I have been blessed with a beautiful daughter of 3, who has aspergers. She is extremely intelligent for her age and all of the signs and symptoms are there. She has the flapping, tiptoe walking, fascination with spinning tires, loves to put together what I call "assemblages", has difficulty with language yet she can count, add, knows her colors, shapes, animals, etc. My only difficulty with her are the meltdowns. With everything else, I'm cool.

Yet, watching her caused me to reflect on my childhood as well as adult life, being the "weird one", "a little off", "crazy", and all of the other pejorative terms of which I have been described.

My grandmother would always comment on my not speaking until well after the age of two years old. And when I think about the things that made me different; the joy I use to get from turning my bike over and spinning the wheels, my sensitivity to sounds, feeling sorry for the walls in my grandmothers house, being annoyed by the buzzing sound of florescent lights that no one else could hear, and the way touching paper with my palms while I wrote would make me nervous, well I now know why I was different.

Childhood was difficult because I got picked on daily and was so shy. Yet, my mother was cruel because I didn't look too good, I had a bad memory, and would say the wrong things at the wrong time. So I was instead raised by my grandmother who understood me and was patient.

Thinking back from the time I was in my teens, until I was in my mid twenties, I was comprised of other people's clever sayings, mannerisms, song lyrics and things I read. I was virtually a tape recorder in constant playback mode. Then, when I decided to just be myself, I seemed to crash and burn socially. I wanted friends but found it difficult to find people who could appreciate me. I couldn't stand other females and the always had to date older men, or near-do-wells because other guys wouldn't approach me. They say that "I am intimidating" because I don't smile or when I think I am socializing well, I am falling flat on my face by being too honest about my interests. All of them normal but considered too nerdy or far out in left field.

No one understood, and still don't. I am the woman who is "a little off" because when people push me, I still have meltdowns. I can control them now somewhat but they are still there.

Now, I worry about my daughter. We live in Italy and as snobby and prejudicial as they can be, I know it's not going to be easy. I worry about her and it is only through attempting to learn about aspergers that I can understand myself better and help her. Sorry for the long post.

Thanks for sharing, Goa Woman, I was nodding my head frequently as I read your post. My childhood also occurred well before AS/HFA were "discovered/acknowledged", and I believe it was only my mastery of the parlor tricks you spoke of (too smart for that age, tiny little grown-up, accents, imitations, manipulation, jokester) that I managed to sneak my way through the biased jungle of the NT world. Luckily for your daughter, there are many more of us now, the condition in its many forms is more understood every day, and with the way diagnosis is increasing in numbers, everyone will be AS/HFD/etc. at some point in the relatively new future. I hope you can find like souls for her to share the growing experience with.

interesting, fairly typical.

welcome to AFF

Your daughter is off to a good start in having you as a mother, and also in having the self awareness that comes along with knowing why she is different. I have found web forums to be really helpful in knowing that I am not alone in these things.

It's funny how our generations went undiagnosed for so long. It's also interesting to see how we seemed to learn to cope by transforming ourselves into bits and pieces of the funny, smart, interesting or strong people we may have admired.

Thanks!
  I have been searching for information from the moment I noticed something was different about her. Yet, she is so much like me until everything is familiar. I just want to make sure that she is able to maximize the best of herself while being armed with that self-awareness. She shouldn't have to learn by trial and error, like I did.

Thanks for the welcome! It seems as if I have a fairly typical experience. Although I am dying to know if there are any other people who felt sorry for the walls. Now that's a somewhat embarrassing memory!

Hi!  Our experiences sound almost identical, except I was raised by my parents who thought (being both only children themselves) that whatever I did as an infant was right, and therefore got very confused when my NT sister came along!  They worried about her for a long time, because she didn't act at all like I did LOL

My daughter, like yours, is Aspie, and is a constant delight.  She's now in University, working on her Bachelor of Science, and I'm glad she's Aspie, as she shows no sign of wanting to leave the family home.  I'd be a dreadful empty nester!  

