Therapy for Autistic Behaviour?

I'd forgotten about it.  I haven't thought about it for years! I just thought what can I connect with myself before I developed the masks?  The true self?  Then that song started playing in my head and I had it right there.  One of my "gifts' or "special interests" is lyrics to songs.  I can not hear a song for 30 thirty years but if something triggers it, just like what happened with this now.  Then every word will flood into mind with visuals.  In this case Olivia Newton John floating around on roller skates?  I wonder if I should keep that little pearl of information from the assessor in case she diagnoses me with something else 

I just don't tell people these things!  It's all coming out now !

Oooh! I love Hotel Chocolat stuff but it's SO damned expensive! They can well afford to lose a few strawberries!! That reminds me of a story / joke I heard about a guy who went around shops advertising goods as 'Buy One Get One Free' and trying to walk out of the store with just the 'Free Ones' LOL love it! 

Literalisms are the best laughs though, especially when the other person doesn't 'get it' but maybe that's just me being mean. Or when people inadvertently use an unfortunate colloquialism. I watched a show the other night where a presenter asked an apparently famous British actor if he'd had to "beat off lots of American men to get that role?" Classic! My daughter has dropped a few massive bombs like that recently but I don't think NAS would appreciate me posting them here   : /   She's trying so hard to be a fully-fledged teenager but isn't quite there yet (13) so her use of slang phrases she's heard is ... interesting! 

Xanadu is a crazy film! Swan from The Warriors and Sandahl Bergman from Conan The Barbarian starring in a movie about a guy who makes album covers who finds an immortal Greek woman who wants him to open a roller disco with Gene Kelly! It's insane! A film with a premise like that would never be made today. The 80's and the birth of home video were great!

I know the movie because ELO are on the soundtrack. Nothing to do with glitter, dance, or roller disco's.........

I like your new forumname!!

I've heard it in a poem but I hadn't heard of the movie. Just Googled it but I only know Olivia Newton John (movie-wise) from Grease which I liked! (Pssst! I'm not sure if it's a good idea to use your real name on here  : O  Think the moderators delete them!)   

No problem! It's been good for me too because I haven't really had anyone to relate to who was diagnosed late or is in the same age range as me. Also relating to people who have had a recent diagnosis. Filling in all the gaps is relieving after all these years!

Hey don't think of them as mistakes! As Bob Ross (the white guy with the big afro who paints on TV) says "We don't make mistakes here, just happy accidents", sounds a little whimsical but I like it! It's better than angst and regret! I've had that stage in my life. It was a big ******* waste of time. I actually watch Bob Ross when I've had a meltdown. He is like Valium and Zen mixed but in double denims. I'd seriously recommend watching him when you need a cooldown. I don't worry about posting the "weird" stuff, if it helps people out I don't mind looking a bit silly. We can look back and laugh at it all in good company!

Having an understanding partner is great. Both of the girls I was engaged to pretty much accepted my weirder moments. They were both NT but they had their moments themselves. I remember when one of them dyed her arm hair blonde to hide it. She was dark skinned! Needless to say it didn't look good! She had a degree too and barely any hair there, just a compulsion about it. So NT people can be as just as "weird" sometimes!

I remember we nearly got arrested once for eating a punnet of chocolate strawberries. They had a sign saying "TRY SOME!!!", so I did. I started eating the punnet. She came walking over and said give me some of those. So we carried on looking around the shop. The assistant came over and said "When are you going to pay for those?". I said "How much are they?. It said try some." She said "£15, and the sign means buy some" very rudely (It was one of those snooty Hotel Chocolat stores). I refused to pay because it said "TRY SOME!!!" not buy some and her attitude. I wasn't rude, I just pointed out the difference. We left the store and security were walking in. She was laughing about it, I pointed at her arms and we both started laughing even harder. Looking back that was the whole "literalism" thing kicking in.

I've decided to change my username!  People keep thinking I'm here about my children with mummy to six and I'm not here about them lol I'm here about me.  So I changed it to Xanadu.  My real name sounds a bit similar.  I was born in 1975 and in 1980 a wonderful film came out called Xanadu and I liked Olivia Newton John and got quite lost in it.  This was all "pre-roles".  So it's fitting and that will be my name from hereon  It's still me!

I'm not really used to connecting with people . . .this is quite addictive!  I can connect for a little while with people but then I'll say something 'odd' (which isn't actually odd but which has gone right over their heads) and then it goes 'quiet' then you don't feel very connected anymore   Then you feel 'odd' again.  That doesn't happen much here does it !! 

Hmm "hyper analyse".  I've given that some more thought.  I'd never heard it called that before!  I have gone around my whole life explaining that I what I do is "play chess" in my head over everything.  If someone makes one move, I am working out why they made that move, what it could mean and what might happen if I make a particular next move.  I'm scouring the entire board, looking for every possible eventuality and the significance of that!   So I've just been calling it "playing chess in my head" but you say "hyper analyse".  Now that's a much more concise explanation for it!  I'll run with that in future, thank you . . . 

Sometimes the 'hyper analysing' can look like paranoia, it's not though.  I do it for it everything.  Which type of washing powder to buy . . . signing up to something . . . accepting an invitation . . . everything !! I am constantly scanning the entire picture.  I could over complicate a boiled egg !  I must start writing all this stuff down to present to my assessor !! 

Most definitely! 

I think it is!

Ha!!  This is what my husband thinks, that it is my latest obsession!! Autism!  

He just ignores me and lets me get on with these things to be honest.

