Hey guys and gals
I don't necessarily want opinions on whether you think I have AS or not, as I am going to professionals to try and determine if I have it. However I am pretty certain I do.
What I have done here is write out as simple as I can, the reasons I think I have AS so I can take it to the professionals so I don't forget, or get distracted in trying to describe my symptoms.
What would help greatly is just your general thoughts, or if you share any of the same symptoms as I do. Just an open discussion.
Here goes:
Reasons I think I have Asperger Syndrome
- I cannot read body language at all, male or female, colleague or friend. I only notice changes in body language. After this, I question things that have happened to try and determine why it has changed and what it might mean. If I am still unsure of the Body Language, I usually try and initiate small talk or ask mundane questions to try and gauge their response.
I also am not able to gauge whether someone is interested in what I’m saying or not, all that matters is that I am. In social occasions I will often interrupt or talk over people in order to say what I want to say, and I will talk regardless of whether they are listening, unless they start talking to someone else.
Some people have said that they thought I was rude because I always interrupted and always talked over people.
This has remained consistent my whole life, however only recently has been something that I have consciously realised.
- I feel emotionally void sometimes. As a young teenager and through to the present day, I used to think or imagine I was a Demon, Alien or Robot. People would die, be sad, angry and I wouldn’t really care, or know how to empathise with them. Even to this day, the world could be ending but if its interrupting my special interest at the time, then I really don’t care and the world ending would register as more of an inconvenience than something that is actually really bad, and billions of people dying. The fact that I haven’t broken any bones, or had any kind of surgery often re-enforces my own imagination of being an Alien, a Robot, or sometimes even the re-incarnation of Jesus. Though, the extent of these imaginations are relatively minor and on a deeper level I do acknowledge that I am biologically the same as everyone else. This is probably the hardest one to tell anyone about, as it is a very difficult thing to tell the person I love, or people who love me that sometimes when they are at their worst, that at that moment I don’t care and all I can think about is how they might be interrupting a show I am interested in, or that I might be tapping a beat to myself. It is also a scary thing to realise within myself.
- I find it hard to understand why people do things the way they do, or why certain things matter so much. In arguments or emotional exchanges I find it almost impossible to understand where the person is coming from and how they must feel. The closest I can come to that is putting me in their position (but as me, and not them), and how I would react or feel(which is obviously not how they would react or feel)
- I am uncomfortable, impatient, irritable and moody in social situations that are unexpected, or that aren’t going my way or don’t involve something I am interested in. To cope with this, I usually zone out and listen to the conversations on a bare level and focus on things around me or things I want to think about. Either that or I make small talk that I’m really not vested in, to appear as though everything is ok. I tolerate the situation until I am able to leave, or until something interesting comes in. Sometimes I make purposely ridiculous, childish, or humourous statements to stimulate myself and try and get out of the mood of feeling uncomfortable.
- If I see someone I know, or who knows me and they don’t notice me, I will avoid them purposely because I would rather be left alone. If they notice me, I will feel quite anxious and on the spot and usually mask this up with small talk. If they are someone that matters to me and they notice me and we initiate conversation, I will usually ask open-ended questions or be a bit more engaging in the conversation, as I feel they deserve it, but I will really be waiting to get away.
- I don’t have a problem with looking people in the eye, but I wasn’t always this way. I was encouraged from an early age in my education that looking people in the eye when you are talking to them is very important and people think it is rude if you don’t. So I started by focusing on people’s mouth as they talked and gradually (over a large number of years) managed to maintain eye contact. However whilst I am maintaining eye contact I don’t actually look into their eyes, I look past them, or through them, or if I do actually look into them I focus on the colours and textures of the iris in my thoughts. In making eye contact I also find it hard to be honest emotionally and tend to distance myself from the conversation to a point where I am comfortable. Though my responses usually consist of “I know”, “Its ok” or simple answers. However in relationships this often comes across as though I am lying, or don’t care about what they are saying.
- I am very easily distracted: physically, intellectually and emotionally. In social situations, if something catches my eye, I can’t help but look at it and examine it. This is especially common with noticing patterns. Intellectually, unless I am involved with something I’m interested in, my thoughts will always drift to something else, or will begin to race to a point where I can’t focus my thoughts and I will get up and do something else, or force myself to knuckle down and focus. Emotionally, even if I am sad, angry, upset, happy etc, If something distracts me visually or physically or emotionally, it can take me out of the moment completely, and I can’t get back to that emotional state unless it re-occurs. If in an argument, I find something peculiar like an image on TV or an bird outside, I will lose focus completely and not be able to be upset anymore, and will lose my train of thought completely.
