Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Compendium Thread

Frideswide said:
it's when your thoughts spark off into other thoughts, creating new links and ideas. Watching somone do this is why we get called butterfly minds sometimes :rofl: Not just autistics mind you, it's just that we do it much more easily than other people - I can't see how it's hard to be honest, but other neurologies go on courses to be able to do lateral thinking and to open their minds a little.

Link upon link and fact upon fact and idea on idea and... until it propagates into a dendritic shape. If you could ever actually map it and if you could represent the cross links and cross fertilisations that occur naturally. And if it was 3D and, even when you moved on to something else, bits of your tree stay as a structure within your thoughts, ready for more leaps and twists.

Think of a Memory Palace where you turn a corner and discover whole wings for stuff you didn't know you had and as you examine them they propagate more floors and rooms and towers and turrets and... turn into Gormenghast.

Some of us struggle with how easy it is and we can get lost in it. Autistics who seem to be self absorbed and doing nothing in particular often are studying the connections between lace making, butterfly farms and the Severn Bore*

More of us experience mental and emotional vertigo as the net becomes so complex we can't express it outwith ourselves, or stop the relentlesss linking on to new ideas. It can be very distressing. See: behaviours in autistics, experienced by NTs as noisy, excluding and generally a Bad Thing.

That kid running around making yipping noises may well be struggling to quiet a mind and experience which feels like running up the down escalator while tethered to an elastic cord which threatens to pluck you off entirely and you know you must tread only on even numbered steps or your mother's heart will break and Jenny from school said this and you are sad becuase she steals your pencils which are so nice and you pat your tummy and rub your head while a scary man plays his trombone in your ears so that everything goes blurry with the noise and...

We can practice ways to control it, express it and use it as we wish. But it's very scary growing up because you don't realise that only a few people have the Tower of Babel in their head and most people can just get on with the day.

Does that sounds sort of familiar? :oldm:

@Steven how well have I captured it?

*That came to me with links of honeycombs, bees, flocks and herds, murmurations and natural movement in fluids.
Click to expand...

This was really interesting to read Frides. I don't have autism but I can identify with what you wrote in the first paragraph. Sometimes my mind works like this and I have to say that love it. It's not to say that I'm mentally dull at other times, but there's something about that frame of mind that is very... exciting and also satisfying(?) It does give me some food for thought about how autistic people experience the world though. If I were permanently in that state or a similar state, I imagine it would become overwhelming and exhausting.

It's so hard to truly put ourselves in others shoes and understand what makes each other 'tick'. It's only over the past few years that I have really started to understand and appreciate the breadth in which we all think. It probably sounds naive but let me explain an example. I was talking to my mother recently about how we respectively visualise. I was describing how, when I focus intensely on a memory or idea, it's as if my actual sight has gone and I'm there in my visualisation. It's almost a bit like when Harry Potter puts his head in the pensieve to watch a bottled memory. For her it's the exact opposite - she literally can't do this and she doesn't remember or imagine anything in this way. I was surprised because I think I'd assumed my experience was like everyone else's. I've since learnt about Hyperphantasia, and although I'm not convinced I have it in the most 'extreme' sense, I reckon I must be high up on the scale. It might explain why I have such vivid dreams.:nods:
 
I've a second meeting with my mentor at 10 this morning and am struggling to speak very much. At least it's only a 2-hour appointment, I guess. Although this difficulty is a semi-regular one and can lead to shutdowns, there's been no negative trigger except for me becoming interested in something but consequently frustrated with my inability to express it fully; as well as the frustration of my only eventually realising what anyone else would've probably grasped virtually immediately. This 'deficit' would come across as naivety on my part, but I'm unsure if it really is that at heart.
 
Steven said:
I've a second meeting with my mentor at 10 this morning and am struggling to speak very much. At least it's only a 2-hour appointment, I guess. Although this difficulty is a semi-regular one and can lead to shutdowns, there's been no negative trigger except for me becoming interested in something but consequently frustrated with my inability to express it fully; as well as the frustration of my only eventually realising what anyone else would've probably grasped virtually immediately. This 'deficit' would come across as naivety on my part, but I'm unsure if it really is that at heart.
Click to expand...
Jeez a 2 hour appointment. I would get bored and frustrated after 15 minutes - I don't have the patience of a saint as I'm constantly reminded by "someone". Hope you get on ok.
 
