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Things you didn't comprehend as a child because of autism?

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Maditude
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18 Jan 2009, 12:46 am

garyww wrote:
I didn't learn how to tell time until I was around 12 years old. Still seems a strange convention even now but I got used to it.


Telling time, I learned early. It took me forever how to learn to tie my shoes. I didn't learn that feat until I was 10. I didn't learn how to tie a tie until I was 39. :oops:


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18 Jan 2009, 12:52 am

Sora wrote:
I just remember something from when I was little.

So totally shows how I was/am a concrete thinker.

When I was a kid and saw cars, I couldn't imagine that there were people driving them. I had the impression cars were real creatures. Beasts inhabiting the streets and sleeping at park lots.

I had sat in various cars many times before. I knew that all cars I had sat in were moved by a driver. But since I couldn't see the people in all the other cars, I couldn't imagine that they were in there. When I saw someone get out of a monster-car, I suddenly knew it was a car driven by a person. Obviously. But I didn't assume the same about the other cars.

I lacked the ability of abstraction needed for that seemingly simple conclusion.

At that time I had taught myself academics that were well above my age, but I certainly was living in a crazy world all the same.

Anyone else have such memories?


i think yours may be a TOM problem. i have that same problem but it never manifeted in not comprehending other cars being "driven".
i sort of thought (and somethimes still do) that all other people are just like robots and have programmed thought patterns. that they never experience original thought. it seems i always had a different take ont he world and so i figured no one else was able to use their brains to see things my way. i figured i always had a logical thought process to understanding different things in the world and since so many of those things failed to fit into my logic i thought everyone to be stupid.



2ukenkerl
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18 Jan 2009, 1:05 am

Keirts wrote:
I didn't understand until I was about 5 what "yet" meant. I could se no difference between "It hasn't happened" and "It hasn't happened yet". Actually, I still don't. Either it hasn't happened, or it didn't happen. What purpose does "yet" serve to clarify things?

"Has he done it?"
"Not yet."

Never made much sense. It apparently implies that he will do it, but up until now, hasn't. I think I can use the term correctly now, although it still confounds me.

With plural forms, I as well until I was around 12 thought that "a couple" meant more than one, but not too many - not specifically two. Since "several" sounds so much like "seven", I thought that it meant "approximately seven", and that therefore, "a few" was somewhere between "more than one, but not too many", and "approximately seven". Quite confusing. We have numbers for a reason!

I couldn't make out "some", either. I could understand "eat some cake", but not "get some forks", or the difference between "some cake" and "some cakes". These days, I just use a specific number, and add "approximately", "about", or "ish" to the sentence. It's much easier than the ambiguity introduced by the many plural pronouns and adjectives in the English language, especially when sometimes, "a couple" means more than two. When did that happen?


"It hasn't happened" means "It hasn't happened, and may not".
"It hasn't happened yet" means "It hasn't happened, but is expected to, will later, or likely will".

So YET makes the idea that it's temporary far more clear.

IF, however, you express doubt at the beginning, or a certain pitch, like "Well...It hasn't happened YET", the meaning is "After all this time, it STILL hasn't happened(or it has yet to happen), and is therefore NOT likely to happen".

some is an indistinct value.

Oh well, English HAS to have SOME complexity, because so many complex ideas AREN'T there.



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18 Jan 2009, 1:29 am

Shorter 2ukenkerl: Everything wrong with society can be traced back to feminism and women having the gall to...GASP...do something other than housework and childrearing. Women shouldn't work, except if they're going to be teachers, nannies, or telephone operators. But nannies are evil, anyway.

But really, he isn't railing against women! :roll:



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18 Jan 2009, 1:35 am

These are some things that just popped into my mind &, seeing as how I don't have a diagnosis, I have no idea whether their Asperger's related or not, but:

When I was really little, there was this show on PBS where people dressed as cats & pretended to be cats. (Kind-of like in the Broadway play "Cats".) Well, I thought they actually were cats.

