AsheSkyler
Feathered Jester
Howdy!
I'm 24, married, a mom, born in raised in Alabama, and most of my life I've been a bit different. Outright weird actually. And it all started going downhill at 14. (Although my mother often wondered if I had a touch of autism, but it was so mild it stayed under the radar.) My social skills and anxiety got a LOT worse, and I was heavily criticised for just being stubborn and uncooperative instead of being a social butterfly. I have a good friend whose autistic and even though I identified with her on many things, I never considered I might be a bit more like her than I thought. Later had an Aspie friend that made a lot more sense to me than the rest of our friends, but still didn't click I might be like him.
Recently as a flare up of bad memories was plaguing me, I got curious as to WHY I'm such an outcast freak. I started going on my mother's suspicions and reading up on autism, especially since I related so well to those two mentioned friends. I found a few Asperger lists that looked like somebody had conducted a field study on me. (Especially this list, I was almost a perfect match for all but the third category.)
If you're curious, this is my current list:
- Cold sensitivity, especially in the mornings.
- Sensitive to certain smells, bright lights, certain touches, prone to noise headaches, generally can't wear women's clothing because it's painfully tight. I am a tomboy and dress like a dude.
- Sometimes have meltdowns due to overwhelming noise levels, or high emotional stress.
- Despise eye contact.
- Prone to staring if I don't catch myself in time.
- Introverted and need lots of downtime to recover from social interactions.
- I can NOT give speeches or presentations unless I really get into a roleplaying mode, and unexpectedly throwing me up in front of a crowd of people will result in hours of shaking and crying afterward.
- Do not like socializing, and really hate "drop by" visits without a day's warning.
- If I'm put through a really rough discussion about how disappointing I am (to put it mildly), I just shut down, stare straight ahead, and have a very flat voice if I talk at all.
- Due to such little chats, I do very badly with "criticism". I believe most people hide behind that word just so they can bully somebody freely. Same thing with "sorry", many use that as an excuse to act how they want.
- Very few friends as a kid. Only really have two friends now that I haven't seen in months, not counting online acquaintances I possibly have an unnatural attachment to.
- Do NOT like being touched. My husband is the only exception to that rule. Most of the time.
- Love to sleep with heavy blankets.
- I am really twitchy. I usually shift weight when I stand in line (I feel like I'm suffocating if I stand still), and when by myself I'm constantly flexing some body part or another.
- My emotions are pretty flat. I used to have such strong, vivid feelings, but after 14, I feel like I went numb and very little is there any more unless I'm in special situations, like meditating with certain music.
- I get locked into patterns and routines easy. I actually look for where wallpaper and flooring start repeating themselves to see if it's an elaborate reprint or handmade.
- I remember so many random facts, it's no wonder I have a horrible short-term memory.
- Very good at organizing. Stocking shelves at the grocery store was a great job, and now I'm in accounting for my day job. Artist by night!
- I am a decent artist, I hear a talent is common. Also love computers, coding and building. Building model toys is fun!
- I have trouble concentrating on simple tasks, but do decent on complex ones. Therefore, it's my job to play all the Dragonforce songs on Guitar Hero.
- Phone calls are evil. Generally after an verbal conversation, especially phone calls because I can't read the person's body while they talk, I have almost no idea what was discussed. I prefer email where I can read, analyze, and present a question in a way to get the information I need.
- Always considered very intelligent, but I don't do well in public school settings. I do better online or teaching myself. A talking teacher is a distracting teacher, I don't do well with verbal instructions.
- The more upset I get, the worse I stutter, and the harder it is to talk in general. Can't even form the stupid syllables, and they're always of the wrong words I need anyway.
My disqualifiers are that I have a pretty solid sense of humor and very little gets past me, I can read people fairly well (which I attribute to my mother's Bachelors in psychology, she taught me a LOT, and to the fact I'm an artist so I study people and animal behavior pretty regularly), I'm still blunt but I can be diplomatic about it, and I can multitask if I can make a rhythm of it like at one job when I had to answer a phone, ring up a customer, and check in another customer at the same time.
For those of you who like tests, I'm 35/50 on the Baron-Cohen AQ one. On this Aspie Quiz I had 126/200 autistic and 69/200 allistic score.
I doubt I'll have a formal diagnosis any time soon. I can't afford to go to any kind of doctor for a long time, and I'd be leery of it until my son is grown. I'm not very impressed with the social workers here and the more normal they think I am, the better.
If you've read this far, kudos! I'm not always this long-winded. I'm not sure if I'm trying to convince myself I've found a group of people I belong to, or trying to convince the community I belong so I'm not going to be subjected to another round of "loser, freak, weirdo, just keep your mouth shut because you're strange" like I have in the past when I attempted to make new friends and socialize.