My school reports often stated that I was very competent and intelligent but was easily distracted, and needed to focus on my work more.
I often completed tasks to the extent of proving I could do them, and after that I would zone out and focus on what I wanted to do or distract myself by looking around.
- I require time on my own to gain focus on a situation, or to calm down. Time on my own allows me to gain some perspective on things that have happened, and think about things in a way that makes sense. I often only realise mistakes I’ve made through doing this. On the flip side, time on my own sometimes creates an escape for me, and is a defence mechanism sometimes to prevent me from emotional hurt. When I’m on my own, after I have finished stewing on something, it will begin to fade away completely. Eventually, I won’t care about anything except who I am, how I’m feeling and what I want to do by myself. The prospect of being by myself begins to become more attractive. I save myself from emotional hurt by ignoring what has happened and separating myself from it. This doesn’t seem to be something I can help, as even by myself without any stimuli, my mind automatically distracts myself.
- I enjoy patterns. I enjoy focusing my eyes on patterns, and picking them out visually. I also enjoy walking in patterns depending on the surface I am walking on. If it is paved or tiled, my feet will automatically start walking in line or according to the pattern. On concrete footpaths or zebra crossings the heel, toe or ball of my foot usually needs to land somewhere according to the pattern. This is not a strict routine but something that I subconsciously continue to do. Sometimes I get excited and adhere strictly to the pattern on the ground.
- Depending on the pattern on objects as well as the object itself I often have the urge to feel it, or bite it or study it. The biting or feeling is usually my curiosity about the texture of the pattern and the biting is usually about the firmness, and how it would feel between my teeth. This is something I usually do by myself as it can look quite bizarre to other people.
- I internalise my emotions and feelings and keep the bottled inside. Usually to think about in the future to try and rationalise something else. I can’t help but bottle them up. But I usually end up bringing them up in future occasions and people accuse me of throwing things in their face, which I don’t intend to do, I just try and use it to rationalise a current problem.
I often feel emotionally distant, because I don’t often feel emotions even about my own life or things. I’m like a giant brain, where you could do anything wrong to me, and I would probably rationalise it out to make sense to myself, or I just wouldn’t care and would want to get back to what I want to do or what they want to do, because making other people happy also makes me happy.
- I am able to focus intensely on single objectives. These usually apply to my special interests. I research every aspect and try to grasp an all-rounded knowledge of the subject. For example, if I am interested in getting a new mobile phone, I will determine what exactly I want and then research many, many phones, read reviews and technical statistics to come to a decision. I do this with any subject I am interested in. I will usually sacrifice work, home life, eating, self-care to maintain focus on the subject. I enjoy problem solving, and picking apart processes to function better.
- I don’t really have a single narrow interest, except my own imagination really. I have a few concentrated Interests that are more intense than any others that I have, these being religion / philosophy / spirituality and computers/technology. I guess in some ways it is more focused on science/philosophy in general as anything to do with anything scientific/philosophical has my immediate attention and undivided focus. I love finding out how things work, taking them apart and seeing for myself what comprises them. The same goes for people and our outer reality. I love finding out how the universe works, where we might have come from, how the human mind works. This fascination with finding out the working function of everything, is I guess the narrow interest, but it branches out into computers more specifically, mechanics, engineering and philosophy, religion and spiritual knowledge.
- I’m not obsessive compulsive, but I have a few actions that I both enjoy doing and are compulsive in a way. The main one is tapping my hands and feet. In early high school this led me to begin the hobby of drumming. After 12 years or so of drumming, my tapping and drumming are almost indistinguishable. There is not a second of the day where part of my body or my mind won’t be tapping or drumming a beat. The more compulsive part of this action is when I am sitting in a chair I jiggle my legs in a drum roll continuously all day, (at night I usually relax my body but I have a drum beat or music stuck in my head). It is a consistent momentum (doesn’t get faster or slower), an almost “groove” of sorts, where my legs naturally “relax” into tapping or jiggling. In drumming this was a problem (that I have only now realised retro-actively) when I started doing double-bass drumming. When I would try and do slow, steady rolls on the bass drums, my legs would automatically speed up to the “groove” of which they are used to. Finally this makes sense to me. For 6 years or so, I thought it was because my legs needed exercise and I needed to practice more.
