How to Deal with the Fourth of July Aspie Style!

Like many aspies I hate loud noises and get over-stimulated by them. So, as one can imagine American's Independence Day and I have never quite got along. As a child I would run away from some of the fireworks because of the horrible high-pitched whistling sounds they made. I remember some of them even pushing me to the point of melting down and then my parents and I would have to leave so I could go home and calm down.

Yesterday was the 4th of July and it was one of the best I have had. We had a small gathering of friends at my parent’s house and sat in the front yard and watched fireworks. I have been learning copping strategies to help with the loud noises I hate. I wore headphones over my ears so I could watch the fireworks, for I really do like the pretty colors they make just not the noises. I, however, had to run inside my house when my brother lit off a firecracker, for these still sound like a car bomb going off in a war zone. I hate firecrackers and suggest if you have an autistic person living with you or who is your friend to not light they off at all, but brothers will be brothers.

So, what can you do to help your autistic through the 4th of July festivities? First and foremost, do not take your autistic to a large gathering, for this is a perfect recipe for over-stimulation and meltdown. If you are a parent/partner I know what you are thinking, "But Miriam, I got invited to such and such gathering and we really want to go?" Well...I am sorry dear parent/partner "IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU" in this situation if you want to avoid putting you autistic in a tail spin it is important to always think twice before going to a large gathering with them. If your partner or older child is ok with staying home by themselves by all means go to the get together, but do not drag them along and expect them to be alright at the end of the evening. Autistic people are already going to have trouble with the noises from people lighting off fireworks and subjecting them to the large amount of noise that is a part of a gathering beforehand just spells disaster and frustration for the both of you. 

Firework induced meltdowns and be prevented with ear protection such as head phones or ear plugs. I find that the above mentioned work for most fireworks expect firecrackers.

Well...I hope you found these tips helpful and I hope they can help you have a better 4th of July next year! What other tips might you have for the 4th of July madness?

Miriam

The Time in Our Lives....That we hate, but must go through.

"Middle School", two of the most dreaded words for most young people especially autistics. Middle school for me was anything but fun. I was highly interverted and had trouble carrying on a conversation with my peers. I was often alone and only had one friend. Also, When I was thirteen years old I started to develop an eating disorder and later was hospitalized with anorexia nervosa. It took until college to get over my eating disorder and I am now finely free of it.

I tried to fit in by imitating my peers, but soon found that this felt fake and insincere. I even started to try and dress in a way that would help me fit in better; hence I wore jeans until about a year ago when I went back to wearing leggings which I had worn all of my childhood years. I wore messenger t-shirts (what in the world was I thinking, seriously!!!!), skater shoes, and my hair in a ponytail, but in-spite of this I still did not fit in. I loved horses and was not interested in dating, doing my hair, or nails. I liked to read books and ride horses and this lead to my lack of friends and being a pariah throughout middle school and high school. I simply was not interested in what everyone else was doing.

 Through high school I continued to be a social outcast with my own sense of style and my obsessive tendency to bring my knitting with me wherever I went. I had one good friend during that time in my life who tried to understand me even though I believe I could be frustrating at times and we continue to be friends to this day. The rest of the people I knew during high school were either mean to me or just plan boring and didn't get my eccentricities. Needless to say I was super happy to go to college a year early where I am still thriving and happy. I love college and must say that socially I am still not a butterfly, but I have made more friends in college then I ever did in middle school and high school.

I personally believe middle school and high school can be some of the hardest stages of life for a person on the spectrum. So here is a list of helpful tips to get through it

1. Delve into your special interest. Be obsessive about it and let no one hold you back, for this may lead to a degree or a job in later life and it is a great stress reliever after a long day at school.

2. DON"T GIVE UP YOUR STUFFED ANIMALS!!!! Don't think of them as childish and don't let anyone tell you that they are. Hugging stuffed animals can be soothing and hugging them can provide the much need sensory input that many of us on the spectrum need. They also can be good to talk to if one is feeling lonely as well.

3. E-mailing friends can sometimes be easier then talking on the phone and it can be a great way to meet other people who have the same special interest as you. Just always use internet safety rules and you should be safe and off to a fruitful friendship.

