MrXxx
Moderator/Enigmatus Paradoxius
Joined: May 12, 2010
Posts: 5678
Location: New England
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 Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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It's sometimes referred to as "cocooning."
I do it pretty regularly. It's sometimes almost essential to maintaining my sanity. My wife does it too. I, late at night after the kids go to bed, downstairs with the lights all out, shades drawn, and nothing but my TV for company. I do it during the day at times to, but don't get the opportunity very often. My wife uses our bedroom after coming home from work. She'll spend hours in there writing with the door closed.
It's about at least feeling like you have control over outside interference (both literally and figuratively). Control over all the "noise" (be it actual noise or just "stuff" going on all around you). It's the ability to shut out all that stuff that overloads your senses and your mind. I have three kids, and the activity in this house gets so overwhelming sometimes, I HAVE to shut it all out regularly or risk losing my head, usually in the form of temper outbursts.
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MrXxx is taking a long sabbatical, and no longer moderating. |
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Nier
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 12, 2010
Posts: 348
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| Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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| There's a lady in the UK who is an Asperger's specialist & also has a husband with AS. They live in separate houses (possibly even different towns) because that's the only way he can cope. |
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Handrewsmom
Emu Egg
Joined: Oct 03, 2011
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:12 am Post subject: |
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| I read your post last night and discussed it with my husband, He is on the spectrum. He has allows had a need for his own space to just get away and recharge.Our first home had a detached garage with a studio apartment. That apartment became his personal space. When we purchased a new home 10 years later, we added a seperate room next to our master bedroom. That became his new apartment. It has worked for us. When he has friends over they are always impressed by the fact that he has his own room...or maybe I should call it his "man cave". I am glad to see that this is not so unusual. |
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Nikkt
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Mar 02, 2012
Posts: 191
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| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | There's a lady in the UK who is an Asperger's specialist & also has a husband with AS. They live in separate houses (possibly even different towns) because that's the only way he can cope. |
This would be the ideal set-up if I ever managed to nab a husband. I'm currently share-housing and it's hell. Not because I don't like my housemate, she's a good friend of mine, but because I can never relax when someone's in the house with me.
Conversely, when I'm living alone (which I did for 5 years previously), I found myself looking forward to meeting up with friends and having a chat now and again, because I could become fully energised and ready to face the world...for a maximum of 5 hrs at a time, but I really did enjoy it. Now, though, my batteries can only ever be half charged because I'm never away from anyone long enough to charge them.
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Last edited by Nikkt on Mon Mar 05, 2012 5:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Nier
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 12, 2010
Posts: 348
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| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 10:02 am Post subject: |
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| Nikkt wrote: | | Quote: | | There's a lady in the UK who is an Asperger's specialist & also has a husband with AS. They live in separate houses (possibly even different towns) because that's the only way he can cope. |
This would be the ideal set-up if I ever managed to nab a husband. Or like the Tim Burton/Helena BC arrangement that someone else posted on. I'm currently share-housing and it's hell. Not because I don't like my housemate, she's a good friend of mine, but because I can never relax when someone's in the house with me. I have to do things like say "good morning" or "have a good day" or answer questions like "how was your day?" when all I want to do is stim by walking up and down the hallway tapping my collar bone, integrating everything that's happened throughout the day.
Conversely, when I'm living alone (which I did for 5 years previously), I found myself looking forward to meeting up with friends and having a chat now and again, because I could become fully energised and ready to face the world...for a maximum of 5 hrs at a time, but I really did enjoy it. Now, though, my batteries can only ever be half charged because I'm never away from anyone long enough to charge them. |
Precisely. This is why I live alone. I thought it like being an air-breathing animal that has to live underwater, which looks like the other sea creatures but can't actually exist in that environment for too long.
There is a need to surface and breathe some air, the longer you wait the worse it gets. The other fishes wonder why you're so strange needing to escape all the time, why are you being so unsociable and unnatural ?
