Women with Aspergers

Hello I am nearly 43.  I have 6 children from 2 marriages.  3 probably 4 of my children are ASD one very severely so and he's non verbal and speaks via an IPad.  Also 3/4 of my children have ADHD as well.  I got diagnosed with ADHD last year but scored very highly in ASD questionnaires.  Doc was thrown by me because I can make eye contact.  Didn't tell him that actually I was looking at the bridge of his nose which is what I've always done.

I also talk incessantly to the point that I bore people so I 'appear' social.  I kind of do realise after a bit that I have 'captured' someone and they are looking at the clock so I'm not totally devoid of social understanding and signs!

I'm just really interested to meet some late diagnosed men and women to ask you questions and hear about how you have coped your whole life.  I've just spent my whole life knowing I was different and odd despite looking regular.  I keep social interactions short so that people can't tell because I can't keep up an act for very long though I can do it and I go into "role" mode.

As I've got older I care less about being liked and so I am more 'me' than not me.  All of my friends are a bit odd as well.  Prior to even thinking I was ASD I described myself like 'Marmite' some people absolutely love it and can't get enough and others really don't like it and can't understand why anyone else does either :( 

I am far too 'honest' for most people but some do appreciate it but most do not:O

I find it very difficult to be fake or two faced and if I'm your friend then I am totally your friend otherwise I'm indifferent.

I find lying directly very difficult but can 'not offer' the truth.  I can't hide the way I feel, almost impossible.  I have a vocabulary which far exceeds my education and I kind of collect words.  I also collect song lyrics and I have a special skill or being able to just roll off an entire song that I've not heard for twenty years at the drop of a hat if something triggers the memory banks.  IQ in the top 5% but not a GCSE to my name. I've got an odd sense of humour.

Also big sensory issues.  I don't like certain smells, the feel of some fabrics, lights and I can't stand busy places with lots of people.

I often don't get why things upset people.  Terrible with give and take of conversations which is even worse on the phone and often embarrassing.  

I kind of live life like playing a game of chess and started playing chess at about age 5.

I really don't like people beating around the bush and I can't stand small talk or pointless talk.  When I text I don't do the whole, Hi, how are you, yes fine, how are you - no, no, no!  If you get a message from me I will just say what I want to ask you.  Then I might ask you how you are afterwards when i realise that I should have done that first because now you will think I'm impolite.

I do really care about people and love my children to bits.

I have suffered with anxiety a fair bit which is usually provoked by sensory issues.

Hate change, love routine and don't like routine being messed with.  Also plans don't like plans being changed suddenly.

I couldn't change any of the above even if I wanted to.

I am not diagnosed yet but does any of this sound familiar?

Have taken loads of tests and answered them honestly and I usually get high scores.  I don't have any developmental delay.

Thanks in advance.

Savannah

Parents
  • Such intellectual impatience is fine. I used to work for an investment bank...phoning Milan..  the instant the receiver of the phone was lifted., “pronto”

  • just cannot do all that pointless talk, really can't.  It's painful and why do people do it.  Why do people ask needlessly how you are if they don't actually really want to know?  Or care lol Sometimes I throw them just for fun and actually tell them exactly how I feel in the hope that they will never do it again :O that is what I mean about 'odd sense of humour' . .  . Why must we be insincere to be social?  I often think there is nothing wrong with me but everything wrong with other people but clearly that isn't the case.

    Also spent so many years just not liking myself very much.  I look at people who seem to be liked by everyone and I admire it but I realise I just could not dilute myself like that so that people liked me but clearly to some it just comes so naturally and to me it doesn't.  I don't do anything too terrible just to be clear.

    At school I used to take in 300 page novels to read at playtime when I was about 8 years old while all the other kids played hopscotch or whatever.  I remember headteacher saying Jackie Collins is not appropriate reading material for an 8 year old :O eek :-/ lol

  • Understanding is ultimately somewhat limited to experience.