4. STIM AND BE PROUD OF IT!!! Stimming is the best way to keep yourself regulated and prevent meltdowns and as long as you are not hurting yourself or anyone else by doing it STIM my friends STIM!

5. Join clubs at your school or local recreation center that might have something to do with your special interest or try something new. Clubs are a great way to meet people who share your passions.

6.  Don't get discouraged if you only have a few friends. It is better to have one good friend who knows you well and cares about you then to have a whole hoard of fair weather friends.

7. Concentrate on school and not making tons of friends, for doing well in school is way more important than being popular and will serve you better in later life.

8. Wear clothes that you like not that make you fit in. Be comfortable and merry my friends!

9. Be proud of being Autistic and let no one hold you back. Sometimes, people can say mean things, but try and not let them get to you. Own who you are.

10. Join a Autism support group whether it be in real life or online, for it is always helpful to talk with others who know what you are going through.

Well....I hope you found this post helpful. Feel free to ask questions in the comment section! Bye for now!

Miriam

The Room.

My room is the smallest room in the house. It has one small closet with the doors taken off of it so I can see all my clothes. It is the lined with my eclectic wardrobe that consists of sack dresses, orange skirts, patterned leggings, and red skinny jeans. It is bizarre just like I am. Moving from the closet and to the right sits my writing desk, that my parents bought when they first got married, made of fine oak wood and it’s drawers stuffed to the brim with art supplies. My book The Portrait of a Lady, red, purple, and green stationary, SumoGrip mechanical pencil, and the blue sparkly shaded lamp, which I have had since middle school, sit there on the desk waiting for inspiration to strike. Continuing on to the right is draftsmen’s desk that is folded down and is a mess with tubes and pints of acrylic paint piled up on top of each other with paper,s from the previous terms classes, thrown about for good measure on top of the haphazard rainbow of paint. Across from this flurry of paint and paper is my bed with five blankets on it that provide the sensory input I need to go to sleep. The only blanket visible is the rose printed comforter that my mother bought at the Goodwill a year or so ago. On top of the mountain of blankets is my collection of knitted stuff animals that I have made. Olga stands forty-eight inches tall is fat ,ballerina pink, and stands guard over my pillow while Xavier the owl with his cobalt blue and blood orange stripes peers out with his large black safety eyes out the window across from my bed. Above the bed sits a shelf full to the brim with books ranging from Nabokov to Bellow. All of these things are pieces of my being just like my aspergers.

The Things that Make Us Human.

I have stopped pretending to be normal and have focused on learning how to regulate my nervous system, for this is one of the best things you can do for yourself if you have autism.  One of the things I found that helped me to calm down was stuffed animals. Stuffed animals were one of my childhood and aspie obsessions that I had given up in order to be more grown up and normal.

I have always loved stuffed animals and preferred them over dolls as a child, for I did not like the realistic looking eyes that dolls have. People with autism have trouble making eye contact with other people, so making eye contact with a china doll for me was extremely painful while stuffed animals did not have the same effect. Stuffed animals are also my autistic obsession and I collect and make them. Now every autistic person has their own obsessions, for it’s a part of us having narrow interests.  Most of the aspies I've meant often have an obsession that includes collecting something and mine are no exception.  People with autism will often carry their obsessions from childhood into adulthood and tend to be more childlike, for their emotions are often more immature because emotional maturity tends to develop slower in people with autism. However, the child-likeness that people with autism have is often what makes them charming and gives them a different way of looking at things. I still love to make my stuffed animals fight with each other, have tea parties with them, and I also take them on trips with me. It’s childlike, I know, but it’s a part of who I am.

I had loads of stuffed animals growing up and used to play for hours on end with them. My first stuffed animal was a small bear, shaped like a baby doll, with small, beady, brown eyes named Huggy Bear. Huggy Bear was basically my first real friend, for I took him everywhere with me. I now give my stuffed animals more complex names and personalities now that I am an adult. As a child I wished I could make my own stuffed animals and once I started knitting and sewing in my later teen years I was able to. The first stuffed animal I ever knitted was named Dot.