It helps that we're both autistic, and so a good deal of the time is passed in talking of our own experiences of daily life - so the two hours doesn't drag quite as much as it might if I was the only one talking (volubly or haltingly). :)
 
Steven said:
It helps that we're both autistic, and so a good deal of the time is passed in talking of our own experiences of daily life - so the two hours doesn't drag quite as much as it might if I was the only one talking (volubly or haltingly). :)
Click to expand...
You can ask for a shorter appointment :) I start with 30 mins for my people and we go from there!

Two hours 1:1 without meltdown or self harm or murder? Reader, I married him!
 
Do you know that I've cancelled my smart meter appointment around fifty or so times? :D But for important matters like this appointment, I can't really put it off each time, not least because it's actually good for me despite my anxiousness.
 
Steven said:
Nope. :D
Click to expand...

we don't want one. By now it's become a point of principle :rollingw:

We ignore all communications. Then someone we thought was doing something else (we weren't paying attention) packed up and told us we couldn't have one because of the way our old house (1905?) connects to the public wiring in the street.

So every so often we let them come and do a survey and they always say the same. :dunno:
 
My energy company makes it so easy to cancel or rearrange - it's done via their website instead of telephone - that it's all too tempting to keep cancelling...forever.
 
Because I rang up once to arrange a refund, as I was well over £100 in credit, and I was nagged non-stop to have a smart meter. The agent sneakily made it sound as if I wouldn't get the refund unless I agreed on an installation...despite my level of credit completely entitling me to the refund. :(
 
Frideswide said:
we don't want one. By now it's become a point of principle :rollingw:

We ignore all communications. Then someone we thought was doing something else (we weren't paying attention) packed up and told us we couldn't have one because of the way our old house (1905?) connects to the public wiring in the street.

So every so often we let them come and do a survey and they always say the same. :dunno:
Click to expand...
Same happened to me ( mine was built in 1904) but it still does not stop them from trying.
 
Steven said:
Because I rang up once to arrange a refund, as I was well over £100 in credit, and I was nagged non-stop to have a smart meter. The agent sneakily made it sound as if I wouldn't get the refund unless I agreed on an installation...despite my level of credit completely entitling me to the refund. :(
Click to expand...
This was tried on me until I started legal action and Eon Next begrudgingly gave me £1600 back after a long battle. They now deliberately overestimate my usage and one helpful "energy expert" told me I would have the same trouble every time unless I had a Smart meter fitted. I suspect that these characters are on a bonus for every punter they persuade. I now regard it as a vendetta against these monolithic companies who care nothing about customers.
 
I don't know if my hearing is getting better as I age (unlikely?) or I am becoming less tolerant of certain sounds.
Car doors are my personal bugbear. I happily paid less for a holiday cottage because there was no parking anywhere close to it - hence, no one wanted it because they'd have to drag their luggage up a steep hill.
I took the house with relish, and it was the only car-door-free time I have experienced in many years.

Elsewhere, there's just the constant BOOOM.
 
In fact, any repetitive impact noise seems to affect me in a visceral way, I can try to ignore it but find it extremely difficult. My body won't sleep through it and it feels as if it affects every cell in my body. Difficult to describe, but it has to be repetitive. A solitary bang or occasional ones are ok.

We had a guy in the house next door once who was fixing the place up. It went on for over 2 years because he wouldn't pay professionals to assist him. It was as if he was trying to paint the Sistine Chapel with a toothbrush (that kind of sloooow). I didn't mind the drilling, the typical construction stuff, but this guy hit the adjoining wall about 16 times each morning with a lump hammer........at the same time every day, and seemingly for no apparent reason. Relations were tense to say the least.
 
merricat said:
I don't know if my hearing is getting better as I age (unlikely?) or I am becoming less tolerant of certain sounds.
Car doors are my personal bugbear. I happily paid less for a holiday cottage because there was no parking anywhere close to it - hence, no one wanted it because they'd have to drag their luggage up a steep hill.
I took the house with relish, and it was the only car-door-free time I have experienced in many years.

Elsewhere, there's just the constant BOOOM.
Click to expand...
I swear to God cars that must have at least 500 doors, pull up outside my house every five minutes.
 
I never worked out if I hated the sound of my mother's voice, even muffled or too far away to make out words, because I hated her...

Or if it was one of many things that led to me hating her. :dunno:

It bubbled and frothed in my ears, having a sound effects reverb on it. :rollingw:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top