Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello, my name is Steven and I am 15 and have asperger syndrome. I am here because I am having sense problems but am not sure what is causing them.
one day about october or november in 2015 I woke up and my left eye felt weird. A few days before I got a sensation that my left ear lost some hearing and sometimes still get that sensation. My peripheral vision felt sensitive and bright lights and vivid colours in my left peripheral vision would be annoying. This would also cause the area around my eye and left cheek to have a painful kind of pins and needles.(the kind of pain autistics get when they are sensitive to light touch). My actual eye doesn't hurt though. This problem has not gone away although now I get periods for a few days where the eye problem almost disappears completely but comes back again. if i hold my eye socket and left cheek this problem lessens a lot. so maybe it is a nerve/muscle issue. Now very rarely this switches to my right eye and my left eye becomes normal. So it affects one eye at a time. Anyway a few months ago I realised I started getting that same pins and needles sensation all over my face, neck and shoulders, but not usually below that. And light touch against my face and neck now leaves a painful tingling that I have to brush away. However the painful tingling around my left eye can not be brushed away. I realise a lot of autistics have problems where light touch leaves a tingling. A couple weeks back, tinnitus started in my left ear(ringing in ear) which I would rate mild but it got close to moderate at one phase. I also sometimes get tingling in my left ear too now. I have no idea if these are caused by autism. But lets go back to october before this started. I was at school playing football and i got kicked in the head. I didn't get knocked out or anything but I got kicked nonetheless.Anyway I went back to the changing rooms and started to get a vertigo/panic attack sensation. Ever since then at school I would get these sensations. They would normally start after stopping suddenly after doing exercise or they would start in class if i thought about them. I could normally control them but have had to go to the medical room a few times. This rarely happens at home though I still sometimes get these sensations. So I am wondering if these are caused by a brain/nerve injury? Anyway the only anxiety I had at school really was worrying about losing football matches. Now that I have left school I feel more anxious and depressed. One day I felt really depressed, and then the problem switched to my right eye soon after so this could be linked to anxiety. I am really worried about this. What if they start affecting more senses or they get severe? The only sense problem that is linked to autism is the tingling. I realise autistics might have light sensitivity but how can that only affect one eye? And why in the peripheral vision? And why does my actual eye not hurt? Or might I have a brain tumour or something affecting me? there are 3 causes i think it might be. 1. a brain tumour 2.anxiety/depression and 3. just side affects of autism. But if it is autism then how come I haven't had these my whole life? I never really even had sensory problems. Is it possible for sensory problems to start later in life? I spoke to an asperger once and he told me he has this eye thing and that it will soon develop in the other eye but maybe he misunderstood me. This post was long but I am really worried. Someone help please. PS I have been to the doctor about the eye problems and the optician and everything came back normal apart from slight short sightedness. Please don't post 'go to the doctor' because I haven't written this long post for someone to give me a generic answer like that. I am not asking you to be a medical expert but am asking for guidance on whether this is caused by autism or what else it could be so I can suggest it to my doctor when I go.
and no there is no point in getting over the social anxiety. I tried talking in school like once a month before realising what i did was weird. So I would rather have everyone thinking I am just a shy quiet kid than a weirdo. And social problems can be down to a lot of things. For example, kids normally think their parents are weird and they think 'how on earth did they get married?'. And I have come across many socially inept people that are just outright annoying. It all depends on you as a person. You need to change your behaviour depending on the context/surroundings. Its not difficullt to learn how to be social, its just most autistics prefer to act in an autistical manner and most of them are stuck to the idea of 'neurophsycial diversity' and 'being yourself'. They also need to change their appearence. Notice how the weird kid or the kid being bullied in school tends to be a pencilneck? It's not their fault but you really think a muscular, good looking guy is going to get picked on? Most of the autistics don't fit this appearence unfortunately but it can be changed and if they work on their visual image in the eyes of others, it will help a LOT. Now, granted I am not at that stage yet but am planning on getting there. Just picture this. a muscular well kempt person says something weird but people will look past that because he has a good physical appearence. And now picture a physically unfit, messy guy saying something weird. His weirdness will back up his appearence because like it or not, your appearence is how people judge you at first. Your personality can back that up or ruin it. But ultimately getting people to hate you when you are physically very appealing is as hard as getting someone to like you when you are physically unappealing. Granted, some physically unappealing people are very popular, but this is because they have good social skills which is not the case with autistics so they need to change other aspects of themselves. this rule applies autistic or not. I felt the need to write this long post because people simply name a problem as 'social awkwardness' without breaking it down and trying to fix each individual problem on its own. Now what is harder? fixing social awkwardness or breaking it down to easier parts and fixing those? I don't see how its impossible