I am add, and bpd and bipolar....and I scored 168 of 200 on online test, it is so very me...and other stuff I have read makes me think so. At first I thot just 'traits of', but I dunno if it is overlap of my other symptoms. It explains sooooo many things in my life, if it is so. Things I have read from aspies ring true. The way they think, the way they deal with ppl. I have taken other tests online too. What an eye-opener.
The sounds, smells, ppl around me, so many things shut me down. I do not know how to relate to ppl for long or understand often what they say to me, like it doesn't make sense. I have used coping mechanisms but they don't always work, I don't understand a lot of times what ppl want from me. I don't feel what I 'should' a lot of the time, or even want to do the social talk. It wastes my time. I get bored easily or distracted easily by little things. I laffed when some of those here mention how they feel about their puters...withdrawal from etc. I have a sidekick that I never go ANYwhere without! It's my security blanket I guess.
Music and writing are my thing. Peaceful, and healing. Ppl are confusing....ppl expect what I cannot give. I am now telling ppl the truth and not trying to be what I am not. They back off when I need them to, and let me be social on my terms, how I am capable of it. It is very freeing.
And I forgot to mention my clutziness and my living mostly comfortably in my own head, own world. It is easier, even with a busy mind, than to try to figure others out. I have always hung out with folks much younger or older than me. Kids and animals love me, and I understand them, but I don't have a clue about most ppl my age. So much I have learned bout myself I didn't even learn till 40's. It's confusing with other diagnosis to sort it all out. Premature, family etc thot I had gotten off very easily, but I wonder. Sigh.
Am I just making excuses for my weirdness? U would think I have enuff wrong with me....but I am trying to figure out WHY I have never related 'right' with others, why I haven't made sense of this world....I am not stupid intellectually, despite spelling probs....and I have coped for years....now I don't have the patience to 'play the game' of being normal....but I would like to understand ppl better. I would like to expand my interests and be able to deal with ppl without shutting down or having to struggle so much figuring out what is ok and not ok to do.
Why is it so hard to step out of my head and really feel who others are, except when I have those lucky moments of clarity? I can care about ppl...sometimes.
I can understand them....sometimes, but then the light goes out and I am so left in the dark, and the struggle to 'get' what they are saying and meaning is so exausting it drains me...and I sit there without a clue, looking stupid!
I sound like I am whining? Maybe. Why do I get so bored with small talk, why can't I do it? Why do ppl sound like they are talking another language? Why do I say and do the 'wrong' thing a lot? Why do I feel so emotionless sometimes, and other times so passionate about some things that other ppl do not care about it, and I keep talking of the same thing and I can't stop it?
Why does ppl touching me bug me so much I have to pull 'walls' up just to deal with it? Why is it if ppl invade my space I cannot bear it and freak out if they come in my room,disturb my stuff or routine?
Why do I have to write lists all time? It comforts me I guess, and feels right to do.
Why can't I be away from puter, and frequently have to play puzzle game or tetris or I actually have withdrawal if I can't do something to make order or sense
To settle down? Seeee? So much overlap in symptoms, I just do not know...yet so much I have read is like someone is finally saying, clarifying what I know within but can't spit out.
I hate having to figure it out, but I can't avoid ppl foever....I can't live confused forever at what they mean, want, or expect. I can't keep misreading them.
Been there. :smile:
Welcome.
Hi tamarion, how are your social relationships? Bearing in mind that you have other diagnoses it would certainly be hard to say factors that were caused by them, and ones that weren't.
Welcome, tamarion. It is so good to hear from you.
I am add, and bpd and bipolar....and I scored 168 of 200 on online test, it is so very me...and other stuff I have read makes me think so. At first I thot just 'traits of', but I dunno if it is overlap of my other symptoms. It explains sooooo many things in my life, if it is so. Things I have read from aspies ring true. The way they think, the way they deal with ppl. I have taken other tests online too. What an eye-opener.
The sounds, smells, ppl around me, so many things shut me down. I do not know how to relate to ppl for long or understand often what they say to me, like it doesn't make sense. I have used coping mechanisms but they don't always work, I don't understand a lot of times what ppl want from me. I don't feel what I 'should' a lot of the time, or even want to do the social talk. It wastes my time. I get bored easily or distracted easily by little things. I laffed when some of those here mention how they feel about their puters...withdrawal from etc. I have a sidekick that I never go ANYwhere without! It's my security blanket I guess.
Music and writing are my thing. Peaceful, and healing. Ppl are confusing....ppl expect what I cannot give. I am now telling ppl the truth and not trying to be what I am not. They back off when I need them to, and let me be social on my terms, how I am capable of it. It is very freeing.
sounds familar, and welcome. i emulate most emotion as i learned fast what might be appropriate and do my best as to alleviate any awkward potentiality. what do you mean by sidekick? a person or the device?
The sidekick is the device. A puter, phone, etc, wherever I go. Yay! No...not a person.
I thot I had a sidekick person, but he ran away. I still have a hubby and adult child, but there has always been separation even with them....when I couldn't explain what I wanted, needed, or they couldn't do that because I coulnt hear them. Sometimes they tell me things and there is no reaction in me...I can't feel their feelings...it's like emotions shut off and I can't understand how they feel....nothing. It's awful...cause I know I should feel sad or glad...and I don't.
