I made up a word for my condition. "Elliptical Autism", as it seems to vary day by day. I have had it all of my life and the symptoms that you describe are also my experience. But it is strange also in the way that the condition can help us see things in a different light. Solutions/ideas that wouldn't normally come to others are there for us sometimes.
I see it now as more of a gift than a curse. Certainly, I like being able to 'think outside of the box'.
I learnt relatively recently to stop trying to be 'normal' or you will have a miserable life. If family and friends can't handle my Autism, that's their problem.
When a pre-teen, I wondered why I was different from the other kids but my parents decided they weren't going to tell me why. They never actually did, I had to figure it out for myself.
I learnt relatively recently to stop trying to be 'normal' or you will have a miserable life. If family and friends can't handle my Autism, that's their problem.
When a pre-teen, I wondered why I was different from the other kids but my parents decided they weren't going to tell me why. They never actually did, I had to figure it out for myself.
School was a disaster for me. In those days, a little Cowtown had no understanding for the dumb kid. Usually put on a short bus and called it good. Fortunately, I seemed to make the grade just enough to avoid this mess, but was unable to communicate very well, or understand verbally what was being said to me. Of course you get treated differently, and then if you're just a kid, you think that is the way that it really is. Many years later, I started to realize that I wasn't like they suggested, just different. In fact, there were parts of my thinking that were pretty fascinating to those who took the time to listen.
Audio, as in everything audio has been a great interest to me for all of my life. I am still surprised at how much that people overlook in their surrounding environment.
Audio, as in everything audio has been a great interest to me for all of my life. I am still surprised at how much that people overlook in their surrounding environment.
That's me that is!!! Always been that way. Along with a bunch of other stuff.
Never actually been officially diagnosed of, I'm too old for anyone (including me) to care if I'm on the spectrum or not.
I'm 67 when I was a kid there was no diagnosis and I was described as anti social, withdrawn etc. etc. I just got on with life and remained baffled until it finally dawned on me I was the square peg. I was over 30.
But I try to fit in, found there's something to be gained by not frightening the natives any more than I have to.
Guess who? Was pretty much my saving grace - along with the times (read: they'd employ anybody, unlike today) - when I was working in the high tech sector. Tried to make me a manager but that didnt work because I have zero affinity for concepts like "time". One major drawback of being this way - how I am - is a need for frequent novelty; other engineers could work on the same thing for a year and a half; my interest and drive would turn to zero long before.
I was very lucky to be able to apply short bursts of my programming and hardware interface skills across a variety or problems, that would ultimately make work easier for others. I'd go looking for it; cruise through the labs seeing what people were working on. I got accolades from a VP once for that. It was survival for me; if they put me on responsibility for another year long project, out the door I'd very likely have gone.
My wife isnt like me; "first we put the seeds here, then a month later we move them to the ground, cover them with this, then a month after that we... " Two months I'd be like "what seeds"? Those dead ones over there I forgot about?
She skewered my way of being real good the other day, nailing how I like to get stuff from yard sales and thrifts to work on constantly only because it's new to me; when I have all this other stuff sitting there already I've somehow lost interest in. Dead to rights... Yet, she can marvel at how I most often come up with a solution to something like how to use the shower water to water the garden flowers out in front, which it turns out makes most anything it touches want to put up flowers.
I went a couple of years without riding my bicycle and was surprised when I got on it again. It felt as if I had just ridden it yesterday. Funny how well that motor memory works.
I remember many years ago talking about a Smokie gig we went to.
I asked my wife if she enjoyed it.
She said she had never seen Smokie with me !
Must have been a previous girlfriend.
I asked my wife if she enjoyed it.
She said she had never seen Smokie with me !
Must have been a previous girlfriend.
I am frequently amazed by that, too. How could you NOT notice that? It makes me wonder what other people's internal lives are like, so disconnected from the world. Might be fun, I don't know.
OTOH, what most people can ignore, I am unable to ignore. Mostly sound/noise. OMG, barking dogs, motorcycles, people slapping plates down in a kitchen, peaky speech.