  • I think of it as "seeing the wood for the trees".  My daughter is legally blind or severe sight impaired and she's been that way since shortly after birth.  If no one told her she was sight impaired, how would she know?  she would just go around in the world knowing that she couldn't see what others could see but she will never be able to understand how she sees it differently because she has no comparative.  It is not possible for her to know what or how everyone else sees, no matter how much she studies or they try to explain it.  She might be able to get a bit of a sense but that will be very limited.

    ASD is even worse, because for my daughter if no one had really told her, she would work it out more quickly because working it out would be a bit easier to do . . .   So that is not a great analogy but paints the picture.  However for us it's much more complicated than that.  The reason we can't articulate is because we don't have a comparative.  It's not a logic failure.  It's quite reasonable really x

  • Pssst.... I find that I am able to understand others, see connections, understand things (as long as it is not people)  be philosophical and offer suggested answers..but hence my name...I am still unable to articulate who I am..... it is still stuck in my throat...still being processed...I am surrounded by a hundred puzzle pictures but I don't know what the picture is yet...

  • What I don't understand in the top layer of my brain is more difficult for me to articulate.  My intelligence means that I 'feel' things and I understand them but sometimes can't fully explain.  For example in those IQ tests I have answered a question correctly but sometimes couldn't explain clearly why I have chosen the right answer, it's a feeling, processed at a deeper level. 

    This is why I like this group, because you guys are articulating what I feel but which I can't or haven't been able to put into words and so I'm learning and it's giving me clearer understanding.  That unpicking or 'making sense' is a such a relief.

  • loooooool no me neither!  If they did it that way to me they'd likely receive the sharper end of my tongue! lol

    No, they, unlike me, seem to have the ability to understand without any 'sanctimonious' 'superior' behaviour and it's authentic.  That is a special skill which I do have some respect for!  I notice authenticity in people and I'm drawn to it. 

    Actually I study how they do that because it fascinates me.  I study it so that maybe I could try to copy it.  It's clever on quite a deep kind of way.

    Any kind of 'observing me' like a 'case' or 'study case' would be noticed immediately and promptly and swifty corrected by me I am quite sure of it! he he ;)

    I've probably worded it badly, probably because I don't fully understand that ability.

  • So...a black sheep, covered in Marmite........

    YOU are being YOU...we don't quite fit..so easier to shun than to try and understand....but I don't know if I want an NT placating me and fawning over the reasons I am "not like THEM" ... like a freak show attraction... 

  • Like you a diagnosis will give me a licence to be who I am without all the guilt!  Somewhere inside I just feel that I'm not a very nice person because I can't do all this 'social stuff'.  I think I have internalised this self belief from the reactions from others.  Also things that people have said to me which make me logically work out that perhaps I'm just not a very nice person and that is painful to me.  I obviously do have feelings otherwise I wouldn't care would I?  I mean don't people who do awful things just not care?  I do care and I don't want to hurt people so I try to avoid them where I can so as not to hurt them and I remove myself where I think that I could end up saying something just too honest for them to take - that is, on the whole. 

    Sometimes I cannot get away and so I am left with no alternative and afterwards I regret it if I have hurt someone and I wish to God I could do it differently.  I get no pleasure from upsetting anyone and I am then wracked with guilt and shame.  Unless they are just obviously an '***' :O Can you say that word on here :O God I hope I don't get in trouble, looking for another word and can't think of one. 

    As a result I have come to accept that I am like Marmite and like Marmite, I am simply not going to be liked or enjoyed by everyone and so I am just grateful for the people who do seem to have the intelligence/capacity to see deeper in me.  There are not that many and usually they are fairly intelligent people who also think objectively and more broadly if they are NTs.  Also I'm not really cruel, like I won't insult someone for personal features like say they are 'fat' or 'ugly' or something equally nasty but I will not layer on the fluff generally.  

    I also don't think I'm above anyone.  I too, do daft things and say silly things and make mistakes.  The difference with me is that I will promptly own them and apologise and won't dig myself a deeper hole, trying to justify.  I'll totally admit that what I've done is daft and apologise.  That way I don't have 'ego' and I'm humble.  I suspect that I can look egotistical but it isn't that, it really isn't.  I'm so misunderstood :O (she whines) lol

    I don't like whining either !!  That too is a waste of precious time and so non productive!  One of the things I say to my husband is "get out of the pity pot" and it drives him to distraction :O eek!

