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, August 2, 2018

I'm Cranky and Irritable and I don't know why

My particular brand of Autism means that I have a difficult time identifying how I am feeling, physically and emotionally.
I've learned that it's easier to tell if I'm cranky or irritable if someone else is around. If my son, or even my dog is in my presence, I'm quicker to realize that something is askew and off kilter. I hear it in my tone of voice when speaking mostly.
If I'm feeling this way, I've narrowed down the possibilities as to the cause:
A) I could be tired.
B) I could be in physical pain. It seems that back pain is difficult for me to be aware of, but pain anywhere in my body, hand, foot, neck, shoulder, isn't recognized unless it's a 9 or 10 on that archaic pain scale.
C) I might be hungry. I don't eat regular meals or enjoy eating in particular. If I go too many hours the hunger may only register as feeling grumpy.
D) I could be overwhelmed. Maybe I spent a few hours out in public the day before or I ran multiple errands for a few days in a row. Maybe I just haven't had enough downtime or time alone.
The internal barometers for pain and hunger don't work very well. It can be challenging to feel "off" and not know why. I have to be vigilant and work to analyze how I feel. If I fail to recognize that my low level activities are adding up, I could end up in full-blown exhausted shutdown and be unable to speak or get out of bed for a couple days.
People erroneously accuse Autistics of "overthinking" failing to realize that overthinking is mandatory if your Aspie.
I've stopped beating myself up for my frequent analyzing and examining. Its necessary.