facial recognition prob's, aversion to touch, older kids...

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i am new at this asperger's thing...my son has autism and my brother has asperger's, but i only recently discovered i had AS...denial, i think.

anyway, i would love to hear if others share these foibles...

1.) i have difficulties remembering faces...not of people i know, but of individuals i have met and ran in to, on numerous occasions, but still forget who they are, because i don't remember their face from before; not their name, but their face.

2.) certain "touch" sends shock waves thru my body, like a jolt of electricity going thru me...

3.) for those w/ older children, i have two boys aged 17 and 15 (the youngest of these two has autism). i also have three other children under the age of 6. anyway, i do not give my older ones hugs, and i find it very difficult to make eye contact w/ them; it is much easier w/ the lil' ones.

i would love to hear from you, and to know there are others dealing w/ these difficulties. i want to have assurance that i am not alone or from the wrong planet...

i'm tempted to say something derogatory about God, but that would be cruel & uncalled for. i'm sorry for that.
you're not alone, i tend to remember faces but not names..the opposite but perhaps quite similar?
people touching me unexpectedly, or almost any unexpected physical sensations can quite often seem to "shoot through me" perhaps like electricity.. i have been known to back away, flinch or jerk my body if this happens.
in my case (i think) i'm ok with hugs & quite enjoy them, but eye contact is quite difficult for me to give &take.
i'm sure there are many others who understand what you describe better than I, good luck.

thank you for your positive and encouraging comments...

your situation sounds familiar...there are two ladies that work at my husband's job, and they do not look anything alike, but i always "forget" their names, because of the face thing. my mom says this could be happening because it's not that important to me. maybe, but i am not comfortable not knowing who a person is, and i don't want to make them feel bad.

also, do you have a real sensitivity toward "the underdog"? like a strong desire to protect the less fortunate, special needs, elderly, etc...sometimes i think we're more comfortable around these people because they are less inclined to judge us.

I have this mildly, I sometimes can't find my wife in a crowd, but normally I can recognize faces if they are in front of me. I also rarely dream of people I know. I wonder if it's because of this.

You are brave to look for autistic traits in yourself. Many/most parents do not. It is common for the parent to have AS as well, though.

I share the face blindness. I have aversion to light touch. I make eye contact when the other person is speaking but not when I am talking, as that confuses me.

If I were you, I'd go to an EXPERT for assessment.. someone who knows adults and women (I'm assuming you're a woman?) because ordinary psychologists/psychiatrists don't have the necessary training/education to diagnose.

I have a milder face blindness where I find it very difficult to remember any person's face, although generally speaking I would recognise the person if I saw them. It seems to be more of a problem with visualisation that I have, but it is perhaps on the same spectrum?

I have no issues with touch, in fact I crave it, but sometimes experiences can be either extreme.

I'm a parent with a severely autistic child and I have suspected AS.

Hello everybody! I just found this site today and jumped at the chance to join. I had never heard of Asperger's until after reading an article on facial agnosia several years ago. I won't waste time listing the difficulties I never recognized that I had to overcome while living the first 70 years of my life! Your comments tell me that we are very much alike in many ways. What I would like to share with you is that AS should never limit your abilities, your successes, nor your self-esteem. On the other hand, it frequently has caused embarrassment, ridicule, and other difficulties - but these I can live with! I know now that my way of survival, ever since starting public school in 1939, resulted in my become a 'loner'. I have had a unique career in which my recognized status as a loner allowed me to blaze my own path in research and development, working independently on projects in North America, Europe, and Asia. AS helped. It gave me an obsession for detail, allowing me to recognize much that others had missed. It gave me the tenacity to stick to a task until satisfied with the conclusion, and it gave me the satisfaction of doing things, and doing things right, that no one else had done before.

One of my wife's favorite anecdotes is about listening to me say to someone on the telephone,"What the H___ do you mean it can't be done? I've got it sitting right in front of me!" Enjoy what you have. If you're an Aspie, you are different. That's not a problem!