  • I do care about people.  I care very much about human suffering, poverty and injustice but I don't care about nonsense and I don't want a pretend friendship because someone 'wants something' that is not really friendship. 

    Yes...the social contract of interactions....a climbing of the mountain....survival of the ...what? ...the most cunning, courageous, kindest....?

    I get on well with kids..I like their honesty....its grown ups that kindof freak me out! 

  • Yes!!  I realised all of these 'friendships' are actually just a give and take of pleasantries but what belies them is that something is wanted from me!  Now that may not be physical like money but it might be more 'help' or some other use of my time which is dressed up in a lot of prior fluffing.  Like you I'd rather people cut to the chase!

    Even I am guilty of it!  For example I'd quite like to be friends with you guys because you make me feel 'part of' and 'not different' and 'not alone' so that is my motivation for wanting that friendship because it makes me feel included and also because everything you say appeals to my 'different sense of humour' and it's very refreshing and liberating.

    However other people usually want some kind of 'help' or time from me.  My husband is an excellent builder and I've had people try to befriend me because they want favours or cheap/free work carried out 'because' they have become my friend.

    I guess friendships are an exchange that are usually previously dressed up with fluffing and not always sincere.  I once had a friend who just wanted to be friends with me so that she could drone on about the problems with her boyfriend for hours on end.  She never took my logical advice she just wanted to drone on pointlessly.  I took it for so long (quite a long time actually) and then I had to tell her and unfortunately that was the end of that friendship because I no longer offered what she wanted and that theme continues through my life . . . Being me, that 'telling' was far too honest and it no doubt hurt her feelings but I don't know how to fluff or buffer.

    Strangely, I can fluff with children because they are children?? Does that makes sense.  I can see that logically they need fluffing because their minds are immature and not developed and need some fluffing to understand and to motivate them.  So oddly, it's not a problem with my children.  Perhaps it's because I also love them?  I am therefore motivated differently.  I do worry that outsiders might think that I am the same with my children when I am simply not.  Though I also don't beat around the bush with the older ones and have frank discussions because lying to them is not helpful or good parenting to my mind -  but I do buffer the truth for them.

    I guess in the honest sense then friendships or relationships are an exchange.  Both parties must be receiving something from it or it won't be happy.  Maybe it's my autism but I feel that no one is friends for just no reason at all.  They will be getting something from that arrangement and it will only last so long as they do :( God, is that brutal?  Well this is how I think and I wouldn't say that to anyone other than my husband and you guys here :O  My worry is that this just makes me a horrible cow and not Autistic at all.  "I'm a horrible cow" has been a worry I've had all of my life and objectively I don't think I am.  I am good hearted to people especially people where I can see that they do genuinely need and deserve help from a logical perspective.  I will also help people who are honest about their problems.  Then I have got all the time in the world to help them. 

    I do care about people.  I care very much about human suffering, poverty and injustice but I don't care about nonsense and I don't want a pretend friendship because someone 'wants something' that is not really friendship.   I care about my children who are also Autistic and ADHD and I, I hope am able to explain their differences so that they don't feel 'different' and 'alone'. 

  • I'm just impatient and I think that is partly down to a late self-diagnosis in that I don't want to keep wasting my time with people and that people tend to want me to do something...so I rather they just cut the niceties and cut to the chase!

    I can appear rude, I guess, in the I ask direct questions and I want the certainty of a direct yes/no answer... I don't do gossip...I hate it...and if people are gossiping about others...then they are surely also gossiping about me.

    Yes, we are all black sheep....odd puzzle pieces that don't fit into someone else's puzzle.

  • Side note: it occurred to me that perhaps small talk is as painful to me as is my forthrightness and inability to dilly dally or talk fluff to them, that seems to cause the regulars a similar level Thinking discomfort Thinking I wonder why? 

  • loooooool the small talk is Painful!! We have only so much time on this planet and why do they choose to waste time in this way!

