Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, Everyone,
I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in January 2017 and I am finding the courage to come out into the open. I am both an artist and writer.
I would describe my condition as mild. I have a Higher National Diploma in Art and Design. During my childhood years, I had extreme difficulties with reading writing and arithmentic and which used to get me into a lot of troubel and result in being hit and made to stand and face the wall for the rest of the lesson and humilated. I remember my mother commenting that I should be reading books that were suited to children younger than me and I should be reading more advanced books. Since I have been diagnosed, it has enabled me to understand my past behavioral patterns. When I explained to my psychotherapist what I had to endure during my earlier school years, she was absolutely shocked.
Thank you, Everyone for your warm welcome. It's grea to know that I can communicate with people in a similar situation to mine.
The abstract art thing is funny. Some of it I find doesn't really do anything for me, but the curry house we go to in Englefield Green has some abstract pictures and some of those I find really fascinating and could stare at them for hours. The problem for me is that I tend to have a picture in my mind's eye that I'm trying to recreate but I don't have the manual skills to be able to bring the picture into reality, so I find it quite frustrating. I'm fine with diagrams and technical drawings though where there's more proscribed technique and tooling.
I've found in my work that a lot of people really don't like writing things, so I often end up writing all the processes, procedures etc. Mostly to stop people bugging me to do things for them all the time. Once I've written something down I can say "go away and look at X and get back to me if you any specific questions that aren't 'can you not just do this for me?' "!
Hi and welcome. I was diagnosed this year and still getting used to it. No pressure here. Talk about the silly and serious as much as you want.
I agree with you completely about art. It is such a shame that so many people become self conscious about drawing and painting when they grow up. In one of the places where I work I have been running Get Creative groups. Some amazing work has been done by people who thought they were not at all artistic.
My art borders on the abstract and figurative. When people say they don't have much artistic skill. The opposite is true. We all have the capability to paint and draw. Try it for yourself. Don't worry about getting anything right. There is no such thing as getting it right. A quote from Picasso. We were artists as children but the problem is staying an artist when we grow up. I have written stories which mostly ghost and supernatural ones. Litery critism doesn't spring to mind. If there is something I feel the need to write, then I just do it.
What sort of art and writing do you like doing? I like certain types of art but I don't really have much skill to create much myself. I've tended to do more technical writing. I wasn't a particular fan of literary criticism at school, since I like to form an overall impression of a work and categorise as either like or not really for me. I didn't much enjoy all the analysis of piece and taking it apart.
Hi Windscale, I am coming to terms with everything, slowly but surely. Since my diagnosis, I have been able to put things into perspective. My very best wishes.
Hello. Hope you're coming to things and having the time to put everything in perspective. I think a lot of us had less than pleasant experiences at school.