Hello,
As many of you know I am still evaluating whether or not I am on the spectrum. This is no easy thing to decide as I am 54 and have learned to compensate, hide or ignore many of my personality traits in an effort to find my hsppiest life. I also have a life time of both negative and positive life experiences that probably have influenced my behavior. The "trick" of course is to sift through it all to understand what is my core self.
I have been imspired by member Ken to post a list of symptoms. Please feel free to comment. In some cases my symptom may not be related at autisim, please point it out if you see something.
So, in no particular order:
1. As a child I would only wear black patten leather mary janes.
2. I have an obsession with little boxes and "kits". I don't have the money or space for a collection but I love looking at others creations and collections on line. When I need to self soothe I imagine boxes and kits I would make if I were a crafts person. I do have a small collection of boxes though, prayer boxes, pill boxes and cosmetic boxes. The smaller the better.
3. I have very little inate sense of direction. I get lost easily without specific instructions. I will always study a map of where I am going even if I have been there before. The only exception would be to my job, home, neighborhood grocery etc.
4. I really don't like talking on the phone. I find I interupt people when I don't intend to and I find it difficult to understand what others are saying. And I just don't have enough to say to keep a conversation going.
5. Crowds of people wear me out. Just being in a mall, large store or farmers market makes me feel physically tired after an hour or so.
6. Anywhere there are a lot of people I become overwhelmed by the constant chatter of voices. It is not how loud they are but how distracting everone talking at once is. I hear every voice distinctly, if the voices would all blend into indistinct babble it would be better.
7. I was painfully shy until my 20s. Meeting new people as a child and in my teens would give me panic attacks.
8. I wet my bed until 8. I still had an accident here and there until I was about 13.
9. I have discalculia. I was unaware of it until I started getting in trouble at work for inacuracies. I pretty much sucked at math in school.
10. Often when others tell me about an experience they have had, I will tell the about my similar experience. It is my belief that sharing my experience I am showing I can relate and understand their story. But I have recently discovered that most people think I am trying to turn the attention to myself. Since I have learned this I try not to do it but I still do sometimes.
11. I often feel like a babe in the woods. I don't know how to behave or what to say in most new situations.
12. I have learned to make eye contact but it is not easy. I still don't know how long I am supposed to look, if my eyes are supposed to be doing something when others look me in the eye. I find the whole experience unnerving. I usually glance for a second then look away. See #14
13. I can not watch others eat. I can sit at the table while we are all having a meal but I can't look at others faces when they are eating. I usually stare at my plate. See #14
14. In most situations that make me feel uncomforable my vision becomes disassociated to my conscious mind. I am conscious of where I am and what I am doing but not what I am viewing.
15. I have a very good imagination and can picture objects as 3d in my mind. I can rotate them and see how their parts work with other parts.
16. I am very good with pattern recognition
17. I never forget a face and can tell you when and where I have seen that face before but I won't remember their name easily.
18. I have bisual snow syndrome and tinnitus
19. I trip over my own feet a lot and always seem to hit things off the counter with my elbows. It is so bad that I will move things in other peoples houses just to save their belongings and my embarassment. But please don't move things in my house because I have arranged things to be out of the elbow zone. This is not unlike the way a blind person organizes their house.
20. I dislike one on one conversations with most people because there is too much pressure to participate. Rarely I will find that me and another person can converse well together but it does happen sometimes.
21. I need loads of alone time. At least 6 hours of alone time every day.
22. No matter what I am doing I make a visual plan in my head before I do it. Even simple things like getting a glass of water will be mapped in my mind. Once I start following my plan I can get derailed if I am interupted. This is especially true for multi step plans like cooking dinner or completeing a chore. I feel very panicky if I am temporarily stopped in the middle of my plan.
23. I don't always get the point of jokes, sometimes I don't understand the punch line and the whole joke just ends up being baffling nonsense.
24. I can't wear any clothes that bind or fit closely. My clothing must be loose, even over sized sometimes. I am very sensative to fabric texture and prefer soft fabric like cotton but not too soft like satin (that just feels icky).
25. I have a very good head for trivia and will remember bits of information about a wide variety of topics. When I was younger I had a habit of correcting people when their facts were wrong even over inconsequential things. People don't like that do now I only correct people if life or limb depends in the right answer.
