Picnic

My exams ended today - it hasn't quite sunk in yet, though. Once my last exam ended and I had retrieved my rucksack from the storeroom, I headed to an indoors-picnic hosted by one of the university societies of which I am a member. I only joined a few months ago and have turned up to events maybe four times or so since then, so consequently I knew very few people.

Whenever I'm faced with a group of people who I don't know, I can't speak. Consequently I spent most of the time that I was there standing in a corner, listening to others speak but not feeling able to join in, and with my eyes darting from person to object. There were a couple of people who I knew, but we didn't talk for long. It was nobody's fault, the people did seem friendly - but I just couldn't join in. I spent a lot of the time looking at the clock wondering why I was there. I had a few one-to-ones with some people who asked me what my name was, that I could do - but once they started talking to someone else, I was back to standing silently. I stayed for an hour, then when there was a break in conversation I picked up my rucksack and said goodbye.

So... I have the feeling that the society members who I met today will think that I'm antisocial, and that the people who I knew before and have seen me as a chatty person will be quite confused with the way I acted. I really hope that nobody was offended by my not joining in: it's not that I wasn't interested, I just didn't feel a part of it. Maybe if I get to know more of the members in smaller groups, it'll be easier the next time there's a large event. Hopefully.

The purple ribbon

Lately I've been (and still am!) quite stressed with exams. I've had one so far this summer, and I have five next week. I'm really not looking forward to them, I never do feel that I've revised enough. Anyway, whenever I'm stressed, I find that my traits seem to come out a bit more. Every evening when I walk home, I reach up to touch the leaves of the trees and just run them past my fingers: today I was a little upset (I'm wondering if 'perturbed' would be a better word in this situation) when I walked home a different route and missed out on this. Earlier I found an empy room and talked to myself for a bit before settling down to work. I became entranced with some bubble wrap that a friend had from a parcel she'd opened this morning. And another friend had a purple ribbon with some sellotape on it: he stuck it to my face as a joke, and I've been playing with it since.

Let me explain something about ribbons and string. You can run them through your fingers, and it feels amazing. You can tie them to two objects, push one object off a table, and watch as the second one slowly moves toward the edge before falling. When I was little I used to love tying things up with string: my climbing frame often had some weird pattern in it made from my skipping rope (Mum would make me take the rope down in case my brother ran into it and got hurt).

So this purple ribbon has been a de-stresser today: in the library I've been running it through my fingers, waving it through the air and just watching it flicker in response to the slightest twitch of my wrist. I wrapped it round my fingers in a patterned way, then as tight as I could get it, then around my wrists. It just feels good.

I wonder why it is that a ribbon can bring me so much joy.

Jerky slapping

I volunteer weekly in a school for youngsters with special needs: they're some of the most genuine, amazing characters I've ever met. Truth be told, I find it so much easier being with SEN youngsters and adults than with non-SEN people. Anyway, today one of the youngsters was agitated and jerkily hit himself a few times in the face to calm down. One of the staff members wondered aloud why he did that, and how curious it was that it helped.

Sometimes when I'm agitated, I'm really tempted to jerk and sometimes end up hitting myself. It feels like there's too much energy bubbling up inside, and this is a quick release. If I'm on my own, sometimes I allow myself to do this (I never hit hard, and it somehow does help calm me down) - I lightly slapped my cheeks with the backs of my hands just now, that helped bring me back to reality. I'm most likely agitated due to revision stress, and having a large dinner - the extra energy and the stress certainly don't make me feel calm!

Just to clarify: this is completely different to self-harming. I don't do this to punish myself, or to feel pain, and I don't have much conscious control over where my hands do end up (sometimes this has resulted in me slapping the back of my hands against a wardrobe, or chairs, or door handles if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time). It's just an energy release. I understand why some of the youngsters at the school do this.

Dr Tony Attwood on Girls with Asperger's

About ten minutes ago while procrastinating (my exams start in 9 days!), I ended up on the BBC News page for Asperger's. Nothing new or helpful there, but there was a link to the Asperger Foundation website. I hadn't seen that site before, so I had a look: there was a link to an article by Dr Tony Attwood about girls and women with Asperger's, and how it can be different to Asperger's in males. So I had a look at the article.

Even halfway through, it really did feel like it was talking about me. It came almost as a relief: sometimes I worry that my traits aren't enough for me to be an Aspie, but this put my mind at rest, for now. I'll go through the bits that stuck out to me:

"...some (individuals) are reluctant to socialise with others and their personality can be described as passive. They can become quite adept at camouflaging their difficulties..."

I do enjoy being with others, but given the choice when my traits are strong that day, I'd prefer to stay away from social situations. Sometimes in a group I feel like this, and I try to hide my discomfort. I like to think that it works. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends dearly - but sometimes I can't easily handle being in a social situation.

"One strategy that has been used by many girls and some boys is to observe people who are socially skilled and to copy their mannerisms, voice and persona. This is a form of social echolalia or mirroring where the person acquires a superficial social competence by acting the part of another person."

