Which I will ask on the parenting bit, and indeed am already doing.
Went up to our local Autistic support group today as we have had an unofficial diagnosis of "somewhere on the spectrum" for our nearly 4 year old girl and want to find out how to support her. Starting to suspect more and more I may be somewhere on the spectrum myself - didn't speak till 18 months, didn't walk till 2 (still pretty un-coordinated), loved school work, hated school. would bore people for hours about my favourite subjects (Ancient Egypt, I used to hunt down the history teacher, I still remember his look of fear, but I didn't get that at the the time). I think I'm quite good at listening to people(they say I am) but I do find it hard to read faces sometimes (trying to do faces with my daughter and finding it harder than I thought I would), and when my children are in a crowd of other children I will look for their clothes not their faces as I find those easier to recognise. Remembering names and faces and putting them together is really hard, but compensated for with a sheepish smile. I like a nice heavy duvet, can't sleep properly with one that's too lightweight. Find it hard to zone out certain noises, and am a relentless perfectionist about some things and find it hard to control my temper outbursts. When my daughter is screaming it really hurts my ears and I feel like I am responding out of self defence rather than discipline which is not what I intend to do. I do like company but it's been a learned process over the years and at school I had very few friends as I never did chit chat. Had ME in my early 30's which was basically huge sensory overload followed by complete exhaustion, meaning I left my job (which I loved but was always stressed about) but using pacing and being aware of my perfectionism/fear issues meant I got better. Gosh rambled on a bit, but hey lovely to meet you all.
08 Dec 2010, 4:24 pm