They don't know you can't breathe and maybe don't believe you when you tell them, because you look normal to them...
EDIT: But if another air-breather came along, and we both gave each other space, that could work. But i'm not holding my breath, metaphorically-speaking!  |
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ms_squirrel
Butterfly
Joined: Oct 16, 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| I can certainly relate. I used to be a stay at home mom so I recharged during the day while my husband worked and my kids napped. Now I work alone in a retail store with no music playing and the sound on the computer turned off. Ideally I would love to live in a different house or apartment since my children are now grown. I feel the same as others. I can't fully recharge with someone else in the house (not even my cat). |
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pi_woman
Toucan
Joined: May 16, 2006
Posts: 258
Location: In my own little world
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| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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For me, it was an Aspie trait to NEED a rental house (no shared walls) instead of an apartment where I was constantly feeling interrupted or overwhelmed by the noise of other people's music, TV, conversations, screaming children, stomping up/down stairs, cars starting, etc.
Check out Sophia Dembling's blog: The Introvert's Corner, How to live a quiet life in a noisy world, www.psychologytoday.com |
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lostonearth35
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 06, 2010
Age: 39
Posts: 839
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:58 am Post subject: |
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I am much calmer, happier and feel more in control of my life since getting my own apartment. Before that I was a nervous wreck who had only been diagnosed the year before and had been put in all kinds of homes and hospitalized many times. The only thing that bothers me is that you still have to share the building with other people who may not respect your need for peace and quiet, the first couple of years there were teenagers living upstairs who would get drunk and play loud music and bang on the floor like they were pile-driving each other through the ceiling late at night. I called the police at least a couple of times. A guy who used to live next door to me ran a tattoo parlor an there would be loud bass music thumping trough my walls and there would sometimes be a strange odor, possibly from a "burning substance". And then a new guy moved in and only after a few months on New Year's Day his girlfriend got drunk, broke in and trashed his apartment and I had to get the cops over to arrest her. Things have gotten a lot better since the new landlord took charge of the place and I moved into the apartment upstairs, but I often wish I lived in a small single-person house with no neighbors close by at all. Also I'm across the street from a High School, and the teens love to hang out on my doorstep and smoke and drop trash on the ground and vandalize and I hate to having to leave or return to my apartment during lunch and right after they get out of school. They'll get up when they see I need to use the steps but there's no "sorry" or "excuse me" at all. Even my landlord had complained to the school but not much has changed. When the summer comes I won't have to put up with that for a while, I'll only have to listen to them screaming and cursing outside in the middle of the night or driving like lunatics down the road. Last year there was a dance and the police showed up because things had gotten REALLY ugly. I wish I didn't have to live next to a school, but I'm lucky I even HAVE a decent place of my own.  |
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ellora
Butterfly
Joined: Mar 28, 2012
Age: 40
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| yes, I think that his desire is natural, espically if he has had a recent breakdown then his need to be alone may be more extreme than usual. Ive been alone for 6 years now, and while I am not oppossed to sharing a home with a future spouse, ive already considered that it would be good to have my own room, somewhere to go and be alone when i need to, so as to hopefully prevent and avoid breakdowns that leave me running for a seperate apartment. perhaps he may feel able to move back in time and with some comprimises that work for both of you. |
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J4mes
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: May 01, 2012
Posts: 54
Location: Essex, England
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 6:59 am Post subject: |
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The recharging your batteries trait is one of the main things that finally convinced me that I have AS.
When I get home from work, after being around people all day and having just driven 20 miles I need time alone to decompress. I tend to be quite a calm person but when I'm just home from work my temper is incredibly short so even if something inconsequential like something in my room has been moved slightly gets me so angry, but then five minutes later I'll be fine!
But about living arrangement specifically I very much like the 'being alone among people' strategy, it's nice when my parents go on holiday and I have the house to myself but after a week or so I find the complete silence a but unnerving and lonely, that's even though when they're around I spend most of my time in my room. |
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