Do you interact oddly with objects in external environments?

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I’m new here. I probably am an aspie (32 years old), but I don’t know for sure yet (a psychiatrist I met with concerning depression thought I might have AS or HFA and suggested I look it up). Anyways I relate to many experiences I’ve seen written here so I thought I would ask about this seemingly strange one that I wasn’t sure how to search for:

I understand that many aspies like to have extra control of their environment. In their rooms or houses; you place things where you want them and do not like when others move things: you have a sense of knowing and or feeling more relaxed when everything is in its place.

***My question is how do you interact with objects and things in external environments? And by external I mean public spaces, or areas that do not belong to you?

I ask this because a few days ago I went jogging. As I started to cross a crosswalk I accidentally kicked a flattened empty plastic jug a few feet onto the street. Now I had to keep moving because traffic would want to move soon. As I jogged over the next 30 to 45 minutes my mind kept going back to that jug in my head. I knew that when I went back the way I came I would kick the jug back onto the sidewalk, and did so. It’s a weird feeling I always get that I need to put everything back where it was. It’s almost like I need to leave no evidence that I was there. I really don't understand why I feel this way or do such things.

Another slightly different example: there has been a bright orange construction ahead sign that has been abandoned down the slope next to a sidewalk which I can see from my apartment window. It’s been there for several months and the construction workers are not coming back. I do not like the color and it just clashes with the greenery surrounding it. Often I would look at that sign and be irritated or distracted, and obviously I realize I have spent too much time thinking about that sign. I hate when people do not take care of their tools. Anyways I thought about just turning to over, but the aluminum is still shiny, so I took it out of there and placed it against a street post so maybe someone will take it. It’s been there for about a week. I feel really uncomfortable doing anything with it; technically it’s city property (both the sign and the area where it sits). I feel like it’s not my place to do anything with it, but I want to and feel so odd for wanting to; because most people couldn’t care less, or wouldn’t ever even have noticed this lost sign.

So if anyone has some insights and or have had similar experiences I would like to hear them. Thanks.

I think I know what you mean. The latest example I can think of was actually while I was being assessed for Aspergers. There was a cupboard in the room, and light from the window kind of divided it into two parts, a bright and a dark one. But the parts were not exactly equally big, and that irked me the entire time. I just kind of stared at it and thought how much better it would be if the light ray divided it in to exact halves.

Yep, I do stuff like this. I'll compulsively straighten up items in the kitchen at work, for example, even though nobody else is bothered by how they're placed.

When I explain my world to people, I always say, "People are objects in the way and objects are people to interact with." What I mean is that people are the ones that tend to cause me a lot of stress by NOT being controllable. I never know what people will do or say and when it will happen. With inanimate objects, I am happy unless they are in a state of chaos (then I want to put them in order by categories) or unless they are just dirty and dusty (in which case I want to clean).

In some cases the arrangement of objects even when neat and orderly will bother me because it is not in an order that makes sense to ME, but that's fairly rare.

In my college student center, there is a box for trash and another box for recycling bottles. I frequently see bottles laying in the trash box and it does bother me. I feel an urge to pull out the bottles from the trash and put them in the recycle bin where they belong.

If no one is around I will do just that. However, if other students are around I don't do it because i think I'll look like a weird garbage picker.

Well I would grab the sign and put it on the srap alum. pile.

That sounds like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which I believe is the most common comorbid condition with autism. I know part of my OCD is that I personify objects and try to more or less treat them with respect, if that makes sense.

I always seem to have a "goal" for objects like that. If I kick something like a rock or a bottle cap in a parking lot, I won't quite feel satisfied until I've kicked it to a certain pre-determined area or distance.

I don't really think it's OCD. At least it isn't for me, as there aren't distressing intrusive thoughts that go along with it.

I do believe I have a form of OCD called Purely Obsessional OCD, though, but the thought process involved with that is different for me than the thought process involved with the sorts of things discussed in this thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purely_Obsessional_OCD


Yep!