Besides he likes my weirdness, he's a bit weird himself.  I swear he's got 'something' - you couldn't be with me for 10 years and just be totally and completely neurotypical I don't think.

He's never shocked by anything that I do or say!

Thank goodness really!

I too post things on here and think "can I say that" is that "too far" . . .

No one seems to bat an eyelid and the biggest shocker is that people seem to connect and then I think "ok then".  No one thinks this is weird :O 

Like dipping your toe in the water and slowly edging in . . .lol

Is that because they accept and we hyper analyse? 

Thank you all! (Xanadu, @Cloudy Mountains, .) for understanding that   : )   

I agree that much, much more of the real me is coming out in this forum too than with anyone else before. It's partly because you all (lots of people on the forum) seem to just 'get it'. I keep reading other people's posts and relating to them so much it's ... I don't even have the words for it!

It's a little scary but also liberating to be able to admit all of the wonky mistakes I make, wrong end of the sticks, points I start to make and then can't finish ... I've posted a few things here then thought "No, I can't post that it's too weird." but when I've been brave enough to post it anyway - the world didn't end!!! It's an enormous relief to see others do it too!

With my partner I can be more myself than with anyone else in the real world but there are still some things I wouldn't talk about. Stims for one! He sees them, they don't bother him, but I don't think I could describe to him WHY I do them, not properly anyway. With other 'odd bits' he just says "You're funny." and shakes his head the way I do when the kids do something cute. I think he believes Asperger's is just my latest project to be honest, it's not that he doesn't take it seriously but more that he just accepts it and doesn't see why it would be any more of a life changing thing than if I were to shave off all of my hair or something like that. He's not a man of extremes (thankfully!), there isn't room enough for two like that in this relationship!! 

Where's the 'Stims' thread???

Good points and yes potentially scary epiphanies.

i would love to to talk to my OH about my “core me”... have have tried to do so on many ocassions... I believe the masked self is much more preferred and accepted. This means, you poor sous, that you have to tolerate the “real” me on the forum.

sorry! :) 

No.  I totally get you.  I am the MOST myself with my husband but I still don't talk about the really odd stuff a lot with him.  I put on 'roles' to meet him and get him to 'marry me' and I've slowly revealed the other bits as the years have gone on!

I am not comfortable talking about the 'core me' really with anyone so I totally get what you are saying.  I think I do have 'roles' with him as well but they are lot more authentic.  I think I just need them full stop really for any interaction with anyone!

Nah, it's not a post to worry about! If people are reading who are getting a diagnosis it will help them! I took my ex with me because she was one of the few people who saw me without my masks. I also knew that she had seen me with them on. I was with my ex 10 years but I didn't feel too bad about her being there. We weren't together at the time either. Things might have been different if we were though I get your point. You can kind of hold things back because you don't want things to change.

My finding myself years didn't exist until I'd got that diagnosis. 30 odd years of thinking I was going mad kind of drove me mad!

A diagnosis brought us closure from what I can tell.

I went alone to mine, I'm not in touch with any of my family and my partner and I have only been together 17 years so he didn't know me through the 'finding myself' years (now the search begins again!!)

I'm not sure I could have talked about some of the things (in the way that I did) with my partner there. That sounds bad, obviously I can talk to him but it's different from the WAY I talk to other people somehow - even if the subject matter and content are the same. Aaaarrrgh!!! I can't explain it. ***! Does that mean I mask with him too? I don't FEEL as if I do.

Okaaaaay. So, this is what a post looks like just before I think WTF? and delete it.  

I took my mom and my ex partner because they'd watched me most my life. I wore my usual clothes, I pretty much have a "uniform", lol. The psychologist said she was grateful I'd taken someone with me who was an observer. I said "then you have a metric to work with". She asked me if I was after her job. She asked my mom and ex partner a lot of questions. My mom covered all of the stuff I did as a kid. I didn't like to be touched, I had a traumatic birth (apparently this can be a factor), I had obsessive behaviours, e.t.c. At one point she asked my mom if she ever thought any of it was strange. Mom said "as opposed to what? I've only had one", I couldn't help but laugh. I was pretty ill at the time so I did a lot of rocking.

She asked a lot of questions about my IQ, memory and imagination. The main thing I expressed was my senses. My main problem in my opinion. That and my addictions. I had to be very open. I struggled with it at first but she explained why she had to ask. I managed to get it all out. My mom and ex were great too. She gave me my diagnosis and a few suggestions of how to move forward.

For myself (and maybe Cloudy Mountains if I've read things properly?) I went into the room in my ultra-capable 'Official' mode, my 'here to sort things out and get a straight answer' mode. I had on my 'about town' clothes and even took notes with me in my bag!

It started going to pieces (little inside-the-head freakout) in the waiting room (hate those) but when I got in there and she was equally capable, professional and straight-talking in a sort of 'man-to-man' way, I practically felt myself crumbling. So, it's not that I managed to go into it mask-less (How would I have left the house like that? Travelled there like that? EEEEKKK!!! Does not bear thinking about!) more that they all fell away once I got into the room and started talking. 

Ordinarily (although it's not ordinary at all for me to be out and about as private me) if I find a mask crumbling under scrutiny I simply shut-up or leave. Those weren't options at the assessment and so I was sort of stranded there, kind of. Wanting to do it, fascinated and intrigued about what the assessment might show, but I felt about ten years old again at some points. 

It is very weird! If you can, take time out after it.  

Hahahaha, I don't know but I've got no skin on the toes on my left foot pretty much. It started with a patch of eczema. Now it looks like hamburger meat. I sound so hygenic and presentable, lol. This is getting weird but funny!