List of Asperger Traits - Part 2

List - Part 2

• Can come out with off the wall comments that can shock or surprise people.
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• Great trouble reading or understanding social cues.
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• Can have a lot of deep heavy feelings going on inside without knowing how to communicate them properly to others. ***
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• Lacking in a sense of humour. Mostly unable to understand jokes - misinterpretation of jokes.
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• A big tendency to keep things to oneself.
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• A high or above average intelligence level with a broad range of general knowledge.
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• Like a big kid socially.
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• Things are often extremely "black and white" or very rigid.
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• Not good at cause and effect.
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• Can quite often have a very blank or confused look in some social situations.
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• Trouble joining in with other people's conversations, perhaps only standing there looking at/or listening to the other people involved in the conversation.
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• A tendancy to use really formal, technical or elaborate language.
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• Hard to understand people leaving, dying, going away, not speaking anymore.
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• Sometimes hard to understand a point of view - it can be like talking to a brick wall.
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• Can be stuck in a timewarp.
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• Can be totally disorganised.
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• May be vulnerable.
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• Can make the same mistakes over and over without learning.
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• Can severely misinterpret things.
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• Little or no understanding of time or numbers.
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• Can be overwhelmed by sensory and information overload and life's pressures.
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• Can be so focussed on one thing that everything else is forgotten.
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• Competitive and wanting to be first.
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• Can be blinkered on a lot of things - waling in a minefield past signs.
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• Great anxiety staying in totally new places, especially overnight.

Thank you Megan Hammond for this list which I have found invaluable. I very much enjoyed the book too which I purchased off Amazon. ISBN 9781741107883

Megan Hammond - My Life With Asperger's.

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List of Aserger's traits - Part 1

I thought I would share this with other females/males who have Asperger's as it really resonated with me, more so even than Tania Marshall and Samantha Craft's lists (brilliant as they are).

It was compiled by a woman called Megan Hammond - My Life with Asperger's, so all credit goes to her. I am merely relating them as they may well help someone, as they did me.

* Please note that I believe that this list applies to many males also as I recognise lots of my own son in this list.

I asterisked the one about having very deep feelings because for me personally, that has been one of the most painful aspects of having this syndrome. A feeling of complete isolation and an inability to connect that feeling to anything or anyone.

The List - Part 1

• The inability to communciate properly with others.
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• Age inappropriate behaviour and actions.
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• Quirky little habits, rituals or ritualistic actions.
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• Repetitive behaviour, obsessive actions, liking repetitive sounds, music or sequences.
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• The inability to adjust to changes in routines.
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• Trouble starting new things, without support or direction.
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• Loner, aloof behaviour which can impair relating to other people.
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• Mostly more comfortable with studying or trying to understand people on television, DVD or through books.
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• Can take things too literally.
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• The inability to judge people's character properly.
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• Obsessive about a few subjects.
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• Dramatically overreact to very simple events that don't upset other people.
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• A tendency to talk "at" people instead of "to people".
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• Can retreat into a private little world when faced with uncomfortable or new situations.

Feeling suicidal and thinking about suicide.

So cheerful I know! Thing is, I think about suicide a lot and always have looking back. The strength of self hatred that comes over me, pushes me into these thoughts, though I don't think I would and nor do I really want to deep down. Sometimes though it seems the only way out of the horrible feeling.

Maybe it is a way of taking the pressure off, knowing that there is always that if things get too bad.

I think a lot of Autistic people have these thoughts. I am not alone in this.

The other day someone I know was saying that they didn't think I had been much affected by Aspergers. They were seeing the persona. The one who can socialise for a certain amount of time.

I told them they cannot see it because it is all on the inside. It is all going on inside.

I have so many fears and phobias that it has affected my life terribly. It has affected my work experience, in that I don't seem to fit in anywhere. I don't dress "right" for some jobs and I don't look "groomed" and I have always been the odd one out wherever I have worked.

