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| Books have always made more sense than people Photo by graur razvan ionut |
I was perusing this month's copy of Autism Asperger's Digest, an excellent magazine that I highly recommend (and not just because I sometimes write for it!). While reading, I came across an article that provided me with a great deal of food for thought. The article was about girls with Asperger's syndrome.
I'm really only familiar with boys. According to the article, girls usually go undiagnosed until much later because they present so differently than boys. As I read through the article, my eyebrows continued to raise until they were practically crawling into my hairline.
This article could have been talking about me.
- I observe other people to figure out what to do in a given situation from an intellectual standpoint. (I often fail or miss the point, by the way.)
- I learn to imitate other people. You should have seen me in high school.
- I was an avid early reader. I read at a 12th grade level in the 2nd grade. Yes, I was tested.
- I wrote my first piece of fiction in the 1st grade.
- I was held back in Kindergarten because of immaturity. I could already read, though.
- I'm fairly sure my parents would agree that I was quite pedantic as a child. I still am, really. As evidenced by this post.
- I did not have many close female friends until about the 7th grade. I usually played alone or stayed in with a book during recess. I was much closer to my teachers than to my fellow students.
- I remember my 4th grade teacher showing me a trick so that I would at least look like I was making eye contact. (Stare at the point directly between someone's eyebrows. It looks like you are looking in their eyes.) I still use this tactic.
- I collected model horses, but I didn't really play with them. I did, however, line them up very carefully and created labels for where each horse should go. My mom was pissed when I wrecked my desk doing this.
- Until I had kids and it became impossible to maintain, I alphabetized books, movies, and CDs and organized them according to genre. It still annoys me that my stuff isn't alphabetized, but it's a pointless process with the kids around.
- I never knew what was cool or popular. Never. That stuff was completely beyond me. Even when I tried, I would always miss some crucial point. I still do.
- I know a ton of random information on a ton of random topics. It makes me a great content writer, though.
- I was freaking awesome at math up until about precalculus.
- Most of my romantic relationships have been utter, horrifying, horrendous failures. I can beat you at pretty much any game of "who has the worst ex."
- I can be incredibly passive aggressive.
- My parents will know exactly what this means: "... she has almost two personalities: the meek school girl and the defiant, argumentative, and emotionally volatile daughter at home."
That's an incredibly long list and these behaviors are taken straight from the article. I'm not going to pursue diagnosis or anything like that, but it certainly makes me wonder.
