Is this a "me" thing, or an ASD thing?

[epath13]

I have been thinking on this for a while. I was wondering if its just a me thing or an AS thing that I have my own world. I tend to spend hours all the time in my own world. One of the reasons I got into doll collecting was to have a physical representation of the world in which I live in. I have lots of characters stories of things that happened or in my case are happening because my world tends to be in real time. But I was wondering if other people with AS tend to have their own worlds too? or if it was just me.

I believe it happens to any person who's been threatened, unaccepted by outside world or who has hard time figuring out how outside world works. Within your world you are the controller, nothing stands in your way, you understand how it works. For people with active imagination the world can become very vivid, almost real. People who have hard time imagining things get absorbed by more material obsessions. Most are probably combine both traits within themselves. Personal world is an escape and coping mechanism, but it's not a bad thing at all as long as a person doesn't drown in it.

 

[King_Oni]

Does anyone get on food kicks. Like only eating a specific type of cereal...like for me right now its Sunbelt Fruits and Nuts cereal...I can go through like three boxes in acouple of days.

Kinda. And with that I usually eat it for a while until I get in that mindset of "I'll never eat that again". Sometimes it's pretty much "never again" othertimes it's just "for a while".

A few years back I used to eat cereals with yoghurt for breakfast, after about a year I was so sick of it, and I haven't eaten cereal since. Sometimes I do have that with some kind of meat I put on my sandwiches, I can go into a ham-kick and then not eat it for years again. The same with pretty much all other types of meat. Fish, the same.

If I'm really in that kick, yes, then I can go through a lot at once. I've had my share where I got into a specific soda and drank close to 3 bottles a day, after a week I was like "this is crap"... not due to health reasons, but I felt I got "bored" with the flavor.

 

[Pedro]

Sometimes, I daydream I have lived completely different lives from the one I've actually lived. I can easily manufacture highly detailed experiences. And what's crazier is that I can end up nostalgic about things that have never happened.

 

[King_Oni]

Looking more and more into "how other people behave" as well as looking at the support (or lack thereof) other people get it got me thinking about something;

Is it just me or can more people identify with his;

The more I look at other people the more I doubt myself as well as the more I have a hard time in understanding what information of said case can or should apply to me.

We're all individuals with specific issues, and as such I find it hard to see any random situation with for instance support for employment, and relate it to myself... since I feel that I'm inherently different than this case. I'm not more special than anyone, but let's face it... my issues (sensory, behavioural and whatever you have) are mine and not the general ones. So even if I look at for instance a documentary on autism and see how people get support, more and more I don't see what's important to me anymore... there's way too much information coming along that just doesn't apply to me and cause of that I miss information that might be suitable for me.

Cause of that more and more I don't care nor mind reading or looking into any kind of articles/documentary's and stuff like that. I feel I'm wasting my time with it and that in general those cases are way to personal and specific for me.

But like I said; I don't feel more special than anyone. But since we deal with personal issues on the spectrum itself; I guess everyone is "special" in their own respect.. it levels the playing field in that sense, but it doesn't really make it clear.

It got me thinking after watching a documentary were they followed a few people who are on unemployment benefits. That... in a sense applies to me, since I receive those. But I felt I was nothing like any of them. Granted, there wasn't a notion of people who actually had a disability/disorder/whatever term you wish to use. But fact formally I'm just "unemployed" to where I thought... no... I'm not just unemployed, this is way more than this problem.

Hope it makes a bit sense... I haven't slept enough and the summer heat (which is comparebly mild) doesn't play along with my mind.

 

[buckyboy14]

I can't stand watching movies, because I never understand what's going on, and I can't follow the plot. Whenever I'm at a movie, I have to ask somebody what's going on about every five minutes. Does anyone else have this problem?

 

[King_Oni]

I can't stand watching movies, because I never understand what's going on, and I can't follow the plot. Whenever I'm at a movie, I have to ask somebody what's going on about every five minutes. Does anyone else have this problem?

To some extent. A movie has to be really, really interesting all the time for me to stay interested. Quite often I find myself watching a movie and ending up reading a summary on wikipedia, looking on IMDB for other stuff about it and eventually watch it again some time.

I have quite some dvd's around that I've watched a lot only to look at them with a totally different perspective every time... and still some movies don't make sense to me, lol. I don't seem to pick up a movie for it's entire concept mostly... I focus way too much on one specific plotline/detail and miss a lot of other stuff.

What also confuses the heck out of me is if people look rather similar. Some actors have distinct features thus I can keep them apart, but some actors, it's just like I walked into an office building and see nothing but people wearing the proverbial suite and tie, all the same color, same haircut. That I think can be contributed to a bit of prosopagnosia... I have that in real life as well to some extent. I can't keep some people apart from another.

The inabilty to focus on movies AND the bigger picture might be contributed to ADHD,which I've been diagnosed with. The focus on specifics might be more Asperger's related.

