Silly things you did when you were younger

Post Reply New Topic

My brother and I were big mixers, too. We used to mix together things like soap and pine needles in order to make "perfume."

Agreed. Plenty of NT kids take things literally as well- they just don't have the experience to know the non-literal meaning of most things.

Yeah, I've definitely noticed that this is a problem on this board. The most normal, mundane things turn into symptoms of AS here.

One thing I did (and still do) is talk to my pets.

all children draw, so how can you say which one of them will become an artist? it's the kid who doesn't stop doing that when in age to stop. of course, as a kid i was more likely to follow the expressions literally, but the difference is that even after hearing them several times, i could never be sure how was that meant, so i was still more likely than NT children to do the same mistake. the difference is that AS children have to go through the process of thinking and analyzing the situation in order to find out how is that meant. for NT children it's automatic once they've learned the meaning of those expressions.

the situations mentioned here are very likely to happen to AS children in age in which the NT children are already familiar with them. as you can also see in this thread, many of the things described here involved AS and NT children of the same age. so i guess it's ok if they mention it here.

I did this, too! I'd also grind flower petals and plant leaves and add water to make perfume.

Yes, that's true. And I bet if you go to forums full of artists, they aren't spending their time talking about the fact that they drew as children. I guess if they had drawn something really spectacular, they might mention it, but since most children *do* draw, the mere fact that they had also wouldn't mean anything.



I disagree. Many of these stories are from elementary school and earlier, an age when kids aren't going to be familiar with a lot of phrases, and when, more importantly, different kids have been exposed to *different* phrases. I'm not surprised that some of the NT children were more familiar with some phrases than some of the AS kids. I bet if you examined a lot of NT childhoods, you could find plenty of stories like these where they've misunderstood something. After all, you'll notice that these misunderstandings happened when these kids heard the phrases for the first time. If an NT child of the same age also hadn't been exposed to that phrase, they wouldn't know what it meant either- especially a normal sounding one like "pull up your socks."

When someone tells me a phrase I don't understand (like "pull your socks up"), I come out and say: "What does that mean?", plainly and directly. Since America is a country of immigrants, not everyone is automatically expected to understand all expressions in the English language. So more often than not, the person saying the phrase will explain it to me. Just make sure to have no emotion in your voice other than slight confusion when you ask what something means.

Same here! My sister and I and our 2 best friends made a secret potion to cure all things by mashing dandelions in water and then using a nice plump dandelion flower to brush the potion onto our skin.

Well, I guess some of us have never been officially diagnosed
with AS or HFA or ADD or OCD or whatever. If anyone was
referring to my posts in particular as being a problem, in that
they were too normal or mundane and were not appropriate
to post here, well I am sorry for that. I guess I was trying
to fit in, which is what I tend to do. That in itself is supposedly
NOT an AS trait, or is it? I get the feeling that maybe some of
us are considered posers by some?.......Again, my apologies for
being so "mundane" or "NT" in comparison to some, if that is
the case.

When I was eight, I pretended to hallucinate and made people think I had fallen in love with trees. I have no idea why I did that. Well, of course I know why. I wanted attention, and I also thought love was ridiculous at the time.

I gathered all the snails in our garden and wheeled them round in my dolls pram.
I also gathered all the woodlice I could find and did the same with them on another day.
I was fascinated by woodlice and would just go round the trees hunting for them.

I also, when I was small, managed to walk right through a plate glass window...as if I did not even see it.


I would also, at school, sit in the grounds taking apart a plant called shepherds purse. That fascinated me with all the tiny seeds inside each 'purse'

And I swung around the poles and got into trouble for it.
My mother also tells me once, she turned her back on me for a moment in a store when I was in a pushchair, and when she turned back, I was wheeling myself out of the door.

Not silly, but I was very active and athletic as a small child and did some daring things I wouldn't think of doing now. Common sense took over as I grew older. People said I grew more fearful. I don't think it was fear. I think it was smart.

As a kid I loved pretending to be different animals. Once my mother made me a bunny costume for Halloween, and I would wear it for several years afterwards pretending to be a bunny. My parents tried to discourage me from going hopping around on our lawn, and my mom had to sew it up when it ripped because I was outgrowing it.

When I was around 4 or 5 I actually only wanted to wear dresses. One summer my mom had to convince me wearing a bathing suit while swimming at the beach was better. When I realized that other girls at school wore pants and I didn't think they looked like boys because of it I started wearing them, too.

I once took an egg out of the fridge and sat on it to see if it would hatch. At least it didn't break. My brother would not let me forget why that was stupid and pointless. Maybe I was really just pretending?

When I first started school boys would tell me they were going to beat my older brother up. This upset me.

Once while walking home from school one rainy day I thought I saw a huge spider the size of a golf ball coming at me. It might have been just a rock on the ground and my eyes played on me, or maybe I really was schizophrenic. Anyway, I ran back up the road crying and freaking out, and two older girls had to go "kill" the imaginary spider for me, and they became my heroes. I even drew pictures telling the story when I got home.

There are other things that I'm too embarrassed to talk about. I've probably said too much already.

I did more stupid and embarrassing things in my teens than I did when I was a kid.

As a young adult, I drank a lot to fit in with certain social groups. This was a bad idea, very unhealthy.