but I know I'm way more emotionally sensitive and emphatic compared to others. I get overwhelmed rather easily. I was bullied for a majority of my school life due to being a crybaby. I never considered myself spoiled because I have rather strict parents and I fully understand that I can't always get what I want, so why did I always get so upset and frustrated when things didn't go the way I expected them to? Rather than meltdowns, I always just thought I had a tendency to break down easily. As a kid, it was worse. I wouldn't throw tantrums, but I'd cry if I wasn't able to play with my favorite toy at school because some other kid was using it or if the show I wanted to watch got interrupted by a news report or something. I tend to get stressed easily, and I have moments where I'll completely break down and start sobbing quietly in public. This could be triggered by the slightest thing. If a professor gives me negative critique on my work verbally or say it's late/I'm late or something, I will feel a VERY strong urge to break down and cry. I've tried to control this my entire life but it's so hard, and it's embarrassing to be an adult who cries over such trivial things. Sleeping/walking around with socks on are a must for me because I dislike how the sheets and evrything else feels against my skin. I'm pretty sensitive to touch in general, and I hate being poked/tickled, although I don't mind hugs. Hugs are nice; too bad I seldom get them. I don't like clothing tags either, but I thought that was normal for everyone. I was an extremely picky eater as a kid although due to various personal expriences I've learned to eat pretty much anything now. Walking on my toes was also an ordinary thing but my parents would always tell me it ran in the family so I never thought much about it. I still tend to do it at home, although I constantly make sure to walk properly when I'm out in public. Still, it's something I'm always constantly aware of.
4b. I decided to separate this part because I just really think it's weird behavior in general. When I was two, my parents gave me a stuffed Barney(the dinosaur). I loved it so much, but I figure it creeped them out when they saw me still actively sleeping and playing with it and stuff by the time I was almost 15 so they got rid of it while I was away on some youth group church trip(that I was forced to go to, no less). When I came back and saw he was gone, I went mental. I cried and sobbed but they told me it was time I got over such childish things. I think the worst time I had such an episode though was when I was 18. When I was 16, I was given a stuffed teddy bear that came along with a bath+body set for christmas by my godmother (she died when I was 19). Of course, I didn't care for the bath set, but the teddy instantly grew on me. I named him Buddy and he became like my replacement Barney, although I felt in some ways he was even more comfortable and easier to sleep with than Barney had been, and I really like how he felt against my face/fingers. But yeah, for my 18th birthday, my parents took him and Charlie (a green stuffed dinosaur I kind of liked that my dad gave me because he felt bad for getting rid of Barney) away from me. They said I was way too old for such things and then they sent me to bed. I dunno what happened next. I just kind of blanked out and I wasn't thinking. I suddenly started to scream and cry and I started rolling around and just pretty much lost it. After nearly an hour of this had passed, my dad came upstairs and gave them back to me and I eventually calmed down. Mom was mad at him but he saw they made me happy and they wanted to sleep so I guess I got lucky. I don't know. In all these instances, I never cried because I wanted people to feel bad or anything, it was just always instinctive of me to do so. It also feels a bit strange being a 21 year old who still sleeps with stuffed animals and talks/converses with them better than she does with actual people. There have been other times similar to this where I have gone crazy on my parents when they commented on some demand they'd given me that I was unable to fulfill. As a result, I have even choked my mom twice, both times I wasn't really thinking at all, it just sort of happened. I felt so bad about it and apologized like crazy afterwards, but naturally, I was punished heavily for it and now my parents think I'm just some spoiled rebellious child, even though I'm sure I'm not. I'm a very patient person when it comes to situations not described here. If someone says something mean to me, I most likely wont retaliate. I don't get into arguments with people and really, when I'm in an unfavorable situation, I just cry instead, and when I cry, it's just an internal feeling of frustration and sadness, I'm not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me. Overall, I have a low self-esteem and I hate being pitied, so it sucks to be perceived in such a negative light.
5. Now this is where I'll start to deviate from the typical AS symptoms. I'm a realist and am very holistic and objective in my thinking like the typical ADDer. Again, more in sync with my ADD, I tend to move on to different interests very quickly. Again, I'm pretty creative and I have daydream spells that can last for well over 20 min to hours even if I'm left alone. My emotional episodes aren't really caused by sensory overload. I live in my head half the time and not many external stimuli affect me. While I can't really keep up with fast-going situations and stuff like normal people can, I'll just tend to space out at such times instead; just subconsciously retreat to my mind. I'm not even always aware of when I do it until someone snaps me out of it. I'll usually break down if there's a lot of things I'm expected to do at home/school and I literally see no way of me being able to going about doing any of it. It's at such times where the waterworks come. Despite all the negativity in my post, I am for the most part a very cheerful person, and the weird routines aside, am very easily pleased with things that make me happy. I'm pretty laid back and friendly and people find me easy to talk to, even if it's not necessarily the same the other way around. I like to draw, play the guitar, and learn different languages.
