So, this is the "getting to know each other forum," and I'm very new to this whole experience.
I'm 19, a Freshman in college. I'm a guy, and I think I might have Apserger's. I haven't yet been diagnosed, but from the stories I've seen it's tough to get a diagnosis because the concept itself is so varied and recently accepted.
All my life I've been a bit of an odd kid. I was reading at age two, demanding the business section of the newspaper at 3 (even though I didn't really understand any of the concepts presented), currently read about 200 softcover pages an hour, and was a constant nightmare to my parents from the minute I entered the school system. I got thrown out of nursery school for refusing to play with other kids and trying to escape. I got singled out all through grade school. I stayed inside and read during recess. I'd get obsessed with certain things and harp on them to others. First it was a popular series of computer games for kids twice my age. Then The Wizard Of Oz. Then the Redwall series of books. Then Star Wars. I still remember most of the details from these things (how many books in the series did L. Frank Baum write? 15. What was the last? Glinda of Oz, where they dealt with the Flatheads. He tried to end the series with the sixth book, The Emerald City of Oz, but public outcry was so great he brought it back.) Nowadays it's music. If I listen to an artist I have to know everything about them. As a result, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the musicians I like. And I'll talk about it for hours on end, even with uninterested people. I love telling stories. I bring them out, hoping the other person will understand what I see in the artist and always disappointed when they don't.
So yeah, I have that aspect going for me. And I'm awkward socially. I read someone else's description of life with the syndrome and the phrase that stood out was "I don't understand why people waste their time with this stuff." Small talk was incredibly awkward for me. I'd stand around with people and try to end a conversation, or start one, and never really know how. I'd blunder and make a fool of myself. I got taken for a well-meaning awkward kid and made friends, but very few close ones. Everyone knew I was a little "irrational," but that became an endearing trait in high school. I didn't like all the bull surrounding high school life and they took that as a strength, which was a real boost of confidence for me. This year, living in the dorms, I became acutely aware that I functioned on a different level than my peers. We'd sit around, they'd discuss TV shows they liked almost in passing, or girls on our floor they'd bone if they were drunk enough, or whatever, and I'd be silent for those parts. I just didn't get it. Why did they talk about girls that way? I always wanted to be in a secure relationship, none of this drunken hookup nonsense. To me it was all or nothing - you either knew the person and liked them, or you didn't. I never ogled the celebrities in the magazines and when someone'd ask me "you think that girl's hot?" I'd say "I don't know, I've never met her." This led to big trouble when I got into my first serious relationship, because I immediately jumped the gun and started acting like the totally stoic and willing-to-help friend who wasn't in it for the sex or for something to do. Which wasn't the right way to go about it, apparently. All I wanted to do was be her friend, and it wasn't even in some sort of creepy way, either, she called me, I never showed up uninvited - it seemed like it was normal to me to treat her as close and as nonchalantly as if she were family. Mistake. She didn't want another family member, she had plenty of those. But I, of course, couldn't take a hint, and finally got frustrated and called the whole thing off.
So I'm a person who knows a lot about a few things, I'm socially very awkward, with conversations and eye contact. And I function just fine while typing. In fact, I type much better than I speak, and frequently can get out what I mean faster in type. But at the same time, I have friends, good close friends, and I'm fiercely loyal to them, although I never talk about myself, only what I'm currently into, and that I learned to moderate after several very intense moments where my mother told me in no uncertain terms that nobody cared to the extent I did about my obsessions or that there was a time and a place - you can't just start talking about what you want whenever you want.
And the big discrepency is that I get figures of speech - "bite the bullet," "high as a kite,". I had them explained to me as a kid, sure, but I'm sure most other kids did, too, and I've incorporated them into my life. (I remember having them explain "You got the right one, baby" from the Pepsi commercials to me when I was three or four, and rationalizing it as having made the correct guess in Clue.) I know incorporate them constantly and even love and make liberal use of puns and double-meanings. I'm also phenominally good at screwing around with the English language - I love neologisms, pulling something out of nothing, creating bizzare words that aren't in the dictionary but're understandable, like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. I'm also great at English and History but lousy at Math and Science and I can't remember dates or phone numbers at all if they're told to me outside of a classroom. I like science and numbers as concepts but hate the classes associated with them - most of what I know about them I learned on my own or from reading books. The Fibanacci {sp?} sequence's appearance in nature totally floors me - that sort of thing.
And I guess the last thing is, a friend of mine very recently told me his brother was diagnosed with Asperger's as a kid and had a real hard time with it. And I don't see myself as that kid. And I don't mean "Oh, I'm normal, he's weird and different," because it's very obvious to me that his brother does indeed see the world differently, that it's pronounced and clear, and that he's worked on it all his life. By contrast, I don't feel like I've had to struggle that way - I made it on my own, and others go through far worse without ever reading about the possibility of having symptoms. I feel guilty about thinking I might have this. I feel like because I had a great time in high school, that I am now in a good college doing things I love even if my first year didn't go swimmingly, that I am not allowed to feel that way about myself. But the more I read, the more eerily similar the stories seemed. I feel alone in crowds. I don't like dances where it's obvious that no one is there to dance. I don't like politicians on either side of the US aisle because they all lie like rugs and are more concerned with their silly little system than fixing problems. And I get really upset when I consider these things. I feel alone in the crowd, and there's a certain stupid romanticism to that. I don't want to romanticise myself that way. I guess I just need to figure myself out, get a straight answer for once.
So that's me. Jeez, that's a lot of words. Sorry about all that. If you've made it this far: Hi! How are you? My handle here is Lionize. I don't know what I've got, if I've got anything besides the Human Condition. I'm glad this place exists! Could you give me a hand? I'd be glad to do whatever I can for you!
Thanks and hi again.
13 Jul 2005, 7:41 pm
