Hello I'm Rick.
Recently my son has been officially diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. I had no clue what it is and I never really thought he was so different. I didn't
see why everyone isn't happy with him. He is a nice, brilliant, gentle and cute kid. He is a lot like me as a kid too. I was calm, non demanding etc. I
think of him as my "mini me". So of course, I got upset and angry when his teacher and director almost forced me to consult a psychologist
for him. They said he wasn't making any friends and could have much better grades. would not do the work they ask him to do and a long list of odd behaviors in class etc.
I decided to go not cause I agreed, but because I wanted them to leave us alone. In the end, I learned there IS a problem, and
after reading a lot about it online, I think I have the same too.
List of things I do that I think fit with Asperger:
First of all, it will be very long. It's ironically something I do. I can go on FOREVER. I over think everything in details, write, erase, rewrite sentences. You will quickly notice how true it is
Feel free to ignore anyway.
All my life I've been having trouble with people in general. At school I never had more than one best friend and even then, I often didn't understand
their way of thinking. I was often rejected, laughed at, insulted, called a teacher's pet because I would spend every free time I could
with teachers or by myself. I had zero interest in other kids and was convinced they were all a bunch of pure idiots. I was very happy playing alone
and it was a punishment whenever I was forced to go out to play. I enjoyed quite a lot more staying in my bedroom by myself. As an adult now,
I still hate people. I have no friend and only like to talk to close family. I never think enough about calling or visiting. I forget
birthdays too. I still immensely enjoy being by myself and I don't like going out at all. I hate crowds and one of the worst thing
you can do to me is invite me to a wedding, a party or a birthday, unless it's all close family (as in my son, my brother and his kids and that's it).
An unexpected knock at my door makes me very angry. It invades my bubble and I will sometimes decide to not even answer the door.
There are two things I've done all my life and still do that are repetitive and odd but I can't stop it. The first is a compulsive need to repeat almost everything I hear or say, but in
my head so nobody ever notices it. I don't just repeat it, I separate the sentences in 3 or 4 syllables. Example: the cat ran away. I will repeat it like it in my head:
The / cat / ran,
a / way / blank.
The blank at the end will drive me crazy, I want the two rows to be of equal length, so I will add words to make it fit.
The/ BLACK/ cat,
ran / a/ way.
Then I'm happy with it. This little playing with words is a daily and constant thing even now still.
The second thing is having an imaginary world. Again nobody ever notices because I do it every single time I'm alone or not occupied and it's all in my head.
If I'm 100% sure no one will see me, locked in my room for example, then I will move around or talk out loud, but otherwise, no one ever
saw me doing it. In this imaginary world I am someone else, I have another life, another name. I evolve among characters, interact with them. I talk to
them, imagine their answers. I have mostly 2-3 stories that come back. Always exactly the same basic story and scenarios repeating themselves again
and again, but with variations. I can't tell exactly at what age it began but I know I was doing it a lot at 10 and up, and I remember spending complete summers
in my room and pushing away kids or my brother asking me to come play outside, and lay in my bed watching the ceiling for several hours, lost in my other world.
It happened to me to be on the verge of confusing what's real and what's not, it put me in trouble once and I also suffered a lot from it, mostly because who I am in that imaginary
world is way better than in reality, so it's always a huge loss to be forced to accept reality. I also tend to admire and love people who can't like who I am but would really
love who I am in my imaginary world, because that's my ideal, and that's who I should have been and who I would have loved. The result ? increasing my disgust of myself,
stress/anxiety, desire to be alone and disappointment by 1000%
I'm strangely super anxious about not following instructions. If you present me with something to build
and it has instructions, I have to read them completely and then start to build it the exact way it tells me to. I can't skip a step or try to build it by myself. I have anxiety that
otherwise it will certainly break. If I am building an Ikea desk with someone who wants to go for it and ignore the instructions, then I sit there with the instructions
in my hand and I'm super angry at them. I will offer to read the steps out loud for them, in a desperate way to get it my way. Another thing driving me crazy is when
instructions are not well written. I get uselessly and overly upset at whoever wrote it.
I am also very very upset whenever someone makes a grammatical error. I know, my English is pretty bad, but it's my second language. My first language is French and I am
excellent at it. I can spot errors everywhere. Even in supposedly error free books. It jumps right at me. I am obssessed with it. I wish I
could correct every single text or book in the world.
