My Aspergers Is Showing

I hope people would say that I’m a person who is trustworthy, loyal and dependable. I feel like sometimes I can be all three a little too much and people take advantage of that. I have a hard time saying no. As much as I want to stand up for myself and say no, but there’s always a piece of me that thinks that if I say no to many times, people are going to stop trusting me and think that I’m not as loyal as I was, but if I say yes to many times, then people are going to rely on me too much. I should be able to say no more often.

Having positive traits like loyally is a good thing to have. Some people just don’t have a good bone in their body and being rude and disrespectful to people is something that may been something they grew up knowing due to having parents or another authority figure being that way when they were growing up.

I can remember facts from the most random places. I don’t know where I get them, but I have a stock pile of information stored in my head that I don’t know what to do with. I’ll read something somewhere and I’ll just remember it. My brain is like a sponge when it comes to knowing about stuff that nobody cares about.

When it comes to music, I wish I was blessed with the ability to sing or at least be able to learn an instrument. I tried to learn guitar when I was in high school, but I never had the patience to practise or the fact that my hands are too small and there are certain chords I can’t play because I can’t reach them. My guitar who I’ve named Doug sits quietly in the corner waiting to be played. I should really take him out and make him feel loved.

Sometimes I come off as someone who doesn’t care. If something were to ever happen, our hearts go out to you. Someone with Aspergers have lack of emotion. We have a hard time showing it. The way that I handle a sad situation especially when it comes to losing someone, I like to talk about them. If something reminds me of that person, I’m going to say it. I like to keep their memory with me so by talking about them makes me feel like their still here. That is my way of coping with losing someone. The more I talk about it, the better I feel.

I like routine. I like being able to do the same thing everyday. The routine for the first 18 years of my life was going to school everyday. I didn’t know I needed one until I didn’t have one anymore. Routine can be anything from volunteering once a week or having a part time job where you work the same hours on the same day every week. Once that changes, everything goes gets a little messed up.

I feel better knowing that tomorrow is going to be the same as yesterday. I’ve developed a daily routine to where if one thing changes like the bus is running late or the store I’ve planned on going to is closed earlier then I thought it did, it throws my whole day off and I start to get anxious.

Sometimes not thinking about things before we say them is something we need to work on. When you have Aspergers, we stay whatever comes into our head without really thinking about how someone may react to it. I’ve done it multiple times and there have been times when I think about afterwards and think to myself, “Why did I say that?” I try to which what I say and sometimes not saying what I want to say in the minute sometimes backfires. The things I should have said, should have been said and the things I did said are times I wish I didn’t. There have been times where I should have said something because the moment felt right, but I don’t say anything because I don’t want the person to get mad or be taken a back. I don’t like conflict. If I can avoid getting yelled at then I’ll walk away.

Understanding jokes is hard. You can be the funniest person in the world, but we just don’t get the jokes. Even if you have a very dry and sarcastic humour, we don’t know that your just joking around. Sometimes I think I’m making a joke, but it doesn’t come off as a joke. When I did theatre, we did improv. I thought I was good at it and try and crack a joke, but nothing came from it. Improv is hard just by itself and you have to have that talent to make it work. I thought since I watched a lot of Whose Line, I was a pro. When nobody laughed, it hurt, but I think it was hard for everyone to be as good as they thought they were. I may have the odd one liner that would get a laugh, but it just has to be a very good set up for that to work.

There are things to watch out for when it comes to Aspergers and Autism. Some are better then others, but some of them are obvious and it shows. It could be something or it could be nothing. Just because your child doesn't reach the same milestones as your older children or to the babies in the mommy and me class doesn't mean they weren't reach them, just give it. time. They will get there in their own way, on their own time.