I have been knitting since I was fourteen years old and took to it right away. People with autism are often good with memorizing patterns and symbols and can find them soothing to memorize and learn. Knitting has all of that, so I found it very easy and relaxing to do. I’ve made all sorts of things, but one day I picked up a book entitled The Big Book of Knitted Monsters by Rebecca Danger and fell in love with one of the Monsters in the book named Dot. I decided to make Dot, so I got out my knitting needles and some pink and purple yarn and set out to knit her. I knitted her in the course of about four days, while attending college too, and enjoyed every minute of it. She was perfect and I had fallen in love with her.  She was so adorable with her pink body and her purple ears and eye patch and she soon became a constant figure at my side. I would buckle her in with a seat belt in my car, answer the door and with her while wearing my leopard pajamas and purple turban, and take her in my purse to math class. I have a whole collection of knitted Monsters and sock animals now, but Dot was really special because I had always wanted to make my own stuffed animals and toys and it wasn’t until my late teens that I possessed the coordination needed to make them.

People with autism often lack physical coordination and it often takes them longer to become coordinated. I am quite klutzy and have terrible depth perception and it used to be so bad when I was a kid that I would run into things and knock things over a lot. I had trouble with fine motor skills such as handwriting and believe it or not I was a terrible seamstress as a child. I could not get my stitches even and I would stick myself with the needle every other stitch. I am just happy that my parents worked hard with me to help me be more coordinated and that I can now make, at age twenty-one, the stuffed animals I love. Also, I have always been obsessed with books and reading even though I could not read until I was eleven years old.

I cannot remember in a time in my life when books were not a large part of it. My parents both were not read to  as children, so when they had me they decided to read to me as much as possible, so that I would take a interest in reading. My mother used to take me to garage sales and resale shops when I was just two years old to buy books and then we would come home, snuggle on the couch, and read them. We read also sorts of children’s books until I decided that they were too immature for me. Children with autism are often intellectually advanced for their age and find things that are age appropriate boring and not challenging. My father started reading Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to me when I was around six years old and I soaked it up. I loved the plot twists and trying to figure out the mystery before Holmes did. I also loved to hear my father read to me for he had a wonderful expressive reading voice that made the story come alive.  He would make 20,000 Leagues Under the sea, The Lord of the Rings, Little Woman, and Journey to the Center of the Earth come to life and I would bounce and spin all over the living room, where we would often settle down and read in the evening, from the sheer pleasure of hearing him read.

I, however, could not read to myself the books that my intellect so desired because I have a learning disability called dyslexia.  Dyslexia occurs when the brain does not properly process and recognize symbols. As a child I was homeschooled, so my parents were my teachers. My parents tried teaching me to read at a young age, but it just felt like I had a blockage on my brain that would not allow me to understand printed text. I remember being so frustrated that I could not read a book above a second grade level, for I really long to read books such as the Hobbit on my own. My parents just thought I needed  more time and more instruction, so my dad bought a homeschool curriculum titled  Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons this quickly turned into “ Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Angry Lessons.” We would sit on the couch with that book and I would try and read the stories from it, but I could barely read any of it. My Dad when I would get frustrated would just tell me, “Try and concentrate harder and you will be able to do it,” What he didn't understand was that I was dyslexia no amount of concentration was going to make it better. So we would continue doing 100 Angry Lessons until I believe my father gave up because of the meltdowns I would have afterwards. I also got awful headaches after 100 Angry Lessons because of reading and this was because of my Irlen Syndrome.

I did find books on tapes and CD’s very helpful and listened to the books I couldn't read because obviously my parents could not read to me as much I myself wanted too. I remember listening to the Hobbit nine times on book on tape and I even knew some of the lines by heart. I remember lying on my bed and listening to the different books play on cassette tape on my father’s old, grey, BoomBox, that he used to blast other sailors out with on the submarine he was on, and I would just drift into the story and I would feel as if I was in it. Books on cassette allowed me to enjoy the books that I could not read and made me feel a little better about not being able to read, for at least I had heard so many great stories and multiple times too.