I very rarely will make eye contact when talking with people. I'm not too bad with facial expression though, but since I don't look at their face, I probably miss a lot of insight.
I've always had a passionate and "all or nothing" character.
Some of my other obsessions: a specific tune that I will listen to nonstop for three days in a row, 10 hours in a row. As a teenager
I would be completely obssessed with a person in school and follow them from afar like a spy, making sure they wouldn't notice me, sometimes for months. I enjoyed listening to them, watching them move around. Same for movies, I would watch the same movie 10 times in a row.
For several years I was obssessed with dragons and would collect dragon ceramics, drawings, posters, movies etc. Then I switched to gerbils and got up to 24 gerbils at the same time. I had a dozen of aquariums and cages for them
and needed a bedroom just for them. I didn't just have gerbils, I knew all about them including which gene mixed with which other gene would give me a specific gerbil's coat color. I had a website about my gerbils and a collection of gerbils pictures and books.
Anything science related is super easy and pleasant to me. I've always had very high grades every subjects in school except gym was my lowest grade always and, even though I had
good score, there is nothing I hated more in high school than writing an essay about my opinion on a subject, or, the very worse, how I thought a specific character felt in the story or what I thought they would do next. It literally killed me.
I've been told countless times in my life that I talk forever and ever, without noticing the listener is bored to death. I never want to change the subject until I'm done with it. I hate doing it but can't seem to stop it. I also get abnormaly upset if someone cuts me. I will often plain leave.
Another thing I do all the time is arguing forever. I want the other person to understand me at all cost, I will explain the same thing
over and over again, in as many different ways as it needs until they finally say ok I understand, which rarely happens. I find myself exasperated with people. I just can't
understand how they could possibly not understand plain facts and logic and get emotional when it makes no sense. Makes me so upset.
People will tell me move on, or agree to disagree. It drives me nuts. Another good reason to have no friends?
Apparently when I am in a very good mood and smiling, my face appears emotionless. I have been asked quite often if I was "allright". When I would yes why??? People would tell me that I seem angry, which made no sense to me.
I've been practicing smiling in the mirror and it's a bit better now, if I can remember to exagerate my smile when interacting with people.
Same for eye contact, I have to remind myself to look up once in a while.
Second part in next post
Recently my son has been officially diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. I had no clue what it is and I never really thought he was so different. I didn't
see why everyone isn't happy with him. He is a nice, brilliant, gentle and cute kid. He is a lot like me as a kid too. I was calm, non demanding etc. I
think of him as my "mini me". So of course, I got upset and angry when his teacher and director almost forced me to consult a psychologist
for him. They said he wasn't making any friends and could have much better grades. would not do the work they ask him to do and a long list of odd behaviors in class etc.
I decided to go not cause I agreed, but because I wanted them to leave us alone. In the end, I learned there IS a problem, and
after reading a lot about it online, I think I have the same too.
List of things I do that I think fit with Asperger:
First of all, it will be very long. It's ironically something I do. I can go on FOREVER. I over think everything in details, write, erase, rewrite sentences. You will quickly notice how true it is
Feel free to ignore anyway. All my life I've been having trouble with people in general. At school I never had more than one best friend and even then, I often didn't understand
their way of thinking. I was often rejected, laughed at, insulted, called a teacher's pet because I would spend every free time I could
with teachers or by myself. I had zero interest in other kids and was convinced they were all a bunch of pure idiots. I was very happy playing alone
and it was a punishment whenever I was forced to go out to play. I enjoyed quite a lot more staying in my bedroom by myself. As an adult now,
I still hate people. I have no friend and only like to talk to close family. I never think enough about calling or visiting. I forget
birthdays too. I still immensely enjoy being by myself and I don't like going out at all. I hate crowds and one of the worst thing
you can do to me is invite me to a wedding, a party or a birthday, unless it's all close family (as in my son, my brother and his kids and that's it).
An unexpected knock at my door makes me very angry. It invades my bubble and I will sometimes decide to not even answer the door.
There are two things I've done all my life and still do that are repetitive and odd but I can't stop it. The first is a compulsive need to repeat almost everything I hear or say, but in
my head so nobody ever notices it. I don't just repeat it, I separate the sentences in 3 or 4 syllables. Example: the cat ran away. I will repeat it like it in my head:
The / cat / ran,
a / way / blank.
The blank at the end will drive me crazy, I want the two rows to be of equal length, so I will add words to make it fit.