Last edited by FishStickNick on 25 Jan 2013, 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have similar experiences, lots, yes. It seems a lot of objects just resonate or mean more to me than to normal people. Some in a positive way and some in a negative, annoying or "loud", "painful" way. I can control it somewhat outside my house by not allowing myself to focus too much on aspects of the environment. But the bright colored, discarded, out of place sign would be completely impossible for me to ignore. Stuff like that feels like it pokes me in the eye.
Today at the store I put back two items that had fallen off the shelf. A lady looked at me, and I knowI get weird looks but I don't care.
Also, on a walk, if I happen to brush my hand against a landmark of some kind, say, a fence post, then on the way back from my walk I will brush the fencepost with my other hand, thus making it even.
I have trouble throwing food away. And I plant all the sprout-able scraps of veggies such as garlic cloves that begin to go green, carrots, etc.

Asymmetrically decorated spaces are a huge annoyance for me. A powerful urge comes over me to rearrange the décor to suit my tastes.
Irregularities in certain things bothers me as well. A sign with a bent corner, a portion of wall more damaged than the rest, that one car whose driver could not understand the concept of parking, that one link that refuses to hold the round properly, giving it a "snaggletooth" appearance (yes, I need to replace it ASAP - It's costing me hours of sleep) all are tremendously irksome and only serve to disrupt the "flow" of the environment.

Many great examples. Thanks.

Yeah I know this feeling well. You are not weird for wanting to recycle. That deserves an applause. Those who would think you are weird are in need of attitude adjustments! The fact that groups of typical people can bring about such feelings of awkwardness in someone who wants to do the right thing just confounds me to no end.



Yeah I do suspect I have some traces of OCD. I've been making lists trying to sort out my ASD 'rituals' and OCD 'obsessions', which sometimes seem to blend into one another at times. I know that I get no enjoyment out of putting random objects back in there places (like the jug), so it is more likely to be an OCD type behavior (maybe subconscious superstition?) than an ASD one (then again I might just be trying to maintain orderin the world around me). With the bright orange sign I was thinking an ASD behavior because it feels more like trying to control the visual part of my environment. I do understand your suggestion of seeing the sign kind of like a person as I do feel bad about lost functional objects (and kind of care more about the object's loss of function than the twit who lost it getting it back...).

You bring up something that I've seen mentioned before but don't understand: 'personifying objects'; from your experience, what do you understand to be the dividing line between 'personifying' and not personifying objects (i.e. just something like a strong connection of some sort). I have had the same vehicle since I was 16 and refuse to ever part with it; now I've never referred to it as a 'she', but since I have often done major work on it and recently rebuilt it from the ground up I think of it like my baby, as it's my creation; I've often said I'd love to have it buried next to me when I die. I would have to admit I probably have a rather excessive connection to my Jeep, more than I've ever seen others have with their vehicles (except maybe in the movies). But I consider my Jeep to be one of my ASD interests and when I'm inside my Jeep all my anxieties seem to vanish as I am the sole master of that ever unchanging interior personal space.



Thanks for mentioning this interesting form of OCD. I'd never heard of it. Excessive mental rumination....hmm

One time my GF had taken me to one of my doctors appointments and they had this 3-D thing on the wall of the human body. I kept touching it since it's three dimensional and it was textured slightly. My gf kept trying to get me to sit yet i had to keep touching the 3 dimensionalness of the diagram poster it was 3-D and it had all these different parts 3-D that warranted my attention...

THIS
...is my one weakness.

Yeah, I'm the same as the OP. If somethings knocked out the way or out of its palce I seem to have the compulsion to put it back or at least make it tidy or organised.

I read somewhere the difference between OCD and aspergers OC is that OCDs do it out of an irrational fear, whereas aspergers feel some kind of satisfaction when performing their OC.

Thats me, doing it for some kind of weird obsessive fun. I also sometimes count how many windows separated by window panels there are, whenever I see them. Or other compartmentalised things like that.

I do the same thing re: 3D textures. Same issue when there are books lying around that have the matte/glossy covers, I have to watch myself or I can spend forever touching the cover and sliding my finger over where the matte turns into the glossy texture. Don't have conversations with me near a bookshelf!

I also am very easily bothered by stacks of paper or other objects being uneven. I'm not a very tidy person, but corners that stick out and uneven stacks really get to me. I remember visiting a travel agent's office with my mother once and picking up their brochure stack to even it out

With time I've learnt to minimise these things, but I still catch myself doing it quite a bit, particularly concerning textures/embossing.

EDIT:

Also, this resonates. Though some things bother me to the point where it feels a little like some kind of itch in my mind, it makes me uncomfortable, though not to the point of being intolerable or scary as is the case with OCD.