I am probably autistic. I haven't been diagnosed, and it's all assumed and informal, but I am probably autistic. Growing up, I had a lot of issues with socializing. I didn't make friends easily, and when I did, they were the main focus--the only friend. One of my biggest issues with making friends was that I have very INCREDIBLY poor facial recognition, meaning that I can see a person, know what they look like, even stare at them all day, and the next day, I won't be able to distinguish them from someone else.
Growing up, I refused to say anyone's name. Would not do it. When a teacher would ask me who I was partners with, who I was talking to, or who I wanted to sit with, I would either point at the person if I could, or I would have their name written down so that I could look at it first before saying it. If I wanted to get someone's attention, it would be in the form of "HEY!" until they realized I was talking to them. The facial recognition ties into all this because I was scared to say someone's name because I genuinely couldn't tell if their face matched the person in my head that I wanted to talk to.
This kind of leads into my eye contact problem. Up until very recently, I couldn't make eye contact. It was uncomfortable for me. I can't even make eye contact with a camera unless I'm doing a character that is confident (or scary). What kind of changed things, strangely, was that I ended up working with a very pushy former high-end wine salesman who had these remarkably bulgy eyes and refused to let me talk to him without making eye contact with him. So, not only did I have to make eye contact with someone, but I had to do so with the most strange eyes ever. This probably shocked my system into doing it more often, but for a long time, I didn't even realize people wanted to make eye contact. It was just unnatural to me. I probably still wouldn't do it if it wasn't soooo socially unacceptable.
There are a lot of things that have led me to think I might have autism, but I'll keep it short and simple as possible. But one of the things that has kept me from thinking I have autism is my dis-associative identity disorder. Growing up in an abusive home from birth to six years old led my brain to disassociate from my surroundings and myself. I often have this feeling that I'm floating outside of my own body, and I lose my emotions pretty consistently. When I say I "lose my emotions," I mean that I am aware I am having an emotion, but it doesn't connect with me in a manner that makes my brain go, "yeah, okay, this is your emotion. You own it; it's a part of you." Instead, I get an emotion like anger, disassociate from that emotion, and then I have a blankness in my head while outwardly appearing like I am angry.
I feel awkward for other people around me because I know they think I'm upset when in reality, the only reason I'm upset is because I look like I am and I think that, in that moment, it is the socially acceptable thing to feel.
This disassociation caused me to ignore a lot of signs that I might have some sort of autism because I attributed my social awkwardness and lack of facial recognition to the DID (disassociative identity disorder). Growing up was so difficult for me because of the way I was treated. I was treated like I was stupid. I have a decently high IQ, but in school, I refused to try. My homework was last-minute, and I threw together the presentations or altogether didn't do them. I almost failed fifth grade. In sixth grade, they stuck me in the dumb math class, and after a quarter of the semester, they realized I was acing all the tests, and pulled me out of the class to ask if I felt like I could be in the smarter class.
I realized after that, that even though I hated being in school, I needed to put forth enough effort to stop teachers from talking to me all the time. So, I started getting As and giving the minimal effort needed so that I could be left alone. My AP calculus teacher even went so far as to let an entire half-a-year's worth of homework slide because he knew I was capable of the work and knew how to do the calculations, but that I just felt I didn't need to prove it in order to learn. I really thank him for that, because he also gave me the top female math student award that year.
There are plenty of other indicators that I didn't notice or attributed to other things. One huge thing is that I HATE screaming. I hate the sound of it so much that I will leave the room or unfriend someone for screaming around me. I hate loud noises or a lot of noise in general. When I was briefly in college, the supervisors forced us to do this participation thing where we all sat in a circle (like fifty of us), and one person would go in the middle and say something about themselves. If you related to it, you'd get up, try to find another seat, and whoever was left over would have to say a thing about themselves. Queue me, VERY socially awkward, standing in the center of that circle and hating it. I said to a group of post-high school aged people, "I DON'T like to party." No one stood up. I didn't recover it, like, "oh, just kidding, I LOVE to party, everybody get up!" like I wished I had afterwards. Nope, just went, "oh, well, I guess I like to read." Some people got up and I slinked off into the circle.
I really didn't like to be at parties. I asked my mother to lie to other kids' parents and say that I couldn't stay over or I had to leave early whenever I was at a party because I was so uncomfortable with all the stimulation. When I was staying over at a friend's house at age eight (or so), I was sleeping under the air conditioner, and I was so cold that I used my jacket as a blanket and shivered the whole night because I was unable to will myself to look for a blanket for some reason. So, I didn't like staying the night at other people's houses because of experiences like that.
