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Izzy_Dolphin's Blog
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posted at 12:59 am on 06-07-2009
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Am I AS? Or just really quirky?
posted at 12:59 am on 06-07-2009
Hey,
My name is Elizabeth, and I want to be a marine biologist. Online I go by Izzy. I don't know why, because I NEVER EVER EVER go by a nickname in real life, because I was taught that nicknames are bad, because they make people think less of you. Actually, on second thought, I'll go by either one here. My best friend gave me the nickname Izzy when I was in 1st grade and she was in 2nd. She's the only person who calls me Izzy except people I meet online. I'm about to finish my first year of college, and love every second of being at school. I have an excuse to study marine biology all the time, now, without my parents taking away my textbooks.
While I love college, it has meant many changes and an entirely new group of people socially. This was a big change, because I always went to the same public school, where everyone knew me and nearly everyone avoided me, so I was used to it, and I figured that it was just because I wasn't into their fashions, their boys, their fads, and their social game, and that when I got to college, I could find people who were smarter than them who I could hang out with. I figured that I could finally not be followed by whatever it was that I did to piss people off in elementary school. I did, well, some. There are definitely nice people at school. I’ve always gotten along with people who are a bit older than me, rather than my peers. I ended up having the most trouble with my fellow freshmen, especially the freshmen in my dorm. I started noticing a pattern, where I’d know someone my age for about 3 weeks and they’d be just fine with me, but then it would change and they’d start treating me horribly or just stop talking to me. This is something that happened my whole life, but I figured it was just people hearing rumors about me from others. Then at college, where no one knew me, it happened too, so I figured it must be me. I’m the only recurring theme in this recurring pattern.
Of course, I did make friends, especially friends who were older than me, and I have been settling down some. I just don’t know people my age. They all sort of reject me, or feel like they have to be nice to me just because I don’t have friends. And my friends who are older already have groups that I’m not a part of. I don’t know how to be part of a group of friends. Recently, over the course of one week, 4 different people, all people who I know and who I’m relatively comfortable with, asked me if I had Asperger's Syndrome. 4 different people who didn't know each other, only me. One of whom had a masters degree in psychology. One of whom was a 4th year psychology student who works in an Autism lab. The other two lived with people who were on the spectrum. At first, it made me confused, because I didn't think that it could be me. I'm smart, honest, and dedicated. Yeah, I’m a little quirky and tend to have a one-track mind, but what's wrong with that? Then I started reading about Asperger's Syndrome, and thinking about my life. After I read the first short website, I decided to do something. I decided that in order to keep my thoughts unbiased by the literature, I would write down as complete a description of myself as I could, and then do more reading in the context of that. I figured that this would be the most logical way to figure out if I did fit the traits, or whether those people were just confused. After a lot of reading, I think I do fit a lot of the Aspie traits, and here are some of the things I came up with, now with my added notes...
-I have a serious obsession with marine sciences - I've loved dolphins since before I could read (and taught myself how to read with a book called "The ABCs of the Ocean") - my mom hates that I love oceans. She always tells me "not everyone wants to hear about the oceans, Elizabeth." So I don't speak about them anymore, because I know that if I start I will get yelled at. And I hate getting yelled at. But I still love ocean science, and read about it all the time. Now that I'm in college, I am in classes for it, too, which is amazing because I can study it all the time and not get in trouble!
-When I was growing up, I read WAY above my age level - I read all of "The Lord of the Rings" in 2nd grade, because I was bored.
-My math/science ability was off the charts in elementary school and middle school too, though my parents didn’t want to let me get extra tutoring, so I had to sit through really boring math classes that I’d finished years ago on my own.
-My terrible handwriting - I much prefer to type - its very mathematical, and the shapes of words are awesome on a keyboard. I am fairly ambidexterous... I might even be a forced righty. All I know is that my handwriting is terrible, regardless of the hand I use to write, and I used to fail "handwriting" in elementary school... I'd get all the answers right, but my teacher would yell at me for being messy. My mom hates my handwriting, too. But I don’t really care. I type well, and that’s what matters now.
