Symmetry

Post Reply New Topic

As I've been trying to come to terms with Aspergers, and my potential diagnosis, I thought about potential symptoms. One thing I'll remember is how one of my grade school teachers referred to me as never being able to forget me, and how I would wander around the play ground by myself. When I got older, as I got ahead in reading, often times I would be trying to work out concepts that I read about, or imagine a future world.

But, that's not where it started. Today, I asked myself, "What did I do before I really got into science, when I was 7, or 8?" Thinking about it, I remembered. I would walk, and everywhere, would look for symmetry. Music would play in my head. It played constantly, sometimes a song I heard earlier that day, sometimes a creation of my own. (To this day, I can hear something, and remember more details than quite a few other people). It would usually be a repeated melody of some sort. When I looked down, I would see cracks on the sidewalk, and count them. It's just occured to me that it's the symmetry, the predictability, the ordered nature that I liked. I would feel a need to make my foot steps follow those cracks. When looking at a tiled floor, I would see patterns of squares. I would play math games constantly, counting squares, counting different patterns of squares. I would move my foot along the edges of the tiles. When outside I would walk the edge of the parking lot where we played for recess, and line my arms up with the edge, so that as I walked it's edge, everything lined up. Sometimes I would wander over to the girls side of the playground, and look at the hopscotch board. I couldn't play (had no coordination), but liked looking at the squares. I would do this over and over. When in trouble, I would count dots on the wall, and notice the patterns in the tile. I walked around the light poll quite a bit. It was circular. Something about it made me feel calm.

My attraction was to symmetry. I usually don't tell people about my early behavior, as it's strange, and I can't say that it's helped me much, but it still pervades how I think. When I'm stressed out, I'll often count lines, I'll reach for the nearest mechanical object, maybe a pen, and start taking it apart, and putting it back together, and taking it apart. Or, maybe I'll notice like objects, and line them up. So, I might take the pen apart, line up the parts, arrange them into patterns, and then put it back together, over and over. It drives my wife nuts. If I'm in nature, I'll look for countable things, and patterns. I'll count the patterns in leaves, the way branches divide repeatedly. Unfortunately, nature isn't quite as obviously symmetrical, so I tend to be drawn to mechanical things.

To this day, I am attracted to mechanical, symmetrical things. WWhen I think a thought, I think about the other side (or sides). I think about it's relationship to other things.

I got to a point, when I was about 10, where I felt like it was a waste of time. I was told, over and over, how odd it was by my parents. I was asked what was wrong with me, over and over. Eventually, I internalized their feelings about it. Not coincidentally, after that age, things became much more difficult. When I tried to force myself to be more normal, my stress levels went through the roof, and they've never come back down. I just have always chalked it up as the stress that goes along with growing up. Today, I think for the first time in a long time, I've realized that this behavior is part of who I am. Spending time zoning out, and interacting with the world in a non verbal way is a need. Today, I made a conscious effort to take time out to look for symmetry in the objects around me, and to not think in a verbal way for part of the day. I would program for a while, and then I would take time out to appreciate the patterns around me, and not to force anything practical from it, but to just enjoy the experience. Rather than forcing myself to be social, I spent the whole day quiet, with limited interaction, it was wonderful.

What are other's experiences with symmetry? Is this an important part of your lives?

This has little to do with symmetry, but I can completely relate to always having music in my head. That's been with me since I was little, and I think I will always be like that. Which is great, because I enjoy listening to what's in my head quite a bit.

^ Me too. It's like a radio is always playing in my head. I can listen to songs all the way through, and change them when I please.

I used to tune out teachers in school with the music in my brain.

I think this is a very good idea, to take care of yourself in this way. Sometimes I think if people would take the time to do that more often, the world would be a better place.

I don't have the thing with symmetry (although I see the appeal!), but I have something similar. I am fascinated by swirling fluids, or leaves/grass blowing in the wind, and that kind of thing, like when there is a slight film of tiny bubbles in the bathwater, and they make little spirals and look like fractals. The other day, I was using one of those hole-punch things for 3-ring binders, and when I picked it up to put it away, I gave it a little bump, and a zillion little paper dots came fluttering out and landed in a random pattern on the floor, making little "plink plink plink" sounds. It was SO neat! I scooped them up and dropped them a few more times, just to watch them flutter down and land on the floor. It made me feel so good and so alive. So, it's not symmetry, but it's a similar visual thing, I think.

When I was a kid, I was never made to feel too weird about liking stuff like that, because my mother is the same way. I think the two of us are both mild aspies, in our own ways, or at least close to it, but neither of us is diagnosed. If I had been raised by someone more neurotypical, they might have given me a hard time, I suppose. Then again, I've always been very private about enjoying those little things. If my family are around, 1 might point out some neat swirly patterns in the dishwater, but I usually won't stop what I'm doing and play with the swirly water or stare at it for half an hour. And if I'm with people who are absolute bona fide NTs, I won't call attention to those neat things. I've pointed out those kinds of things before, to people who just don't get it, and the response is typically, "Okaaaaaayyyy...." or "what have YOU been smoking?" I'd rather just enjoy things quietly, on my own.

hmmm, symmetry....

As a kid I also liked stepping on the pavement just so that my foot would land square in the middle of the stones. I just liked to do it and naturally did it, it wasn't an obsession and I could stop it any time I wanted to. I also would "jump" in my mind between the lines on the road while looking out the car window. There's a nice pattern to those lines.

I don't do any of this anymore (except sometimes the pavement thing), so I must have grown out of it.

ahh. order and such things, i used to calulate my moms death in my head, when i was little and would have to do the same things in my mind and in action in order for something good to happen to me, or to prevent bad things from happening

Ditto !