You sound very nice, and will find friends here who can share your experiences and empathise.  I'm eternally grateful that I found AFF.  Welcome!

I used to feel sorry for the grass, because people always walked on it and animals ate it.  
Alison

This post was last modified: 12-18-2011 04:08 AM by Alison.

LOL, I felt sorry for the grass for those same reasons!

I have a kid who pleads for the life of her head lice. They look so sad when they're dead...they can't help being head lice....Unfortunately I am merciless.

Don't feel bad.  It took courage to admit this tidbit.  I, myself, have plenty of weird, nonsensical incoherent memories; many well-known in the family; such as making up names for peoples' feet.  (Sometimes we joke about them).  Needless to say, it's now quite understandable why my same-age cousin started picking on me at 6-years-old.

I dare to share one funny tidbit, I reflect back on.  When I was in third grade in December 1973; waiting for the school bus; I was swining on a ground cable at a 45 degree angle to the utility pole.  I stimmingly chanted "Peekaboo underwear!".  A girl asked "Kevout, what's the matter with you ?!?"  At that age is was not uncommon to make nonsensical, incoherent word associations like this.

I'll share a third party instance that I'm not as embarrassed about; I suppose because it wasn't me.  In 1999, I was seeing a girl.  She was a live-in nanny and took care of three kids.  The youngest was a boy; he was 3 (and now must be 15).  One time I went to pick her up.  At the time, I had a green 1998 Hyundai Accent for a car.  The boy arbritrarily says "You have an onion car!".

Now severeal weeks later, I go to pick up my girlfriend of the time again.  The boy is all jumpy and excited.  He starts jumping up and down chanting "You have an onion car!  Onion car!  Onion car!  Onion car!  Onion car! . . ."

Needless to say, I may have blushed.  This sort of thing was typical of me until I learned to "act normal"; which took alot of adverse conditioning.  Somehow this boy must have associated my car with an onion; even if he was just thinking about an onion when I arrived at the house.  At the time, I never heard of Asperger Syndrome; but the boy's parents did not like me for no other reason than to them I was human trash.  This was a bone of contention with my ex-girlfriend.  (I'd always get riled up when I heard bad stuff they said about me and how they didn't want my girlfriend to have anything to do with me.  I was poor, too low class, not good looking, a bum, etc.).  In hindsight, I think what if the boy had Asperger Syndrome?  God forbid if he did; his parents would probably disown him.  But aside from that, he was cute and charming and will probably otherwise do well in life.

That's story had both amusing and sad parts to it. However, I have to empathize with your experience with your ex-girlfriend. For some reason, people always seem to feel a need to tell you exactly what was said. It's bad enough that often we are extremely sensitive to mood shifts and energy to the point that we already know when people don't like us. Yet, being told the details hurts.

For some reason, perhaps it's an aspie thing? When I have friends who aren't accepted by other friends or family members, I don't mention it. I ignored the offending people but I always think about the other person and wouldn't say a word. It's a shame that the so called, "normal" people aren't as sensitive.

I always find it odd that we Aspies are considered by NTs to be without empathy.  When it seems from personal experience that it's not empathy that we lack, but rather we don't talk about how we're feeling as much.  Therefore the "lack" is actually a mistaken assumption on the part of the NT observer.  This maybe is compounded by the fact that a lot of us need a long run-up to sort through the various feelings at the time: I have a bit of a delay where emotions are concerned, leading to people who don't know me thinking I'm either a bit re- tarded or else a cold fish.

But of course if we protest that we DO feel empathy, just that we don't perhaps show it as readily as NTs, we get told that we don't.  It's very frustrating.

My daughter just read this over my shoulder and said that I can be  like Windows updating: it takes a while but normal service does get resumed eventually!  

Alison

This post was last modified: 12-19-2011 02:57 AM by Alison.

LOL! I am really glad to have found this group. Great to talk with other people like me.