-I was bullied in elementary school/sexually harassed in high school. I always figured that the bullies hated me because
1. I love to read
2. I’m good at math/science
3. I like school
4. I don’t care about the fashions, and will wear the same clothes over and over. (I don’t like new clothes, they don’t feel right. I much prefer a T-shirt and jeans and a sweatshirt. I wear a zip-up fleece every day now, even if its warm out, because that is comfortable. If I get too hot, I take it off, but I never go places without it. This is another thing that drives my mom up the wall. She tells me I dress like a prude and that I’m too conservative. She hates it. I wish she would just get over the fact that I don’t want to dress all fancy, and look at how much money she’s saving.)
5. I never lied, especially when there was a substitute teacher. I don’t like breaking the rules, and lying is wrong and even if it does benefit us, it benefits us in a tainted way, and that is not a good thing.
6. I didn’t have any interest in their fads or their music or anything. Except beanie babies. I love beanie babies. Even now. They’re adorable and fun to cuddle.
7. I use big words that they don’t understand. But I don’t understand why you shouldn’t use big words. They make just as much, if not more sense, than the little ones.
-my honesty - I don't like telling anything that isn't true, and I remember every single time I lied, including the time when I was 5, and forgot to flush the toilet and didn't want my parents to get mad at me. If I have made a mistake, I will own up to it, because that is the right thing to do.
-the way that I "learn" people by watching them, and that each person starts as a fresh slate, with a new set of rules to follow
-the repetitive patterns I make with my hands – I often find myself tapping my fingers very specifically, or my toes…
-my obsession with symmetry, both physically (if I take a set of stairs, it has to have an even number of stairs, or I get very confused. Or when I tap my fingers, each one has to be tapped exactly the same number of times. This isn't a problem for me, because I subconsciously count things all the time)
-My enjoyment of numbers and remembering numbers. License plates are cool too.
-the way that I think about people and situations is very linear - I go through a set of rules that I have made up in order to figure out how to interact with people.
-My ability to reason out social situations if I am not a part of them - I can look at a situation from the outside, and break it down very logically. I have found that most people follow patterns, and that they tend to have the same reactions to the same stimuli. If there is a new stimuli, though, it takes me a long time to figure out the "normal" and "other" reactions to it.
-I say “please” “thank you” and “sorry” all the time, because I figure better safe than sorry. People get mad at me for it, but I don’t know when its right and when its wrong to say things, so I just try to be more polite than less polite.
-I have this cycle where I can be friends with someone for about 3 weeks, then they lose interest in me, and if I try to continue the friendship, they simply push me away and treat me badly. It takes me a long time to find a nice person who is willing to be friends with me. I have had only 5 of them throughout my life. I feel like I can't relate to people well, and that my friendships are all based on common interest, like marine biology or circus.
-I am VERY rules-oriented. I cannot stretch rules, and it is something that my parents HATE about me. I get stuck in what I know is true, and don't want to do anything different, because that is wrong.
-I cannot look people in the eye. It feels awful, like I'm staring them down, or like they're going to hurt me. So I look at their knees, or their throat. If I have to look at their face, I'll look at their mouth, because that's where the information is coming from. My mom hates that I can’t look at people in the eye. She always yells at me when I don’t. This is how I discovered that the mouth is a good place to look. It looks enough like I’m looking into someone’s eyes form an outsider and has fooled my mom some.
-I'm a really good group leader, especially in interest groups. I was science team captain two years in a row, and my team did really really well. I’m good at delegating tasks and getting people to do what I want them to do in group projects. I like to be in charge, though, because when I’m not in charge I can not figure out what is going on. I usually take charge so that I can know what is happening. It scares me too much not knowing, and I don’t want to do a bad job.
-On groups, I can lead really well, but I can't relate to my peers outside of the group. I don't know what to talk about.
-If I start to say something, I have to finish it. I don't know why this is, but I do.
-I feel like my life is an analytical essay. I have to back up everything I say with facts. If I can't back it up, I won't say it, because then it might be wrong. If it is wrong, I don't want to say it.