The/ BLACK/ cat,
ran / a/ way.
Then I'm happy with it. This little playing with words is a daily and constant thing even now still.
The second thing is having an imaginary world. Again nobody ever notices because I do it every single time I'm alone or not occupied and it's all in my head.
If I'm 100% sure no one will see me, locked in my room for example, then I will move around or talk out loud, but otherwise, no one ever
saw me doing it. In this imaginary world I am someone else, I have another life, another name. I evolve among characters, interact with them. I talk to
them, imagine their answers. I have mostly 2-3 stories that come back. Always exactly the same basic story and scenarios repeating themselves again
and again, but with variations. I can't tell exactly at what age it began but I know I was doing it a lot at 10 and up, and I remember spending complete summers
in my room and pushing away kids or my brother asking me to come play outside, and lay in my bed watching the ceiling for several hours, lost in my other world.
It happened to me to be on the verge of confusing what's real and what's not, it put me in trouble once and I also suffered a lot from it, mostly because who I am in that imaginary
world is way better than in reality, so it's always a huge loss to be forced to accept reality. I also tend to admire and love people who can't like who I am but would really
love who I am in my imaginary world, because that's my ideal, and that's who I should have been and who I would have loved. The result ? increasing my disgust of myself,
stress/anxiety, desire to be alone and disappointment by 1000%
I'm strangely super anxious about not following instructions. If you present me with something to build
and it has instructions, I have to read them completely and then start to build it the exact way it tells me to. I can't skip a step or try to build it by myself. I have anxiety that
otherwise it will certainly break. If I am building an Ikea desk with someone who wants to go for it and ignore the instructions, then I sit there with the instructions
in my hand and I'm super angry at them. I will offer to read the steps out loud for them, in a desperate way to get it my way. Another thing driving me crazy is when
instructions are not well written. I get uselessly and overly upset at whoever wrote it.
I am also very very upset whenever someone makes a grammatical error. I know, my English is pretty bad, but it's my second language. My first language is French and I am
excellent at it. I can spot errors everywhere. Even in supposedly error free books. It jumps right at me. I am obssessed with it. I wish I
could correct every single text or book in the world.
I very rarely will make eye contact when talking with people. I'm not too bad with facial expression though, but since I don't look at their face, I probably miss a lot of insight.
I've always had a passionate and "all or nothing" character.
Some of my other obsessions: a specific tune that I will listen to nonstop for three days in a row, 10 hours in a row. As a teenager
I would be completely obssessed with a person in school and follow them from afar like a spy, making sure they wouldn't notice me, sometimes for months. I enjoyed listening to them, watching them move around. Same for movies, I would watch the same movie 10 times in a row.
For several years I was obssessed with dragons and would collect dragon ceramics, drawings, posters, movies etc. Then I switched to gerbils and got up to 24 gerbils at the same time. I had a dozen of aquariums and cages for them
and needed a bedroom just for them. I didn't just have gerbils, I knew all about them including which gene mixed with which other gene would give me a specific gerbil's coat color. I had a website about my gerbils and a collection of gerbils pictures and books.
Anything science related is super easy and pleasant to me. I've always had very high grades every subjects in school except gym was my lowest grade always and, even though I had
good score, there is nothing I hated more in high school than writing an essay about my opinion on a subject, or, the very worse, how I thought a specific character felt in the story or what I thought they would do next. It literally killed me.
I've been told countless times in my life that I talk forever and ever, without noticing the listener is bored to death. I never want to change the subject until I'm done with it. I hate doing it but can't seem to stop it. I also get abnormaly upset if someone cuts me. I will often plain leave.
Another thing I do all the time is arguing forever. I want the other person to understand me at all cost, I will explain the same thing
over and over again, in as many different ways as it needs until they finally say ok I understand, which rarely happens. I find myself exasperated with people. I just can't
understand how they could possibly not understand plain facts and logic and get emotional when it makes no sense. Makes me so upset.
People will tell me move on, or agree to disagree. It drives me nuts. Another good reason to have no friends?
Apparently when I am in a very good mood and smiling, my face appears emotionless. I have been asked quite often if I was "allright". When I would yes why??? People would tell me that I seem angry, which made no sense to me.
I've been practicing smiling in the mirror and it's a bit better now, if I can remember to exagerate my smile when interacting with people.
Same for eye contact, I have to remind myself to look up once in a while.
Second part in next post