My relationships have all been very fraught. I cannot keep up the affection and sexual performance for very long and in fact the only way I really ever dealt with it was to pretend to be someone else.
After a while I cannot bear to be touched and end the relationship. That's not good.

I hate to be away from home as I cannot go to the toilet if I think someone may come along or hear me, or know what I have been doing! I know this is crazy but I have had it all my life! 
So that is holidays out. I have had to tearfully confess my problem to romantic partners and no matter their understanding, it is still impossible for me to "go" if they are anywhere around. I am not talking a wee here folks!

Last time I went on holiday with a partner, it was like a military operation for me to use the toilet.
First he had to leave the holiday chalet. Go and get a paper. Mobile phone at the ready, waiting for the call that he could come back as I had "been" or not and then it was miserable for yet another day as going (in my wierd mind) is a morning affair!!

The other thing that troubles me, is the sense that I have done something wrong, upset someone, caused some kind of discord. I rarely have, but the feeling is so pervasive. I have to fight myself not to call round, or ring up, to explain what I really meant and am sorry if I have upset them.

I cannot cope with any kind of conflict. If something is going on, I will immediately feel responsible for it. Atmospheres, where someone is sulking or angry can distress me to the point of a panic attack.
There is just too much emotion rushing in and through my body.

The smallest thing can become a catastrophe. It may seem like you are being a drama queen or princess but inside it can be cold blooded fear and panic. It is all so exhausting.

There was a saying about alcohol. The Man takes a drink. The drink takes a drink. The drink takes the man.

Here's my version. The Aspie starts to think. The think starts to think. The think takes the Aspie.
Down a corridor, into a labrinth, then on to a maze and finishing up in a Kaleidoscope.

No, having Aspergers hasn't affected my life much at all! 

My Tribute to Tara Palmer Tomkinson

Tara

I believe you were one of us. The HFA girls who don't really know which way is up. Of course I never knew you but somehow I feel an empathy for you and your life which has sadly ended.

It makes me so angry to hear the judgemental comments out there saying you had wasted your life. What do they know about the pain that Autism can bring? The deep inner loneliness, the inability to connect to anyone in any real meaningful way.

I imagine you were doing your best to quell the machinations of your brain by taking drugs and drinking. Such an easy thing to do at first, just to try something and then find that it makes you feel able to communicate in a way that you never could. Then it becomes a problem, a habit, next an addiction.

It was you presenting a persona that could fit in, that belonged, that could get away from the endless looping and noise that assails your brain. The voice that tells you that you are worthless, that you are defective coupled with the feelings of extreme fear and anxiety. Is it any wonder you looked for an escape.

Yes you had everything that money could buy but you can't buy yourself out of  an Autistic brain and it makes me so sad to think of you in that flat alone, reclusive and terrified that you were going to die.

So Tara. I do get it, I really do. Now you are gone, so many people are showing just how well they thought of you. The trouble is that the entrenched lack of a self esteem, if there ever was one, can never let anything in, as there is a black hole where a love for yourself should be.

You looked like a woman, but inside you never really got beyond 12 years old did you?

I hope you can Rest in Peace now Tara, finally gone home to the planet of Autism.

Long Ago......And Oh So Far Away

Such a long time since I posted anything. The title for this post just came into my head. It is the first line of the Carpenters' song, I don't know if that it what it is called. Off to find out now.

So it is called "Superstar". I never knew that but I love the song. Karen Carpenter had just the most beautiful voice.

So here we are. I live alone now and I am ok (I think).

I can definitely feel that I have allowed myself to become more autistic. I spend long long stretches of time alone and the thought of any kind of interaction makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.

I am fine when I go to work, for I send out a persona to do that. How much of me she really is I do not know. She seems to share quite a lot of herself but so  much of it is because she thinks it is expected and because of the difficulty in small talk and the akward silences if small talk is all that is spoken.

My life has shrunk quite a bit. I rarely talk to anyone on the phone, my last calls came to £2.20 for the month!