This puts distance between us....but I know how to pretend, during those times. That must be when I am in aspie mode? But unlike when depressed or preoccupied, manic or scared....which seem to stem from my other diagnoses, this seems unrelated to them, cause I am not wild or confused....I just don't feel anything....and I don't know why....it's like nothing they say or feel registers,resonates within....like an echo that does not return when u call. Later it makes me sick that those I love may be hurting or happy and I can't share it. Another day I can relate ok....but not all the time....and the degree of receptiveness changes. I hate this in me. How can I love them and be so cold, so dead sometimes,so uncaring when they need me, when normally I would do anything for them?
Why can't I have a friggin heart? Thank god this is not all the time, thank god. It is better to feel, at least to me. Sometimes after these times, I wonder if I know how to love at all, or if I am fooling myself.
As to my personal relationships...they are confusing. Ppl like me, but I overwhelm them with my intensity or I back off, overwhelmed myself. I let few ppl in...either I don't know how or they don't know how to reach me...at least for long.
I have trouble keeping eye contact, only can with a select few...it makes me uncomfortable, and really does not help me read them well. I think that annoys ppl and that they don't think I am listening to them. It is also just too easy to go into myself ...I am at home there...a somewhat untidy home, but the place I know best.
I truly think that it is probably, as of now, impossible to sort through all my co-existing 'conditions' to determine which one(s) are in effect at any one time. It is easier when on meds cause some of 'it' goes away....and things can be sorted easier, or not masked by other things.
The odd thing is, I am usually a caring person....when these times hit me it is NOT predictible as to circumstances or whether I am burned out or not. Like a radio I guess, I am either tuned in to their station, or I am not.
Yes, I have other things that affect my relationships with ppl, sometimes I am like fire, sometimes ice. Sometimes I can be kind. I can deal with all my contradictions, but this one of sometimes not feeling anything, it shames me worse than my moodiness or restlessness, or my retreating, cause I can at least be present with them then, or force myself to, but that has been a cruel thing in me that I don't understand.
Hello Tamarion! :smile: So much of what you've posted sounds familiar to me. I can do small talk, in fact talking is perhaps my greatest skill, and I usually read cues well, though I still can be clueless with new people. BUT! Putting up walls when being touched...yes, I do that too. I live in my head, so that I am not really present during those 3-second social hugs that are about as much physical contact as I am willing to have. Because touch is uncomfortable for me---not in the physical sense, as in sensory overload, but just meaningless & therefore bewildering---I have never dated or had any romantic contact with anyone. It's only now, at 40, that I realize I'm not just a "late bloomer," but a person who truly doesn't WANT that kind of intimacy, a person on whom touch is utterly wasted. Admitting that to myself has been hard, because it makes me realize I am VERY different from most of the people I know. And like you, I wonder at my lack of "appropriate" feeling. In fact, it is only in the last few months, and especially since joining the forums, that I have even been willing to admit to MYSELF how little I care at times about even the people I am fond of. Since my teen years I have noticed my lack of reaction to things that made others so emotional, and in the back of my mind I assumed I was just selfish and lacking in humanity. This seeming coldness has made me feel vaguely guilty for years (though not as guilty as I "should" feel)! I'm glad you are here. I think you will see many stories like your own.
I don't think there is an aspie mode as such for aspies. It's just how we are. You seem to be describing yourself and feelings, and that one particular mode (as you said) is aspie-like. It's possible that the mode for you is similar to how an aspie might feel, with similar behaviour, and at other times you don't feel like that.
That would seem to correlate with your other conditions as you said, and that at times you have aspergers-like behaviour.
I am not trying to collect labels, Amy, just trying to understand why I feel as I do. Been a long nite of thinking, and some realisations that puzzle me still, and just make the waters of clarity murky. Sometimes words can only take one so far before they fail.
Even if I only have the traits, if I don't belong here, till I find my way, it still clarifies ways of thinking that make sense and explain some behaviors that I have no other complete, if that is possible, exlaination for.
Some ppl have co-existing conditions that mask to much, and I came here to see if I might have been misdiagnosed in some way...and find out why I have such trouble understanding ppl, motives, ways of being.
Being cautious and guarding your own may be your job, and not assuming till ppl prove themselves, or get an official diagnosis, which is good.
I just wish I knew the answer to what I feel and think and how I behave, so as to know how to proceed. Is it something I can fix, or something to accept, or is there just too many things jumbled together to ever find out?
All I know tho, is the 'deadness' to others' emotions and I guess to my own, it scared me most of all, and I don't know why that can be, since it is not overload or shutdown I do not think, and I still do not think it a normal way for non-aspies to think....but we'll see what it all means, down the road.
I never said anything about collecting labels, or guarding anything.
I said what I felt from what I read.
Please try not to read into what I say and see what isn't there.
See how words just don't come out right? They don't always say what is meant.
I was actually complimenting u, for watching out for the ppl here....as for reading into what u said something else, I didn't mean to. I am used to being dismissed and misunderstood for so long, esp when folks find out re borderline, that I thot after I should not have even mentioned it, but am trying to be honest with myself, ppl I know, family and my gods. Trying to face whatever I am, so I can heal, accept and understand. I thot also to tell u all everything that maybe it would make things clearer.
My pdoc seems to think I DO have 'tendencies' of AS, but he cannot say right now if I am, till I am on my meds, to level out moods and kinda push some of the other stuff aside, so he can see how I am, medicated. Then he could tell me more.
So it is wait-and-see now.
I just needed to be with folks who say what I feel....who relate to how it is for me, cause facing oneself to the extent that I have had to...so many revelations....has been the hardest thing I have ever done....and what to do with that knowledge...that is what I need to understand.
That's ok, anyone can post here if they have aspergers, autism, traits or not, so either way its fine.