I got diagnosed with dyslexia and Irlen Syndrome when I was eleven years old. Irlen Syndrome is a perceptual processing disorder that causes sensitivity to light, perceptual distortions, depth perception issues, and headaches among other things. To treat Irlen Syndrome they use special colored lens to correct your perception of light and colored over lays to help correct distortion associated with printed text. Irlen Syndrome often accompanies both autism and dyslexia. After I got diagnosed and received tutoring, my lens, and overlay I was able at the end of my tutoring to read at a ninth grade reading level and I had only received one year of tutoring. I was finally able to read the books I loved by myself and this is when my obsession with libraries and bookstores really started to grow.

I love libraries and bookstores and find them to be safe heavens. I find books comforting because they are like good friends that never judge you and are always there when you need them. I collect classic and some postmodern literature and I am always searching for the next book in my collection. My penchant for classic literature started when I was little for my parents would pick out books to read to me from a literature guide.  Also, because of my aspergers syndrome I often get obsessed with a certain literature gene or author and then I must have all of the books pertaining to that author or gene. As a child I would often go to Borders bookstore and spend hours looking at the book covers and feeling the different papers the pages were printed on. I would sit down in the middle of the children’s aisle in Borders bookstore and pick through the books examining and touching each one carefully. When I could finally read on my own I would find a spot and sit down and read the text and bask in the aroma of each book as I read it. I like printed books because of the paper! I’m not quite sure why I love paper so much but I love the way it feels and smells. I enjoy the way different papers feel as I run my finger tips across them because each one feels unique. Books, also, all smell different to me, but they can smell the same if they are from the same publisher because they tend to use the same type of glue on all of them whether they are paperback or hardcover. I love vintage books, as well, and the musty smell they have. Also, they used different paper fifty years ago and I find the papers intriguing to feel and look at because they are often less smooth and more rough then the paper in the books today. I am hopelessly in love with books.

Denial

I denied for years that I had aspergers syndrome. As you probably can imagine denying that you have a social-developmental disorder is not a very good or helpful thing to do. I spent the next ten years being misunderstood and teased and even sometimes bullied by people because I was different and others did not know why because I denied that I was autistic. I got teased about my stims, told I was too serious, told I was rude and blunt, that I needed to be less dramatic. I became more socially isolated then I had been before my diagnoses.  I simply did not fit in and my peers and even the adults around me knew that.  So how did I end up finally accepting that I had Aspergers syndrome? It was a process, but by the time I was nineteen years old I had figured out from the failed friendships, bouts of depression, and turmoil with romantic relationships that I was not what you would call normal.

The straw that broke the camel’s back of the acknowledging my autism, was a very bad autistic outburst I had at home during fall term of 2011. Autistic outbursts or “meltdowns”, as they are often called, happen when an autistic person’s nervous system becomes overloaded from sensory information. Sensory information is the five senses with a couple of others thrown in there for good measure such as: coordination, balance, and depth perception. My biggest sensory issue is with sound. Ever since I can remember I have gotten over stimulated by sounds and had autistic outbursts because of it. I used to have meltdowns over toilets flushing and balloons popping. I have gotten used to toilets flushing, but I still cannot stand balloons popping. On that fall day I had spent the whole day in class and was really over-stimulated from all the noise at school. I know what you are thinking, “What noise” or “it’s not that loud in a class room.” What you don’t realize is my brain is wired differently because of my autism, so that noises are louder and I have to work way harder to filter out individual noises or conversations. I hear everything at once and my nervous system is more sensitive and gets dysregulated by all the noise coming into my brain. This can sometimes lead to an outburst if I get to over-stimulated and that day I did.

I came home after school and I had pushed my nervous system to its limits as far as sensory information that day and my ears started to physically hurt because this often happens when I’ve been around too many noises that bother me. My dad and I started to have an argument about something so trivial I can’t even remember it now, but this was the trigger for a meltdown. When a person with autism’s nervous system gets over-stimulated the littlest things can trigger a huge reaction not proportional to the situation at hand. My father pushed my autistic buttons too far by repeating some phrase, this happens even now and it annoys and upsets me still, over and over again which I hate and I started to cry and he still did not stop repeating it, so phase two of my meltdown started and I started to scream like a banshee and ran out the front door into the yard. I had not had a meltdown that bad in over a year, and I came back in from outside and hid under my bed covers and cried. My mother came in to help calm me down.  I asked her why I did such crazy things and she told me “Mir, it’s because you have Aspergers.” “I know you don’t want to accept it, but it’s what you have and why you do the things you do.”  She said.  She told me to go on the internet and read about it for myself and I did and I couldn’t believe how well it fit me and the things I do.

