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, February 26, 2013

Sleeping in my clothes

If you want to freak people out, just mention that you sleep in your clothes. I have no idea why this is such a big deal. Apparently, it is far from normal and a sign of disorder in some realm. Not in mine.
Being autistic, transitions are difficult and getting ready for bed qualifies as a transition. I like staying up late, as late as possible, even if I have an early morning venture scheduled. I just don't like having to stop daytime activities and turn into sleep.
I am highly cerebral. I am always thinking, plotting, planning, anticipating events that may appear in my way. I try and cover all the bases and not be surprised or startled by the unexpected. Plus, my brain is just naturally always turned "on". It's my normal.
I take Nightime meds to ease the transition, but I rarely go gently in to the night.


Mostly, I change begrudgingly into jammies, but it's nt a prerequisite. It's not as if my clothes are dirty....how do you qualify clothes as dirty anyway?...they have no dirt or grime on them. Being a girl, I do remove anything "binding", if you know what I mean. Other than that, I see no harm, no foul, no egregious error. Big Deal.
I think it's the whole "societal norm" that makeseople nutty about this subject. People may disagree, but I don't find it unhygienic. I get up and wash and change most mornings. I try hard to make sure my odor is non offensive when leaving the house.
There's my two Aspie cents worth.
Sometimes I sleep in my clothes. No big whoop. Get over it.
:) Be well!

I Have No Concept of Time or Age

I truly have little concept of time and age. Supposedly, I turn 50 this year, but the number means nothing to me. I guess it has significance to others, but I fail to understand why. It's just a number floating by.
During the day, I understand 7am, 7:45 and 3:30 as these are times I need to be awake, taking my son to school and waiting for the bus. The remainder of the day, time has no meaning.
 Maybe it's because I do not work, have a schedule of events or the need to pay attention to clocks, that my sense of time has all but vanished. Something has to have "meaning", Aspie logical meaning, for it to get a place in my memory banks.


Days come, days go, no matter.
I have there for 50 minutes. I have a pseudo inner timer that starts ticking when I walk in the door. So for most therapy sessions, I can self-regulate and be aware of time without looking at a clock. When I visit my son in prison, especially when we are heartily engaged in conversation, I am time clueless.
My body starts telling me when it's time to leave the crowded room. I get fidgety, my conversation skills start falling apart and I awkward pause more, in addition to being awfully tempted to just gaze  out the barred window....basically, I start drifting away till I can't take it any more.
If I go to the grocery store, it doesn't occur to me if I've been gone awhile or a little.
I don't know...time is a mystery to me...mostly I just don't get it.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Things I cannot do...Multi-tasking




Multi-tasking
I am completely incapable of doing or thinking more than one thing at a time. If I'm eating, don't talk to me. If you want me to finish cooking dinner, don't walk in the kitchen. If I'm driving, no conversing in traffic please.
I cannot be both an Aspie and an abuse Survivor, at the same time. Even though I always and forever will Amy the Autistic Incest Survivor, I can only grasp one identity at a time. It's like I'm in a boxing ring with only two corners...one says Aspie and the other Abuse. I can only be in one corner at a time.
For months, I have been in the Abuse corner. It's time for a break. I'm going to try and straddle the center of the ring.
Because I'm in here...somewhere.....underneath the heaps of scars and memories. I'm really here alongside my quirky and eccentric autistic twitching oddities.
Somewhere....in this ring....in this middle...I'm just plain me.
I've been standing in the corners so long....I have completely forgotten who I am.
Time for some "Conscious Amnesia". I'm not going to be either an Aspie, or a Survivor for a spell....at least until I can find myself.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Opening the Mail...er not

I have a problem opening my mail. I'm not sure what this is all about. It reminds me of IronMan Tony Starks inability to have papers and such handed to him. I have that issue, also, but this unopened mail thingy has huge consequences.
Bills, notices and some correspondences are time sensitive.... Like that overdue notice from the library or the note with a changed appointment time.
I cannot explain my behaviour or lack of ability or desire to open mail immediately.
Well....if t looks like a check...hahahahahaha, I'll open it. That rarely happens, but I do have that exception to my oddish, probably Aspie behaviour..
It makes no sense, really.
Maybe some things I don't want to know or I'm afraid to find out. It could be bad news.
Maybe it's simply just another disconnect...i don't live in This world, too much, so I don't need to subscribe to societal rituals. Or it's my antisocial rebellion,
Maybe it just doesn't matter.
I seem to be an expert at shooting myself in the foot. I lose, on a routine basis, "important" numbers and notices.
Maybe I'm just plain really into self-sabotage. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know why I have great difficulty opening mail. All I'm sure of is...it gets me in sooooo much trouble and I can't change my behaviour.


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