Animal_Girl
Well-Known Member
Hello everyone. My name is Animal_Girl, and I am new to this site. I've always known I am a little "different" than most people, but it was not until recently that I realized I identify with a lot of the traits of Asperger's Syndrome.
I'm sorry if this sort of question comes up a lot. I'm just not really sure where else to go to discuss these aspects of my life and mental make-up.
Growing up, I was a very imaginative child who could always lead games of pretend with the other children. I was super-intelligent for my age, particularly gifted in mathematics and science. I started having problems around the time I turned ten and the other children stopped being interested in made-up worlds and characters. Socializing, particularly in the world of girls, became something I could just never figure out. It was like they all spoke a secret language that I had missed out on learning for some reason. I usually have an obsession or two at any given time and find it difficult to talk about anything else. As a result, I usually bring conversations to a an awkward halt by blurting out things that are not related. As a result, I was the "weird girl" and could never make any friends. It would frustrate me to the point of acting out and making a scene, much to the annoyance of my parents who found my complete lack of social skills to be embarrassing in public. It was not for lack of trying to fit in, but I never could. My mother would try to teach me things but get frustrated and angry when I could not pick up on them or found no point to learn what I considered to be needless behavior. I know I was evaluated by a neurologist to see if there was something atypical, and I know the either found or suspected something, but I don't know what it was.
When I realized I could not communicate well with people, I turned to animals for companionship because I realized I could understand them and they could understand me. I consider myself to have "animal friends" who are not necessarily pets of mine. As I got older, I realized I could connect best with people who also loved and felt a close connection to animals. To this day, my closest friends are people who identify very strongly with animals and who have very "what you see if what you get" personalities. I've always thought of myself as "animal-brained".
Feeling emotions is sometimes difficult for me, so I have to work very hard not to become numb, and that usually means reading books or watching movies that some people might find "disturbing" (For instance, I loved "Silence of the Lambs"). On a physical level, I hate soft touches and loud noises. I walk on the balls of my feet a lot of times, and my movements are can be kind of clumsy or unusually graceful. I get a lot of comments from people on the way I walk because it is apparently unusual. A lot of movements and movement processes that come easily to most people, I have to try to break down and figure out. If I'm in an area (particularly a dark one with flashing lights) I feel kind of like a there is just too much sensory input and I have to remove myself from the situation. On top of that, I have synaethesia, so sometimes I see the music in places as well as hear it. My brain kind of starts to shut down or malfunction like a computer without enough RAM. Thus, it makes socializing in bars and other places even more difficult.
At this point in my life, I am 22 years old, and I think I do pretty well functioning in everyday life. I have a few close friends and I can usually pass as pretty normal in day-to-day life. I have a bachelor's degree and I live independently, even if I do have to eat ramen noodles a couple of nights a week. (I assume the ramen noodle diet is pretty typical of women my age because it was referenced in a commercial for Allstate car insurance, and I know commercials try to appeal to their audiences by referencing common trends amongst the population.) Work gets difficult because I wait tables in a busy restaurant and often have to run to the bathroom or back hallway for quiet when the sound gets too overwhelming. I still have high anxiety and difficulty with non-literal statements. I don't understand teasing, poking fun, or joking around. A lot of my superficial social responses are self-taught lines I've tried to fine-tune over the years by mimicking others. I know a lot of them come across kind of stiff ( for instance, I always answer the phone "Hello, [name]. How are you today?"). As far as teasing goes, I usually just look confused because it draws a blank spot for me in the conversation process because I have not yet found an appropriate response that does not induce laughter in the person with whom I am interacting. More than anything, I hate being laughed at, so I find it frustrating and get embarrassed by the blank spots in conversation. I am often told that I don't read between the lines and dwell too much on trying to correct minute details in people's statements that were only intended to express a general idea. Unfortunately, those minute details are how I communicate with people. I have taught myself to closely analyze not only words, but changes in tone, changes in eyes contact, loudness, movement, etc. to better understand people. On the bright side, I have now become excellent at analyzing the exact nuances of in-depth conversations, and I can express myself far better than the average person in writing and written debates, but I find coming up with the appropriate responses very tiring when someone stops me on the street to say they like my handbag.
Anyway, I guess I'm not sure what the purpose of writing this was, but I've never really spoken to anyone about it. I've just kind of accepted that I'm a bit odd. I was wondering if these were things people with Asperger's could relate to, or if I am on the wrong track entirely to trying figure out why I perceive the world a bit differently than other people.
