I thought I'd ask you lovely people your opinion on myself and my daughter, I'm not sure if we have aspergers, something else or if we are just strange/awkward lol. I'm thinking of going to the doctors to get diagnosed but want to double check what everyone with experience with it thinks, I don't want to walk in tell the doc I think I have something and for him to think I'm a nutter, hypochondriac or attention seeker etc, so here is a run down of some of the things I did as a child and some of the things / thoughts etc I do now;
I was obsessed with the number 4 as a child, I had to touch things at certian angles 4 times, twice with each hand(so that it's even). I still do this now, like if my husband accidentally touches just the tip of my little finger it sets me off I have to do a set pattern with my hand to make them right, same with my feet, it's not the number 4 anymore just as long as it's even and feels right so it could be 2, 4 6 8 times. At one point I tried to control it and stop myself but that made me develop an even more embarassing habit, I make noises or blurt out words for no apparent reason, my latest one is hissing like a snake rather then saying a word beginning with S, I don't randomly do it I know a few seconds before hand I'm going to do it but can't stop myself if I'm in a relaxed environment(i.e home), if I'm in public I have to bite my lip, tongue, cough anything so that I can't say something. The words are usually in a different tone of voice, almost a comical high pitched tone, it's hard to describe.
Few more from my childhood, I went through a phase of not wearing socks for about 5 months I hated them and refused to wear them at all, then when I eventually did wear socks they had to be odd ones. My mum also told me that I wouldn't go to bed unless I had medicine so my parents filled an old(cleaned out) medicine bottle with syrupy cordial so I'd think I was having medicine. I wouldn't speak at school, only whisper, this went on the entire time I was at primary school I even remember having 'special lessons' on my own and also teachers often shouting at me because I wouldn't speak.
I had friends at school 4 or 5 of them but not if that makes sense, I'd play with them at school but out of school I didn't see them and I never felt close to any of them, I didn't particulalry like any of them. I've always struggled with making friends, 90% of the time I had no one, 10% of the time there were people I could hang out with but felt no connection or even liked that much. I always preffered my own company and would sit and play happily on my own for hours and as a teenager I prefferred laying on my bed staring into space listening to music then 'hanging out' with people I didn't really like. Even now I have 1 friend, we are close via email and talk about anything and everything but face to face I just don't know how to interact, we've known each other for nearly 2yrs and I still get nervous going to her house and can't relax and constantly worry I'll say the wrong thing or my husband will and she'll hate me etc. I get incredibly lonely but just can't make friends, I try online but after a few messages it kinda just fizzles out because I don't know what to chat about.
I also get very passionate almost obsessional about things and then more or less lose interest in them. This time last year i was obsessed with fish, all I talked about was fish, I spent every spare penny I had on fish, tanks, food, equipment etc, I joined several forums and would sit on them for hours, not posting an awful lot but just reading and constantly refreshing to see what was new. Then it was fake hair, synthetic dreadlocks, wigs, extensions etc and again I joined a community and obsessively sat there on the forum just lurking and that's all I talked about and spent money on. I still like fish and hair but I'm not as obsessive over it and my husband doesn't have to suffer with the 'guess what I read on the .... forum today, so and so did this blah blah'. He always knows when I have a new obsession because I'll join a forum for it and talk about it all the time and joke with me that so and so is my new obsession.
Think that's some of the major ones I have smaller things like starting a sentence in my head and finishing it out loud so my husband has no idea what I'm on about or we'll talk about something and 10 minutes later I'll say something about that subject and again he'll be confused and then remind me that we were talking about that 10 minutes ago and that I need to state what I'm talking about. Most of the time I have to have jokes explained to me, it's ok when it's just my husband but in public I have to just laugh like everyone else and then ask him later what was funny. I also space out sometimes and can't concentrate on one conversation if someone else is talking example being at my friends house me and her will talk a little bit whilst my husband and her fiancee ramble on and it distracts me and next thing I know she's staring at me blankly like she's just asked me something and then I panic and just smile and have to apologise and get her to repeat what she's just said. I also come out with the most random things like last night i said to my husband I wonder if anyone has ever had hot chocolate with breast milk in it. I am very paranoid about things as well I imagine people are talking about me(which they prob are as I'm very different visually), I worry about situations, I dream up scenarios about things. Like if we are going on a day out I dream up every possible scenario what we'll do say etc and I'll go over and over it. I also have conversations in my head, like if I want to discuss something with someone I will imagine how the conversation will go and go over and over it and sometimes in the end I dont even bring it up. Recent one for this was asking my mother in law to give me a few informal driving lessons, I imagined how to bring it up what I would say what she would say etc and then didn't say anything to her I chickened out.
