Well, hello everyone. I'm here to bring up something you likely have heard million of times before... I'm not diagnosed yet I think I might be an aspie (though I think I heard that the DSM is getting rid of that term?). To cut to the chase, here are some things about me that may or may not have to do with it.
- I was a picky eater as a child; have somewhat outgrown it. I first tried eggs and oranges a couple of months ago which shows how picky I've been (I'm fifteen). An odd eating habit I had up until a couple of months ago was of tearing my food into pieces and eating the pieces. After starting to eat school lunch every day for the first time and lack of food that I could eat that way, the habit is pretty much gone.
- Very few smells bother me. In fact, my sense of smell is practically nonexistent to me though that has more to do with the fact that my nose is chronically stuffy.
- Temperature also doesn't bother me (unless very hot or very cold). I once went to a skiing and snow tubing place and though my face ended up going numb from the cold, I didn't actually feel cold at all.
- When someone tells me something like "go get *blah* from *location in the room*", I get confused unless I know for sure where exactly they mean. Verbal instructions in general can tend to be slightly confusing to me.
- In fifth grade, I took a reading level quiz and scored as having a college level reading level. Ironically enough, a family speech therapist told me a few months ago that they've noticed I have a mild speech problem. Said speech problem runs in my family as my mother also has that problem.
- I have two uncles who have schizophrenia (one on each side of the family). My mother was shy as a child. Both my parents are loners and really have no friends. My grandpa, when he talks to me, has a tendency to speak in more of a monologue form.
- My mom tells me frequently how she thinks things I say are (unintentionally) mean or judgmental. My aunt and my dad have told me that I do have a bit of a sharp tongue so my mom is apparently not as over-sensitive as I thought.
- I can't for the life of me tell if someone's lying unless it's obvious in some way and I'm a very honest person.
- I used to have a bad pacing habit. Every time I'd start thinking about something, I'd have to pace, sometimes to the point where my feet would hurt or my ankles would click from overuse. Fortunately, the habit has died down, though I still do it. I rock, without realising it about 40% of the time (I've noticed it from videos taken of me), have done so since at least the fifth grade. I also had a habit of clearing my throat repeatedly in fifth grade when I had to speak in front of people and felt nervous. The teacher noticed these things, told me she thought I had emotional problems and maybe therapy would benefit me (never have taken medication for anything but colds, no diagnoses, no therapy, btw). Also, I developed a habit of obsessively searching my hair for lice and tearing out helpless strands of hair that only *looked* like they had something in it after getting a case of lice.
- In third grade, people would ask me for something from my packed lunch at lunch time. Consistently, if they asked me a second time after I said no, it'd make me so mad that I'd slap them. I have no temper issues nowadays, btw.
- I was naturally a shy child worsened by having a father who had a bad temper and was overly critical of the smallest of things. Nowadays, I feel like my social skills are actually great. In fact, I have a recently realised talent for public speaking. I had to read something on stage for a writing camp last summer. Surprisingly, I was the loudest one there (nearly everyone was so quiet you couldn't hear what they were saying). I didn't even mean to be loud. I have trouble with controlling the volume of my voice, really, so it just has a mind of its own.
- I've been told my voice is monotone. My eyes are pretty blank and unemotional.
- I always have some sort of routine. Nowadays, I eat a peanut butter sandwich nearly every night. I used to eat cereal every day after I got home from school, used to have a poptart every day years ago... I require about two or three hours of alone time every day. If I go to, say, the pool one day, I want to stay home and relax the next day.
- And lastly since I think I should end this here... One day, I went to the carnival with (part of) my family. I hadn't had any time to myself the morning before we went. When we left, my baby sister cried for all of the 20 minute ride back home. When we got back home, I still couldn't be by myself. My six-year-old half-sister and her dad were watching youtube videos in the same room as me and my sister was laughing obnoxiously at them. Can't really remember what happened yet I remember getting to the point where I couldn't take it anymore and had to call my dad to take me to his house (my parents are divorced). I remember I was trembling and teary-eyed.
19 Jan 2013, 1:06 am