I'm 24, married, a mom, born in raised in Alabama, and most of my life I've been a bit different. Outright weird actually. And it all started going downhill at 14. (Although my mother often wondered if I had a touch of autism, but it was so mild it stayed under the radar.) My social skills and anxiety got a LOT worse, and I was heavily criticised for just being stubborn and uncooperative instead of being a social butterfly. I have a good friend whose autistic and even though I identified with her on many things, I never considered I might be a bit more like her than I thought. Later had an Aspie friend that made a lot more sense to me than the rest of our friends, but still didn't click I might be like him.
Recently as a flare up of bad memories was plaguing me, I got curious as to WHY I'm such an outcast freak. I started going on my mother's suspicions and reading up on autism, especially since I related so well to those two mentioned friends. I found a few Asperger lists that looked like somebody had conducted a field study on me. (Especially this list, I was almost a perfect match for all but the third category.)
If you're curious, this is my current list:
- Cold sensitivity, especially in the mornings.
- Sensitive to certain smells, bright lights, certain touches, prone to noise headaches, generally can't wear women's clothing because it's painfully tight. I am a tomboy and dress like a dude.
- Sometimes have meltdowns due to overwhelming noise levels, or high emotional stress.
- Despise eye contact.
- Prone to staring if I don't catch myself in time.
- Introverted and need lots of downtime to recover from social interactions.
- I can NOT give speeches or presentations unless I really get into a roleplaying mode, and unexpectedly throwing me up in front of a crowd of people will result in hours of shaking and crying afterward.
- Do not like socializing, and really hate "drop by" visits without a day's warning.
- If I'm put through a really rough discussion about how disappointing I am (to put it mildly), I just shut down, stare straight ahead, and have a very flat voice if I talk at all.
- Due to such little chats, I do very badly with "criticism". I believe most people hide behind that word just so they can bully somebody freely. Same thing with "sorry", many use that as an excuse to act how they want.
- Very few friends as a kid. Only really have two friends now that I haven't seen in months, not counting online acquaintances I possibly have an unnatural attachment to.
- Do NOT like being touched. My husband is the only exception to that rule. Most of the time.
- Love to sleep with heavy blankets.
- I am really twitchy. I usually shift weight when I stand in line (I feel like I'm suffocating if I stand still), and when by myself I'm constantly flexing some body part or another.
- My emotions are pretty flat. I used to have such strong, vivid feelings, but after 14, I feel like I went numb and very little is there any more unless I'm in special situations, like meditating with certain music.
- I get locked into patterns and routines easy. I actually look for where wallpaper and flooring start repeating themselves to see if it's an elaborate reprint or handmade.
- I remember so many random facts, it's no wonder I have a horrible short-term memory.
- Very good at organizing. Stocking shelves at the grocery store was a great job, and now I'm in accounting for my day job. Artist by night!
- I am a decent artist, I hear a talent is common. Also love computers, coding and building. Building model toys is fun!
- I have trouble concentrating on simple tasks, but do decent on complex ones. Therefore, it's my job to play all the Dragonforce songs on Guitar Hero.
- Phone calls are evil. Generally after an verbal conversation, especially phone calls because I can't read the person's body while they talk, I have almost no idea what was discussed. I prefer email where I can read, analyze, and present a question in a way to get the information I need.
- Always considered very intelligent, but I don't do well in public school settings. I do better online or teaching myself. A talking teacher is a distracting teacher, I don't do well with verbal instructions.
- The more upset I get, the worse I stutter, and the harder it is to talk in general. Can't even form the stupid syllables, and they're always of the wrong words I need anyway.
My disqualifiers are that I have a pretty solid sense of humor and very little gets past me, I can read people fairly well (which I attribute to my mother's Bachelors in psychology, she taught me a LOT, and to the fact I'm an artist so I study people and animal behavior pretty regularly), I'm still blunt but I can be diplomatic about it, and I can multitask if I can make a rhythm of it like at one job when I had to answer a phone, ring up a customer, and check in another customer at the same time.
For those of you who like tests, I'm 35/50 on the Baron-Cohen AQ one. On this Aspie Quiz I had 126/200 autistic and 69/200 allistic score.
I doubt I'll have a formal diagnosis any time soon. I can't afford to go to any kind of doctor for a long time, and I'd be leery of it until my son is grown. I'm not very impressed with the social workers here and the more normal they think I am, the better.
If you've read this far, kudos! I'm not always this long-winded. I'm not sure if I'm trying to convince myself I've found a group of people I belong to, or trying to convince the community I belong so I'm not going to be subjected to another round of "loser, freak, weirdo, just keep your mouth shut because you're strange" like I have in the past when I attempted to make new friends and socialize.
