is messiness related in any way to any kind of aspergers?

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mechanicalgirl39
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07 Aug 2009, 5:22 pm

I vary between trying to be hyper-organized and finding it far too overloading.

I have strategies for being organized though, which basically consist of dealing with things one component at a time.


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MONKEY
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07 Aug 2009, 5:25 pm

I have pretty bad executive dysfunctioning and I am very disaorganised and messy and if I'm not constantly reminded about things my life would be chaos. But the strange thing about my organisation is I can set things out on a desk prefectly and with crazy precision but anything that needs to be organised like school work I'm terrible. And when faced with the task of cleaning then I hardly know when to start and I just stare blankly at the mess and it takes forever to clean with many breaks and then it's only half hearted.
I've noticed aspies can be very organised or very disorganised, not many inbetweens though. All the aspies I know IRL are the "executive dysfunction" types, and if it weren't for mine I wouldn't have IEPs and all that crap because I do pretty well socially.


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dorito
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07 Aug 2009, 11:46 pm

willmark wrote:
I think it's related to your temperament. I am ready to conclude that ASD's are unrelated to temperament, though I have read arguments that ADHD is another way to explain the behaviors of people whose MBTI type is intuitive and end in a P.


I always score as some kind of IP on mbti tests. the middle two preferences vary more with me and aren't usually very strong, but I'm extremely extremely IP for some reason. sometimes i wonder if strong preferences in certain mbti letters are related to some kind of disorder.



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08 Aug 2009, 2:53 am

Willard wrote:
Just so. I do have a tendency to clutter my space with collections and special interest relatables, but there's a place for everything and everything is in it's place. I get quite agitated when there's a genuine mess. The world seems to run quickly out of control when organization begins to fail.


Have you seen Mozart and the whale? I was just as shocked seeing it as Donald was, after Isabelle had re-organized his home. I hope nobody ever does something like that to me.


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08 Aug 2009, 3:25 am

I'm horribly messy! It's funny, because i have a thing for patterns and symmetry... So there will be certain things that i think it's fun to arrange, but everything else will look like a tornado just went through. I think a lot of AS people have executive dysfunction problems... that's probably why a lot of AS people get diagnosed with ADHD.



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08 Aug 2009, 4:13 am

elderwanda wrote:
I would LOVE to have my life and my surroundings more organized. I just don't have the skills to manage it,


This.
Nothing whatsoever to do with anxiety.


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Mutant_AS
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08 Aug 2009, 7:35 am

What messy? There's a pattern/order that not many people can see in a mess. While I might not be able to find my keys, pens, books, docs & etc when I need them, mess to me is comforting & soothing. I can't work effectively without the mess on my desk. I got really anxious when others clean up my desk at work.



Jellybean
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08 Aug 2009, 8:26 am

The people with AS who are extremely messy because they are disorganised have probably got dyspraxia as well (I have) which is known to often go alongside the AS. Its like I look at the piles of stuff, the bin overflowing (I know... yuck), the clothes flung everywhere and I want to scream. It's like I know how to organise but something just isn't 'clicking' when I need to put things away!


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Tantybi
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08 Aug 2009, 10:40 am

My thing is that I'm messy when it comes to clutter, but not germs. I think I like it because it allows room for creativity, but also, i find things easier when it's all out within reach rather than adding extra motions to open drawers and put things back when I'm done. I'm more effecient in a mess. Maybe it's almost like how severe autism can know that 100 sticks are on the floor without counting, the milder form makes it so that even amidst clutter, we see what's there and know what's there without much thought whereas someone else sees it as a mess of stuff and finds it chaotic just as they would with trying to count out 100 sticks that aren't organized in groups of 5.

I also noticed my 2 year old (so far she's diagnosed, and we are pretty certain it's accurate) hates a clean house. When it's clean, she has to dump toys or cookies or something all over the place, and she's good. Even walls, if it's white, she'll draw on them. She doesn't usually draw on them again til after I wipe them clean. If a landlord could understand that, I wouldn't wipe the paint off to the drywall and it reduces the risk of her getting a hold of a magic marker. Just let me have a year of some crayon on the wall and things will be okay. What stinks though for me, basically, if the house is clean, the two year old cries a lot for no reason. If the house is a mess, the one year old cries a lot for no reason. So far that seems to be the pattern.

I wonder too that sometimes I can't stand to see a really clean house. Like a sensory overload almost. But I can't stand it completely disorganized. I like something in the middle more on the disorganized side. Everytime I clean and organize, I find myself spending hours looking for something that was once on the floor next the TV.



Willard
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08 Aug 2009, 10:41 am

OddFinn wrote:
Have you seen Mozart and the whale? I was just as shocked seeing it as Donald was, after Isabelle had re-organized his home. I hope nobody ever does something like that to me.


No, I haven't, but someone rearranging furniture is one of the quickest ways to set off a meltdown in me. I can't abide coming home and finding things out of place. It's like being personally violated.



Jkid
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08 Aug 2009, 8:11 pm

My college dorm was always messy. But for some reason I manage to find my stuff anywhere. I do clean it once a every month.



Nim
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08 Aug 2009, 8:19 pm

Overload of tasks would be the most common cause for messiness. Lately I have been staying on top of things. I'm single and male - I clean the floor, vacuum it slowly and try to get everything up - scrub down the cabinets, scrub down the floors, scrub down everything I've been touching - go over everything with sanitizing wipes to pick up any dirt left over. Then go over everything again with a cloth to pick up and fibers from the wipes and scrubbing (using windex with vinegar to get out any left over streaks). I like the smell so as a final medium between me and my home I feel happy with the choice. Perhaps its the fine attention to detail that overloads us tho. I don't see a point on cleaning if I can't do it fully - detail is my anal-ity. Anything less is annoying - I did most of my home, and one bathroom - I dont use the other one at all but I want to go into it and completely clean it. That and I haven't finished my kitchen floor yet... its bothering me... :roll:



djs11
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17 Apr 2012, 3:13 pm

I was kind of thrown by the assumption that Aspergians are generally neat and organized. I am typical Aspergian in every area but that one and I think it might be because of the perfectionism aspect of the syndrome. If I can't get something to be near perfect, I don't know how to compromise or adapt my expectation, therefore I shut down when I am trying to clean on a large scale. Cleaning is one of those skills that eludes me.



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17 Apr 2012, 3:26 pm

willmark wrote:
WardenWolf wrote:
Many aspies are horribly messy, myself included. The joke is that it's just "organization by layer".

Otherwise known as a "Horizontal Filing System".


I even organise my computer like that, every time my desktop fills up with files, I create a folder then move everything in it, including my last "desk tidy folder". I have 5000 files organised like this, through a series of these tidy folders.

With my actual desk I build layers for a few months, then move almost the entire lot into secure waste.

Jason



scubasteve
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17 Apr 2012, 3:28 pm

OddFinn wrote:
My chaos is very organized.


My organization is very chaotic.

We're all quite different, you see.



FishStickNick
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17 Apr 2012, 3:30 pm

I clean once a week or so to keep things under control; I'd consider my way of operating as "organized chaos." I can stand piles and clutter as long as there's some semblance of order to it. Work areas (kitchen counters, desktop, etc...) need to be reasonably clean, though, or I'll get distracted/flustered. I don't know what this says about me...