Also on PBS, there was this show with this guy who wore a full body suit that showed the entire internal system.. organs, nerves, etc... & I thought the guy actually had his organs on the outside of his body lol, & it just fascinated me.

When I was a little older.. in my pre-teens through early teens is when it started.. there was this bar/club/lodge thing where all these rich guys would get together & do whatever. Well, the place was called "Emerald Valley" & was set pretty far back from the road. In front of it, there was basically a field of grass. A lot of times, the grass would get pretty high. I thought for years that "Emerald Valley" was the grass, not realizing that "Emerald valley" was the place. I thought emeralds grew out of the grass & always wanted someone to stop so I could go see & pick some :lol:. I don't think I actually realized that "Emerald Valley" was the building & that emeralds did not grow in the grass until I was like 19 or 20 lol, & when I did I was totally disappointed.


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lyricalillusions
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18 Jan 2009, 1:46 am

SteelMaiden wrote:
I had many problems understanding jokes. I always took sarcasm/playground jokes seriously and often made myself look stupid when everyone else was laughing and I was upset.


I misunderstand some jokes, but I mainly misinterpret songs. There's a Christmas song which is actually pretty perverted, but I didn't realize it til like two years ago. there's also another song, which I just realized the full meaning of not too long ago. I learn new things everyday lol.


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18 Jan 2009, 2:30 am

I was sitting in a wendy's restaurant the other day. waiting for my mom to arrive, and I was watching the staff. Now I've understood this cognitively for a long time, but suddenly thought

"Those people are feeling things. They are thinking about what they wish they were doing right now." And it feels strange to me to think that. At 36.


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2ukenkerl
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18 Jan 2009, 8:55 am

srriv345 wrote:
Shorter 2ukenkerl: Everything wrong with society can be traced back to feminism and women having the gall to...GASP...do something other than housework and childrearing. Women shouldn't work, except if they're going to be teachers, nannies, or telephone operators. But nannies are evil, anyway.

But really, he isn't railing against women! :roll:


I didn't blame it for EVERYTHING, only a little for TWO things. HECK, I blame ALAN greenspan, and BILL clinton for the trouble we are in now! It only affected social and economic things directly, but indirectly affected EVERYTHING. Those guys, BOTH MALE, were IDIOTS! You could see a DEFINITE decline, WORLDWIDE, starting just before the 1999 crash. There has never, in all of recorded history of the various markets, been such a whiplash of so many things. It is amazing that some of the companies that started on the way up still exist. MOST women could have done FAR better, but I doubt ANYONE could have done much worse.

As for evil nannies? Some ARE evil! I simply said that if the family unit were stronger, that there would be more GOOD nannies, and most of the bad ones would have to look elsewhere to work. And HECK, I DID say women could be doctors, nurses, etc... I just think that with nearly 100% of all adults either working, or taking from the public dole, that families suffer and it strains the economy.

Oh well, some LOOK for the bad, and feminists are especially likely to overlook the good. It is amazing that some women seem to want to fly in war, and perhaps even handle garbage.



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18 Jan 2009, 9:14 am

i thought that people were at war with gorillas.
i wondered for years why "gorilla warfare" should be so hard because humans have all the weapons.
i thought boycots were male baby beds. i could not see how a boy cot could not be lifted.
i never asked about it though.

i thought the human race was some speed race that was being contested by people i did not know of.


i thought that man kind was only referring to kind men.

i thought that mother nature was not nature, but only it's mother.

there are plethoras of misunderstandings i had as a child.



2ukenkerl
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18 Jan 2009, 9:55 am

b9 wrote:
i thought that people were at war with gorillas.
i wondered for years why "gorilla warfare" should be so hard because humans have all the weapons.
i thought boycots were male baby beds. i could not see how a boy cot could not be lifted.
i never asked about it though.

i thought the human race was some speed race that was being contested by people i did not know of.


i thought that man kind was only referring to kind men.

i thought that mother nature was not nature, but only it's mother.

there are plethoras of misunderstandings i had as a child.