But I do like to watch movies and as such do that a lot.

 

[smith2267]

Holding grudges...is this an aspie thing, or just me?

 

[Bay]

Holding grudges...is this an aspie thing, or just me?

Take a look at this thread and let us know what you think http://www.aspiescentral.com/friendships-social-skills/2223-grudges.html

 

[smith2267]

Haha. I don't know why exactly, but it is somehow comforting.
I mean, to know that it's not just me.

 

[Soup]

I suspect this is an Aspie thing. It's been with me for as long as I can recall. I swear I can FEEL the patterns on fabrics irritating the bejezus out of my skin: driving me to distraction. If, for example, my mother dressed me in a polka dotted dress, I'd wail & bawl because the dots felt like pokes to me. Stripes do the same thing: they are uncomfortable. I don't mean raised patterns like Swiss dots, leno stripes or corduroy but printed on ones. The fabrics looked like they were moving to me & like they were 3 dimensional. Silk charmeuse, which most people find desirable & sensual almost makes me retch because its slippery sliding quality seems slimy & gross to me. I can't stand the touch of it slithering on my skin.

All clothing has to be free for raised internal seams, tags & labels of any type. I'll literally un-sew the seams, remove the damnable tags & re-stitch them. Even looking at neck tags makes me get that crawly feeling.

 

[buckyboy14]

I'm not that severe, but I know how you feel. I can't take the feel of down blankets. Oh god, they make me shudder just thinking about them...

 

[consultingrodent]

i'm not sure if this is the correct term for it, but i'm quite good with spatial reasoning. meaning i can visualize perfectly the way things fit together in relationship to one another or in relationship towards the container these things may be in. in short, i am a fantastic organizer and packer, because where say my mother can't manage to fit everything she wants to in a box, i can because i look at the relationship of sizes and shapes and put everything together like a puzzle. can others on the spectrum do this as well? i think it might go hand in hand with more visual thinkers too.

 

[Gomendosi]

i'm not sure if this is the correct term for it, but i'm quite good with spatial reasoning. meaning i can visualize perfectly the way things fit together in relationship to one another or in relationship towards the container these things may be in. in short, i am a fantastic organizer and packer, because where say my mother can't manage to fit everything she wants to in a box, i can because i look at the relationship of sizes and shapes and put everything together like a puzzle. can others on the spectrum do this as well? i think it might go hand in hand with more visual thinkers too.

That is me all over, I can’t make sense of my life but if you want a whole bunch of stuff to be packed well I can do that, I am an “expert” packer, I have often started to put something somewhere and somebody will say; 'that’s never going to fit', and what do you now, of course it does, I saw it! How come you couldn’t?
It is the easiest thing in the world for me to fit more stuff in a container than anyone thought possible, also I have been known to make a container to fit an odd shaped item perfectly, just by looking at it. Who needs tools when you simply know it will fit ; ]

I think mine may have come about from the fact that I hate the sound of things moving rhythmically when I walk with them and so carrying anything drove me nuts if it rubbed, squeaked, popped or tapped; therefore I always pack things so that nothing that can make a sound is touching or can be dented or squished repeatedly to have to make a sound.
If I can buy a full complement of groceries and walk home in utter silence it totally makes my day!

 

[consultingrodent]

exactly! my grandma was visiting recently and the night before she left, she could not for the life of her get more than half of her things into her suitcase. it was full when she arrived and then she bought some things while she was here, and she was moaning and groaning that she would have to get a box, and i was like MOVE ASIDE I GOT THIS! and i fit everything in perfectly because i feel like i can see unused spaces easier too. like if there's a gap where something else can go, i can see it considering i can see where everything else is fitting too. i honestly take a bit of pride in how good of a packer i am.

 

[Soup]

I think this may be an Aspie thing. I tend to shop at the same 2 grocery stores & I know where everything is. Every so often, the grocery store gods pull a fast one: they rearrange stuff! I don't just mean that things move up a shelf, but they're shifted to an entirely different aisle. Adding to the confusion, manufacturers sometimes randomly decide to change the label on a product.

If that wasn't bad enough, some manufacturer decides that their product wasn't good enough as it was so they change something (WE have to figure out what the change is & what it'll mean for us) & they write NEW & IMPROVED on it (as though this is something WE ought to feel enthusiastic about when nobody bothered to ask us if we wanted our spaghetti sauce to morph in the 1st place!) The one I used to buy was made allegedly 'richer & thicker'. Great: my sauce is now wealthy & fat. What happened to it? THEY ADDED NASTY MYSTERIOUS LUMPS OF STUFF!!! I think the reddish lumps were tomatoes & the green ones some kind of vegetable (could just as readily be some sci-fi insect...). Either way, the lumpy mass went straight into the compost bin there to be transformed into something useful.

