Prepare to enter the wild and wooly world of an adult with Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by intellignce, quirks, social difficulties and downright strange and oddish behaviours.

People with Aspergers generally are high functioning in everyday life but have great difficulty connecting with others due to the inability to read faces, body language and subtle verbal clues. They also tend to take words literally and have a hard time multi-tasking.

Oversensitivity to touch (clothing has to be soft and often the tags removed), light (do not leave home without the sunglasses), sound (loud noises and noisey places are avoided), taste (many Aspies have quite a limited diet and are frequently very picky eaters) and smells makes the everyday existence more of a challenge.

Fasten your seatbelts and come on in...
To find out more about what Aspergers is..please check out my earliest blog entries

Thursday, May 5, 2011

A Positive Aspie Day...this Is funny..Aspergers


A semi-typical Aspie day...
So,I went to the grocery store early this morning after dropping Younglink at school. Immediately, upon entering, I smelled intense cleaning fluid, like, Mr. Clean, is my guess. It was pretty darn strong but then, I noticed the floors. Wow, they were almost shiny and I had never seen them so clean before. So, this clean floor factor weighed heavily in my mind and thoughts.
I turn the corner at the bakery section and run into an acquaintance from Younglinks school..another parent who I do popcorn day with.
We exchanged the usual, mandatory pleasantries of "How are yous?"
And then I unceremoniously and with no censorship exclaimed, "Did you see how clean the floors are? OMG,they smell great, don't they?"
Okay, so she got just a mildly odd look on her face but didn't really skip a beat when she said, "Why, I hadn't noticed."
I am so glad I work with her at popcorn day, because she knows I am Aspie. She has never really seen me in my Rainman, blurt out whatever is on my mind mode. But she is a big girl and she dealt.
As I walked away I chuckled to myself. See, this is what happens when I agree to stop censoring myself. Whilst I become more comfortable with myself, my autism shows quite a bit more.
Its all pretty new for me..taking this risk of not being so self-restrained and dressing in muzzle and straitjacket every morning when my feet hit the floor.
I thought I would try this "freedom" thingy and be more comfortable with myself and my processes. I decided to step out more than I ever have. And, yes, I am taking it slowly, but it feels down right gratifying.

The other thing I did which was totally out-of-the-box and out of character...I went to a local public meeting, which was filmed and all. Before God, the camera and about 16 people, I stood up, heavily in the midst of a panic attack with my heart pounding out of my chest (you know, I have had them, panics, so very often, I should be quite used to them and the unsettling feeling, so I dealt) and stated my plea for "I voted" stickers. Because other districts hand them out, it promotes voting and dammit, give me my sticker!
I am not sure what exactly possessed me, but this seemed an inviting issue to tackle.
Did I mention I flew solo? That I went completely by myself and I was fine with that?
On the way to the meeting, I gave myself an out and said that I would simply attempt this and if I positively could not do it, than no harm done. But I Was going to attempt this!
And I gloriously and without a twitch, stood up, looked the board chairman in the eye and pleaded my case.
I guess I won't know till the next election if the stickers will start flowing or not..but I can sleep at night knowing I made my case known.
And yes, if stickers do start showing up on election day, well, I will get ALLLL the credit. I deserve it.
Yeah Baby!!!!