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

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Autistic Overload...Respect the Bolt

Okay, so I had my initial intake with a new acupuncturist about an hour ago. I found the office on the other side of town, met the practitioner and sat in a room to fill out a bazillion personal questions that I didn't want to answer.
Then I waited. The room smelled funny like incense and pot. There were a host of items on her table that I didn't recognize. I couldn't figure out the framed things hanging on the wall and I promptly began to panic.
It started with "I can't do this" at about a whisper...then it just kept getting louder until I was repeatedly saying it out loud. I remembered where the door was and I made sure the practitioner was busy in another room with a client. I gathered up all my paperwork...I didn't feel like sharing Anyway and it was too invasive. I thought about leaving a note that said "autistic sensory overload gotta go" but that would take too much time to write so I nixed that idea.
Papers in hand, I bolted to the door, sprinted to the car and fired her up. I've learned to respect the Bolt. Once I feel like bolting there is no turning back, I can't calm myself down and it's useless to try.
I started castigating myself for messing up her appointment schedule and whimping out, then I stopped. It's unproductive to beat myself up for something completely out of my control. I did the best I could and I know that.
Today was not my day to restart acupuncture or maybe this was the wrong practitioner. The vibe was not good. I needed out.
I respect the Bolt.
For the next hour I said "no, no, nope, nada, no..." repeatedly, softly to myself. Sometimes things cannot be done and I need to get okay with that.
Some days things unfold in odd ways and it's okay.
Maybe another day...I'm good