-I don't like generalizations. They're not true. Either make what you're saying 100% true, or say "some of this type of person does xyz" But don't say "this type of person does xyz" and expect me to accept it as truth.
-I correct people if they say things that are wrong. I know that people don't like this, because they get angry at me when I do, but it isn't something I can control. Especially if they say something wrong about oceans. Then I have to correct them, because they don't know the right answer, and they deserve to know the right answer to what they are talking about.
-I'm gay. I think. Well, I really like girls. But I might be bisexual. I don't know, and I don't know if I will ever be 100% sure. But it is a hypothesis I've made, and all the evidence supports the hypothesis that I am gay right now. I might even elevate this to Theory level soon... I might have enough data and experiments to support it.
-I read people like I read books, but I can't do it unless I'm thinking about that person after I've interacted with them. It takes me a lot of time to learn about an individual, and that person is unique. Sometimes I can fit that person into one of the rules I've made up about people in general, but I don't like those rules, because they're not 100% correct. Some of them are OK, though. I find negative reactions easier to connect, but that might be because I HATE negative reactions. They make me really really sad. And I remember those negative reactions for a long long time.
-When I meet new people, I watch them for a while, to try to see where they are similar to other people I have met before. Then I start doing my "testing". This is when I try different things with people to see how they react. I like to think of this as experiments, and I pay close attention to the reactions. I think it is this “testing” that drives people away from me, but I can’t be certain.
-I wish people were like computers, with predictable behavior.
-I like lists. I make lists all the time. When I need to do things, when I need to pack, when I want to think about things. I also like schedules.
-I can NOT be late to places. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. I try to be at least 10 minutes early to everywhere I am going, because there might be a problem along the way.
-I hate loud noises, especially fire alarms. This is because I had this dream when I was younger about being stuck in a burning building not being able to get out and having the alarm go off all around me. I had this dream for 3 years. I don't like fire.
-I startle easily at sudden movements, noises, etc. My mom tells me that when I was little, whenever a motorcycle came by the house, I would scream and cry.
-I hate dogs. They're scary and they bark loudly. I like cats because they are soft and furry. I have 2 cats. I used to keep mice, but when they died we got cats and I decided it would be cruel to keep mice and cats in the same house. But I like ocean creatures the best.
-I notice when people and things move around where I am. Most people don't notice these things, and it annoys them when I comment on them. Especially if we are talking about something else. I don't know, I think I can just keep track of lots of different things at a time, as long as only one person is talking to me. If more than one person is talking to me, I lose all of my thoughts and can't keep anything straight.
-I have an affinity for small, dark places. When I was younger, I had this place in my closet that I could curl up and sit if I didn't want to be with people. It was a wonderful place. I still use it now, when I am home.
-I love computers. They make everything so much easier to understand and deal with. They make sense. I am learning how to do computer programming and it is very fun.
-I’m an atheist. I have had no proof that “god” exists except in a very unreliable book… one that has been censored, re-written, translated, and pretty much completely changed over several thousand years. I like to make sense of the world scientifically. If there is a god, he or she sure was brilliant to make everything work so well by all these rules. In the mean time, there’s so much more evidence towards natural science that I’m going that way.
-I have an obsessive attachment to my stuffed animals. I have more than 300. All of them have names, and stories about where I found them and why I like them. I have tried to give some away, but I always back out at the last minute. I once tried that trick where you put some stuffed animals in a box, and put the box away for a month. After a month, every one that you remember is in there, you get to keep, but the others go away. I remembered every one. All 4 times I tried it. Now I just keep them and love them instead. It's funny, one of my favorite stuffed animals is a dog... but she's a nice dog. Her name is Nubby, after an Alaskan Sled Dog that I had read a book about the day I got her. One of my other favorites is my baby dolphin. I got him when I was 6, and at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with my family. He was on the wrong shelf, so I decided I had to take him home, because he was a misfit who needed love too.
-I love circus. Not just going to the circus, but actually doing circus. I do almost everything in the circus except clowning. I am an aerialist by training, and love that, but I also juggle and ride a unicycle, and walk on stilts and do anything in circus that I can think of. It is very hard for me, because I have bad depth perception, but I love it, and I am very good at it, because I have practiced a lot.