When I was younger and used to surround myself and get involved in all kinds of dysfunctional peoples' lives (that includes me, incase I sound judgemental), I was always on the phone for hours. I look back on that person as a stranger. What on earth was I doing? Trying so hard to matter, to fit in, to belong, to give and to be valued. Now I shy away from most involvement in other peoples' lives. I feel they tolerate me and my "wierd" way of looking at things. Most of the time I don't know what to say at all.

When the weekend is looming, I get a bit excited thinking about that stretch of time where I don't have to speak to anyone if I so choose and also not go anywhere. Wandering around Sainsburys home department late at night has become a highlight!!

Trouble is I have to be careful of spending any money that is not truly necessary these days. Things are very tight at the moment. Living completely alone is expensive. It is hard to meet all the bills and they are just the basics, including Council Tax, Rent etc which are crucial, not to mention gas, electricity even though I did just mention them.

My Life Will Be Changing.

My baby, my precious only son will be moving out soon! He has been living with me for only 29 years (wink) except for a disastrous year out at university where he would come home every weekend.

I have been a single parent to him from the word go. I can remember a friend coming to stay to help me for the first week of bringing him home from the hospital. After two days, I found myself asking her if she would mind going as I just had to get on with it! Now I can see, looking back, that it was because I just couldn't handle having someone else around for that length of time.

So we made it through. Me with undiagnosed Asperger's and him with some kind of derivative of ASD. I used to watch him spinning the wheels of his toy cars for hours, wondering why he was so complex compared to other peoples' kids, dealing with very strange (what I now know were meltdowns) reactions to peculiar things, like being terrified of shiny tinsel curtains for example.

I was diagnosed last year and my son came along with me. He is the person who knows me best.
Judith Gould strongly advised him to try to get a diagnosis via NHS due to his age and funds etc.
He has not, partly due to not wanting an official label and partly from not wanting to take that step.

Anyway I am digressing (as per usual).

He is moving out with his partner who has been living with me for approximately 18 months.

This leaves me facing living totally on my own again for the first time in at least 29 years!

One could say I feel exhilarated, terrified, and excited all at once. It is like having a shot in the arm. I needed a change.

I am so full of plans, especially things I want to do at home, things I have procrastinated about for  years. Not so much things outside the home. My life consists of a 10 mile radius and that is how I like it. I make no apologies after all these years thinking I "should" want to do what other people do, eg. travel, go out to be sociable etc.

Yesterday I was sharing this with someone and they asked how I felt about the fact I would be living on my own. I told them that was the strange thing about how my AS manifests, I hardly ever feel alone. It is as if I have co.mpany all the time, what with my brain watching me, commenting on everything that is going on. A sense of self sufficiency. A world within a world.

So that is it for now. A quick update. It will be interesting to see just how well I do get on.

Sunday Grump from Grumpsville.

Ugh. It has been one of those days when I just haven't achieved anything.

Just seem to feel so tired and off at the moment. I just had a week off work and am due back tomorrow. Much as I enjoyed being at home (and I did very much), I have missed the people I work for and the chat.

I don't have any friends as such these days so chatting with them is really the most contact I have.
I do have chats with my sister, who is very supportive, but she is busy and well I seem to have grown out of having long conversations on the phone.

I think post Christmas is a bit like post influenza. Everything is a bit bleeurgh. As I write all this, I have in the back of my mind a nagging thought that I should be grateful (I am really) and to think of all the people who have had their homes destroyed by floods, so why should I be complaining that I feel a bit down in the dumps. Well there doesn't seem to be much I can do about any of these things, so I just have to cope within my small sphere, do the least damage I can and a bit of good (while trying not to drive those around me insane).

The most productive thing I have done today is create a door wedge. Yep, it is that boring. But I am satisfied that I did not give up. Bit of a long story but I will keep it brief. I have an old cat who if he is let wander at night goes around howling but doesn't appear to want or need anything.

