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.
Saturday, 2 January 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, 2 August 2015
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.
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.
Saturday, 4 July 2015
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!
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". ;)
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". ;)
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
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).
"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.
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.
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