    Also to me it’s a talking for talkings sake! A sign that you likely have zero in common and really should quickly end the interaction LaughingLaughing

    Im not going to apologise as I would to a NT person for saying you don’t seem to be regular because actually as you know it’s a massive compliment Laughing that they wouldn’t get but you would!

    Yes small talk is still better than gossip. I don’t gossip for two reasons 1) I’ve probably already told the person what I feel 2) gossipers are usually dishonest and in turn would gossip about you just the same.

    Gossip also requires that the next time you see the person that you be fake around them and I’m not able to do it. I can either be quiet and say nothing or I will say what I think !!

    in these circumstance I have to get away quite quickly!!

    i have on occasion said something about someone but usually with an objective point of view and I make a mental note to tell them next time I see them if I haven’t already Grimacing

    i love hearing you describe yourself because I think it’s the first time in a long time that I haven’t felt alone.  This is so important.

    i suspect I’ve been a black sheep and have just found a herd of black sheep! 

    Though I don’t like the undertones of the whole black sheep analogy because it implies white is good and black is not Thinking Do you over think ?? LaughingLaughingLaughing

  • I'm laughing reading your final sentence because I'm taking it as the most honest and true compliment I've ever had! No, I am not "completely regular"  :-)  I think perhaps that's why I'm so comfortable with my HFA diagnosis, because it's akin to being given a licence to be my 'irregular' self! 

    The NT compliments I've had in the past have, by contrast, completely missed the point:

    "You're such a good listener." - No, I'm not. I zoned out about an hour ago and have been planning my escape from this uncomfortable situation ever since.

    "You're not afraid to be yourself" - You have no idea!! I have NEVER 'been myself' around you.

    "I like your honesty" - Really? Then why did you cringe? 

    I think you get the picture, many of these and others like them are probably as familiar to you as they are to me. I don't 'dislike' NT's, I just don't understand them. I find many of my interactions with them to be vacuous and superficial and it's just exhausting trying to effect an interest in most of the small-talk they seem to want to engage in. Such as:

    "Oh, did you go anywhere nice on your recent holiday?" - No, I deliberately chose the most awful place I could find (!!!). 

    "is that (food / drink) nice?" - Surely the fact that I'm still eating / drinking it demonstrates my opinion?

    "It's snowing again." - Seriously? I'm standing right next to you with my eyes open, don't you think I've seen the exact same weather as you? 

    At least small-talk is preferable to gossip though.   

  • Love your reply! I think I’ve been too vague about friends and maybe implied that I seek out the company of these people or have regular random get togethers LaughingLaughing No I do not!!

    calling then friends in the true meaning of the term is probably dishonest but unintentionally so.  I think it makes me feel more normal to use this word.  I actually don’t like people or very few people because the whole thing is tiring.

    i am a terrible friend and I don’t make contact unless there is a point to it.  When I call them friends I mean that they don’t recoil from me and seem to like me and probably would help me if I was in trouble but Contact is very limited. I guess my husband really is my only friend but that’s by default of him being around me every day!

    The chess analogy just means that I live my life “making a move” then trying to work out all the other possible moves that could be made in response!!

    My children have only been diagnosed because they were born prematurely and have other disabilities, significant ones xx

    i think I would get on with you from what you’ve said! The people that do like me tend not to be completely regular themselves BlushBlush

  • The bits that I think, "that's not me"?

    Well, the friends for one. I know plenty of people but I'd call them acquaintances or neighbours more than friends. I have moved around the country a lot over the years and I've never kept in touch with the people I leave behind. For the most part it just didn't occur to me and the whole "Call me!" thing? I took that to be just another of those things people say but don't actually mean because I have no idea why I would call them!? I LIKE a lot of the people I know, I just don't know why I would seek out their company randomly. I see them around and at community events and enjoy their company / conversation at the time but it would be very weird for me to just turn up at their door. (I don't like people invading my home either.) 

    Our children too. I have three but as far as I'm aware none of them has ASD - although I have only recently been diagnosed HFA myself and have started to question whether two of my children might possibly be the same. 

    The chess analogy I don't quite get simply because I've never played chess.