5b. Yeah, I don't have only one hobby, but at the same time, as a kid I did. It's more like I gained them in stages. As a kid, I just really liked to draw cartoons. I'd spend hours doing it. I was enrolled in piano lessons but I didn't care for them and quit when I was twelve. Still, I continued to draw. Dad always had guitars lying around the house despite never playing them and I would pick them up and mess around with them occasionally but when I was 15, at some point I found myself doing it all the time, and not drawing as much as before. Within a year, I was able to play at fairly competent level. I still drew however, and somehow my love for art and animation led me to anime. I got really obsessed with it, and before I knew it, all previous aspects of my hobbies surrounded it. So now, I was drawing anime characters instead of cartoons, playing mostly japanese/anime songs on my guitar, and learning the Japanese language itself. Today, I am nearing basic fluency in the language (I want to learn French soon though), still love anime and Japan in general, and know more songs on the guitar than I need to. But yeah, they say aspies are usually drawn to one particular hobby, so I dunno if that fits me really. I did make up words often when I was little. I did that all the time as a kid and I'd constantly proclaim my made-up words in alphabetical order. One time I said a certain word starting with "f" I was certain hadn't existed before while I was around my parents and well...let's just say I made sure never to say it in front of them again. Loved science since I was little all the way till high school until my LD with math screwed me over in chemistry and physics, and my ADD screwing me over in everything else. Easily got 90's and 100's in biology though. I liked lining up my toy cars up and watching the wheels spin as a kid. I also loved watching gyroscopes spin. I thought they were the coolest things ever. I love the color blue. For freshman year of high school until well into sophomore year, I wore all blue everyday to school. The only thing that wasn't blue was my sneakers. I also wore a cap on my head everyday. I actually still do this since I like it and it just feels weird to not be wearing it, and it's always the same cap. Funnily enough, I was voted Best Artist in addition to Most Quiet in my high school yearbook, despite not having a single person I could call a friend in high school. There was one girl who I thought was genuine but then she stopped talking to me as soon as she transferred to a different school. Ah well.
6. I am an intense hyperfocuser. I always attributed that to my ADD though. Still, I feel really annoyed when I'm hyperfocusing and I'm told that I have to go and do something else now. It doesn't matter if it's chores or if I'm getting taken to the movies, I won't want to go and would feel more compelled to do whatever it is that is of interest to me at the moment and I'll tend to snap at whoever's interrupting me. I honestly have no sense of time whatsoever and I easily become oblivious to my surroundings. It's very troublesome, because it gives the impression I'm ignoring people when they're trying to talk to me when I'm not.
I'm really sorry this is so uber long but I just don't know what's wrong with me. Is this really all just my ADD? Or my personality? Or maybe I do fit somewhat on the spectrum but my ADD cancels some things out? I don't know. It really feels like I was born on the wrong planet, even though I've never been diagnosed with any type of ASD. I actually didn't know too much about it at all until I started looking more into my own disorder and learning about this site. I don't fit stuff like stimming or meltdowns from sensory overload, so I don't know what's up with my brain really. My IQ is above average and I'm a B student with a couple A's as well. I'm just more or less your typical geeky tomboy. However, my parents love to point out how immature I act for my age and how come I never understand certain cultural behaviors(I never understood why clothes always need to be ironed before they're worn or what was wrong with wearing my converses with my dress pants for some fancy event, rather than shoes), and I've never suffered from peer pressure either. Even though I'd like the idea of making close friends, I've never felt the need to conform to the latest trend to be accepted; it's just something I've never understood. But yeah anyway, your guys' feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again, and I'll stop rambling now! ^^;
P.S: I was hyperfocusing when I typed this, lol
25 Dec 2011, 11:25 pm
As long as you're writing so much at least it's grammatically correct and well-spelled. While it's true that no one here is qualified to diagnose, I would be very surprised if you weren't on the spectrum. Print out this thread and take it to your counselor, if she has any knowledge of AS. Depending on where you are there may be options for testing that don't require large amounts of cash.