After weeks of broken sleep, I decided he was best shut in the sitting room, with his tray, water and food. Trouble is, because we had to shut the door, it ended up splitting our broadband cable! You couldn't make it up really. So after having a broadband engineer out to fix it, I had to come up with another way of keeping him in. Hence opening a cupboard door in the hall and wedging it so he cannot open that.

The wedge I bought was not tall enough and kept sliding under the door. So I spent ages building it up with double sided sticky tape and then covering that with black masking tape. Finally I ended up with something that hopefully will work.

As I write this, I can imagine the horror of the cat lovers online. How cruel I am to shut him in blah blah. This is the trouble with my Asperger's. Every thought or action is crowded out by a thousand impressions and accusations of guilt. It is bloody annoying and why I find it hard to write anything.

Anyway I am having an early night tonight and hope to wake up a bit more with it.

The delights of Acid Reflux

I read in Rudy Simone's profile of an adult woman that many people with the syndrome suffer with Acid Reflux. I forget the percentage but it was quite high if I remember correctly.

Now I am not sure if there is an additional link to the types of food eaten too. Mine appears to be quite random but if I think of the times I seem to get it more, it relates to carbohydrates, definitely chocolate (see new year resolutions) and after eating stuff like pizza, which I don't do that often.

My problem is that as soon as I stop eating something I use to moderate my moods, then I am instantly looking for a replacement. Hence yesterday when I could no longer eat chocolate, I was casting around for something else to eat. As I was buying chocolate for my son and his LO (loved one), I ended up grabbing a pack of mini sausage rolls!!

I also bought some bread and soup for my tea.  I am determined to get back on my low carb eating plan on Monday, so as an alcoholic who is having to get on the wagon, I found myself wanting to eat things for the next couple of days.

After cramming several of these sausage rolls in, together with the soup and bread, I had no idea of the delights I was in for.

I hadn't been asleep for long when I awoke to the sensation of wanting to be sick and a mouth full of a stinging acid type of liquid. I jolted up and spent ages swallowing and gagging at the burning in my poor old throat. My heart was pounding loudly and I was sweating.

Trying to calm myself down took a lot of effort. I spent the rest of the night sitting up and dozing as I was too scared to lie down again.

This morning I awoke with a pounding headache and feeling as if I had been run over by a steam roller.  It was around 10.30 which is really late for me.

I was in no fit state to do anything, so curled up on the settee with the cat and dozed. When I woke again it was 1.45 pm. Still a terrible headache but the sick feeling was gone.

It is now nearly 6 pm and I am feeling a bit better.

So here are a few more NY resolutions.

1. Don't eat sausage rolls you fool.

2. Don't eat anything after 7 pm on a weekend night.

3. Don't ignore what your poor old body is trying to tell you.

The Old Aspergian in 2016

Happy New Year to all my fellow Asperger's people out there and Happy New Year to all you Normals ( wink).

So my new year resolutions are many as usual.

1. Write in my blog, even if it is waffle.

2. Give up chocolate.

3. Lose some weight for my dear son's up and coming wedding to his loved one.

4. Save as much money as possible towards my retirement.

5. Don't buy any more bits and bobs unless they are essential.

6. Stop wandering around looking at kitchen gadgets!

7. Try to recognise my obsessions for what they are - Asperger's.

8. Stop deciding the world is as according to my view.

9. Try to put to bed old hurts and bitterness. (Tough this one)

I am not putting in number 10 as it will spoil the look of the list.

Asperger Dreams

I wonder if anyone else has really complex dreams like me?

I find it very hard to get off to sleep because my mind is so active. Also, when I close my eyes, I start to see visions, images, movies if you will.

I have had the experience of finding myself in a Middle Eastern market. I could see all the vivid colours and the Arabic goods set out. I could see the stall holders and hear the noise and general business of the market. I don't know what this means but it seemed so real.

