I have always been hypersensitive to sensory input. My sisters tell me that when I was a baby I would scream when picked up. I've always preferred quiet, cool, dark environments. When I go into a busy store I do best if I have a plan ahead of exactly what I need, so I can be in and out of there as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the longer I stay the more dazed I become, until I have to go outside to try to compose myself. This doesn't work well when I am shopping with someone who enjoys lingering and wandering through a store. I have been accused of ruining their shopping experience because of my shutdown.
Still, how can one tell about somebody's sensory issues just from their writing, unless that is what they are writing about?
Some of my symptoms may be not strictly from Asperger's. I also have low thyroid. But then, the low thyroid may possibly have had something to do with my getting Asperger's in the first place (by not being present at high enough levels to trigger certain key developmental stages when my brain was growing as a baby or toddler). Low thyroid can cause chronic depression, and that is definitely something I've had all my life as far back as I can remember, even as a very young boy. Of course not being able to read social cues leading to isolation and alienation, plus the sensory issues making it physically painful for me to be in environments that most people either don't mind or actually enjoy (malls, sporting events, etc.), are also probable reasons to be depressed.
I don't know if thyroid issues have anything to do with autism. Even if they do in some cases, probably not in all cases. I just recently learned about thyroid hormones having something to do with early child brain development. It seems more plausible than the vaccine theory, which seems to be based on fraudulent research inspired by the coincidence of some infants regressing to autism after having received MMR vaccines.
There are some advantages to Asperger's (my above average IQ, encyclopedic knowledge of many subjects, above average vocabulary and wordsmithing skills, good "ear" for music). The social issues suck, but aren't that important to me. The sensory issues bother me a lot more. I hope research finds a way to fix those problems. It might even be worth becoming a ret*d zombie if that would bring me some peace.
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"When you ride over sharps, you get flats!"--The Bicycling Guitarist, May 13, 2008