Also certain fabrics, words & smells make me feel ill, words like precious(particularly bad one for me) it sends shivers down my spine and I usually end up doing a hand pattern, same with certain fabrics i can't touch them and some smells make me feel ill and uncomfortable. That's just reminded me I hate being touched over my clothes, like last night for example I had an itchy back and asked my husband if he could scratch it well he forgot and just went to scratch over my top I screeched at him and then had to apologise and explain it has to be on bare skin even though he knows all this already. I'm quite lucky really my husband is very supportive and loves all my weird little ways he even misses my noises and words when were apart
Eye contact as well, I'm pants at that I didn't look my husband in the eyes for more then a second for about the first 2 months we were together. My dad I always had trouble with and even now I sometimes don't look him in the eye same with my mum and brother. New people I just can't look at and that makes people think I'm a moody rude person, I remember in one of my first jobs when i was 16 I didn't look my co-worker in the eyes for about 4 weeks I always used to be hunched over my desk and would talk to her and move my eyes all around, like look at her hair or the wall behind her or something which won't have given a very good impression.
Sorry this is such an epic post everyone it's just the more I think about it the more little things I keep remembering, I think I'll stop with me there and move onto my daughter. She's 3 but I'm starting to suspect she might have something wrong with her she has certain rules and patterns that have to be adhered to or she gets upset. The main one being who does what, daddy has to do virtually everything, she gets angry / upset if I do things for her, example being just earlier I was awake before her and I heard her waking up so I popped my head around her door and she screeched at me to get out and get daddy, same every morning, most days I'm not allowed to dress her, cook her food anything like that. She has episodes of being so upset over absolutely nothing. Like the early hours last night I woke up to her screaming and my husband half asleep trying to strip her bed because she'd spilt her drink on it. So I went in straight away 'get out mummy, I don't want you' but I stayed regardless and she was just sobbing consantly and we both kept asking her what was wrong and she'd just say nothing's wrong, so we had to run off a list of what it could be, do you want a drink, do you have a tummy ache(she has bowel problems) do you need a wee she just kept saying nothing before eventually she said she needed a wee so we took her she sat down and couldn't go and so got even more upset because she couldn't wee, we kept reassuring her that it was fine she didn't have to have one but it was no use she just sat on the toilet for about 5 mins crying saying she couldn't wee, then when she got off the toilet and had her nappy put back on she was sobbing and then wanted a hug off me then she just totally spaced out and stared at the wall and picked her lip, I was talking to her asking her what she wanted to do tomorrow and again ran off a list of her fav games to play and then said she had to go back to sleep for a bit first and then we could play, she just wasn't there if you know what I mean and then all of a sudden she stopped was all smiles and got in bed and said goodnight.
She hates loud noises, she says people have hit her if they just touch her, she has a terrible fear of nail clippers and of anyone touching her hair(I have to comb her har every other day becuase she gets so upset). She has obsessions over situations like pre-school she went through a phase were if her fav teacher wasn't there she wouldn't stay. If they have the box of dolls out she HAS to have the teddybear backpack and if anyone else is even standing near it she freaks out, she hates having messy hands and will demand her hands be cleaned if she has the slightest thing on them, like if she has a tiny bit of chocolate on her finger i tell her to just lick it off she demands her hands be washed. It's mainly just things have to be done certain ways by certain people and she has to have certain things as well or she kicks off and sobs her heart out and then just suddenly stops and is fine. She also comes out with things so randomly and quite hurtful, like last night she was playing in the bath when she just started crying so my husband asked her what was wrong and she just kept syaing mummy doesn't love me, she doesn't like me I hate her my husband kept telling her that I do love her etc but she just kept saying no and when I tried to go in she just screamed for me to leave and then 5 mins later she started crying for me, she often has moments like that. It's usually directed at her granny some days she adores her and then other days she will scream and hide and cry if her granny is even in the house.
I'll leave it at that for now, thank you for reading and I would really apprciate any feedback particularly as to whether either or both of us might have aspergers as like I said I don't want to go to the doctors asking about a diagnosis only for them to more or less laugh at me and send me packing.
Kel.