When I do finally fall asleep, I am often troubled by repetitive and distressing dreams. One in particular happens quite often. I dream that I have moved back to London. I am wandering around the new property, which always has many many room, leading off each other.

In the dream, I am overawed by having such a large amount of space, but then I realise I have upped sticks, have no work and no means to support myself. I then panic as I remember I have given up my little house in Surrey and there is no going back. I am lost, alone, and trapped.

You can imagine my relief when I waken to find myself in my own bed, in my own little house and I have my job to go to!

Sometimes the dreams are so vivid, complex and involving much confusion and energy. I can wake up feeling as if I have been hit by a ten ton truck. Once I felt so awful, with a crashing head ache that I had to stay home to recover, as I was in no fit state to drive!

One of the worst was where my own mother stabbed me to death with a huge kitchen knife. It was particularly scary because she was dressed in such a horrible way. Imagine Baby Jane crossed with a clown and you get the picture. Added to this she was inching towards my bed with a broom.

Step, step.........sweep forwards.......step step......sweep forwards, until she was standing over me and the knife was about to plunge. Eeeek.

I have read of children complaining that when they close their eyes they see zig zags and shapes, so it may well be a feature of Asperger's for some of us.

In Praise of Dr Judith Gould of the Lorna Wing Centre

http://www.autism.org.uk/our-services/diagnosing-complex-needs/about-the-lorna-wing-centre/our-staff/dr-judith-gould.aspx

I have put this link in, so you can read about Dr. Gould. I feel so honoured to have had her diagnose me, especially as she is now mostly retired.

Getting back to March, when I stopped writing my blog, I was fixating on the idea that I was not really as Aspie, just an imposter, and a really horrible person too. I think most autistic people get these episodes where you just go into a fog of horribleness. It is hard to describe just what you are feeling. I like to describe it as being in a room with no doors or windows and feeling such bleakness that nothing can get in and nothing can get out.

Anyway, it was during this bleak time, that I picked up the phone and rang the Lorna Wing Centre.

I explained to the lovely lady on the phone (Jo Parker) just why I was ringing, how I felt that no-one seemed to believe that I could have Asperger's as I seemed so "normal" (Ha!). Just try being with me for more than a couple of hours!!!!

It took a little while to sort out, but eventually I had my date set and it was just a case of waiting for it to arrive.

Arrive, it did, last week. Me and my son made the journey to Bromley South to go to the clinic.

We had lunch in a darling café. Greasy spoon type, but quite honestly, one of the finest meals I have had in a while.

Then it was time to head back to my appointment with Dr. Gould. I was very nervous but she put me so much at ease that I was soon able to relate to her my experiences growing up, my memories, my disastrous work experiences and my even more disastrous romantic experiences! In short, I was totally honest. The truth. How things had panned out for me.

At the end of it all, she sat back and told me the result. She had no doubt that I completely fit the pattern and profile of an adult woman with Asperger's syndrome.

She told me that it was not my upbringing that had caused it. It had been there when I was born and that my experiences I described to her (in particular the Roman Catholic stuff) would have been the very worst kind of incidents for a child with Asperger's to go through.

The relief was enormous. This lady has been diagnosing people for 35-40 years so she must really know her stuff.

I am so pleased that I got to see her. She was so warm and understanding.

So that's it really.  I am officially the Old Aspergian!

Yes - You are definitely an Aspie!

I have been on a long break from my Blog. I am sorry Blog, but I just was not sure if I was entitled to be writing you.

You see, I had a diagnosis of Asperger's which was done via Skype with a lovely Australian psychologist called Tania Marshall. At the time, I felt a sense of relief and confirmation that yes I am on the autism spectrum. In time though, the doubts started to creep in.

So I decided that I would get a second opinion and this time I would go in person and that if it was confirmed, then I would have to believe it. I think I may always carry a tiny bit of doubt, but maybe that is part of my Asperger's manifesting.

