Aspies For Freedom

Hi Emmy,

How are things?

I had this exact same problem! Even now I often have to pause and think before typing or writing 'b' or 'd' to try to remember which way round they are!

Hi Lucie1,
I like a wide variety of music. My favourites are music from the Baroque period and I like a lot from the classical period, and am a big fan of Beethoven.

I also like more modernist and experimental music like Jonathan Harvey, Stockhausen, Aphex Twin, Ligeti etc and the music I compose is more in this style.

I like some rock music too - especially Muse and Queens of the Stone Age.

I also like world music, such as Compay Segundo and Miriam Makeba.

And I like Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Aretha Franklin and Louis Armstrong.

Re my work, I am a disability access officer for a visual arts and education organisation. It is good as people here understand about AS and learning difficulties and I can use my experiences and understanding of 'disability' (as much as I hate the 'd' word!) to help others. Also, they don't mind that I sometimes need to ask things that seem obvious to other people, or that I stim and tic.

What kind of work do you do?

Hi Batman55,

It's okay - and believe me, I really do understand what it is like to lack self-confidence.

Regarding why I describe myself as having mild retardation, I guess the short answer is that I have been consistently medically diagnosed as such.

It probably isn't the best way to describe myself, as "retard" is used as an insult. But I am not ashamed of my diagnosis.
Also, I don't want to let people who use the term in a prejudiced way let me become afraid or ashamed of what I am and how nature made me.

Although it took a lot of time for me to learn not to be ashamed as my family and my peers made sure that I knew they considered me to be "defective".

As I got older and was able to gain better understanding of my 'differences' I realised that I have as much right to be here as anyone else. I do my best to be a good person and that is what counts - not the fact that I find a lot of things more difficult than the 'average' person.

I'm sorry that you are having difficulties with self-esteem and that this thread has made you feel more depressed - this was certainly not my intention.

I just wanted to meet others who had similar issues to me - although if people want to talk about their feelings in relation to these issues (lack of self-esteem, depression etc.) this is okay too as these things can often go with realising that you find a lot of things more difficult than others.

My hope is that by talking about feelings in relation to these issues, we can make each other feel better, not worse!

Thank you everyone for your kind words.

Batman55, I'm glad that you are feeling a little better.

I use to consider myself quite high functioning; but recently have started to question just how high functioning I am.

I have some specific learning difficulties--dyslexia and attentional problems mostly. I can't read for any longer than 15 minutes without having to take a break--and when I do read I do so very s-l-o-w-l-y.

Having periods grossed me out a lot at first - I associated them with being a woman and with suddenly being expected to act boring all the time. The possibility of pregnancy didn't concern me too much - just the idea of growing up when mentally I still felt (and still feel) like a child.

I thought learning difficulties meant things like having dyslexia and never for a moment believed that I might have some but now I wonder - could things such as semantic-pragmatic disorder (which I'm certain I have) come under learning difficulties?

I had asthma when I was a child.
Only found out recently that I have wheat and milk intolerances.

Generally ridiculously healthy...I think the word generally may suggests a 'proviso'.

Except when they are sick.

I took that test and got 27. Still above-NT-average, but far less indicative than my official testing, self-evaluations, and how I am in real life interactions.

^ Hey...I also got 38.

I got a 37.

I'm with autisticstimmingfurball on this one ^_^

Ah, this is exactly like when I was in elementary school! I would be working out something in my head (such as the meaning of the words a teacher said), and stare for a long time. When I was 10, I would always lose my pencils, so when we had to do an essay, and I couldn't find my pencil, I would spend an hour coming up with what to say, and then finally the teacher would come over and ask me why I wasn't writing, and I'd say the line I'd rehearsed, with some gestures, and I would get a pencil.

I know there is a non-verbal learning disorder; is there a verbal learning disorder? Or is that just part of me being autistic? I have what's described as "low normal" verbal IQ score, about 80, though this score was obtained when I had had a day ot think over the questions, process sleep on it, and get the questions read again to me and let me type responses. However, my spatial performance score was around 120, so I guess it averages up to about average, even though a 40-point difference is probably not the average pattern.

I also am a lot slower at carrying out certain things, and learning the kinds of tasks like multi-step things (I NEED written and detailed instructions, and until I'm quite used to something I'll need someone there to help me along). In these respects my dad is quite similar to me, though he generally gets the hang of things a bit quicker (though he is middle aged and I'm less than half his age).