There are many stories and much to be said about this subject, but I think I will end it here for now, and maybe some other time I will write some more on the subject.
Growing up, I refused to say anyone's name. Would not do it. When a teacher would ask me who I was partners with, who I was talking to, or who I wanted to sit with, I would either point at the person if I could, or I would have their name written down so that I could look at it first before saying it. If I wanted to get someone's attention, it would be in the form of "HEY!" until they realized I was talking to them. The facial recognition ties into all this because I was scared to say someone's name because I genuinely couldn't tell if their face matched the person in my head that I wanted to talk to.
This kind of leads into my eye contact problem. Up until very recently, I couldn't make eye contact. It was uncomfortable for me. I can't even make eye contact with a camera unless I'm doing a character that is confident (or scary). What kind of changed things, strangely, was that I ended up working with a very pushy former high-end wine salesman who had these remarkably bulgy eyes and refused to let me talk to him without making eye contact with him. So, not only did I have to make eye contact with someone, but I had to do so with the most strange eyes ever. This probably shocked my system into doing it more often, but for a long time, I didn't even realize people wanted to make eye contact. It was just unnatural to me. I probably still wouldn't do it if it wasn't soooo socially unacceptable.
There are a lot of things that have led me to think I might have autism, but I'll keep it short and simple as possible. But one of the things that has kept me from thinking I have autism is my dis-associative identity disorder. Growing up in an abusive home from birth to six years old led my brain to disassociate from my surroundings and myself. I often have this feeling that I'm floating outside of my own body, and I lose my emotions pretty consistently. When I say I "lose my emotions," I mean that I am aware I am having an emotion, but it doesn't connect with me in a manner that makes my brain go, "yeah, okay, this is your emotion. You own it; it's a part of you." Instead, I get an emotion like anger, disassociate from that emotion, and then I have a blankness in my head while outwardly appearing like I am angry.
I feel awkward for other people around me because I know they think I'm upset when in reality, the only reason I'm upset is because I look like I am and I think that, in that moment, it is the socially acceptable thing to feel.
This disassociation caused me to ignore a lot of signs that I might have some sort of autism because I attributed my social awkwardness and lack of facial recognition to the DID (disassociative identity disorder). Growing up was so difficult for me because of the way I was treated. I was treated like I was stupid. I have a decently high IQ, but in school, I refused to try. My homework was last-minute, and I threw together the presentations or altogether didn't do them. I almost failed fifth grade. In sixth grade, they stuck me in the dumb math class, and after a quarter of the semester, they realized I was acing all the tests, and pulled me out of the class to ask if I felt like I could be in the smarter class.
I realized after that, that even though I hated being in school, I needed to put forth enough effort to stop teachers from talking to me all the time. So, I started getting As and giving the minimal effort needed so that I could be left alone. My AP calculus teacher even went so far as to let an entire half-a-year's worth of homework slide because he knew I was capable of the work and knew how to do the calculations, but that I just felt I didn't need to prove it in order to learn. I really thank him for that, because he also gave me the top female math student award that year.
There are plenty of other indicators that I didn't notice or attributed to other things. One huge thing is that I HATE screaming. I hate the sound of it so much that I will leave the room or unfriend someone for screaming around me. I hate loud noises or a lot of noise in general. When I was briefly in college, the supervisors forced us to do this participation thing where we all sat in a circle (like fifty of us), and one person would go in the middle and say something about themselves. If you related to it, you'd get up, try to find another seat, and whoever was left over would have to say a thing about themselves. Queue me, VERY socially awkward, standing in the center of that circle and hating it. I said to a group of post-high school aged people, "I DON'T like to party." No one stood up. I didn't recover it, like, "oh, just kidding, I LOVE to party, everybody get up!" like I wished I had afterwards. Nope, just went, "oh, well, I guess I like to read." Some people got up and I slinked off into the circle.
I really didn't like to be at parties. I asked my mother to lie to other kids' parents and say that I couldn't stay over or I had to leave early whenever I was at a party because I was so uncomfortable with all the stimulation. When I was staying over at a friend's house at age eight (or so), I was sleeping under the air conditioner, and I was so cold that I used my jacket as a blanket and shivered the whole night because I was unable to will myself to look for a blanket for some reason. So, I didn't like staying the night at other people's houses because of experiences like that.
There are many stories and much to be said about this subject, but I think I will end it here for now, and maybe some other time I will write some more on the subject.
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