Yeah, that threw ME for a loop ALSO. It is spelled "Guerrilla warfare". Guerre is french for war, so I guess the english translation would be "little war warfare". Now THAT makes sense because, although the main goal is to fight a war, the real immediate goal is for every person to basically fight a LITTLE war on their front. So, for example, if you want to blow up a bridge, and the other side fights "Guerrilla warfare", various people along the way will do what they can to stop you, according to their ability. In a normal war, people act as a unit with teams and follow orders.

HEY, I heard "my sediments(It was supposed to be sentiments) exactly". "yours truly" seemed like a way of insulting the one it referred to. Oh well, I once knew a woman that had a car tag that said "Mucket". When I asked WHY she had such a car tag, she said it was because her neice pronounced her name ("Monica") that way!(over 23 years, and I still remember such a minor incident! 8-)) I think this is COMMON for people.



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18 Jan 2009, 10:49 am

Why I could not talk about my obession but everyone else could talk about theirs.

Why I had to play with other children or make friends

Why other kids were so mean to me.

Why I could not play with the animals at the zoo but the people who worked there could.

Why people hate snakes and reptiles so much

Why people hated insects and spiders

Why adults talked down to me

Why I was so smart but had so much trouble in school

Why people found themselves so much superior to animals and could do whatever they pleased to them.


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18 Jan 2009, 11:45 am

PunkyKat wrote:

Why people found themselves so much superior to animals and could do whatever they pleased to them.


Yes, this one really horrified me when I was little; I never got it.

When I was young, I knew that other little kids had feelings because I saw them crying all the time- (and I had a baby brother, so my mother always reminded me that I had to think of HIS feelings too).

But it came as a revelation to me one day when I discovered that adults had feelings too, and that it made them do things. I didn´t realize that adults could ever cry; I thought they were past the point of crying, and only kids cried. As I never saw adults crying, and I saw them always disciplining kids, I thought that that was their basic role in life. Since adults often tell kids to stop crying, or try to get them to control their emotions in some way, I assumed that adults were the "controlled" version; i.e., they didn´t have emotions anymore. If my mother ever yelled at me, I didn´t really think of HER emotion of anger, as separate...I thought she was only disciplining me. The first time I ever saw an adult cry, I was terrified, because I thought the world was falling apart!


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18 Jan 2009, 4:22 pm

b9 wrote:
i thought that mother nature was not nature, but only it's mother.

I thought that same thing, too :) .


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19 Jan 2009, 12:12 am

I never got "sealing wax". Why would anybody wax their ceiling?

And I just found out what it means to trim a Christmas tree. I thought all these years that people were getting thier Christmas trees home and literally trimming off excess growth to shape the tree exactly how they wanted. I've always just used "decorate".

I always thought guerilla warfare had something to do with gorillas, maybe people imitating gorillas. It was most often brought up in reference to Vietnam, Laos, Columbia, and such places, all of which have jungles. I thought maybe people were fighting in the trees, or using some sort of camouflage tactic adapted from gorillas. I thought it was called gorilla warfare because it was fought as hypothetical gorillas would fight it.


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19 Jan 2009, 1:07 am

I didn't know Chinese food was a real thing until my junior year of high school. I grew up in a small town with no Chinese restaurants, and my mom home cooked all of our meals. I'd hear about Chinese food on TV, but only in the context of jokes. What a wonder to my eyes when I ventured off to boarding school and some of my comrades and I walked downtown for Chinese takeout! What is that? Does it taste good? Now I am totally hooked!

I also didn't know illegal drugs were real. And I have no intention of ever trying any.



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19 Jan 2009, 3:52 pm

Keirts wrote:

And I just found out what it means to trim a Christmas tree. I thought all these years that people were getting thier Christmas trees home and literally trimming off excess growth to shape the tree exactly how they wanted. I've always just used "decorate".


Isn´t that what "trimming" a Christmas tree means- trimming down the growth? Are you really saying it means to decorate instead? 8O If so, that´s odd....why use a different word for it?


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