The other reason is that when I had shared my diagnosis with a few chosen people, they seemed very surprised and a few commented that I didn't seem as if I had it. So, like a dog with a bone, this thought would not leave my mind. As in most matters in my life, I take the view that others are right and I am wrong, wrong, wrong.

As Tubbs said to Edward on The League of Gentlemen. "My insides are all wrong". ;)
      

Isn't Anyone Trying to Find me?

Those are some words from a song by the poptress Avril Lavigne.

"Isn't anyone trying to find  me?
Wont someone please take me home?
It's a damn cold night,
Trying to figure out this life,
Wont you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new.
I don't know who you are but
I, I'm with you"

For some reason, this song sums up how I felt growing up with Aspergers. I did all the normal things that teenagers do. I rarely hung out with a group though, tending to just have one female friend at a time.

If my friend could not go out, then I would go alone. I must have seemed quite odd looking back.

I never felt comfortable though. It was a feeling of incompleteness. That I did not belong and that I must be on the lookout to see if someone recognised me. I don't mean me as in people I knew in real life. No, it was more of a feeling of having fallen out of a nest and having been put back in the wrong one. That's a funny way to describe it I suppose.

Or, a bit like ET left behind and his new existence filled with ways of trying to get back home.

Only I did not know where home was and I made myself very vulnerable to predatory men who I bumped into on my lonely walks. I really was so gullible its untrue. It makes me cringe to think of how trusting I was, how I believed that people cared about "me".  I thought that love happened in an instant.

The sad thing is, that despite the years, I am still the same inside. If I dared to let someone into my sphere, then I would be right back at square one. A young girl full of naivity. (sp).

The Art of Imitation.

When you start to read about Asperger Syndrome in females, a lot of things can begin to ring bells.

For me, there is one that really resounded with me. That was about little girls watching a particular girl and then imitating and taking on her personality.

I know I did this a lot. I also became obsessed with their stationery of all things!

Actually the first obsession I had was about a biro that a Nun who taught me used. I can see it now. It was maroon in colour and was rounded where the biro nib wrote and it tapered into a long thin shape.

How I used to dream about and covet that biro!

The girl that really stood out for me though was when we went on a seaside holiday. It must have been on a caravan park or something but in the evenings they would hold a dance and the adults would be drinking at the bar.

The kids would be out on the dance floor doing their thing. The girl must have been about 10 years old and I think older than I would have been. She had on a shift dress (this was back in the sixties!) and it was sleeveless with a roll neck kind of collar. It was satin and was patterned. Maybe gold and black.

I became entranced by this girl. She seemed to be everything I was not. Taller and slimmer, whereas I felt dumpy and short.  I stood and watched her and felt that if I was like this girl then people would like me and my Mum would really love me.

In my imagination I became her for the rest of the holiday.

It happened a lot throughout my childhood years. I might take on the personality of someone from an annual. There was one in particular. A girl called Rusty! She was a tomboy and I can still see the clothes she wore. They were boyish. Checked shirts and pedal pusher type jeans.

So I was Rusty for a while and would draw freckles on my face to look more like her.

There were many girls throughout the years who I admired, wanted to be and liked their things.

At my senior school in the first year there was a girl who had these rubbers that fitted on the top of her pencil. They filled my head and dreams. If only I could have them. I was delighted some time later when I found them in a stationery shop. It had never occurred to me that they were a fairly common thing. They seemed magical to me, and something that only that girl could have.

This all sounds a bit mad but it is true! I think lots of girls are like this but I am not sure that they take on other personalities.

It could also get me in trouble too. I might repeat something that I had heard in a film or read in a book and out of context it was not as charming or clever coming from me.

I liked the idea of girls who could manipulate people and get what they wanted. I wanted to be like that, but it never worked. I just got told off. In the films or books, these little girls would be very pretty and could bend people to their will. Of course it did not work in real life but I never really learned! I just kept right on imitating.

I don't imitate anymore. I do still look at people and wish I was them though.

Crazy Hair Syndrome

During my research about AS. I have come across several mentions that women with AS tend to have messy and unkempt hair.