-Juggling was hardest for me to learn in the circus, because I couldn't judge where the balls were, and I kept dropping them. Now I'm much better, and after 8 years, I can now juggle 5 balls! I also walk on a tightwire and juggle.
-I teach circus to young kids during the summers. I tend to work with them in smaller groups, and they do very well. I like teaching like this. I’m especially happy with this teaching thing I did a little while ago with a young boy who had AS. I was the only coach who was able to communicate with him and teach him things. He responded really well to me, and I was really glad that I could communicate with him in a way that he understood. This happened almost a year before people asked me if I had AS.
-Circus is awesome, but I don't want to be in the circus. I want to be a marine biologist. Maybe I will do circus arts at night and be a marine biologist by day. But I will never give up being a marine biologist for circus.
-I like being alone. It is hard for me to deal with large groups of people, so when I am around lots of people, I tend to step away from the group and look at the people. I like to see if I can apply my rules right and guess what each person is going to do. Sometimes I am right, but other times I am wrong. I don't like to be wrong, so whenever I am, I add this to my database of people's behaviors.
-I like to describe my social system as a gigantic computer AI - it gathers data and makes its best guesses based on the data it gets. Sometimes it is wrong, though. There was once a robotic car that was being taught how to drive on its own. The scientists working on it drove it all over the university, and it observed all sorts of things and programmed itself with data about what the rules of driving are. But when it went on its test drive, it got stuck crossing a bridge. It turns out that one of the things that it noticed was that there should always be green on its right side. That is the grass. But when it got on the bridge, it didn't see any green, so it assumed it had gone off the road. Because of this, the car stopped and nearly caused an accident. My brain works like this car. It looks at all the details, but sometimes puts the emphasis on the wrong things and messes up.
-I hate groups, but I like being able to talk to people one-on-one. That is when you really get to know a person. I think I have trouble deciding what about myself is appropriate to disclose, so sometimes I say too much and turn a person away, and sometimes I say too little, and they decide that I don't want to be friends with them. This is not true, I just don't know what is good or bad to say.
-I notice all sorts of things when I am sitting in a room with other people. I hear all of their conversations, and have to stop myself from joining in, because I have learned that people do not like it. But it frustrates me, especially when I have important things to say that are relevant to the discussion and add to the evidence.
-I have a hard time with discussions. I always speak from my opinion, rather than from the opinion of the whole. Because of this, I say things like "I think..." or "This is something that matters to me..." and people hate that because they say I am self-centered. But I can not speak for everyone, just for myself, and I am always honest about what I say.
-I hate it when people say things that are wrong or dishonest. I always want to be correct and help other people be correct.
-I love teaching, and am very good at it. I have learned how to communicate things to people that I know a lot about. Because of this, I make a good teacher. I want to get my PhD in marine biology, and become a professor. Then no one will care if I have a hard time socializing. They will only care that I am good at what I do.
-My parents, especially my mom, hates that I have bad social skills. She always yells at me when I do not look her in the eye, or if I am talking to one of her friends and don't look at them. She also yells at me when I correct her, or when I say things.
-I HATE the holidays. My mom always wants to throw huge parties. I like to spend my time in the kitchen, organizing food and cleaning. That way I only have to talk to people if they come to find me.
-After meals with family and family friends, I always do the dishes. This is because I hate sitting at the table listening to people talk. I never know what to say when, and it’s impolite to talk out of turn. I know that much, at least.
-I am very eager to please. I think this is why I hate being yelled at, because it means that I have not pleased someone.
-I am a perfectionist. I always do my best work on everything I have to do. Except if its writing. I hate writing. I have tried to be a better writer, because I know that that is how I will have to communicate in science, but it is still very hard. I used to think that doing things that I didn't like was pointless, but when I was in kindergarten, I realized that it made people mad and yell if I didn't do what they wanted. So I do. But that doesn't mean I like it.
-I can not recognize my own voice. I don't know if this is an Asperger's trait or not, but when listening to a recording of my voice, I have no idea who that person is. I have a hard time recognizing other people's voices, and it takes me about 3-4 months to learn someone's voice. Even then, I get them confused a lot.