I consciously did this for practically all of childhood, and most of adolescence: nowadays I catch myself doing this occassionally, but it doesn't seem as much effort now. One problem with this was that the other children/teens were forever accusing me of 'copying' them: I couldn't understand for a long time why this bothered them. I still can't think of a reason, but I accept that most people don't want to be copied.

"Playing with and talking to imaginary friends and dolls can also continue into the teenage years when the person would have been expected to mature beyond such play."

I had imaginary friends and acted out scenarios until I was about 12: after that, I still played with my dolls' house until I was 14, when my Mum insisted that it go in the loft space. Thankfully playing 'The Sims' on the computer was socially acceptable: it wasn't quite the same, but it was as close as I could get to imaginary play.

"(Some ladies') tone resembles a much younger person, having an almost child like quality... (many girls) may see no value in being fashionable, preferring practical clothing and not using cosmetics."

I often sound quite childish, and sometimes act childish: sometimes I alternate between over-playful and over-serious. I can't always find a balance: being serious hasn't gained me friendships and being playful has, so guess which one I tend to go for? As for clothes and make-up, they really don't interest me. I think Mum despairs at having a daughter who doesn't do her hair, put on make-up and dress in lovely clothes: in my defence, I hate the feel of make-up on my skin, and some pretty clothes just aren't practical. Sorry society, but you can't win on this one.

Net curtain

I wonder if all people sometimes feel like there's a net curtain between them and the world.

This happened to me earlier when I was in the pub (bear in mind I hadn't had anything to drink at this point) - there I was sitting with my friends, then my concentration slipped for a moment, and when I looked back they were 'removed'. By that I mean that though I could see them, it was like watching a video of them, rather than having them in front of me. I could hear their voices but the different conversations and the background music and the conversation of other pub-goers meant that I couldn't listen to what was going on, no matter how hard I concentrated. Whenever I did speak, I heard my voice too loudly in my mind, and I wasn't even sure if what I said related to the conversation: other times it felt unnatural, like I was saying words just for the sake of saying something.

This often happens when I go to the pub with my friends: this is one of the reasons why I don't often go nowadays, and why I don't stay for too long when I do go. Tonight I decided to stay until closing, but much as I love being with my friends, I was admittedly quite glad when the last bell went.

Life is a play, and I wasn't given a script

Earlier while reading some comments on an article on Asperger's (yes, I should be revising for my exams, but I found this interesting) a lot of Aspies and self-diagnosed Aspies claim that they can feel empathy as adults. That they can feel deeply for other people, including family, friends and partners. Yet they claimed that this wasn't natural to them, that this was something that they had to learn as they grew up.

This is something that I wholly identify with. I do empathise with people, and I do care deeply. The truth is, though, I have had to learn this. I remember being frustrated when I was younger that I couldn't 'click', and confused that other children knew how to interact even though there wasn't an instruction manual on what to say and how to act in different situations. To the other children who accused me of staring: I was trying to see what you were doing, and hear which words you used, so that I could use them too. Even now I sometimes pay extra attention to the words and expression someone uses, so that I know what's appropriate and what's not (I hope that I'm not making this too obvious, though!).

Imagine that you're in a play. You're given a character and some scripts to learn. After a while you can repeat the words back flawlessly, but you're told that your character needs to stop sounding like they're just reciting the script. You need to 'become' the character, and eventually after much practice you can accurately show the character's emotions, so much that you can even imagine what they'll say or how they'll act if you're given a different script to learn.

Now imagine that you're given this character, but you're not given a script. All of the other cast members have scripts, yet nobody has a spare to lend you. You watch the other actors, unsure when it's your turn to act or speak, and you keep coming in in the wrong places, saying the wrong things. When people prompt you, you improvise, which sometimes doesn't work and just leaves everyone feeling embarrassed. On occassion you're told that the words you've come up with don't match up with how your character's meant to act and feel, but the behaviour that you feel fits the character doesn't fit in with the rest of the play. Sometimes you find someone's script and can see a few lines of what your character's supposed to say: when you use these words, however, you're told that your character needs to stop sounding like they're just reciting the script. Eventually you start getting to grips with things, and even though you don't always know what the script says you should do, you learn what's appropriate for the character to say and do.

Now imagine that life is this play, that the people around you are actors, and that you are the one without a script. This is how I often feel: even though I often talk and behave 'correctly' (or so I like to think!), social interaction and behaviour still don't come naturally to me, and sometimes there are moments when I take a few seconds to think about what I'm meant to do, or how I'm meant to act.

Another way of looking at it is to imagine social interaction as a biology test: I'm not naturally good at biology, but after a lot of revision, I do as well as people who are naturally gifted at this. It just takes more effort. Sometimes in exams I'm tempted to write an answer from a different standpoint, but that would lose me marks. Similarly, I'm sometimes tempted to give in to my traits (e.g. flapping, rocking, freezing), but I don't since I know it's not generally acceptable in a social context.

I sometimes think that in my case, 'overcoming' Asperger's is just acting: how much of what I do is 'me', and how much is just a script that I've pieced together? Are the two different in my case?