While I doubt that it is a key feature of AS, it just so happens that it is true for me.

I have really wild hair. It is a combination of textures and is curly, straight and wavy all at the same time. Most of all, I have way too much of it!  Possibly I have enough hair for two if not three people.

Whether I have it short or long, it takes a lot of management. If I have it short, it has to be wet down constantly as there is no way I could just leave it all sticking up and out after a night's sleep.

If it is worn long and down then it goes off the Craziness Stratosphere!

Consequently it is generally tied back in a very thick pony tale. Even then it looks a mess as it tries to escape it's constraints.

Going to the hairdressers will always elicit comments of "Oh, haven't you got thick hair" or you can see the look of disappointment of the hairdressers face when they realise that you are their client!

The thing is that I hate for my hair to look tidy anyway. Once I had to be a bridesmaid and they gave me a shampoo and set! I wept buckets and threw a right old meltdown. I still believe they managed to make a 10 year old look at least 40! You can see in the photographs how unhappy I am.

When I was at senior school, desperately trying to fit in, yet remain invisible at the same time, a girl took me to one side.

She told me that they had been discussing me and they had come to the conclusion that I was never going to get a boyfriend with my hair. Can you imagine how that felt? Thanks for that, it has made me feel much comforted.

Deep down I think I look hideous whatever I try to do with my hair. After sixty years I cannot imagine a bucket load of self esteem coming my way, but I do try to concentrate on the things that give my pleasure and get by.  Anyway, I must go now and wash my hair! ;)

Whole Lot Of Thinking Going On

I have been thinking a lot today while I was working. Mainly ruminating on a few comments I had made recently.
 
I find it extremely hard to have and especially own an opinion. Every opinion I feel I am forming brings the Quartet rushing forward.


The Quartet are:-
 

• The Essence of me which is forming and re-forming continuously.
•  
• The Observer.
•  
• The Machine/Computer
•  
• The Commentator.

 
They are not people in the sense of multiple personality. I know that. I suppose they must be different parts of my brain which operate simultaneously.
 
For example. I will be having a conversation with someone. The Essence will be saying "Come on now, this requires concentration, you had better listen closely". The Observer will just watch over the whole conversation, making notes and observations to be dissected later.
 
The Machine/Computer will then start to fling random thoughts, memories, sensations and an incredible urge to share all these thoughts.
 
Meanwhile The Commentator just, well commentates! It comments throughout the conversation, on how the person I am talking to appears, how I must be appearing to them, cue the appropriate facial expression.
 
It is all so exhausting sometimes.
 
Afterwards the conversation has to be pulled apart. What did I say? Was it appropriate? Did I give the person sufficient attention? Did I come across as a know all? Was I too honest? Did I offend them in anyway? What was that strange look that went across their face?
 
As I write this, The Quartet are busy at work. My brain is zigzagging and it seems impossible to follow any one train of thought.
 
Recently I asked a lady I know how her brain felt to her?!  She told me that if she has to do something, she focusses entirely on that and nothing crowds in.
 
I find it hard to believe that I have Aspergers. I feel I am unentitled to have a reason to be the way I am. This morning there was a post on Samantha Craft's blog "Everyday Aspergers" and then I thought "Yes, this is it. This is Aspergers" and for today I am comforted .........

Discovering Aspergers.

I mentioned before that I had no idea what Asperger Syndrome was. I had heard about Autism and how many parents believed that the MMR injection had caused it in their children. I had heard about Asperger Syndrome but never really understood what it was.
 
I expect a lot of people are like this. Unless you have a reason to discover what it means then it may just float across your horizon and then it is gone.
 
As I was getting older, the pressure on myself to fit in with other people was beginning to lessen. I came to the conclusion that I just did not really want to go anywhere (I mean really "want" to) and I found being at home a kind of Nirvana, a feeling of bliss. a feeling of utter contentment.
 
