Published on 12, July, 2020
Again I have been kept awake, this time by my neighbour bloody coughing of all things! Excuse the language but I am angry. Far worse things could come out but are not fit for this forum.
Two nights ago, I kept on being kept awake by my neighbour's deep, husky cough, then the next night students woke me up at 4am by talking loudly outside my flat, and today I could hear my neighbour again.
Now, it is no-one's fault if they suffer from a cough, we all do from time to time, but I should not have to hear it!. The walls must be paper thin at my ground floor flat - there is only one neighbour above me, and is Council owned.
Thankfully I am going home to my parents for the weekend, where I am never woken up by neighbour's coughing - it is a semi-detached. I do sometimes hear the neighbour cough, but because she is not directly above me it is very faint, and I don't seem to hear it at night-time.
Ear-plugs don't work so my only solution is to put my fingers in my ears in order to get some sleep. This is uncomfortable, and I now have sore ears, but otherwise I would have to listen to such a horrible noise. The sound of coughing, by the way, makes me stressed straight away, probably because I have OCD. It is one of my trigger noises.
Am so annoyed, and hate the fact that homes are not built with proper, thick walls.
Here is one: http://www.ocfoundation.org/eo_aspergers.aspx
"Since common features of AD include anxiety, repetitive behavior, and fixed habits, it is apparent that this disorder can mimic OCD (Yaryura-Tobias, Stevens, & Neziroglu,1998). Research studies in the psychology literature have focused on distinguishing between the restricted, repetitive, and stereotypic behavior associated with AD as compared to the compulsions found in OCD (Baron-Cohen, 1989; McDougle, Kresch, Goodman, Naylor, Volkmar, Cohen, & Price, 1995). In general, AD is typically characterized by a more severe impairment in social interactions (e.g., poor social reciprocity, poor peer relationships, and poor verbal and non-verbal skills). In addition, individuals with AD tend to have a more restricted pattern of interests and activities than those individuals with OCD. For example, a child with OCD may be obsessed and fearful of contamination and germs, whereas, a child with AD has a positive interest in a particular area. The next section will focus on some of the important differences between AD and OCD that can assist one in further differentiating between the two disorders."
It's not the original source that I saw it, but it's in a variety of places if you Google.
CAMHS wanted to assess my eldest daughter for OCD due to her OCD hand-washing (until they were red raw) after they failed to diagnose her Asperger's. If you look on the NAS website it says that OCD is commonly co-morbid with ASC but I think it needs more investigation as the reasons for the obsessive/repetitive behaviour may be different.
Having said that, the OCD brain differs from the NT brain as well, it would be interesting to see if there are related differences between someone without ASC that has OCD and someone with ASC that has OCD or OCD-like behaviours.