-People tell me that I have a weird accent. Some people say it's Canadian (my friend, who is a linguist, told me that is what it sounded most like). Other people just think it sounds weird.
-Sometimes I make strange faces. This is because I'm trying to figure out how other people's faces move the way that they do. Once a friend commented to me “I didn’t’ hear your accent on the phone!”
-I love to do mental math. Especially when I'm walking places and counting steps
-I notice patterns in the time displayed on my digital clock. When I am bored, I try to find ways that all of the numbers fit together well. Right now, it's 8:34. 8 = 3+4-3+4.
-I like to look at things in binary. Especially Pascal's Triangle. Actually, I like Pascal's Triangle in lots of different ways. It's beautiful because there are lots of patterns in it.
-I could talk about marine science all day, but that would just annoy everyone. I like biology the best, but I think everything in the ocean is awesome.
-In school, if I can relate things to the ocean, I always learn it better. Once, I wrote an entire essay on ocean motifs in American Literature. Another time, I had to memorize 50 things that happened in ancient history and put them on a map. All of mine were in the ocean. My teacher hated it, but it was still 50 valid historical points.
-I am very methodical. If I start a pattern, I have to finish it, and I always will. I like to spell out methods to do everything, because it makes things simpler.
-I learned to walk and talk at the same time when I was a baby. My first word was "Doggie!" - My parents tell me that we were out for a walk, and I pointed and said "Doggie!". That was before "mama" and "dada".
-When I was younger, I never played "make pretend" games. If I did, I would write out all of the rules ahead of time, and then act it out specifically.
-When I was a baby, I almost never cried. My mom tells me I squeaked sometimes. She'd often put me down for a nap and then come back 3 hours later to find me in my crib happily exploring my feet.
-I like to build things. I could be an engineer, but I don't want to be. I like to build things to solve problems though. I like using power tools and designing and building gadgets. My mom never let me have legos or anything, because she didn't think they were "girly enough". I was a tomboy. I think. I didn't fit in with little girls or little boys. So I just did my own thing, and that was fine. My teachers hated it.
-When I was in elementary school, my teachers used to take away my books at recess time and force me to play with the other kids. I hated this, because I didn't like their games. I hated 2nd grade because I didn't have my friend in my class anymore (she's a year ahead of me), and that was very frustrating. I didn't have anyone, and was the target of a lot of bullying. I just sat and did all of my work. By the time 2nd grade was over, I'd finished all the reading "text" books and most of the math the school had. Sometimes the kids were mean, so I'd take my desk out into the hallway to get away from them. My teacher hated this, but sometimes she would let me stay outside for 30 minutes.
-I hate talking about my feelings. When I do, I always break them down into logical components and explain them just like I do with all other people.
-I'm clumsy. You wouldn't think so, because I'm in the circus, but I'm a total klutz. I hurt myself walking... once I tore some ligaments in my ankle marching in place... at the end of a circus show where I'd thrown back flips and all sorts of tricks. I don't know exactly where my body is, but I'm not growing. I tend to accidentally walk into walls or the edges of doors. It's hard for me to know where I am spatially, so I accumulate lots of bruises because of this.
-I don't feel pain until it's way too late. When I hurt my ankle in the circus, it didn't feel painful at all. I just noticed that I waivered a lot and then the next time I put my foot down it didn't work. Another time, I hurt my wrist, and then used it until I couldn't move my fingers to hold a pencil anymore. It only hurt a little then. It's weird. Bruises almost never hurt. Sometimes I can cut myself and not notice until much later, or until blood drips somewhere. Then I look and notice it.
-I recently started looking at people in a really weird way, kind of like “introvert/extravert” but not exactly. It has proven to be very interesting. I realized that there's a spectrum of the way that people think. Some people (like me) think entirely objectively. We compile facts and get the answers. Other people think in terms of emotions. I don't understand those people, but I know most of the people I have ever met are like that. There's a big spectrum, though. I'm just at one extreme of it. It's been interesting to apply this theory to the people I see.
