is messiness related in any way to any kind of aspergers?
MONKEY
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I have pretty bad executive dysfunctioning and I am very disaorganised and messy and if I'm not constantly reminded about things my life would be chaos. But the strange thing about my organisation is I can set things out on a desk prefectly and with crazy precision but anything that needs to be organised like school work I'm terrible. And when faced with the task of cleaning then I hardly know when to start and I just stare blankly at the mess and it takes forever to clean with many breaks and then it's only half hearted.
I've noticed aspies can be very organised or very disorganised, not many inbetweens though. All the aspies I know IRL are the "executive dysfunction" types, and if it weren't for mine I wouldn't have IEPs and all that crap because I do pretty well socially.
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I always score as some kind of IP on mbti tests. the middle two preferences vary more with me and aren't usually very strong, but I'm extremely extremely IP for some reason. sometimes i wonder if strong preferences in certain mbti letters are related to some kind of disorder.
Have you seen Mozart and the whale? I was just as shocked seeing it as Donald was, after Isabelle had re-organized his home. I hope nobody ever does something like that to me.
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I'm horribly messy! It's funny, because i have a thing for patterns and symmetry... So there will be certain things that i think it's fun to arrange, but everything else will look like a tornado just went through. I think a lot of AS people have executive dysfunction problems... that's probably why a lot of AS people get diagnosed with ADHD.
This.
Nothing whatsoever to do with anxiety.
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What messy? There's a pattern/order that not many people can see in a mess. While I might not be able to find my keys, pens, books, docs & etc when I need them, mess to me is comforting & soothing. I can't work effectively without the mess on my desk. I got really anxious when others clean up my desk at work.
The people with AS who are extremely messy because they are disorganised have probably got dyspraxia as well (I have) which is known to often go alongside the AS. Its like I look at the piles of stuff, the bin overflowing (I know... yuck), the clothes flung everywhere and I want to scream. It's like I know how to organise but something just isn't 'clicking' when I need to put things away!
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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite
My thing is that I'm messy when it comes to clutter, but not germs. I think I like it because it allows room for creativity, but also, i find things easier when it's all out within reach rather than adding extra motions to open drawers and put things back when I'm done. I'm more effecient in a mess. Maybe it's almost like how severe autism can know that 100 sticks are on the floor without counting, the milder form makes it so that even amidst clutter, we see what's there and know what's there without much thought whereas someone else sees it as a mess of stuff and finds it chaotic just as they would with trying to count out 100 sticks that aren't organized in groups of 5.
I also noticed my 2 year old (so far she's diagnosed, and we are pretty certain it's accurate) hates a clean house. When it's clean, she has to dump toys or cookies or something all over the place, and she's good. Even walls, if it's white, she'll draw on them. She doesn't usually draw on them again til after I wipe them clean. If a landlord could understand that, I wouldn't wipe the paint off to the drywall and it reduces the risk of her getting a hold of a magic marker. Just let me have a year of some crayon on the wall and things will be okay. What stinks though for me, basically, if the house is clean, the two year old cries a lot for no reason. If the house is a mess, the one year old cries a lot for no reason. So far that seems to be the pattern.
I wonder too that sometimes I can't stand to see a really clean house. Like a sensory overload almost. But I can't stand it completely disorganized. I like something in the middle more on the disorganized side. Everytime I clean and organize, I find myself spending hours looking for something that was once on the floor next the TV.
No, I haven't, but someone rearranging furniture is one of the quickest ways to set off a meltdown in me. I can't abide coming home and finding things out of place. It's like being personally violated.
Overload of tasks would be the most common cause for messiness. Lately I have been staying on top of things. I'm single and male - I clean the floor, vacuum it slowly and try to get everything up - scrub down the cabinets, scrub down the floors, scrub down everything I've been touching - go over everything with sanitizing wipes to pick up any dirt left over. Then go over everything again with a cloth to pick up and fibers from the wipes and scrubbing (using windex with vinegar to get out any left over streaks). I like the smell so as a final medium between me and my home I feel happy with the choice. Perhaps its the fine attention to detail that overloads us tho. I don't see a point on cleaning if I can't do it fully - detail is my anal-ity. Anything less is annoying - I did most of my home, and one bathroom - I dont use the other one at all but I want to go into it and completely clean it. That and I haven't finished my kitchen floor yet... its bothering me... ![]()
I was kind of thrown by the assumption that Aspergians are generally neat and organized. I am typical Aspergian in every area but that one and I think it might be because of the perfectionism aspect of the syndrome. If I can't get something to be near perfect, I don't know how to compromise or adapt my expectation, therefore I shut down when I am trying to clean on a large scale. Cleaning is one of those skills that eludes me.
Otherwise known as a "Horizontal Filing System".
I even organise my computer like that, every time my desktop fills up with files, I create a folder then move everything in it, including my last "desk tidy folder". I have 5000 files organised like this, through a series of these tidy folders.
With my actual desk I build layers for a few months, then move almost the entire lot into secure waste.
Jason
I clean once a week or so to keep things under control; I'd consider my way of operating as "organized chaos." I can stand piles and clutter as long as there's some semblance of order to it. Work areas (kitchen counters, desktop, etc...) need to be reasonably clean, though, or I'll get distracted/flustered. I don't know what this says about me...
A lot of people can be messy. It really depends on the personality. Disorganisation can be common for people with ADHD and AS, but it is not a unique trait because I know quite a few NTs (especially men) whose houses are disgusting. My uncle always has dirty dishes all piled up by the kitchen sink, and his whole house is filthy dirty, and he's got a grown-up son at home who doesn't do it, and I sometimes can't go round there because of the mess. I hate washing dishes and cleaning up, but I would be able to handle it if I lived on my own or with just one other person because I'll just do it as I go along and there'd be less to do at a time, rather than piling it all up then having to spend ages cleaning the whole lot up all at once. You just use your common sense (OK, I know Aspie/ADHD people can lack this which is why disorganisation is common in them).
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being completely disorganised, 10 being perfectly organised, and 5 being just average) I would say I'm 3, perhaps sometimes 4 (depending on what mood I'm in). I'm not completely messy, I do like to keep things tidy, like I put my dirty clothes in the laundry bin as soon as I take them off before I go to bed, if not I'll put them in the laundry bin first thing in the morning. I can always remember roughly when I last had a bath so I'm good at keeping clean, if I can't be bothered to have a bath I just have a strip wash at the sink (we don't have a shower). I wash my hair twice a week, which is enough to keep it from going greasy, and I have set days to do this, so that I can prepare, because I know I hate doing this chore.
I am a clutterer, because I've always spent a lot of time in my room so I've hoarded a load of stuff over the years because I use it a lot, so I can't part with it. But I do keep it in reasonable places, but untidily, if you know what I mean. Like I keep it hidden away under my bed but it's all messy under there. Every shelf and drawer in my room is full of stuff, and I boxes full of stuff, and my computer desk is in a bit of a mess (I tidied it the other day), and I have tissues lying about everywhere (because I cry a lot, and also my sinuses are bad). My wardrobe is in a mess because I can't be bothered to hang up my clothes, although I do keep them neatly folded and in a neat pile, but not hung up, there are just piles of clothes piled on top of eachother.
But at least I manage to keep my floor tidy. I just have clutter everywhere else, sometimes it panics me.
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