Playing with toys

Little Miss Autism said:

because I'm worried about other people and what they will think I'm struggling to escape in to my make belief world

If perception in your worry then consider changing the types of toys you play with. How about:

- Role Playing games that use minatures for staging scenarios / battle scenes. 

This lets you imagine the scene you are laying out, all the back story to it and the interactions and where it goes from there. You can even channel this into writing stories and even publishing them. A much more organised and complete world can come out which requires a lot of imagination.

- Get into creating physical things so you are using hand tools / power tools to make useful things - you can learn some carpentry skills or metalworking skills and create things that appeal to you, whether sculptural or practical (bird box / dog house etc).

You can get creative and create a niche for your products.

I always used to fix mechanical and electronic things as a way to keep my hands busy and give a sense of fixing / creating stuff. My mind can wander off on a myriad of paths while I am sanding / polishing / painting / sawing etc and by the time it is finished I feel quite satisfied and completed somehow.

In more recent years this moved into renovating apartments so I got into a much wider range of things to use my hands for and bigger / more dangerous tools to use. Somehow there is a real buzz (excuse the pun) from using a dangerous circular saw that is being made safe by following the safe use rules and is being bent to my will to create the parts I need.

After the difficulty of working with people, these tools are much more logical to work with and can be relied on when rules are followed. 

This is just a thought - big boy toys can be even more fun.

Little Miss Autism said:

because I'm worried about other people and what they will think I'm struggling to escape in to my make belief world

If perception in your worry then consider changing the types of toys you play with. How about:

- Role Playing games that use minatures for staging scenarios / battle scenes. 

This lets you imagine the scene you are laying out, all the back story to it and the interactions and where it goes from there. You can even channel this into writing stories and even publishing them. A much more organised and complete world can come out which requires a lot of imagination.

- Get into creating physical things so you are using hand tools / power tools to make useful things - you can learn some carpentry skills or metalworking skills and create things that appeal to you, whether sculptural or practical (bird box / dog house etc).

You can get creative and create a niche for your products.

I always used to fix mechanical and electronic things as a way to keep my hands busy and give a sense of fixing / creating stuff. My mind can wander off on a myriad of paths while I am sanding / polishing / painting / sawing etc and by the time it is finished I feel quite satisfied and completed somehow.

In more recent years this moved into renovating apartments so I got into a much wider range of things to use my hands for and bigger / more dangerous tools to use. Somehow there is a real buzz (excuse the pun) from using a dangerous circular saw that is being made safe by following the safe use rules and is being bent to my will to create the parts I need.

After the difficulty of working with people, these tools are much more logical to work with and can be relied on when rules are followed. 

This is just a thought - big boy toys can be even more fun.