I have been stepping out into the world as an Aspie Girl, though have always felt like I was born on to the wrong planet (I am the girl off Fifth element) I'm a Travelling Showman and have a beautiful Bedford TK where I can explore the world AND go and hide in upon Sensory Overload . This overload often hits me with flu like symptoms, chronic fatigue and a need to hide under a duvet. I hate bright lights, loud sudden noises, crowds of people but I am also compelled to be in them, like a little poor girl peering in from the cold at a rich family having Christmas, nose pressed against the glass wondering why she can't be like them. Over the years I have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar, neurosis, and had bouts of chronic fatigue. Regular bouts of 'withdrawl' and the need to sleep means my home travels with me and my duvet is close at hand.
I play cello with my husband Pixi who is a front man extraordinaire. I have met many creative and successful people in the alternative media and entertainment industry who would be considered to be 'a little bit Aspergery'. We have a band which is at best The Best but runs the gauntlet of sporadic emotional outbursts. I am also a scientist and Asperger's is common in this community.
Intense sensations are a big part of an Aspie Girls world.
People and stimuli cause me huge amounts of stress if I'm mentally unprepared for them. I find it impossible to go to sleep when I can hear music which can get stuck in my head on a loop. Flickering lights literally make me feel sick, they can make me spin out. I'm also incapable of reading a map or sending a text in a moving vehicle as I get queasy easily. Drugs that other people find normal have an overwhelming effect on me and I need someone I trust close to me or I fly off the planet. It can be great fun but it can go badly wrong!
I hate prickly or rough fabrics. If someone touches me it causes a massive overload on my system. Sensual situations can be immense and can spin me out. I still loathe the feel of some things, like the touch of cheap fake fur is torture against my skin. I love soft, smooth fabrics and tactile surfaces. Give me a bear hug or ask permission! Snakes make me shudder....could it be with delight??? They are my next venture.
I hate people hovering close to me in the kitchen. I hate people hovering! I prickle all over. I feel like someone is stealing my energy.
Smells such as hormones can overwhelm me, and get me into all sorts of trouble.
Personally I see my Aspergers as a huge gift as it means I am a creative thinker. We can struggle with things most people take for granted, not all of us have savant level skills. Some of us are blessed with unusual intelligence and abilities, though can find it hard to read the visual clues of people's emotions. I cope by hanging off the arm of a chaperone, usually the life and soul of the party. We act as translaters to each other. I communicate brilliantly but on a deeper level. I see undercurrents. I always know what you want for your birthday and can tell what's really on your mind (can be unnerving). I have weird 'invasive' eyes. I shapeshift. I've had to learn how to read and communicate with people 'socially' by acting like them. I see people as a network creating a potentially sentient organism. I get very upset when people do power games, it crushes me as I feel everyone as part of myself. If you ever see me sad at a party it is usually because of the pain of lost connections. To be around people who have taken cocaine freaks me out. I feel connected to my friends by virtual threads running between us. This is more real than the world to me. It's just the way I visualise my connections with other human beings. I don't need to talk to others, we are communicating all the time. That is why I find it easier to talk when getting on with something else, unless I'm explaining a concept such as how I see the universe at that point. I find standing around talking to people pointless. I never get the joke but if something tickles my sense of humour I can be on the floor. This happens when I suddenly visualise a remote connection between two unrelated aspects. Standing watching a band...I just don't get it. Dancing on your own? Weird.
My Aspergers is a rare and wonderful gift. It is not a disability. To get a glimpse inside my head read Brian King's wonderful account My Aspergers.
Aspie Girls have different symptoms to Aspie Boys which is why we often go undetected.
Apart from being Incredibly slow at making friends at school, my symptoms as a child were:
The Dancing Elephant.
Aspies are clumsy at sports & anything physical. Gaining the name 'Dancing elephant' and always being picked last in school teams. I usually dropped the ball and I often fell over. I then went on to be the best sportperson in my school. I just know where the ball is going next, I read minds, see the connections between people like a giant web, like shoals of fish or flocks of starlings. I play 'impossible strokes' in badminton. I have since gone on to learn to juggle, and have learnt to dance after many years of uncoordinated terror. The top half of my body never corresponded to the bottom. Left never to right.I went to belly dancing classes feeling like a giant idiot. Learning aikido has helped heaps with my balance. Then one day I visualised a hauser, like the lines that hold suspension bridges in place, growing out of the bottom of my feet attached to the centre of the planet and I danced so exquisetly that I ended up with an audience. The sense of freedom was incredible, let out of the cage.