I'm sorry if this sort of question comes up a lot. I'm just not really sure where else to go to discuss these aspects of my life and mental make-up.
Growing up, I was a very imaginative child who could always lead games of pretend with the other children. I was super-intelligent for my age, particularly gifted in mathematics and science. I started having problems around the time I turned ten and the other children stopped being interested in made-up worlds and characters. Socializing, particularly in the world of girls, became something I could just never figure out. It was like they all spoke a secret language that I had missed out on learning for some reason. I usually have an obsession or two at any given time and find it difficult to talk about anything else. As a result, I usually bring conversations to a an awkward halt by blurting out things that are not related. As a result, I was the "weird girl" and could never make any friends. It would frustrate me to the point of acting out and making a scene, much to the annoyance of my parents who found my complete lack of social skills to be embarrassing in public. It was not for lack of trying to fit in, but I never could. My mother would try to teach me things but get frustrated and angry when I could not pick up on them or found no point to learn what I considered to be needless behavior. I know I was evaluated by a neurologist to see if there was something atypical, and I know the either found or suspected something, but I don't know what it was.
When I realized I could not communicate well with people, I turned to animals for companionship because I realized I could understand them and they could understand me. I consider myself to have "animal friends" who are not necessarily pets of mine. As I got older, I realized I could connect best with people who also loved and felt a close connection to animals. To this day, my closest friends are people who identify very strongly with animals and who have very "what you see if what you get" personalities. I've always thought of myself as "animal-brained".
Feeling emotions is sometimes difficult for me, so I have to work very hard not to become numb, and that usually means reading books or watching movies that some people might find "disturbing" (For instance, I loved "Silence of the Lambs"). On a physical level, I hate soft touches and loud noises. I walk on the balls of my feet a lot of times, and my movements are can be kind of clumsy or unusually graceful. I get a lot of comments from people on the way I walk because it is apparently unusual. A lot of movements and movement processes that come easily to most people, I have to try to break down and figure out. If I'm in an area (particularly a dark one with flashing lights) I feel kind of like a there is just too much sensory input and I have to remove myself from the situation. On top of that, I have synaethesia, so sometimes I see the music in places as well as hear it. My brain kind of starts to shut down or malfunction like a computer without enough RAM. Thus, it makes socializing in bars and other places even more difficult.
At this point in my life, I am 22 years old, and I think I do pretty well functioning in everyday life. I have a few close friends and I can usually pass as pretty normal in day-to-day life. I have a bachelor's degree and I live independently, even if I do have to eat ramen noodles a couple of nights a week. (I assume the ramen noodle diet is pretty typical of women my age because it was referenced in a commercial for Allstate car insurance, and I know commercials try to appeal to their audiences by referencing common trends amongst the population.) Work gets difficult because I wait tables in a busy restaurant and often have to run to the bathroom or back hallway for quiet when the sound gets too overwhelming. I still have high anxiety and difficulty with non-literal statements. I don't understand teasing, poking fun, or joking around. A lot of my superficial social responses are self-taught lines I've tried to fine-tune over the years by mimicking others. I know a lot of them come across kind of stiff ( for instance, I always answer the phone "Hello, [name]. How are you today?"). As far as teasing goes, I usually just look confused because it draws a blank spot for me in the conversation process because I have not yet found an appropriate response that does not induce laughter in the person with whom I am interacting. More than anything, I hate being laughed at, so I find it frustrating and get embarrassed by the blank spots in conversation. I am often told that I don't read between the lines and dwell too much on trying to correct minute details in people's statements that were only intended to express a general idea. Unfortunately, those minute details are how I communicate with people. I have taught myself to closely analyze not only words, but changes in tone, changes in eyes contact, loudness, movement, etc. to better understand people. On the bright side, I have now become excellent at analyzing the exact nuances of in-depth conversations, and I can express myself far better than the average person in writing and written debates, but I find coming up with the appropriate responses very tiring when someone stops me on the street to say they like my handbag.
Anyway, I guess I'm not sure what the purpose of writing this was, but I've never really spoken to anyone about it. I've just kind of accepted that I'm a bit odd. I was wondering if these were things people with Asperger's could relate to, or if I am on the wrong track entirely to trying figure out why I perceive the world a bit differently than other people.
