It seems to make sense.

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Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 10

21 Aug 2010, 6:06 am

This is going to be a long one.

I never heard of Aspergers when I was growing up. Probably only heard about it a few years ago, actually. And even then, I read very scant information about it, and I somehow got the idea it was a very extreme sort of syndrome. You’d know if you had it; you’d probably be diagnosed as a baby and all that.

I just recently started wondering if I might be somewhat autistic. It got me started thinking about it when I read that toe-walking was common. I’ve walked on my toes since I was a child, when I’m barefoot. It feels strange to walk flat barefoot; I’m very conscious of every step. When I’m in shoes I’ve been told I have a sort of swaying gait. A teacher once told me he recognized me as my older sibling’s sister because we both “sway when we walk.”

Come to think of it, my sibling always had a weird walk, too. A teacher once yelled at him when he was in kindergarten because apparently it looked like he was skipping, but that’s just how he walked. He used to twirl his hair constantly, too. Hm.

But when I started wondering about myself, it seemed to make sense. I’ve always felt strange, but different from strange. I mean, sometimes I feel more unreal than strange. As if I’m just in the wrong plane of existence. People will say something to me, and I just won’t know what they MEAN. At all. And sometimes I feel as if I’m faking so much, as if so many of my reactions and social mannerisms are practiced, not real. In fact, I copy actors or others I admire without even really meaning to, adopting their expressions or mannerisms. I’ve thought so many times that I change to suit the situation, or try to at least, and I don’t really have any set personality. The times when I’m by myself, I feel oddly blank—not emotionless, just as if I don’t know how to FEEL ME the way I can feel me faking. I’m afraid I’ll move away and change and never really know who I am.

This sounds crazy, I know. Sorry.

I don’t like chit chat. I hate it. I don’t know what to say, but I feel pressured to say something, so I wind up saying ridiculous, generic things that just make me sound so idiotic and empty-headed. And that’s another thing—my entire life I’ve been terrified that people will find out how stupid I am. And I really am. I’m an A student for the most part, but when I actually think about it, when it comes to practical sense, I am a complete and utter moron. Getting from one place to another? Thank God for GPS. Giving someone else directions? Pardon me while I laugh myself to death. I feel paralyzed when I think of my own stupidity; I WORRY about how I will LIVE.

Took me a ridiculously long time to be able to read a clock. I once walked speedily away from my teacher at recess, embarrassed, face burning, pretending I didn’t hear him shouting for me after he asked me the time and I glanced at my watch and muttered some desperate guess. Math is often impossible, not necessarily because I can’t do it, but because I suddenly feel pressured and hurried and observed. My mind locks up.

I honestly feel as if my “symptoms,” if that’s what they are, must have been much more visible when I was younger. I used to make noises; I NEEDED to make them, weird noises in my throat. I used to clear my throat CONSTANTLY, to the point that my mother and father basically made me feel so terrible that I cried over it. They didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t doing it on purpose, that I couldn’t just turn it off. I didn’t do it because it was FUN. And I had such poor social skills; even throughout my adolescence I would say things that now seem so inappropriate that they make me cringe with embarrassment for myself. Looking back, though, I feel like I did it out of some desperation to be sociable when I was out of my comfort zone.

I get really uncomfortable in emotional situations. Even now, thinking back on a time when my brother hugged me a couple of years ago, it makes me feel crawly. I don’t mind being hugged in general, it was just the emotional charge of that particular situation and the fact that it was my brother, who has rarely if ever hugged me or shown an emotional display of affection toward me or anyone else in my family, hugging me. The idea of apologizing almost makes me want to vomit, even when I’m intensely remorseful, so I just don’t do it.

I refrain from public anger because I’m honestly afraid of embarrassing myself. It took me a long time to learn to control (ie bottle) my anger at home, and even now I will have meltdowns and wind up screaming, tearing things up, breathing hard with every rip I put in something, slapping myself in the face or punching myself in the stomach because I have to do SOMETHING. Sometimes it’s even worse; I’ve been in actual physical fights with my mother before, and for days and weeks afterwards I’m so ashamed of myself, I walk around wincing, clenching my fingers up whenever I think of it. My most common violent fantasy is stabbing someone in the head with a screwdriver, and while I would never do that, I once stabbed a doorframe with one several times. It’s just that I get so upset I really can’t stand it, and I don’t want to go to sleep but I wish I could just wink out of consciousness to escape it. But I can’t, so I wind up trying to relieve myself in these horrible ways.

I’ve read in your forums about “stims,” and I’m pretty sure I’m full of them. My most typical reaction to a stressful thought is to pull my knuckles back while curling my fingertips inward—hard to describe, but it sort of looks like I’m forming my hand into an animal paw. I would say I do that every day. Combined with my tendency to rap my knuckles over my forehead or chin, and my hand often shoots up in that position toward my head, and I have to stop myself if I’m in public. I hate standing still, and will generally pace if I’m waiting for someone or if I’m just standing around by myself in a room. When waiting in lines and such, I sway back and forth. Sometimes I worry this looks as if I’m trying to draw attention to my butt or something, so I’ll switch to rocking forward and back on my heels (but then I’m afraid I’ll lose my balance). If I stop that, I often tap my toe really fast, as if I’m impatient or jostle myself up and down. I pick at my scalp while sitting around doing nothing, and I “rock myself to sleep” when I’m lying down by moving or clenching one leg repeatedly. I read a post on here once where the person said they “counted syllables” with their fingers, trying to see if they’re “even,” and I do that, too. I type in the air or on surfaces. There are others, I think, like doodling and clicking my teeth and general leg shimmying, but those are the most obvious to me.

I have to make a conscious effort to control my face when I’m off inside my head, or else it gets away from me—“mouthing,” often with my lips closed (sounds odd, I know), wincing, smiling, frowning, snarling, the works. I have a tendency to burst out laughing if a “character” I’m imagining does so, and just as easily I sometimes begin to actually vocalize aloud, only to cut off sharply as I become aware of it. I gesture, too. I’ll often repeat the same “lines” and gestures over and over. This isn’t a tic or a compulsion; it’s basically an activity for me.

Yep, this turned into a big, incoherent essay. There’s more, but I’ll stop. This is getting embarrassing, lol.

Well . . . hello, I guess. I really do appreciate this site. I feel like I can at least talk about this stuff here, even if I'm not truly AS but just batcrap crazy. That means a lot.