Published on 12, July, 2020
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
Hi, Have you looked at any talks about Women on the Spectrum by Dr Jufith Gould ?
My daughter was told she did not have ASD ttwice because she can make eye contact.
years later because many problems had develoed we went to the NAS Lorna Wing Centre where she was diagnosed with ASD.
They use the DISCO assesment which is more tailored to 5he fact that women can mask etc and learn behaviours from others.
Good point !!
Xanadu said:If there is talk of weather on a first date, you know it's going to be a LONG night!
Always go on a date with someone having a beautiful voice, so even when they say anything at all ~ it always sounds nice anyway :-)
If there is talk of weather on a first date, you know it's going to be a LONG night!
"a love interest" becomes infinitely more 'interesting' if you dispense with the small talk! : O
The only point I see to it is two fold:
1) to put children or the elderly or sick at ease.
2) As a very brief precursor towards a much deeper and more interesting discussion (if the latter doesn't follow very quickly then absolutely no point)
That's it, can think of nothing else.
I don't know, maybe for a love interest . . . very briefly again!
Is that the rub then... that fundamentally small talk is rather boring and predictable... and we therefore struggle to see its point?
I could get really deep into all that too.
Here is a sketch which probably does not really show anyone how to do small talk:
https://youtu.be/-gwXJsWHupg
Thanks nexus!
Yes I don't have utter contempt for small talk, it can be a gesture of kindness as well. No one just meets someone and totally jumps into discussing the meaning of life do they? There has got to be a little bit of conversational foreplay (lol).
I think that what we mean is the kind of pointless going nowhere kind of small talk. The type that purely is just about filling up awkward silence which is still awkward, despite the noise!
No I wouldn't like to be asked if I was married either, it's a bit forward isn't it?
I've bored of politics. The moment I noticed a pattern in it I disengaged. It feels meaningless to me now. I don't believe that we have a real democracy. I believe that 'they' just want us to think that we do . . .
I could get really deep with that !
Lol x
It depends on what the weather is doing. It is not a popular topic outside the UK but as it is getting more unpredictabie here, that's changing. Once I had to teach a pilot about how to talk about the weather and that really does go into My Fair Lady territory, as in 'the anti-cyclone is travelling in an anti-clockwise north-westerly direction over the plain.'
'How are you' sounds very strange and much too personal outside the UK too but I just tell my students that details about the pus oozing from your surgical wound or the colour of your last bowel movement probably falls under the category of Too Much Information.
No I think from any point of view going on about a topic you are not interested in and which bores you is a pretty silly waste of time. However if a casual question yields a shared strong interest.....that's great! Now you can have a real conversation!
..it certainly helps having a special interest topic to tap into...
how are you making small talk about the weather, or water cooler conversation about what was on tv last night...?
nightmare..
Hello there Savannah
I was sent to educational psychologists and a child psychiatrist as a child. Speech regression at 18 months, then when I did get up to speed with speaking and comprehension, obsessions and tantrums. But it was called different things then. That was in the 60's, I am 59 now.
I do not really enjoy social niceties either but my day job involves teaching English as a foreign language and that can involve teaching social skills, including small talk. It's particularly important in the international business world. I do not really enjoy making small talk either, but I have begun to appreciate how it can help (playing the devil's advocate just a little). It allows two or three people to find common ground topics that do not become sensitive. I know I am not keen on being asked on first meeting by a male, say, why I am not married, or for that matter why I don't make that much eye contact! Most of my students are more than happy to discuss politics though, on the the big main taboo topics, usually we are on the same page there.....
I’m seeking out and saving for a private diagnosis.... and yes lots of email exchanges in terms of “do you understand female diagnostic presentation”... hrumph...
I'm more worried about the Maudsley because they will use male diagnostic criteria which will not fit me. I worry that I won't be understood. Do you mean that they diagnosed you twenty years ago? How awful for you. I just want to get diagnosed and get on with it. I've wondered about therapy but not sure if I resent the idea of it. Why must I have therapy? To present more neurotypical? Seems something very off with that idea?
I'm similar and am talkative. I'm 39 and was diagnosed aged 19, I'm new here and I still don't understand the conditions. Be careful of going to Maudsley Hospital the team there were dreadful and I wasn't given anything except barked at I should be working.I didn't get any support and have suffered a lot.Bullying for speaking and looking odd.I wore fashionable clothing and wore make up until I left school didn't feel pressure anymore
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