{"id":1586,"date":"2011-04-23T10:02:02","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T15:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yuriar.com\/wp\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2023-10-05T15:34:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T15:34:27","slug":"im-no-wierdo-guest-posting-at-many-hats-mommy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/2011\/04\/23\/im-no-wierdo-guest-posting-at-many-hats-mommy\/","title":{"rendered":"I'm no wierdo! – Guest posting at Many Hats Mommy"},"content":{"rendered":"

My son\u2019s psychologist diagnosed me after observing and talking to me for more than an hour. It was a bit of a shock at first, but it made my whole childhood suddenly make so much more sense. A great feeling of relief washed over me. I\u2019m not a weirdo; I\u2019ve got Asperger\u2019s Syndrome. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*EDIT (2023): since Many Hats Mommy<\/a> has disappeared from the net over the years, I found my post on the wayback machine<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I have. Not who I am. It does not define me. I define me.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jenny asked me to write about my experiences as an adult with Asperger\u2019s, and how it affects my daily life.\u00a0 It\u2019s incredibly hard to do so, because I\u2019ve never known life without Asperger\u2019s Syndrome.\u00a0 First time I ever heard about Asperger\u2019s Syndrome was about 5 years ago when a colleague brought it up.\u00a0 Even then, it wasn\u2019t until I began doing research to help my son, also diagnosed with AS, that I really learned what Asperger\u2019s Syndrome is.<\/p>\n

My son\u2019s psychologist diagnosed me after observing and talking to me for more than an hour.\u00a0 It was a bit of a shock at first, but it made my whole childhood suddenly make so much more sense. A great feeling of relief washed over me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a weirdo; I\u2019ve got Asperger\u2019s Syndrome.<\/p>\n

Honestly, if you met me on the street, you wouldn\u2019t even notice my Aspie-ness.\u00a0 If you hung out with me long enough, I might seem to be rude at times; when I don\u2019t know how to keep a conversation going, or even how to end one.\u00a0 The way I close my eyes when I talk might throw some people off, but it\u2019s just my way of shutting down the visual stimuli so I can concentrate on what words I want to say.<\/p>\n

I am one of those rare women who absolutely hates shopping \u2013 too many people.\u00a0 Crowds wear me out to the point of needing a nap. When my husband was in the US Navy, I had a panic attack the first time he returned home from a deployment and we met the boat at the dock. So. Many. People! It was a nightmare! The next time, my kids and I stayed in the parking lot, and had a grand time with a good friend and her kids while we waited.\u00a0 For date nights, I much prefer to order carry-out and watch a video at home then go out to dinner and movie. Even having company over makes me gaze longingly at my bed, wishing I could just collapse for a while. I am very much a homebody.<\/p>\n

Those who I\u2019ve met online may find this shocking, but unless I\u2019m very comfortable with a situation and the people involved, I don\u2019t talk much.\u00a0 If I keep quiet then I reduce my chances of sticking my foot in my mouth.\u00a0 I\u2019m very vocal online though. I\u2019d guess that about 95% of the people I talk to on a daily basis are people I\u2019ve never physically met, and I\u2019m O.K. with that.\u00a0 I prefer online communication \u2013 probably because there is no body language or voice inflection to figure out.<\/p>\n

Speaking of communication, I love to quote movies and songs.\u00a0 Actually, my whole family does.\u00a0 Dinners at my mom\u2019s house with my sisters are so fun. Between the three of us, we can carry on hour-long conversations that consist of nothing but movie quotes.\u00a0 We\u2019d even argue over verbiage if one of thought the other had quoted wrong.\u00a0 Used to drive my parents nuts! Now I see my own kids doing the same thing and I understand my childhood family dinners in a whole new light.\u00a0 (My youngest sister is also an ADD Aspie. My middle sister refuses to acknowledge the evidence, but my mom thinks maybe she is too.)<\/p>\n

Too much stimuli drives me batty.\u00a0 I often have trouble focusing when there is too much noise or too much to look at.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I close my eyes when I talk, and it\u2019s why I use headphones and an MP3 player to drown out the world around me when I need to focus on a task, be it paying the bills, writing, or even mowing the lawn.\u00a0 Music keeps me moving, keeps my thoughts flowing, and helps me to shut off the rest of the distractions so I can focus better.<\/p>\n

But the best thing about being an adult with Asperger\u2019s Syndrome \u2013 I understand what my kids are going through, because I\u2019ve been there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My son\u2019s psychologist diagnosed me after observing and talking to me for more than an hour. It was a bit of a shock at first, but it made my whole …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ass-burgers-rainbows","category-deep-thoughts","category-family_life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3010,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/3010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}