-I don't get along with people who function on emotions. They don't like me either. This causes a lot of antagonism that I wish wasn't there. But I don't know how to fix it, either. I try to be nice and stay out of their way, because I know that I will not do well talking with them for a long time. People confuse me.
-I've never had any sort of psychological evaluation that I know of. I don't think my parents would've noticed enough of me to think that I was different from my peers. They didn't notice that I only had one friend who would invite me over. They didn't notice the countless teachers notes of "Elizabeth is having trouble relating with her peers" past yelling at me that I needed to fix it. I want to fix it, but I can't figure it out. So I started thinking and observing. This has proven somewhat successful, but at the same time, it is still a mess. I never acted out, and wasn't very boisterous. I was just the kid who never lied, and who was quiet and let things go, as long as I had my books.
-I have a terrible phobia of the phone. I hate talking to people on it, because it scares me. People are mean over the phone, and I don't understand what they are talking to me. I don't know what to say when. I don't call people unless I have to. I much prefer email and IM. That way all that is transmitted is words. Words make sense.
-Scarcasm. I don’t get it. Or jokes. Unless they’re jokes that are very obvious parodies or word choice jokes. Then those are fun. I like puns. And I really like it when people rewrite songs to be funny, like Tom Lehrer’s Elements Song. What I don’t get is when people use sarcasm when they are speaking. I don’t get it unless they are like “I’m being sarcastic” or if they make very obvious changes in their voice. Jokes are the same way.
-I’m very sensitive to bullying. I don’t like it when people talk about other people behind their backs, and I often step in and say “stop”. I know this makes people mad, but it makes me mad when they talk like that. It isn’t right to treat people badly, and I don’t care what the situation is.
-I love playing classical music. When I was in Kindergarten, my parents bought me a radio alarm clock for me to learn how to use so that I could start getting myself up on my own. I quickly found the classical music station, and was hooked. My parents to this day still don’t understand why I picked that. They don’t listen to classical music, so they don’t know where I would’ve familiarized myself with it. I don’t know either, but I do really like classical music, and it’s my choice what I listen to. So I listen to classical music. And I play piano and viola so that I can play that music too. I like Mozart because all of his music makes so much sense. It sounds so simple and so complicated at the same time, but it makes sense to me. I like Beethoven because his music is very bipolar and fun to play. I like to switch between his emotional extremes, because extremes are easy for me to understand. I don’t like some of the more romantic composers like Debussey, because his music is too interpretative. It’s hard for me to convey emotion through it and that is what makes those pieces beautiful.
-I also like some other kinds of music, like a cappella and broadway showtunes. But I HATE (c)rap… and most other popular music.
-Sometimes I’ll talk to myself. I don’t know why I do this, but sometimes it makes sense. Or I’ll voice my thoughts under my breath. My mom hates this too, because she says that I am muttering rude things about her. This is not true most of the time. Sometimes I do mutter things about her under my breath, but most of the time I’m just trying to figure my thoughts out and that’s why I mutter. I used to talk, but then my mom yelled at me, so I started muttering instead. I have tried to reduce this, but it’s been hard.
-I don’t like meeting new people. That’s just more new things to think about and consider every time I do anything.
-I always try to do everything to the best of my ability. Some people tell me that I am very competitive. However I don’t see myself as competing with other people, only with myself, to be the best I can be. Every time I start something, I try to do my absolute best, unless it is something really boring like writing. Then I just try to pass. But I feel like if there’s something that I am going to do, I may as well do it the best that I can do it.
-Some people, especially my mom, tell me that everything I do is a defense mechanism. I’ve tried to fix this, but I don’t know exactly what a defense mechanism is. I only know that is nearly everything I say to my mom and that is what makes her mad. I don’t know what to fix, though, because I am only saying the truth.
-I really like to knit. It’s fun and there’s always a methodical pattern you can follow and have really awesome things come out. Knitting calms me down when I’m frustrated. I’m knitting a huge blanket right now that is blue and green. Like the ocean. I’m going to put it on my bed when its done so that my room looks more like the ocean. Knitting is better than crocheting, because its more pattern-oriented. Crocheting is too free-form for me to really understand. I need patterns to do it well.
