i have ODD in addition to my AS.
i was expelled continuously from main stream schools when i was young because i defied authority.
i could not see how anyone could be granted authority over me for no apparent reason rather than some else wise allocated status.
an example: when i was 12, i was told to take my hands out of my pockets by an authoritarian teacher.
i refused because i could not see any possible harm to anyone resulting from having my hands in my pockets.
i was told more forcibly to remove my hands from my pockets after my initial refusal to comply, and i told the teacher that my hands and my pockets belonged to me.
when the teacher started to get angry, i decided i wanted to exacerbate his anger by being what some would call a "smart arse".
i told him that my hands were not in my pockets, and i pulled my pockets inside out to show him that there was nothing in my pockets, and then i tucked my pockets back in and left my hands in them after i had done so.
when i was then told to go to the principals office, i refused, and he started yelling at me, and i started to laugh because i had promoted a grown man to throw what i perceived to be a futile tantrum.
he became enraged and i warned him that if he laid a finger on me, i would destroy his career with a charge of assault. he did not give up, and i decided to tell him to remove my hands from my pockets because i was not able to work out how to do so (in an attempt to coerce him to put his hands in my pockets which would enhance the credibility of an allegation of a sexual assault (especially as it would have been witnessed by many other kids (all the other kids stopped what they were doing to watch me when i became involved in an altercation with teachers))).
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another example:
in one religious school i went to, the uniform contained a blue and white striped neck tie. the blue stripes were thicker than the white stripes. so i made sure my parents bought me a blue and white striped tie where the white stripes were thicker than the blue stripes. the specifications outlined in the uniform requirements for the tie were merely a "blue and white striped tie", and i capitalized on the vagueness of the description.
i was immediately brought to account about wearing the wrong type of tie. i insisted that i was wearing a blue and white striped tie, but i was told it was the wrong type of blue and white tie.
i made sure i maximized the time that the teacher spent on me by asking silly questions.
me: what type of blue do you want? "white" is simply white, so it must be the variant of "blue" that you are having a seizure over!
teacher: right! i've had enough of you. it's the thickness of the stripes obviously.
me: it did not specify how thick the stripes must be in the uniform requirements for the tie, and i refuse to be told to alter my tie according to your impression of how it should be.
teacher: get out!
me: no!
teacher: i have told you to get out!
me: i know.
teacher: well then get out!
me: make me.
teacher: you're in serious trouble lad! i'd think about my options carefully if i was you.
me: but you are not me therefore you are not capable of thinking about my options.
teacher : (approaching me in order to be physically assertive)
me: please touch me? just touch me and you are finished!! !
obviously i was expelled from those schools by the board, but i had fun all the way.
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my odd is now much diluted from it's intensity when i was a child because i do not run into situations where i encounter people who have authority over me.
it is still there in a dormant way however.
the most recent situation where i suffered from my ODD was 3 years ago in a tavern where i used to go to buy dinner. when i got to the tavern, it was relatively empty, but as time wore on, a band set up and started to play music and many people poured in. i had a table with 4 chairs (3 of them empty) at first, but eventually it became standing room only, and a man who felt he had authority over me said "yeah mate, i'm just going to take these chairs" and i put my briefcase on the chair he was holding, and i told him that that chair was taken. he became immediately hostile and i told him to f**k off, and then he became more hostile so i stood up and pushed him away from my table. the bar staff witnessed the altercation and they intervened, but they found that i was in the wrong, and they ordered me to surrender my empty chairs to the man who i was in dispute with. i refused with redoubled effort and i was thrown out and banned from that tavern.
later on, after licking my wounds, i realized that if he had only said "excuse me mate, can i borrow these chairs?", i would have said "yes" and the ensuing debacle would not have occurred,
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i have a problem reconciling a concomitant ADHD and AS diagnosis because they seem opposite to me. ADHD can not pay attention for a sufficient amount of time to a static situation, whereas an AS person can not move on from fixations on singular pursuits.
who knows? that is my contribution anyway.
18 Oct 2013, 11:18 pm
