I recently read about how some forms of autism cause significant neurological symptoms resembling epilepsy, etc. This led me to consider whether an experience I had when I was 15 might have been part of my ASD.
I was in class, reading my maths text book. One second I was understanding everything I was reading - then ... I felt a strange sensation, which spread throughout my body, my vision went ""funny" and I found myself no longer able to understand what was in front of me. All I saw was "marks on paper". When people spoke all I heard was "sounds with no meaning". After about 20 minutes I regained the ability to read ... but after 4-5 words I lost the sense of what I was reading. It was the same when people spoke ... after 4-5 words I lost the sense of what they were saying. I could still think, I could still remember everything I'd already learnt ... but, for months, I was unable to absorb new knowledge. I dropped from top to bottom of the class. Eventually I "got my mind back", left school and got a job in a laboratory - where they soon gave me my own little lab (because I was such a whizz kid at Chemistry). A couple of years later I had another similar attack. This time I had EEG tests ... which showed "abnormal brain waves". This was around 1959 and that was as far as things went. Since then I've had several of these attacks ... but they usually lasted only a few days before I "got my mind back". I don't think I've had one for 20 years or so ... if I have they've only lasted a few seconds. One thing ... when I'm subjected to a random pattern of noise I sometimes lose the ability to understand the written word (the 'marks on paper' experience). This is relieved by getting away from the noise.
31 May 2010, 5:05 pm