Speech is not always reliable for me, though when my comprehension of spoken language goes offline, generally I use things like echolalia, and recently I've begun to articulate to people during these times that I genuinely can't understand the meaning of their words (usually for me only one - receptive or expressive - speech goes out at a time).

People have a hard time adjusting to this development, though, as before recently I tried my best to hide my difficulties, such as by pretending to understand, because I was ashamed and also because I thought people wouldn't understand my difficulties because I am generally considered bright because of writing ability and math ability. Ironically, it's because of various receptive and expressive difficulties (in addition to stigma of being unable, either at times or most of the time, to do things considered simple by most people) that it's taken me so long to articulate this.

WHen I was in elementary school, and I had trouble understanding what the lunch supervisor ladies where telling me, and didn't respond to my name and "over"-reacted to being touched, they would say, "stop playing games, we know you're not stupid" and I knew I wasn't playing games, and had no idea what game they thought I was playing. This was about age 7 to 12, I wasn't diagnosed until I was 10. I got a whole lot of that, particularly from substitute teachers, administrative staff, counselors, etc.

One time my vision problem, while unlike autism is clearly visible (ironically enough) as I've worn glasses not contacts, was similarly ignored, when I was in the computer lab and my glasses I accidentally knocked off my head when I was stimming, and I asked for help to find, as I didn't want to crush them with the chair or my feet or knees or something, and she kept telling me "they're right there! You can see them, they're right there in front of you" and pushed me by my back forward to the ground. I stumbled over them, but fortunately they didn't get broken.

That was when I was 12; 4 years earlier I'd gotten a pair of glasses broke by a bunch of people at the lunch table pushing me off and I fell to the linoleum and there was a loud crack and my glasses were no more, luckily I had a spare but that really sucked too, since I really can't see my way around without glasses.

Could you explain more of what this means? I have trouble with interpreting what a black and white picture is of a lot, though I'm better at it than 6 years ago. Also some line art, usually is difficult to interpret (such as the picture sequencing part on IQ tests - I only did a couple of those before the activity was ended, and usually that means you don't do too well on it, if they stop after a few - I had difficulty understanding what was going on; while my magnifying glass helped with clarity, didn't get around that I didn't understand what the picture was of - usually if I give it time, I can figure out portions of it, but with these things, being timed and under pressure, I can't usually get to that point).

I have a lot of problems with summary, and describing such a picture would be exceedingly difficult > impossible. I remember having a lot of problems in geography and history classes in high school because of this. Fortunately for my college history class we were only required to interpret a few visual items on the exam, like posters and stuff, which I'd seen often enough that I remembered what they were supposed to be, or I guessed.

I'm more or less the opposite. I can do most analytical/spatial stuff well (such as constructing an argument or doing math/logic puzzles) but am terrible at basic arithmetic (unless it's something like 1+1=2, but 2-digit numbers added together, or multiplied, subtracted or divided, it gets difficult).

Rote fact learning is generally beyond me, though I can repeat stuff I've heard even when I can't process the sounds or meanings of it. That's how I did so well on the forward-digit-sequence-memory part of the IQ test (I think I got to 8 or 9 digits), but did poorly on the backwards-digit-memory part (I think I got to 3).

I could easily repeat back the sounds of the string of words representing numbers back in the order presented, but if I have to say it backwards, that means that I have to A) separate the sounds into the words for the numbers and B) remember these sounds and numbers, and to allow me to remember it as long as possible, this usually means converting the sounds into an image of the numerals, then C) reverse the order of the numbers/words, put it into proper sequence, remember this sequence in addition to the sounds of each number... VERY much more involved!

The way that I remember numbers, if I have to remember a string of numbers long enough to write them down, I will move my fingers like I'm typing into a phone's keypad, because my memory for the locations of the numbers will be a lot easier than remembering the words or sounds for them, and so I have more energy to put to the sequencing thing.

The funny thing, though, is that if someone asks me to tell them the number, and I remember it by this method, it will be difficult, because I haven't remembered the sounds and words or even pictures of the numerals, just the locations on a phone, and so I have to actually look at a phone, or write down the numbers in the shape they appear on a phone, and go through the motions once for each number. And yet, while it takes so much effort to do that, if I were to type it, I would get it dialed quickly.

And about hard tasks making other easier tasks take more energy - yeah, when I have been doing a difficult task, like learning how to do something new or speaking, then I take longer to, say, find the frozen dinner in the freezer, or to actually get it cooked. Also, if I'm going to be mentally taxed a lot, probably not a good time to put a bottle of liquid in the freezer, or I'd forget to take it out...