Lack of co-ordination and an extermely painful sense of self denied me access to music for years. It was nearly loosing my soul mate that pushed me into my musical self. Once again, unco-ordinated tone deaf music hater I forced myself to learn to play the cello one note at a time while performing live on stage. I have never been so terrified in all my life. that was two years ago, now my cello playing is unique and professional celloists refuse to give me lessons as they don't wish to spoil my natural development. I could never keep a beat but now I keep the beat for the band I play in and pull it all together as I feel the connection, like all hearts beating as one. It totally spaces me out and I cannot talk afterwards unless I'm acting. I get overwhelmed and then have to shut down. I played a kit drum the other day. I just said 'I can do this!' one arm, two arms, add the leg, then the other and I got up and did it. It took me three quatres of an hour. Likewise with singing. Singing made me feel sick I would cry and freeze and be all over the place. I am married to a brilliant professional male singer/guitarist and not singing soon became as painful as singing so I went to lessons for the terrified and now I have a voice and sing on stage.
Contradictions or learning stages?
Do you see how Aspies are terrible at everything then all of a sudden they get it and excell. I have been blessed in life with people who have adopted me and pushed me forward, often nastily. My father, my gym teacher, my best mates, my best boyfriends and my lecturers and now my children. I can think of others who have loved me and been incredibly patient. People say Aspies are bad at directions and maps but I was taught these extensively when I was younger. I am now brilliant at it.Terrified of dogs. Now a dog whisperer. Terrified of horses. Now a horse whisperer. I used to cry in maths lessons. I could do A level maths at ten. Last person in the school to read, passed O'level English a year early. Bad dancer. Amazing dancer. Terrified of singing. Beautiful singer. I am bad at but love drama. My next challenge!
We are not slow at learning though. It's not quite like that. We can pick up new things really quickly, we just need to know the blueprint. Aikido was immensely difficult for me. Suddenly my instuctor is downloading moves one a minute and I pick them up and just do them as though I've known them all my life. And in fact when it comes to talking Aspies usually do too much of it.....they don't know when to shut up! They only stutter because they realise the connection is going and they havn't yet worked out how to maintain it. I know an Aspie girl who is painfully quiet then suddenly became the most wonderful bardic poet. It makes me wonder.
Now I know that all I have to do is chill out at home and make sure I plan for time out after stressful situations to avoid meltdown. I worked this out after trial and error and a few breakdowns along the way. I wish I'd really understood this when I was an Aspergers Teenager.
Imposter syndrome
I have often experienced an intense feeling like I'm not good enough even when I excel. Apparently Aspie Girls get this a lot. Rationally I know I'm exceptional in my own small way but sometimes I feel like I'm pretending and will eventually 'get found out'. I usually stomp on this thought now when it surfaces and if it doesn't go away then I have to give myself a talking to. I've noticed that an increasing number of people in my community make a point of telling me I'm loved and Ok. I can get deeply paranoid as I feel cut off on one level and in tune on a different level that other's find uncomfortable. I have often felt like an observer not a participant in the real world.
I hate being shouted at or forced to make eye contact.
Both are still incredibly stressful for me. If I am not looking at you then I AM listening. It's just I find it very hard to make eye contact while really listening to what you are saying. If you force me to make eye contact then I may not understand your meaning and get panicked. So please don't think I'm rude if I seem to be staring at the table rather than into your gorgeous eyes.
I have been called rude, cold, hard, inhuman and alien, a freak, people pat me on the head or just laugh at me. That's how I sometimes feel the rest of the world is treating me. I'm used to it and pretend I'm a lost Elf. My husband is called Pixi and he doesn't understand me at all but he loves lost elves so it's cool. He is incredibly tactile and so I feel connected when he's around. When I first met him I knew he held the key to my prison cell. He did all the creative things I yearned for. I fealt I could fly when he was around but it took me years to find the courage to do so.