    TV, I do watch. Mainly news or current affairs and quite a lot of Documentaries. I enjoy some Dramas too if they happen to be on but I don't like things that require me to remember when 'Part 2' is on - I'm not interested enough to follow these things up. I like programmes about Science too. Just like you, I couldn't watch soaps or any of those mind-numbing swills of stupidity that pass as 'reality' shows or programmes. 

    Lastly, I've been diagnosed but I don't think that this is a major 'difference' as many of the people on here are self-diagnosed through identifying so much with everything they've read in their own research into Asperger's. 

    Everything else you've written here, from your reading trajectory at school to how you describe your interactions with other people sounds exactly as I would have written it myself! That's what I like about this forum, finding people who seem to see the world as I do (finally!).   

  • No me neither.  I am much better with older children as well.  Just out of interest what are the bits that you think "no that's not me" . . . would be really interested to know thank you.

  • About 90% of how you describe yourself sounds very familiar! Including the fact that much as I love my children and thoroughly enjoy their company (at all ages) I could never be the 'Earth Mother' type and devote my entire existence to them - especially when they were very small and still at the nappy stages. 

    I have only had my official diagnosis of HFA about a month but it makes complete sense to me and, as such, I'm quite comfortable with it whilst still interested in finding out more about it. 

  • Lol... mental would be cooking nappies and changing dinner

  • I do have six children but I couldn't just change nappies and cook the dinner and be happy because I would go mental lol

  • ha ha - wonder if that is an ASD thing?  What about TV? Do you watch TV? I can't stand it for the most part and I never watch anything like soap operas or anything like that.  I used to like politics until I noticed it was all just cyclical and then it started to bore me.  I don't watch the news because it's not objective or factual.  I like nature programs.  I also breed cats at quite a high level because it's scientific and I take it to the level of DNA testing for mating matches.  I didn't think I had any special interests when they asked me but maybe that it is actually a special interest now I think about it :O 

Reply
  • ha ha - wonder if that is an ASD thing?  What about TV? Do you watch TV? I can't stand it for the most part and I never watch anything like soap operas or anything like that.  I used to like politics until I noticed it was all just cyclical and then it started to bore me.  I don't watch the news because it's not objective or factual.  I like nature programs.  I also breed cats at quite a high level because it's scientific and I take it to the level of DNA testing for mating matches.  I didn't think I had any special interests when they asked me but maybe that it is actually a special interest now I think about it :O 

Children
  • There’s a fair chance the AI programmers were ASD.... lol.... they’re  clever sods! 

  • I was thinking about it in that sense but as I've got premature babies I sat for many months watching my babies in an incubator trying to replicate the job of the human womb not very well.  I think the doctor said 5 days in an incubator was worth 24 hours in the womb something like that.  The womb is by far more sophisticated and the incubator is clumsy in comparison.  Lots of examples of it. The human mind and body is so very very complex.   I don't even think we've probably scratched the surface with our understanding of either.

  • You know, I was thinking about that recently with regards to AI. All attempts at AI eventually come up against that barrier - the logical processes that govern it cannot quite master all of the subtleties of everyday human interactions such as sarcasm and idioms. 

    Apparently 'Care Bots' can be taught, by logical processes, to show compassion and express sympathy but because of their failure to actually empathise (de-code and actually FEEL the other person's emotion accurately) they can sometimes appear cold or as if they're deliberately being rude or uncaring.

    Although many of these 'robots' can execute small-talk, apparently they can 'fail' on occasion to carry it off smoothly because of their occasional literal answers to rhetorical questions.

    Sound familiar to anyone?

    I wonder if any AI researchers have tried to link their work to that of scientists studying ASD?     

  • My youngest is four and his little brain buzzes so fast that sometimes he can't get his words out.  Chip off the old block.  He is just going through an ASD assessment at the moment but he is sharp as a razor and I love his little mind.  I want to bottle it and keep it forever so that the world doesn't condition or dampen it because it's so beautiful to watch it process, question and enquire.  Up until recently the moment he woke up at 6am he would tell me "I love you mum, you are so beautiful" like every single day lol He's grown out of it now clearly but it was so lovely.  He tells me all of his little thoughts and feelings and I try so hard to help him make sense of it all.  I do love children, babies not quite so interesting but they have to start somewhere ;) he he x  I have been singing 'little donkey' to him every night for at least two years :O 

  • We should actually start a "Why can't I ...?" thread containing all the ridiculous requests from small humans and how Aspie parents have dealt with them ..