The next day I went to the library and checked out books on Aspergers syndrome. Reading those books gave me insight into who I am and why I do the things I do on a daily basis. Most importantly I started to learn how to accept that I was different and that it was ok to be. I also learned why I was having the meltdowns and why noises bothered me so much. I also found out that females with aspergers act differently than males with the disorder, and tend to struggle with different things such as mood swings and a more sensitive nervous system. My mother had always been accepting about my autism, but it took until I was twenty-one years old for my father to finally come to terms with my diagnoses.

I have always known that my mother understands my apsergers syndrome better than my father. As a child he would often ridicule my obsessions. He would call my various collections, such as my Brayer Horse collection, junk. One thing my father always had trouble understanding was my food sensitivities. I dislike the texture, taste, and smell of certain foods. I especially dislike the texture of the fat that is on steak. My father is a big meat eater and loves to cook. He also loves steak. When I was elementary school age he used to grill steak in the summer time. I remember one summer evening when he had grilled steak and brought it in from the grill for the family to eat and I had one of my autistic moments. My father placed the steak on my plate with a huge smile, for he was thrilled at how they had turned out. I, however, did not like how fatty they were and after taking a few bites proceeded to spit the steak out of my mouth and onto my plate. My father gasped and I just looked at him disgusted at him and proceeded to tell him, “Daddy, the steak is fatty and gross!” He then looked very hurt and said, “I don’t understand why you are such a picky eater and why you just can’t be grateful and eat the food that is served to you.” I did not understand why either until I was much older and knew it was because of my autism. My father proceeded to let his feelings be hurt by my pickiness towards food for many years. My father also did not understand why I did not like to be touched when I was upset or having a meltdown nor my food sensitivities until he watched the movie Temple Grandin.

Dr. Temple Grandin is one of the most prolific autistics in the world. She has her Ph.D. in animal science, has designed many livestock facilities all over the world, and is an autism and neurodiversity advocate.  Temple Grandin, also, has a movie made about her. I had read Temple Grandin’s books before I saw the movie and I decided one day to get the movie about her life from the library. I watched the movie with my mother who in turn thought it showed the struggles of someone living on the autism spectrum well. My mother than convinced my father to watch it with her one night while I was out. In the movie character of Grandin struggles with sensory issues, especially loud noise, much like I do, and everything is made louder in the movie, so that non-autistic people can hear what most autistic people hear. My father watched the movie an according to my mother he cried while watching the movie.  My Father told my mother, “This is how Miriam hears and see the world, wow I had no idea.” My father then said, “I didn’t know how it really was for her, I’m going to try and be more aware about hear noise sensitivities.”Since that day my father saw the Temple Grandin movie he has tried to be more understanding about my different sensory issues. I have seen an enormous change in my father and his attitude towards my aspergers syndrome. He seems to have more sensitivity and acceptance towards my disorder and seems to see the gift more than the draw backs now. I have now stopped trying to be the daughter my father wanted me to be and now I am just who I am. 

Autism and Me.

Autism is a little word with large connotations. People who have autism are often confined to what we denote autism as, but autism is so much more than a word or a simple denotation.  Autism is essentially just one aspect of my being, but occasionally it feels like my whole being.  Autism Spectrum Disorders are defined by the CDC as one of many developmental disabilities. I have Aspergers Syndrome, which is on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum, so I have trouble with social interaction and unusual behaviors and interests. Aspergers syndrome affects your development of social skills, for it inhibits your ability, especially as a child for normal social interactions. I was not born with the social know how and have had to learn social norms and skills. Most children are born intuitively knowing how to be social. People with Aspergers are not, so we must learn how to be social plus add in a few odd behaviors such as rocking, chewing on things, hand flapping, and a few narrow and obsessive interests and you’ve got a perfect storm for being socially unacceptable.  People with Aspergers Syndrome such as myself do have normal language development and intellectual skills, essentially we have average to high I.Q’s and are very verbal almost to the point sometimes of annoying others. Now that I have given you the basics of what my disorder is I’m sure you are wondering how did I find out that I had this disorder in the first place?

