autism and weird fears and phobias
I saw elsewhere that strange fears or even phobias are actually pretty common with autism, so I thought I'd ask everyone about their experience.
I know that for me, I had a number of stuff.
Blank computer screens freaked me the hell out. Probably because I was super attached to my computers and seeing them not working or potentially not working worried me.
I used to love watching Storm Stories on the US Weather Channel. Especially the ones about tornados. But they gave me nightmares! And looking out the window at the pine trees in the dark also scared me because the pine trees looked like tornados.
I guess this isn't a fear per se, but I remember reading stories where animals were hurt or separated from their owners and getting extremely upset or depressed about it for days at a time. (Dogs, cats, and my pets were common subjects of my special interests.)
Always had trouble getting rid of disturbing or upsetting imagery. I don't know if this is more an OCD trait or more an autism trait.
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ASD level 1, ADHD-C, most likely have dyscalculia as well. RSD hurts.
RAADs: 104 | ASQ: 30 | CAT-Q: 139 | Aspie Quiz: 116/200 (84% probability of being atypical)
Also diagnosed with: seasonal depression, anxiety, OCD
So I'm not the only one! Except it wasn't pine trees but whatever the tree was in front of Grandpa and Grandma F's farmhouse at Marionville.
Always had trouble getting rid of disturbing or upsetting imagery. I don't know if this is more an OCD trait or more an autism trait.
Both so very relatable.
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"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
Although I can't explain myself or verbalize well (and need "translators" at work and home), I have genius-level visual processing. I have visual memories that I can not "unsee" that will be with me forever (but I could EMDR them I suppose to reduce angst), including descriptions of others' trauma that I visualized in my mind. So I would say in my case, this experience is definitely correlated to my type of Autism.
It wasn't until I was DX with ASD that I realized my "phobia" was actually sensory related: apples, watermelon, a certain texture of paper... Before my DX I thought it was because my mom threatened to spank me with a wooden spoon as a child. Heck, maybe that's it also.
Like anxiety, it's one of the things I cannot relate to.
Unless 'overthinking', being very confused and hesitating due to uncertainty (thoughts that keeps saying I dunno know, what do I know?? Stupid EF issues, forgetting and forgetting what to do with XYZ) with a chance of gambling it is a "fear response"...
I don't know.
I'm not fearless or something special like that, but I might not have a direct and simple fear like many would describe -- to a point that I might never able to 'learn the stupid lesson'.
I can be disgusted, I can hate, be very frustrated, be very hurt and be very stressed or tired, I can get creeped out or be nervous...
I have stupid hung ups and traumas.
But needing to be 'safe'? I don't know. More like wanting to get away with consequences.
Sometimes I seek the opposite of safe -- and I have to stop myself manually, I have to disregard the things in my head justifying taking risks sometimes.
To a point that I had to be 'manual' and cerebral over obviously unsafe things like touching hot stoves. It's like I have to stop myself from doing something stupid.
I may fear situations that may need me to be in a condition of certain states of mind to fear said situation at all.
It's like had to be 'triggered' in order to 'fear' something presented before me, not start ending up in fear after something is presented before me.
And it's at best, temporary.
At worst, cyclical.
For most of my life, I fear more of what I may do than what the world might do to me.
It's like I don't actually fear being hit or confront something.
More like I fear that I'd hit back or do something much more crueler...
That itself is a fear or stress response -- do I fear my own reactivity over triggers itself? Triggers itself is not my responsibility -- but my reactions?
What if my reactions can ruin someone's life? And may be why I utterly hate being emotional?
Does this count?
Maybe my fear lies with responsibility? Why?
Because stupid inconsistent EF issues that I couldn't work around?
When will be the day I'd stop blaming said EF issues? Because that would be the day when I'd truly no longer have any long term fears.
Anyways.
I do had a phase of fearing kittens. Because I couldn't startle and scare one.
It didn't lasts. I like cats and kittens.
Even the time I get tripped and hurt -- I can feel it in my body, avoiding running -- but I disregard it. Then the feeling went away.
The same with touching stuff that shocked me. The same with getting hit in a middle of the road.
Watching a horror film and going to a dark place alone... I can shake the whole thing off.
I'm the kid who doesn't seem to be afraid of the dark. Kids -- even teenagers basically asks me to accompany them in creepy places.
... Even as an adult.
Even the fear of death and evil itself thanks to some spontaneous mystical experience.
Unless I immerse myself, what I only deal is the body's self preservation and reflexes, the mind's programs and associations...
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Last edited by Edna3362 on 10 Jun 2023, 6:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
I know an NT who has a phobia of buttons for no particular reason (nothing had triggered it).
When I was a little kid I temporarily had a phobia of those long springs that you often find in sofas. Me and my brother were playing on a rubbish dump when I saw a rusty old spring like that and for some weird reason I got freaked out and didn't want to play there any more. Then a few weeks later I saw the same sort of spring in my grandfather's garage, just laying on a table, and I screamed and cried and wouldn't go back in there either.
I think all kids go through a phase of being scared of something that isn't supposed to be scary. My cousin used to be scared of his parent's headboard on their bed because it was too white.
But I was the biggest scaredy-cat as a kid and I still am now.
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