Going out to the shops, even the local one five minutes away was such hard work. I know this is not agoraphobia in the strictest sense. It was more of an extreme reluctance.
 
I am wandering off the path a bit here!
 
Anyway, I was really looking for some way to help my son who was going through a tough time, feeling his brain would explode from thinking and having melt downs. It was upsetting.
 
I will do a separate post about that another time.
 
I was also reading about introverted people. People like me who closed the door behind them on a Friday night after work, not to venture out again until Monday morning.
 
Someone mentioned that they were like this but they also had AS so that got me looking at a list of AS symptoms, particularly those in adult women.
 
To say I was blown away is an understatement! Here was my life in front of me. Nearly every  symptom resonated with me to some degree. Here was the answer to the mystery of me and my impressions of being defective and not belonging with other people.
 
I usually have doubts about being sure of something. How can I be sure of anything after the analysis that goes through my head.  Here though there was no doubt. It truly was like walking up the path to a lovely cottage with a welcoming light on, a cat sitting at the hearth and tea and scones on the table!
 
I was home. AS is my home and it is OK to dwell there.
 
I became an avid researcher and found out everything I could.

Very Early Memories

If I could pin point one emotion which dominated my early years, it would have to be a crushing sense of guilt and doom. A feeling that something terrible was going to happen any minute and therefore I must be on red alert to be ready for it.

I can actually pick out something that happened and it does seem very insignificant but it had a devastating effect on who I was (or thought I was) and changed my world view forever.

I would have been about two years old and I was alone in our garden. It was a still and quiet day, no noise appeared to come from anywhere. I realised in a moment that I was entirely alone and not in the sense that there was no one with me. No, it was a realisation that no matter what I did or who I surrounded myself with, I was alone in this world. Then I heard the sound of a cuckoo crying out into this stillness and quiet. I was filled with a sense of dread and doom laden fear.

Maybe it was a first panic attack, who knows? I knew at that point for me, the world was a dangerous place and there really was no one who would or could shield me from the danger.

How dramatic does this sound for a two year old to be thinking? Yet this was the truth for me.

Little did I realise then just how much terror awaited me when I had to go to school and I could no longer stay in the relative safety of home.

Getting Old with Aspergers

You would not think to look at me that I have Aspergers!

That is what people say when I confide in them that I found out I grew up with Aspergers but never knew just what it was. In fact you could say I was blown away when I read about it and realised that this was the name for this strangeness inside me, the endless thoughts and many weird and wonderful worries and feelings.

First of all I want to apologise in advance if I upset or offend anyone. I am definitely a novice at being Aspergian and I am writing from my point of view only. I know that there are myriad symptoms and traits and no-one has them all in quite the same way.

 I was a little excited and enthralled when it dawned on me that this thing had a name. I actually knew nothing about Autism and Aspergers. Once, many years ago, I was on a course and there was a girl on it who had Aspergers. None of us gave her a chance or let her in. It upsets me now to think of it. I may have missed a great opportunity to meet someone on my wavelength. Instead we all gave her a wide berth, all of us. Even the teacher seemed to resent having her in the class. I am sad to remember that.

That though is in the past and there is nothing I can do about it now.


So I suppose I should at least introduce myself. I turned 60 in February, which is amazing really. A real achievement. Of course I have had nothing to do with that achievement but I am so grateful to still be here and able to blog!!!

I found out about Asperger syndrome last year. It felt like finding a massive piece of a jigsaw, the missing bit that suddenly had my eyes opening and my head nodding and feeling I had come  home.

Of course I now know that Asperger* is no longer a term used and we are now referred to as having high functioning autism. The lady who diagnosed me though still uses the name as she said Hans Asperger put a lot of work into discovering and documenting it all and he deserves that respect.

Anyway as this is my first post, I will finish up now but it is a great feeling to be able to write all this down. Maybe someone out there will read it.

*A kind Mumsnetter put me right on this. Apparently it is still called Asperger Syndrome in the UK.