More later
As many of you know I am still evaluating whether or not I am on the spectrum. This is no easy thing to decide as I am 54 and have learned to compensate, hide or ignore many of my personality traits in an effort to find my hsppiest life. I also have a life time of both negative and positive life experiences that probably have influenced my behavior. The "trick" of course is to sift through it all to understand what is my core self.
I have been imspired by member Ken to post a list of symptoms. Please feel free to comment. In some cases my symptom may not be related at autisim, please point it out if you see something.
So, in no particular order:
1. As a child I would only wear black patten leather mary janes.
2. I have an obsession with little boxes and "kits". I don't have the money or space for a collection but I love looking at others creations and collections on line. When I need to self soothe I imagine boxes and kits I would make if I were a crafts person. I do have a small collection of boxes though, prayer boxes, pill boxes and cosmetic boxes. The smaller the better.
3. I have very little inate sense of direction. I get lost easily without specific instructions. I will always study a map of where I am going even if I have been there before. The only exception would be to my job, home, neighborhood grocery etc.
4. I really don't like talking on the phone. I find I interupt people when I don't intend to and I find it difficult to understand what others are saying. And I just don't have enough to say to keep a conversation going.
5. Crowds of people wear me out. Just being in a mall, large store or farmers market makes me feel physically tired after an hour or so.
6. Anywhere there are a lot of people I become overwhelmed by the constant chatter of voices. It is not how loud they are but how distracting everone talking at once is. I hear every voice distinctly, if the voices would all blend into indistinct babble it would be better.
7. I was painfully shy until my 20s. Meeting new people as a child and in my teens would give me panic attacks.
8. I wet my bed until 8. I still had an accident here and there until I was about 13.
9. I have discalculia. I was unaware of it until I started getting in trouble at work for inacuracies. I pretty much sucked at math in school.
10. Often when others tell me about an experience they have had, I will tell the about my similar experience. It is my belief that sharing my experience I am showing I can relate and understand their story. But I have recently discovered that most people think I am trying to turn the attention to myself. Since I have learned this I try not to do it but I still do sometimes.
11. I often feel like a babe in the woods. I don't know how to behave or what to say in most new situations.
12. I have learned to make eye contact but it is not easy. I still don't know how long I am supposed to look, if my eyes are supposed to be doing something when others look me in the eye. I find the whole experience unnerving. I usually glance for a second then look away. See #14
13. I can not watch others eat. I can sit at the table while we are all having a meal but I can't look at others faces when they are eating. I usually stare at my plate. See #14
14. In most situations that make me feel uncomforable my vision becomes disassociated to my conscious mind. I am conscious of where I am and what I am doing but not what I am viewing.
15. I have a very good imagination and can picture objects as 3d in my mind. I can rotate them and see how their parts work with other parts.
16. I am very good with pattern recognition
17. I never forget a face and can tell you when and where I have seen that face before but I won't remember their name easily.
18. I have bisual snow syndrome and tinnitus
19. I trip over my own feet a lot and always seem to hit things off the counter with my elbows. It is so bad that I will move things in other peoples houses just to save their belongings and my embarassment. But please don't move things in my house because I have arranged things to be out of the elbow zone. This is not unlike the way a blind person organizes their house.
20. I dislike one on one conversations with most people because there is too much pressure to participate. Rarely I will find that me and another person can converse well together but it does happen sometimes.
21. I need loads of alone time. At least 6 hours of alone time every day.
22. No matter what I am doing I make a visual plan in my head before I do it. Even simple things like getting a glass of water will be mapped in my mind. Once I start following my plan I can get derailed if I am interupted. This is especially true for multi step plans like cooking dinner or completeing a chore. I feel very panicky if I am temporarily stopped in the middle of my plan.
23. I don't always get the point of jokes, sometimes I don't understand the punch line and the whole joke just ends up being baffling nonsense.
24. I can't wear any clothes that bind or fit closely. My clothing must be loose, even over sized sometimes. I am very sensative to fabric texture and prefer soft fabric like cotton but not too soft like satin (that just feels icky).
25. I have a very good head for trivia and will remember bits of information about a wide variety of topics. When I was younger I had a habit of correcting people when their facts were wrong even over inconsequential things. People don't like that do now I only correct people if life or limb depends in the right answer.
More later