  • it's shame really that computers are not advanced enough to understand context, I mean as forward as we think technology is, it really isn't at all is it . . . and the human mind is by far more complex.  When attempts are made at replicating some of the things that the human mind/body is capable of with technology these are really quite awkward, backwards and clumsy still.

  • "Why can't I go out to play in a nappy and a pair of wellies?", "Actually, small enquirer, why not indeed?"

    ha ha ha and why not!!! that really made me laugh!  I didn't like babies much and I hated being pregnant which is odd given that I have six children really isn't it.  I blame the ADHD for that.  I am of the 'hyperactive' and 'impulsive' ilk, enough said Open mouth  Babies are absolutely boring. All day 'putting it in and taking it out' with a serious dose of sleep deprivation thrown in.  After I had my first, after three weeks I was like "what have i done" :O "way out of my depth here".  Lucky for me I had married an older man and I kind of delegated some of the work Open mouth since he'd been through it before and 'knew it all' ha ha ha ;)

    No, the way I view friendships is absolutely the way they actually are.  It's just that NT's dress everything up in fuzz and fluff and are often very much deluded.  I know people that would be horrified if I suggested their friendships where 'beneficial mutual exchanges' loooool downright offended I'm sure.

    I've got so many views on things like the above.

    It is like cutting through the fuzz and fluff isn't it being around regular people.  There is so much pointless speak, pomp and ceremony.  So much insincerity and self delusion and I said somewhere earlier, I wouldn't want to be 'cured' of whatever 'this' is.  You when you drink alcohol people talk about beer goggles well I think this ASD is bit like having the neurotypical goggles removed.  Mostly you see everything for exactly what it is without the fuzz or the fluff.  Obviously there are downsides, but now I think of it are there really?  It is the 'regulars' who make me feel like what I am is not ok.  I'm actually Ok with it.  God this is liberating!!

    I've got so many questions and the more people share the more questions I have.  I shall have to try and contain myself.  I usually wouldn't bang on like this.  I'd get the info I need and then I'd probably buzz off but this is all a bit of a revelation so it's set off my thinking . . . 

    As for husbands, my husband is not fuzzy or fluffy.  He is as intelligent as me but in slightly different ways so he's very handy, his brain gives mine another edge and vice versa lol  He doesn't really find anything that I do odd.  I suspect he's on the spectrum as well.  You just couldn't be with me for ten years and not have something slightly wrong with you :O A regular everyday man simply wouldn't last that distance and I would be bored of such a creature years ago.  I do still like my husband and he's challenging intellectually and he doesn't impose himself on me or suffocate me.  He is happy to go off on his own doing whatever without being a nuisance or a drag.  We have solid debates and discussions and this is what I'm more attracted to more than anything else in a man.  We are bored of arguments, though there were many in the beginning, lots of those little bonkers pointless kind of power struggles that people do.  We are both bored now of it and have been for many years.  I suspect he's not going anywhere and nor am I.  I think I have hurt him with some of my truthfulness and equally he's hurt me with some of his but these days we laugh about it a bit more when it happens.  There is someone for everyone they say :O 

  • (Even before I can exit the page, I see two replies from "Talented Mute...?! I did not mean to change the subject, and so I am leaving this Thread now.)

  • Thank you and always welcome your contribution...

    life can be an =***! X

  • (To Endymion. I Post this, assuming that you are still "new", here. I am not completely following this Thread, sorry, yet I spotted your own last Post. There is a thing, here, which is called an "Automatic Censor", which causes certain words to show up as *** or similar. If you wish to continue, try doing as you did, there, or leaving SPACES inbetween letters, like this: 

    "***" = B i t c h, "***" = Q u e e r, "Tit" = T i t, *** = B a s t a r d...

    In common vernacular, some of these words are used as terms of "abuse" and so that is why they are "automatically" censored, regardless of context.)

