Anecdotes...

Yeah, ok. It wasn't my finest hour. Have a nice day.

i hate that sort of crap, i think it's called team work exercises. Because NT's can't pick out the self obsessed people that won't work in a team....

And that is how Alfred the great burnt the cakes of the old lady that was hiding him.

I have to admit to a preference for 'Accessible' vs. 'Disabled'... mind you, that was right up until you pointed out that the opposite would/could be 'Inaccessible' - though I guess that's what regular toilets are if you are in a wheelchair or something...

Able-bodied can (and in my view should be able to) use 'accessible' toilets but should use the 'less accessible' ones in preference...

There's also the fact that calling them 'Accessible' would make it easier for people with 'hidden' disabilities to use them e.g. as per the recent articles by George Alagiah referring to needing to use them on account of having a stoma and colostomy bag

This one is perhaps more of an enquiry/comment.

Speaking to a relation, I opined that I had always had some signs of attention deficit. (ADD?) The listener, as a teacher constantly on guard for ADHD perhaps, quickly retorted there was no chance I was at all hyperactive. I reacted by saying that Attwood thought that there wasn't always an H; so that it might be thought of sometimes as just ADD. Admittedly, I have yet to read anything by Attwood or others that further elucidates that hunch. I'm interested to find if others here also think that it can be ADD on its own, without the H.

But I also told my relative that she had never really seen me in a hyperactive state; that it was fairly rare, but I really felt that I masked the hyperactivity going on in my own head, and then acted on it in a hyperactive manner mainly when there was no one watching. There was also a definite tendency in the past to pull things apart to see how they worked, only to discover that I didn't have the skills to put things back together again. The frantic effort to recover from that does seem to have frequently been quite hyperactive. Although that still happens, my skills in making things work (post-dismantlement) have definitely improved. I now tend to plan more than one escape route, and not automatically resort to destroying that which I feel that I can never mend. (Boy, that sure does seem autistic, when self-reviewed.)

I also remember years ago, after working with a bipolar person, considering the thought that I might be manic-depressive. That was brought on by an occupational therapist who told me in no uncertain terms that she knew what was 'wrong'. Such a pity that she decided that she didn't need to actually tell me her hunch; presumably because she was only be paid by the government (and not me, as a taxpayer) to add it to my secret file. That undoubtedly made the wait for an assessment even longer. Luckily, I do find this weight quite amusing most of the time.

But perhaps the fact that others have obviously not really noticed any mania (over many decades) suggests that perhaps there is a slight H after AD - in my case at least. Not sure we necessarily need to add a further D to label it a disorder though. I tend to concur with some that it is perhaps more about thinking a bit outside the box; which might be better not labelled as a disorder.

Yup. That concerned me too as a youngish child! Only I wondered if the cat was lurking under the road! 

I'm still not actually sure whether I said ASD, Asperger's or Autism to a GP, but I realised after an hour or two that he was assuming I had a problem with Alzheimer's. His English is actually pretty good, but anything beginning with A is obviously not his specialty. Presumably that senior moment (both sides;-) went undetected because I am the age I am, which is when it might well be the case. Although at about the same time, a neurologist was quite quick to say it was out of the question. A clinician later told me I should probably be more cautious about Parkinsonism. But I'm perhaps more dyspraxic than anything. and the slight hand tremor has been with me since about year dot.

Yeah, the sleeping policeman thing does conjure up a funny image, but more disturbing for me as a child was being told there were cat's eyes in the road to guide drivers home in the dark!

I still do this now, think that if someone says pardon they didn’t hear properly and need to to repeat myself   

That was an experience of mine which I only just remembered - when I was a child I attended church in Sundays with my mother. One day I saw a sign about charity fundraising for artistic children and said proudly "I'm artistic !" only to be told disparagingly that I'd misread the poster and it actually said AUTISTIC children! Little did I know that I would find out many years later that it did mean me!

That made me laugh because it is just what my niece would do, every time! 

I had a similar thing and all day interview, near enough, for a job in a supermarket, I though they were insane for asking to do such a ridiculous thing and I have no idea what I said, but I didn't get the job and I passed every other section so I guess I said something weird.

I laughed out loud at all of these and others above and especially the donut one. And I'm laughing, because of course I have done all these things in similar ways. It's so freeing and empowering to be able to see the humour in them now. Living without a diagnosis wasn't so bad after all and has provided us with probably years of laughter

When we were young (myself and my siblings) my mum used to hide the weekly supply of chocolate biscuits in the pantry so they wouldn't all get eaten in a day (there were four of us). I knew they were in there as I saw her put them there but each time I opened the door to have a look I couldn't see them.  For whatever reason, one day it came to my mind to have a rummage around for them. There they were tucked away behind some boxed and canned goods right at the back, and my favourite at that time, the kit-kat. I had this funny ritual I did when eating them too.

Later, my siblings and I were in the living room while mum was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Then, we heard my mum shout 'ok, who opened the bloody chocolate biscuits' and I shouted back, 'if it was the kit-kats it wasn't me'. My sisters burst out laughing and teased me no end calling me a thicko, idiot, stupid etc I never understood what was so funny and why I was being called stupid! 

"This door is Alarmed" always gets me. "It's OK, door. Deep breaths."

Hee hee!

I have similar thoughts when I see signs for "Accessible Toilets" - makes me wonder where the "Inaccessible Toilets" are, and why anyone bothered building them if they were going to be impossible to access.

I used to wonder why anyone would want to use a 'Disabled Toilet'.  Surely, it would be better to use one that's working?