I think stores move stuff to force shoppers to slow down & browse so they'll look at & buy stuff they otherwise wouldn't have. Manufacturers, I imagine, want to create new interest & possibly attract new buyers for their product. The downside is that it comes at the cost of alienating buyers like me who want the same identical (identically packaged) product we always buy.

When you psych yourself up enough to brave the chaos of the streets & the risk of running into blabber-mouthed NTs who have a peculiar need to trap people into a web of inane small talk, make it to the store only to find that WHAM!!! It has morphed & so has half the stuff you buy, how does it affect you? does it even affect you? I can't even describe how this disaster makes me feel. I feel like running through the store screaming "OHNOOHNOOHNO!!!"

 

[chinaski1000]

In English literature, the way I interpreted the text was wayyy off, but once again I told it was an interesting way to approach it. In English literature, the way I interpreted the text was wayyy off, but once again I told it was an interesting way to approach it.

I remember in college I'd do that. Only, I was all the time getting caught up with the idea of purposefully re-interpreting texts. Looking for new patterns in which I could create new interpretations for. I became a little obsessed with it, and while my teacher didn't necessarily discourage it, he didn't provide me much chance to do so either. In retrospect, I think some of my interpretations were a bit extreme. lol.

 

[smith2267]

Ok here's one I'd like to know about. I feel like a foriegner in my own culture. Things other people think are their own beliefs but they were really taught by their culture, I never got. For example, incest is bad, cannibalism is bad, patriotism is good, drugs are bad unless from your doctor, dating with an age difference is bad. Ok, the incest taboo might be universal, but the others are all culture specific. Nobody but me seems to question them. Is it my asperger's? I laughed when I found the wrong planet website, because that's exactly how I feel. Like I'm on the wrong planet.

interesting, I guess I'm not allowed to refer to other forums here. let's call it incorrect world.

 

[King_Oni]

Ok here's one I'd like to know about. I feel like a foriegner in my own culture. Things other people think are their own beliefs but they were really taught by their culture, I never got. For example, incest is bad, cannibalism is bad, patriotism is good, drugs are bad unless from your doctor, dating with an age difference is bad. Ok, the incest taboo might be universal, but the others are all culture specific. Nobody but me seems to question them. Is it my asperger's? I laughed when I found the wrong planet website, because that's exactly how I feel. Like I'm on the wrong planet.

interesting, I guess I'm not allowed to refer to other forums here. let's call it incorrect world.

Without even being member of that forum I know which one you mean

But erm... as to the adressed issue. I think it's cultural. There's quite a lot of stuff that is "weirder" in my area, and isn't in other places in the country. Is it an Asperger's thing to question them? I don't know.. if so, then it would make more sense as to why I'm constantly having problems with "other people", lol.

My therapist last year pointed out that the reason I question a lot of stuff is because I have "a lot of time' on my hands. Which in turn is a side-effect of having a problems getting employed, which could be autism related.

 

[Soup]

I've visited the incorrect world website.

As for feeling like a stranger within one's own culture, I 'd guess that many of us feel the same way & question what others see as cultural axioms. As for incest, it is taboo to some extent in most cultures BUT many cultures define it very differently. For genetic survival reasons, humans are hard wired to avoid close consanguineous breeding. As for cannibalism, many cultures did practise it so some degree but it was usually deeply ritualized & not part of their habitual daily diet or it was done out of desperation. Apparently we're hard-wired not to be crazy about that either. I read somewhere (can't recall where) that we don't digest human meat so efficiently (plus I'd bet Western people would be waay too high in sodium, preservatives, sugar & fat to be healthy!) Patriotism always baffled me: my country is a nice place for the most part but so are many other places. The age difference thing often is accepted more when the man is older. The amt of the age difference that's acceptable varies a lot too. Usually, the more patriarchal the culture, the younger the girl & the older the guy (often a girl can be 9 or 10 & the guy is middle aged AND she may be wife # 15!) Older women/younger man is becoming less taboo in the west BUT...the woman is expected to look a lot younger than she is. No old biddy/spry younger man relationships are really accepted BUT the reverse (think Celine Dion/Rene Angelil) is common.

Culture is a strange thing: it seems to develop, often at random & by unspoken consensus. Stuff like how high the waistband of your jeans should sit & what width the legs should be. What kind of head-gear is normal & what looks funny. I miss those memos all the time! I know that in more urbane western cities, the runways of the fashion world trickle down into the streets, but even there, there are so many fashions per season & so many designers that it still seems almost telepathic when a certain look catches on in a given big city but not in another. Other stuff like whether eye contact is okay, between whom & for how long is another baffling cultural thing. I'll never understand it all either.

 

[Loomis]

More than a few times I have been told I am intense. No doubt this reflects the constant anxiety I feel when interacting with the NT world. I am curious whether this as a typical observation NTs make of aspies. We are a diverse group of people so is this an aspie thing or just me?