Published on 12, July, 2020
I recently became aware I may be on the spectrum, and since then have been noticing more signs in different situations. Where I used to find these frustrating, I actually find it quite funny now when I think back to occasions when I have been out of step. Am I alone in finding such things amusing?
For example, yesterday I had an interview and a receptionist was printing out some documents for me, but her computer was running very slowly due to being left on overnight. She was getting more and more frustrated and it reminded me of a research project into ‘computer rage’ I once read about.
My interest piqued, I started to explain the project in depth to the receptionist, before checking myself - it only belatedly occurred to me she probably didn’t want to hear about that at that precise moment!
Anyone else have any funny anecdotes?
Not my own experience, but interesting because it seems to involve both a slight ND miscommunication and a slight NT mishearing. (Apologies to those many of you who may have heard it before.) One guy spent some time explaining to another his being autistic. The listener perceived this as "artistic", and wondered why it should be such a big deal to be creative. Can't remember where that anecdote came from, but it was clearly a real misperception; with the speaker not realising for some time that his/her words had been misinterpreted.
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!
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.
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.