My mother has told me she knew from the day I was born that there was something different about me, for I didn’t act like the other babies. I could not sleep and would scream for hours at a time. I could not be consoled, for I would pull away from whoever was holding me. However, sometimes I would just be quiet for two or three days at a time and just look at things around me and then of course the screaming would start again. I would get over stimulated from seeing, hearing, and tasting the things around me and my response to that would be to scream, for overstimulation is simply a system overload and in this case the nervous system.  I did not take an interest in children’s toys instead I took a curiosity in ordinary objects such as my father’s reading glasses which apparently I broke by age two. My father has never had glasses since.  I still love glasses and love to try them on whenever I can, for I guess it is one of my autistic obsessions because I like the way they feel on my face and in my hands.  I was an extremely tactile child as many autistic children are.  My first memory of being autistic and knowing what I was doing was different was when a girl got in my face at a resale shop called Other-Mothers.

I did not like when people would get in my personal space without invitation and this included my parents.  As I said before I did not have any innate social skills and had trouble from the time I was old enough to talk with social interactions, especially with people my own age.  I was in the toy section in Other-Mothers playing in a toy kitchen when another little girl wanted to play with me. I really did not like other children touching my stuff or getting in my individual space, but this little girl insisted on playing with me and I remember being really puzzled as to why. “Why was she not happy with just playing by herself and minding her own business?” I thought to myself as she got closer, and closer to me. She finally got so close I could smell her cookie scented breath and then I proceeded to haul off and smack her across the face. My mother ran over horrified and the girl of course was crying her eyes out, which of course I had no understanding as to why. She had invaded my space and I did not want to be her friend I just wanted to play by myself.  That is one of my first memories of being autistic and one of my mother’s first warning signs that I was, for most children do not hit other children unless provoked and most do like to get in each other’s space and talk. I, however, was not like that and did not like being close to other people especially other children.

For many years afterwards I would play mainly by myself because even on my diagnostic paper it says “Does not ask to play with others except every two to three months.” I was not a social child. Autistic children live in their own world or to put it more simply in their head and that’s where I was for most of my childhood. I would spend hours on the swing `pretending about books I read or making up my own stories.
            I loved swinging as a kid and I still love to do it now because I can often be found on the swing set in back of my college swinging before classes. Swinging for me is a form of “Stimming” or self-stimulation and always has been. I know what you are thinking, the word “Self-stimulation” sounds like something sexual but it is not. Stimming, as it is called in the autism community, is a very normal and healthy thing for an autistic person to do, for it helps to keep our nervous systems regulated. Swinging is one of my autistic stims and the movement helps to calm me down. I would swing everyday as a kid anywhere from two to four hours and since I was homeschooled I was allowed to do this because it helped me to calm down and focus on my school work. Self-stimulation helps to keep an autistic body in balance.

I would swing and swing. I loved the way the air would rush by me as I flew through the atmosphere. It was for me as if time and space had stopped and it was just me, the swing, the air, and my imagination. The swing was my escape from a world I did not understand, nor that I felt that I fit into. It was my time machine, airplane, and rocket ship I could go wherever I wanted to go in my mind and I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone else which was what I found so difficult to do as a child. It was my getaway, my break from reality. The movement regulated me, but the time spent away from the world calmed my soul.

So I continued in the pattern of being in reality and then escaping from it. My Mother says I would get a “zoned out” look whenever I would stim like I was someplace else, but what she didn’t know, because I could not verbalize it at the time, is that I really was someplace else. My “Zoning out” and terrible social skills and my inability to make friends made my mother seek out a diagnoses for Aspergers Syndrome which in turn lead to my diagnoses. I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome by a Psychiatrist at OHSU in Portland, Oregon when I was nine years old. I did not want to have autism or anything to do with it, so for the next ten years I pretended I did not have it. Why didn’t I want to have autism? Well, I did not want to have it because I did not want to be different. I just wanted to be like everyone else.

Re-Vamping...

Hi guys,
I am re-vamping my blog and will publish a story once a week related to my aspegers syndrome. I hope you guys enjoy the new and improved content.

Miriam