Aspies For Freedom

I'm the same way.  I don't complain when I'm sick or in pain, I'd rather just not mention it.  It seems, though, as if other people who some to work sic are always being sent home early, and no matter how crappy I feel nobody ever picks up on it.  Perhaps I hide it too well?   I, too, don't even like to tell a doctor when something's wrong.  See, I figure the vet can work out whats wrong without the animal telling him, so why should I have to tell my doctor?  Seriously, vets work with many different species, even, and all a human doctor has to deal with is humans and they cant even tell when I'm sick without me telling them?

I don't seem to be as sensitive to pain as most people...I got bit pretty badly in the face by a dog shortly after I started working at the vet clinic, and everyone else was freaking out and rushed me to the ER, and I was just thinking "hat's the big deal? It's just blood, it doesn't even hurt."  Well, apparently my lip was just hanging there.  Took a lot of stitches - I don't remember how many, but probably at least 50 including internal and external sutures (and still no pain).  When I got to the ER they offered me pain medication and I refused, but they made me take a Lortab before they did anything...then proceed to prescribe Lortabs for pain afterwards, and I never took a single one. I don't know why people didn't understand that it did not hurt at all, and there wasn't even any nerve damage to account for the lack of pain, it just plain didn't hurt. Even for minor things, it seems like people are so willing to take 6 ibuprofen for a headache, and I just don't take pain medication for anything. If I have a headache I drink water.

Small talk - I suck at small talk, so I don't rally have any suggestions for that.  Seems as if every time I think of something to say, the other people are on a different subject.

Compliments - working on this one.  I really don't like compliments.  I mean, I like them ,but I don' like them because I don't know what to say back.  when I was in 1st grade I went through this phase where whenever someone complimented me, I complimented them back...but it seemed sort of excessive.

Eye contact - I'm probably better off in this respect than a lot of Aspies, but I do still have issues. Eyebrows are ok to look at, but sunglasses, especially ones you can't see through, those are great.  I don't have a problem look my boss in the eye usually - he has poor eye contact too, so that's probably why, since its not -really- eye contact, more gazing past eachother. But the boss's wife/office manager, good god, I cannot look the woman in the eye, I just -can't- and she has this intense stare when she's taking to you, too.  I can't stand it.  When I'm in a room with the doctor, I'll usually avoid eye contact by looking at the animal instead.  Then sometimes he leaves me in the room with the patient and the owners to go grab something he forgot, and I just want to scream "TAKE ME WITH YOU!" because inevitably they'll try to make small talk (see above...). Let's just say I can fake eye contact well, and on occasion I actually -can- manage eye contact for short periods.

Formal greetings - Again not my strong point, you'd ought to look to someone else for advice.  Even informal greetings are hard for me.  Why on earth would you say "What do you know?" instead of "Hi" or "Hello"?  Seriously, WHY?  That one throws me off -every- time.

That's exactly how I am.  I'm terrible about compliments or congratulations.  

Yup.  If anything, I might mumble a "you too" but most of the time, it occurs to me about halfway through the test that I probably should have done the same

"You too" is also what I say when someone says "Nice to meet you" if I remember to say anything at all.  Except it comes out sort of jumbled and awkward...

Oh God yes, when I'm tired or just feeling lazy even, I have a very monotone voice. And then when I'm talking with my family at home, I tend to be quite loud.  In school I was always told to talk louder, and at home to talk quieter.

My dad, when he gets tired, everyone knows it.  His voice gets really, really low-pitched and monotone.

When I say "Hi" in passing to someone, it tends to be very high-pitched, considering I have a quite a low-pitched voice for a woman. I never could figure out why - my brother even asked me why one time, and I really don't know.

See, that's where I've got it easy.  At work, we all talk about -everything- and I mean everything.  So I don't really have to think whether it's appropriate" or not.  Seriously, conversations have included bodily functions (ALL of them), certain intimate piercings a coworker has, health issue.  Heck, anal glands is a pretty common and tame conversation, considering where I work  And then when we went to the boss's house for our Christmas party, we all took it in stride that his youngest kid licks people he likes. We're actually a very open group of workers there Same thing at the zoo, we can talk about anything we want (except feet, the head veldt keeper's got a phobia of feet...).  Seems like that "Say whatever you want, you can't shock me" mindset comes with the territory when you work with animals.