-I love marine biology more than anything in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without it. One day I will be a great marine biologist and learn all about the animals in the sea and how to save them. And no, I do not want to be a doctor (too many people have asked me that question when I say I am studying biology). I want to be a marine scientist. The ocean is the most amazing thing in the world and I want to learn everything about it. And more. Because there is so much more to know.
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So now that you know a bit about me and some of my traits, you can look at this from a different angle. I grew up in a house with no real freedoms. My parents were very controlling. My mom expected children to be on their best behavior all the time. Like I said earlier, I was and still am very eager to please. I learned my manners quickly and followed them very strictly. My parents didn’t let me out to socialize with people very often, so I didn’t get much practice outside of school of how to relate to people except my family members. I had very few privileges, and when I misbehaved they went away. For a long time, the only thing I had was 30 minutes of computer time per day and the ability to shut my bedroom door. If I misbehaved, those would go away. So I didn’t. When I got to 10th grade, and finally got my wish of having a computer in my room, that became the thing they could take away for punishment. I never wanted to give them that chance, so I became even more obsessive of the rules. My computer was my life. It didn’t matter that it was a 1998 thinkpad that barely had enough RAM to run windows 2000. It connected me to the internet and was a place where I could finally do my homework undisturbed by my family. I must have spent hours on my computer locked in my bedroom, and my parents hated that, so they made rules against it, but I still managed to use my computer later at night when I needed an escape. I don’t know what I would’ve done without my computer, it saved my sanity during the last 3 years of high school. My computer now is a new nice thinkpad which is named Einsteinium, or Es, which are my initials. All of the computers in my house are named after elements, which was my dad’s idea. He likes computers. And chemistry. And science in general. I think my dad might have AS too. He’s like me in a lot of ways. We do the dishes together after holiday dinners sometimes. But I am wondering. Are all of the weird traits I have that are all indicators of AS just a mechanism of growing up in a house without people my age to learn how to socialize with? I did go to public school full time, and participated in after school things, too. (I did gymnastics for 12 years, and did other program things too, especially science clubs in high school and was very dedicated to everything I did and did most of them until I couldn’t anymore. The only two things I quit were dancing and ice skating, because I wanted to do more gymnastics and didn’t have time for all of those things and school.) I don’t get very anxious unless there’s people around who I have to interact with, so things like large classes and exams are ok for me. I love standardized tests, because they’re so methodical and there’s a right and a wrong answer. I like being right, so I like taking them, because I can figure out what is right. I do well on standardized tests, and that has helped me a lot in college. I find lots of my college courses too simple, even those about marine science, because I learned most of it a long time ago, and it’s boring to have to learn all the same stuff over and over again. I want to learn new things!
What do you all think? Should I get evaluated? I mean, I don’t know if it’ll do me any good except to make sense of who I am. But is it worth doing that if it puts AS on my record? Would I still be able to go to grad school and teach? I don’t even know where to go from here, but it seems like I should do something. I can’t leave this unanswered, because I have all this data pointing one direction, but I don’t know if its right. Except that I might just be looking for an excuse as to why my mom hates a lot of things about me and why I don’t have any close friends and fail to get along with most people my age. I don’t want to use it as an excuse but I really want to figure out how to fit in better and not repel people, and if an AS diagnosis would help me with that, then I think it would be good for me. Maybe. I don’t know. What do you think? Am I just quirky, or is it worth seeing if I do actually have AS?
If you managed to read to the end of this, I applaud you and thank you. It was mostly a way for me to put all of my thoughts methodically on paper (something I hate but think was important here), but at this point, I think I really want answers. If anyone can tell me about their experiences or their thoughts, that would be great. Thanks!
~Elizabeth (Izzy)
p.s. I forgot one of the things on my list… I hate food. Especially food that has many layers or textures. I can’t eat it if it has more than one texture in a bite. I like to eat food that is plain. When I am eating, I always start with my vegetables, then work my way around the plate until I get to whatever my favorite part is. I don’t particularly enjoy most food and I eat to live, rather than live to eat.
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