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

Friday, January 17, 2014

Having Aspergers and Being a Survivor of Childhood Abuse

My therapist asked me if being autistic made it easier to go public regarding my childhood abuse. My immediate answer was "No", quite the opposite. I think it makes it twice as hard to talk about as the average Aspie (person with Aspergers, Autism) recoils from revealing any personal information. However, in further thinking about it, maybe there are some characteristics about Aspergers that assist me in talking publicly.
Autistics can be brutally honest. Lying is near impossible. Many autistics have a very high moral compass and a deep seated desire to help others.

Some of the times where I question whether I should write and publish about my abuse, I think, "what if this painful revelation helps even 1 person?" Then I publish it. It is, by no means, easy to write and share, but I have found healing in going public, helping both myself and others.
My blog as become like a lifeline to me. The only way that I can reach out, reveal, share and hopefully help others and get feedback.
The average person speaks 16,000 words a day. Aspies vary on that scale. I would venture to guess I speak under 1,000. Most days I only speak with my Partner and two children. Maybe that's why I mention Therapist so much...she's the only other person I verbally interact with on a weekly basis.
I often think that being autistic made me easy prey for my father, till I remember seeing other non-autistic children molested. One of my autistic challenges is trying to find words to explain what happened as my verbal processing centers are slower than neurotypicals. But I'm managing. I'm finding ways to communicate easier with my therapist, as she works to understand my...varied, unique methods of communicating.
An Aspie does what is Right, and what is Morally Correct. Maybe my autism does propel my outspokenness about my sexual and physical abuse.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Posted by at