  • I get the why stage....living it now! Hehe x why can’t I...? Do x ... etc

  • Really NAS? The name of a female dog is unacceptable? Is this an adult chat forum or a childcare facility?

  • Don't worry about it, I think all of us on here are 'guilty' of over-thinking (I know I certainly am!!) and I say we should Own It - after all, what's the alternative? To superficially skim over everything as NT's appear to? No thanks! 

    I don't think it's "brutal" at all to see friendships as a mutually beneficial exchange, I honestly believe that, at their most basic level, every relationship is! (With the possible exception of the relationship we have with our children but even then I'm not convinced because we DO get enjoyment, pride, love and many other things from them in exchange for all that we give in return. Hmmm, I wonder if that's why I was never a fan of the under-10-month-old stages   :O     SHOCK, HORROR!!! A parent who admits to not particularly liking babies.)

    My children have survived and are well and truly loved so I don't feel the need to apologise for seeing them as little time-and-energy leaches for their first few months on the planet. After the gunge-in-gunge-out cycle ended I absolutely LOVED getting to know them as little people and, to me at least, the toddler years were a never ending reward for putting up with them at their blob stage.

    Spaghetti on the head and sliding down the face? Hell, why not! I loved the ridiculousness of the toddler years! I also think, as an un-diagnosed Aspie, I really got into the "Why?" stage. "Why can't I go out to play in a nappy and a pair of wellies?", "Actually, small enquirer, why not indeed?" (Yeah, i may have embellished the words a bit but you get my meaning.) I truly believe my children taught me at least as much as I ever taught them and definitely helped me to loosen up a LOT over the years. (You CANNOT keep up a facade / mask with your toddler with you!!!)

    I've even discussed the whole thing about relationships being, basically, mutually beneficial exchanges with my partner (who isn't ASD) and he doesn't appear to think it's cold. Obviously he knows I care about him too but I don't think "I'm a horrible cow." or "I'm a ***" because I'm able to be honest about it. If others think that, that's their problem. Anyway, I read somewhere that ALL strong women are labelled 'bitches' by inadequate men and jealous women so I think I'm fine with that label too  :-)  and I can certainly identify with the Meredith Brooks song '***', especially the line "and I do not feel ashamed!". 

    As for gossip, I agree with everything you both said about that but have to add that I'd be terrible at it even if I did want to join in because I have a very poor memory! (especially with things that don't interest me) 

         

  • Yes you are right talented.  It is a reaction, it's not my default to not be nice, truthful is my default, but intentionally unpleasant or unkind no!  I agree I want connection but I also don't.  Too much connection or if that feels all a bit intrusive and overwhelming can be too much for me.  I like texts, emails and talking on the internet.  I can think about my interactions a bit better and check them.  I've found it so helpful conversing with you, just never had anyone who actually understood, I know I keep saying it but it's strange and liberating at the same time.  Also sometimes I can't correct my own thinking ie thinking that "I'm not nice" because this is the reflection I've got (not from everyone I hasten to add) but I don't know about you but I don't think about the good things people say very much - but man oh man I will focus on and keeping thinking about the bad things!! 

  • I just don't like the thought of being 'not very nice' that's the only bit that pains me or I struggle with.  I do wonder if that is 'put on' women more than men because we are supposed to be 'nice''.

    The "not being nice bit" - is that just a reflect reaction when you feel threatened or uncomfortable.  A self preservation need to "push others away"...and "not being nice" - by whose judgement....

    I always find that there is a conflict to draw people close (i.e. to feel connected and understood) plus a need to self-preserve and push away.... 

  • Oddly maybe.  I've got absolutely no desire to see or experience the world as NT's do.  I don't feel as though my vision or perspective is lacking, rather that actually often theirs is!  Actually I am quite happy and don't want to be like them, truth be told.  I absolutely wouldn't like to be 'cured'.  I just don't like the thought of being 'not very nice' that's the only bit that pains me or I struggle with.  I do wonder if that is 'put on' women more than men because we are supposed to be 'nice''. That aside left to my own devices I'm as happy as a pig in mud :D he he x

  • Understanding is ultimately somewhat limited to experience.