I am worried

Post Reply New Topic

The more I read the posts on WP, and do posting here, the more I feel that I am an Aspie. I do not know this WP is helping me to destress, or does it add to my worries? For example, I was reading about the faceblindness issue here, and I recalled my mom saying to me often "How come when you're talking to me, you don't look at me? Are you paying attention to what I'm saying?" I am really listening, but what I did was just to look at some other things, avoid her face to stay more concentrated on her words. I am so sad! She's my mom and she is not like me!

My mom would always acuse me of lieing because I would never look at her face. It ammuses me thinking about it.

Think your confusing eye contact over face blindness. Face Blindness is the blunt term for Prosopagnosia. Which is a inability to recognize people by there face.

Look at it this way, if you found out you were truly an alien from another planet, how long would it take for you to come to terms with it? Probably a while, I would think. All of the sudden, a lot of things you thought you knew about yourself would be stripped away. You would have to re-look at yourself with a new awareness. Finding out about AS is similar.

It's OK. Freaking out a bit about this is normal. Give yourself some time to process everything; if you need to take a break from WP then take a break. I went through several cycles of leaving (or intending to leave) and coming back because I was overwhelmed.

Some of us are comfortable with eye contact, and others find it disturbing, confronting, or objectionable in some way.

Then there is the matter of not being able to "read" others' facial expressions in order to obtain clues to what they are thinking and feeling. This I believe is also fairly common in people with AS.

A somewhat different issue is the condition called prosopagnosia, which is sometimes referred to as "face blindness". This is difficulty in recognising the faces of even those familiar to you. It is a rare condition, and usually occurs as a result of brain injury.

I discovered that the more I learned about AS the more AS symptoms I was exhibiting.

Maybe.

It could just be that I don't remember doing them in the past because (1) my memory is crap (2) I would not have recognized them as odd.

But now I've been counting my self-slaps, my squeals, and I try to make myself more aware of my body language.

I mean only to say that you could just be becoming more aware of things you have always done. Education is a blessing and a curse -- what you have to do is learn to use it properly

Not looking at people when conversing with them or speaking to them with an odd or stiff gaze is a classical AS symptom that has been well documented. Perhaps you could sit down with your Mom and the two of you could talk about AS together after you've both read a book on this disorder or consulted a website together. This would give her hr the opportunity to learn more about the disorder and make it easier for you to explain why you can't help the lack of eye contact and why you need to look away when conversing.