I also have a semi-compulsive habit of aligning certain objects that are near me that I am using. When I clean things up I usually have to align them geometrically in some way. At the pub I have to align the beer coaster with the table, or if there is no coaster I create patterns with the wet “watermark” of the glass I am using. Or I sit the glass somewhere geometrically in relation to the table or other things on the table. I am very peculiar about the position of them. Subsequent drinks need to be placed on the same “watermark”. My parents tell me that as a kid I would align my matchbox cars perfectly and if they were disturbed I would be very upset.
I also have noticed a compulsion to stare at moving objects, or some kinds of lights. When in high school I distinctly remember looking at the ceiling fans and focusing on them to try and single out the fan blades and be able to watch the fan blade in focus as it spun around. I found great delight in being able to achieve this. I still do it with all ceiling fans.
- I don’t know whether I have ever been obsessed with routines, as even now I’m not obsessed with routines. But I do notice a change in things very easily. I do remember a distinct dislike of driving to work, as traffic is very unpredictable. I preferred public transport because I knew if I got to the station or bus stop at a certain time, I would get to my destination at a certain time, and I could rely on that. I also get uncomfortable or slightly anxious when something happens that I am not expecting, such as plans changing quickly, someone popping by, or someone calling me unexpectedly. I don’t like my state being interrupted. I’m not lazy, but I like being ignorant and absent minded except for what I’m interested in. However I never tell people this, because for one it’s a hard feeling to distinguish and it’s not something that comes up often. I just learn to tolerate the anxiety or uncomfortableness and usually distract myself somehow to focus on something else.
I am afraid of change, even to the point of motivating myself to do something. I won’t want to play my drums if it disturbs something else, or means there will be an element of unpredictability about it.
Currently, I have found that I do a lot of things that make sense to me, but don’t make sense to others, and cause problems. Because I can’t empathise with them or understand what has happened from their point of view, I don’t realise I have done anything wrong, and even when I realise I did do something wrong it doesn’t really make sense to me. This has now placed a lot of stress on me that I don’t mention to anyone because it means there is a constant element of unpredictability and I can’t rely on myself or any of my routines because someone might get upset at something that made perfect sense to me, but hurt them. This means than I’m almost in a constant state of fear or if I’m not afraid I’m in ignorance of that fear, because it means someone could get hurt by what I do at any moment, and that uncertainty really scares me. Any hint of this happening and I get very anxious and need to go to the toilet.
- I constantly question myself in regards to decisions, thoughts, emotions etc. Its like I rationalise everything in my head to get the bottom of it before I do anything. If someone asks me a question such as do I like black? I will think, do I like black, or do I only like black because its prevalent in the types of music I listen to (metal), or can I like black as black isn’t a colour its an absence of colour, so to like black is to like nothingness. I also like red, and black in pictures, maybe I don’t really like black I just like red fading into nothingness.
Alternatively, If I get asked what I would like for lunch, I think of how this will affect the person getting or making lunch, what they might get, whether what they might want is the same thing I want and if we should get it from the same place, maybe I should think of something cheaper, if I got something expensive it might impact the person getting me the lunch or the money I am spending, is the lunch I am getting going to take time to make, is the queue too long, will that upset the person I am with. I go through this process with a lot of things that go on. When I try and involve someone in my thought process by externalising the process they get frustrated and say I think too much as though I can just stop. This has been my thought process since I’ve had a partner, I’m not sure how I was before that, because I could do what I wanted when I wanted as I was by myself. However I did used to go through my money quickly as I wouldn’t worry about stacking up on CDs or movies or going out or getting food, or purchasing things to do with my special interests. However I haven’t been by myself living away from home, or as an adult on a decent income, as I’ve always been in a relationship since I left home.
- I have taken anti-depressants and Serotonin bolsterers and they have made me feel more anxious and nervous, and I didn’t feel any different consciously as a result. I would get more headaches, wake in the middle of the night feeling anxious in my chest without having anything to be anxious about. The symptoms listed above were all still present.
07 Mar 2008, 7:02 pm
