I found this site when I googled "I hate talking on the phone."
Before this, my idea of autism was that Bruce Willis movie, Mercury Rising. AS was unknown to me until a few days ago.
Imagine my surprise as I went through your forum for the first time and found out just how much I had in common with some of you. I know, whoopty do right?
A good friend of mine and I were hanging out one night talking when we came on the discussion of thought process. I explained how I see things. Movie like. I think in pictures. I read in pictures. My mind creates an image for a word and I interpret that image as a frame of a film. I can't read very fast because I can't create an image for "the" and "and". I end up fixating on these words, continually going back to them. He said he was the same way and he thinks he's autistic, or dumb. We laughed and went off on a tangent. This was two years ago.
Fast forward to present day. I'm on the phone talking to someone when I get my urge to throw the phone to the other side of the room, for no apparent reason. I feel like this every time I'm on the phone. I really, honestly hate the phone. Texting is okay, but ideally I'd like face to face contact. I don't have very many friends and the ones I do have are very close. If it's not my friends, or my wife, I really don't like talking to you. I'm very "lonerish." I never considered it a problem. Back to the phone. Instead of throwing my phone, I decided to do what I always threatened to do which was google "I hate talking on the phone." Welcome to WrongPlanet . net!
This is interesting, I thought. What's Asperger's Syndrome? Google, Wiki, About and WebMD (mad research skills yo!) and studied and studied, for a week straight. Every chance I got I was online looking, consuming, reading. The more I researched the more I found! Amazing things. Things I thought were just a trait of ME! I thought I was the only person that did that. My dirty little secrets. As if I had written a diary and someone read in it my actions and repeated them but what impressed me more was how many of you come on here and say that's them, or that's similar to this I've done and I DO THAT TOO!! I have to remember to breath! The more I look the more I understand myself. The more I read, I see. I didn't understand it was a CONDITION! I thought it was normal. I never talked about it with anyone before. I see similarities in myself in ALL of YOU!
Tangent: Why hadn't anyone noticed this in me before? Ahh, back to my happy land of hate because nobody every paid attention to me!
I took this test at rdos . net and scored 155. My wife scored a 28. She took the test as a control. I still wasn't willing to concede I had AS.
The wife and I were invited on Thursday last week to go to a acquaintances house for a BBQ. I felt very tight in the chest when I told him I didn't know and I'd have to call him back. I was tight in the chest until I called and turned him down with some lame excuse about the wife and I fighting. It wasn't true, I just didn't want to go. This feeling in my chest, it felt like someone sitting on it. It's a common feeling I get, but I never really understood what it was.. Anxiety. The weight of the world was on me. It was a simple thing; dinner or not but I couldn't get past the pressure. I felt pressured into going which made me crawl back in my shell even further. This is a common thing for me. I never looked at it as a symptom. I thought everyone was like that.
All weekend both the wife and I picked out traits that I have that we would consider to be AS like. Small examples;
Thinking everyone can read minds. When her and I first met I warned her that's how my mind works. Sometimes I'll start talking about details of something and expect you to know what I'm talking about. I get pissed too when I have to explain my thoughts.
Tangents! Oh god the tangents. Everything and anything. I go off in la la land as my mind starts the rapid fire pictures. A guy on TV calls his wife dear, I think deer, almost hit one, I got a nice truck and I'll blurt out "That reminds me, I should wash my truck!" Random thoughts.
Fidgeting, balancing odd things, clicking anything and everything.
Patterns I see in EVERYTHING! Faces, cars my home, everything!
From 5 years old I was able to have you point to a car and I could tell you what make and model it was, what years it came like that but what was more impressive, I was able to tell you what they were with great accuracy at night. The shape of the headlights, the location of it's running lights. Tail lights too, it wasn't much of a problem that way either. I was great at finding the cop cars at night! Some of this has been lost as I find cars nowadays to be very generic in their design, but much of it is still with me. The lights at night really bother me now, and I don't drive at night much anymore because of it.
The dishwasher; must be loaded correctly. The forks, must be in with the forks. The spoons must be in with the spoons. No fork shall be in with the spoon, and no steak knife should be in with the butter knives. I will and have rearranged the dishwasher and I don't care what anyone thinks!
Anti social behavior. All kinds. If I don't know where something in the store is and an employee asks if I need help I still say no. I'll walk around for an hour looking for something before I ask someone. I attributed this to being male, and some of it can be, but it's me being anti social. I see it now. Some days are better than others. Some days I don't leave the house. I can be a social butterfly but those days are few and far between.
My wife says I "geek" out on things. I admit, I do. I find something that interests me and I dive in. Sometimes it's weeks, sometimes it's a few days. Other things are years long. Vehicles has been lifelong. I decided I wanted to ask my wife to marry me and two days later I was an absolute expert on diamonds. Coral reef tanks was another long lived obsession of mine that kept me awake all hours of the night reading and consuming information. There's a part of me that needs to know how EVERYTHING works. I never met anyone else who did this so I figured it was just me. Now I realize...
The movie quotes I use in real life for a certain situation. I think I learned from movies how to react to situations in real life. The songs I use to express what's inside...
My list goes on and on. I can keep going, but I'd feel I'd be wasting your time for those of you who decide to read it.
My introduction:
My name is Anthony. I'm nearly 30 years old and I think I have Aspergers Syndrome. I'll never see a doctor for it. I could really care less what they have to say about it anyways. I'm not looking for a diagnosis. It is what it is and I wouldn't want a cure if there was one. I'm perfectly happy being who I am and the people who are closest to me wouldn't change me either. I have a loving wife and a few very good friends and that's all I need in this world besides all of you here at Wrong Planet.
This has taken me yesterday and today to type up. Typed and re-typed. Tangents deleted and added. Thoughts deleted cause they were "too much." Frustration of not being able to articulate how I feel inside. I'm done for now.
See ya around!
Anthony
17 Aug 2009, 11:45 am
Interesting search term to find WP through.
