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dreamwalker
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15 Oct 2010, 1:40 pm

Well... the reason for me to open this topic is this:
I have reasons to believe that I have female aspergers because of the many symptoms I show, but I'm very chaotic. However, I do show very particular tidyness in some cases - e.g. I "cut" a serviette in half simply by folding it the same way for years. When my parents set the table I usually correct the position of the plates and cutlery because it is untidy. I'm very sure that one of our round table cloths is actually a slight ellipse, because no matter what I do the part of the table cloth hanging from the table is always a little longer on one side than on another one.

So... the questions I'd like to know, even though these might seem strange: Does aspergers always imply that you're tidy? Or can an asperger also be chaotic?



wavefreak58
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15 Oct 2010, 1:43 pm

I am not tidy at all. And the more intensely focused I become the more everything around me, except that thing, becomes increasingly chaotic.



squonk
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15 Oct 2010, 1:44 pm

I am meticulous and organized in every other sense than "tidy" meaning clothes, housework, whatever, I think that's just it though, that's the factor, NT's maybe would be either completely tidy overall or the opposite, not in between, hope that makes sense.



roseblood
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15 Oct 2010, 1:52 pm

Executive functioning is poor for most people with an ASD and the co-morbidity rate with AD/HD very high, so it's quite common to be untidy, frequently late etc., despite not wanting to be. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies as you describe I believe are ways of compensating psychologically for the sense of chaos and lack of control that poor executive functioning leaves you with.



PaleBlueDotty
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15 Oct 2010, 1:59 pm

You can be both! Well, I am, :D.

I came across this website a few days ago and it describes exactly what you are asking about, :wink: .

http://www.jelibean.org.uk/v4/people-a- ... ome-visits



OddFiction
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15 Oct 2010, 2:28 pm

My entire apartment is organized extremely well -
Things are piled and stuffed and tossed in places based on when I last used them :P

:bounce:

I do have certain spots that I try to keep clean, and I'm very meticulous about cleanliness in cooking. Etc. It's the rest of the house that is project layered on project. I've often thought of running a garbage truck through my home, but there's so much good stuff here.... And besides. Big noisy truck would scare my [pride of] pet chinchillas. They actually live cleaner than I do :P


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ilivinamushroom
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15 Oct 2010, 2:53 pm

roseblood wrote:
Executive functioning is poor for most people with an ASD and the co-morbidity rate with AD/HD very high, so it's quite common to be untidy, frequently late etc., despite not wanting to be. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies as you describe I believe are ways of compensating psychologically for the sense of chaos and lack of control that poor executive functioning leaves you with.

This is so true, I have OCD and aspergers parts of my house are perfectly arranged to make up for the overall horrendous chaos. I seem to not be able to prioritize, I freak if anyone touches the few things I am able to keep tidy and tune out the rest.



Jeyradan
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15 Oct 2010, 4:02 pm

Either, both, neither... it all depends on your particular Asperger's style.

Personally, I prefer that everything be in place - whether that means cleanliness, neatness, tidiness, organization, however you want to define it. I very much dislike chaos.

However, when I was younger, I absolutely loved neatness - putting everything in categories, lining things up neatly, sorting things and putting them in order, straightening out small things like drawers or countertops - but I couldn't stand to clean (and by this, I mean large things like an entire room). My whole room could be covered in papers, and I would spend hours sitting in the middle of it meticulously sorting a desk tray.
I'm pretty sure that I just got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task and the planning (well beyond me at the time) required to orchestrate such a cleaning, and so I defaulted to my tiny, controllable organizational tasks. Nowadays, I recognize that this still happens if I let things get away from me (I'm a graduate student, so don't always have time to take care of every household task immediately), but since I know how overwhelmed I get by clutter and things out of place, I neaten and clean everything as soon as humanly possible.



Squirrelrat
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15 Oct 2010, 4:08 pm

I'm a diagnosed aspie and I'm also a slob! :D I do like to sort things, though, and when I stack things, I have to do it perfectly.



Omnicognic
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15 Oct 2010, 4:10 pm

I'm working on my chaos problem, my house always looked like the aftermath of a disaster film.. with one exception: I cannot stand anything on my bed besides the bed clothes (sheets, blankets etc.) and the pillows. Anything else left on the bed causes me a great deal of distress/anger.


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dreamwalker
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15 Oct 2010, 4:35 pm

Okay... thanks. I did quite some research on aspergers, but most of the discriptions sound pretty much like "all aspergers are extremely tidy", so I got confused...

Only now that I cannot deny that my life opposes about anything typical for my age in a very asperger way I finally bothered to ask ^^ So that's settled then.

But I think that this can still be a general thread for anyhing regarding this subject...



meaningless
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15 Oct 2010, 4:52 pm

In some ways I'm very tidy but in some ways I don't care. I'll have a mess of books and old schoolwork, assorted random stuff etc. in a pile in the corner of my room and be fine with it, but I can't not sort my DVD collection alphabetically or my bookshelf by how tall the books are from largest to smallest...



mikey1138
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15 Oct 2010, 5:07 pm

meaningless wrote:
In some ways I'm very tidy but in some ways I don't care. I'll have a mess of books and old schoolwork, assorted random stuff etc. in a pile in the corner of my room and be fine with it, but I can't not sort my DVD collection alphabetically or my bookshelf by how tall the books are from largest to smallest...


I go largest to smallest as well!



Kaybee
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15 Oct 2010, 6:00 pm

I'm relatively tidy, but it feels like it takes a lot of self-discipline for me to be so.


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CockneyRebel
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15 Oct 2010, 6:00 pm

I have to go through great efforts to keep my apartment tidy and clean, but I manage.


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gramirez
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15 Oct 2010, 7:47 pm

I am the opposite of tidy.


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