blogthing of randomness and Five Things

[glasgowsmiles]

Because I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging regularly. Not that lj needs to hear my every thought, but because when AspiesOnline gets its stuff together, I'll be doing a blog there. So here's the bits and pieces of my day, I guess

Comments

[mellifluous_ink]

I hate that it's just... It takes so much WORK. ...it takes a lot of effort for me to do that, to fake eye contact, to be in a crowd of people I might not know, to have to speak as myself instead of as a character in a play....I know what you mean, which is why I'm actually kind of glad no one has ever diagnosed me formally (I'm still not sure, myself, I just have some of the difficulties mentioned up there--it could just be some social in-adeptness due to how I was raised). If no one knows, no one can inadvertently demean me. I know that seems like I'm cowing to the 'Line in the Sand'*, but it's not that I'm trying to be normal--it's that I'm not trying to be anything. Really, I just go through life and hold myself to being mannerly and to not making anyone deal with my problems any more than I tolerate theirs

[mellifluous_ink]

Oh and also--eye contact. I don't like making eye contact because it's aggressive. So my mom suggested, when I was little, that I look at a person's nose or mouth or forehead etc, instead. It's helped people think I'm making eye contact, and lets me save real eye contact for important people like lovers, or when I'm furious and want to challenge someone.

[glasgowsmiles]

Nah, it doesn't seem like cowing to the line in the sand (I remember that episode! *dances*). I don't expect most people to 'come out' with it, and a lot of people don't need a formal diagnosis anyway.

I got diagnosed after my mom started working in the autism assessment program diagnosing little kids, but I had suspected after reading an article in Reader's Digest when I was in... third grade. We hadn't heard of Asperger's then, though, and she was sure I wasn't autistic because at the time she worked with the severely autistic kids. Anyway, because three out of five people in my immediate family have Asperger's and my mom works with kids on the autism spectrum, we've sort of become the active community for visibility around here. I like doing the panels because I like to think if the people working in schools now understand it better, then kids like I was won't have all the problems I did.