Emotional intelligence.
Most people have a control switch of one through to ten. I have three to eight missing. People consider me as very calm, I'm very good aroung hectic ADHD people because they don't ruffle my feathers. However, if I'm pushed too far I go straight into nine and ten. Screaming ninja. I have to drink to be sociable at night, especially in the winter when the 'Tide is Out' or during pmt. I go through patches of wobbling out. God only knows what the menopause will be like.
I see words as shapes and constant animations. I would rather read a good book than look at a film. My imagination is intense and I frighten the life out of myself. Suspense films have me squirming behind a cushion. My head can dream up far worse images than anything the screenwriter can. I feel the fear intensely. One movie lasts me a week. Whereas others enjoy movies I find them terrifying and sickening. I love films where a group of underdogs overcome adversity, I find them intensely moving. I cry a lot especially in the winter. I have a lightbox. I call it my giant MDMA tablet. I see most folk as cardboard cut outs hiding immense wells of supressed emotions.
There is a constant cartoon running in my head, sketched over the real world like a Richard Linklater movie. I have visions and the only thing I believe in the world are my dreams.
I'm creative & technically minded at the same time
Aspie Girls are often full of contradictions, can be brilliant artists, writers but also understand computers like me. I realised I enjoy using both my left and right brains and have practiced developing my multiple intelligences. I feel the key to unleashing myself is developing the connections between both sides of the brain through dance and circus skills. I am a scientist but not a reductionist scientist. I see systems and consider myself a holistic scientist. Most scientists see in linear, I see in spaces, gaping holes that they've ignored. It's obvious to me and I think they are all mad, or thick, or that I must be mad for seeing things that aren't there. One lecturer asked me once how I managed to pass his exam without going to any of his lectures. I told him I read the outline for the course and filled in the rest. On good days I used to answer the questions in lectures before the lecturer even asked them. The rest of the time I was down the councilling room trying not to drop off the planet.
I couldn't hold a job down and now I am a self employed artist, showman and high tech vertical mobile gardener. I certainly follow Leonardo Da Vinci and Gaudi, and the way they switched from scientist to artist on a daily basis. I can paint the Mona Lisa precisely on the pavement, including the innigmatic smile which I tweek to encourage people to throw money at me. Having foot in the mouth/ picking up subtle nuances are just another example of the contradiction of Aspergers. I am described as too truthful, yet act to cover up who I am. Lack of empathy? I feel like the seeming lack of empathy comes from an oversensitivity to peoples feelings. I feel strongly that Aspies are born with an extra set of connections thats why we have to close our world down and be in control because it blows our minds. If I truly expressed myself I would suddenly be standing on my own. Everyone else would have legged it. I feel we overcommunicate and then we learn not to. The last time I went off the rails I used Prozac. It severed the connections. I can cope better now but miss that direct connection to God, which is, I feel essentially, the sum of the connections between the parts. Have I been blessed with too much Heaven? It's time to stop medicating Aspie kids, and help them create the next Renaissance...
Reading List.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome (Guides to Individualized Evidence-Based Treatment) - Valerie L. Gaus PhD; Hardcover
Asperger's Syndrome and Alcohol: Drinking to Cope - Matthew Tinsley; Paperback
The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome - Tony Attwood; Paperback
Unwrapping The Mysteries Of Asperger's: The Search for Truth and Discovery of Solutions - Guide For Girls and Women with Asperger's Syndrome - Kristi Hubbard; Paperback
Developing Talents: Careers For Individuals With Asperger Syndrome And High-functioning Autism- Updated, Expanded Edition - Temple Grandin; Paperback
Condition: New
In Stock
The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism - Temple Grandin; Hardcover
Thinking in Pictures (Expanded, Tie-in Edition): My Life with Autism (Vintage) - Temple Grandin Ph.D.; Paperback
Asperger's in Pink - Julie Clark; Paperback
Aspergirls: Empowering Females With Asperger Syndrome - Rudy Simone; Paperback
Social Skills for Teenagers and Adults with Asperger Syndrome: A Practical Guide to Day-to-day Life - Nancy J. Patrick; Paperback
