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fiddlerpianist wrote:

That's very interesting, fiddlerpianist. I had begun to think that my different presentation was mostly due to a more classic type of autism. (I wasn't anything like the little professor type - I stimmed and day-dreamed through primary school instead of learning to read at 4 yrs. old and being an expert on some topics) Now you make me wonder about the role of environment in this, too. There was no hate or anger ever expressed in our household, by either my mother or father. How about yours, and to what do you attribute your lack of hate and anger?

Btw, I still have a very difficult time verbally expressing affection to anyone. I wouldn't say that my mildly AS son was overly affectionate, but he really liked human closeness, too. He liked to hold my hand when we were walking in the street, and being AS and a bit slow to pick up on social norms kept this up long after it was age appropriate in Western society. It was really sweet.

The same. I had an awesome upbringing, though I didn't realize how lucky I was until fairly recently in life. My parents were the ultimate life advisors. They never made me do things I was terrible at, but they made sure I had the opportunity to try lots of things. When I failed miserably at team sports for 3 years in a row and wanted no more, they understood and let me do it.

My mother stood up for me at every turn. I got in trouble with my teachers for daydreaming and singing in math class, and because of that my they said I was unusual, in my own little world, and needed to be tested. (Who knows what they would have come up with back then! Probably not much.) My mother had none of it, though. She said, "If you tested me enough, I'm sure you'd find something wrong with me, too!" and left it at that. I never realized how important this was until I started learning about autistic traits and how I seemed to have quite a few of them.

I was an extremely happy kid and could relate to adults very well. That and my musical talent was very pronounced. I think the adults had something they could "work with" instead of having to label me a misfit and troublemaker. While my peers ignored me, I didn't particularly feel like I needed to have peers. The adults were a fine support mechanism all the way through part of high school.

My AS traits faded significantly in adolescence, particularly the hypersensitivities I had (itchy tags, loud noises, separating food, etc.). I was never a flapper as far as I know or did things that were really physically telling of AS, though I still incessantly tap my fingers to the tune in my head ("air piano" I like to call it). I've done that for as long as I can remember.


I used to run around trying to kiss my peers. That's how we expressed affection in our family, so I thought that was how you expressed affection in the broader world, too. Apparently rdos was this way as well. I guess many had the opposite issue, but I think the key is that it is deemed an "inappropriate" level of affection, not necessarily lacking.