Best of Aspie’s, Inc.–Watch My Mouth

(Originally posted August 30, 2006)

I sat through a two day training on Microsoft Access at New Horizons Computer Training Center. It was actually quite useful really. That said, I realized that could understand what the teacher was saying when I watched his mouth.

At times I would work on other things, wright down notes and ideas, or edit a working data base that I need at my job. However, I found that if I really wanted to catch and understand each word (and what they meant together) it was best to watch his mouth.

That brings me back to the phenomenon of sensory scrambling.
I'm guessing that the visual reinforcement of the mouth movements reinforces the auditory input, especially sense some of the auditory and visual stimulus is being mixed up. By locking them together (watching a persons mouth), it essentially defeats the effects of scrambling. 

Over the years, I've made an effort not to watch peoples mouths while they talk, because neurotypicals don't expect that kind of behavior. I have a routine that I follow of eye contact for a few second, look at mouth, look back at eyes, look away, look down, repeat. People then feel like they are having a normal conversation instead of being "drilled" with my eyes in one spot.

That said, in a class situation, I'm just going to get the most out of it that I can and watch the teachers mouth.

Adam

Calmer@Work

Sitting in a meeting at work 11:30am

Funny, but I'm sitting in a meeting, and I'm feeling fairly focused and quite calm. It's not a very interesting meeting, but it's important. Normally, I would be so stirred up that I would need to blog, check e-mail, and surf the net in order to keep myself calm. Right now I'm jotting this idea down on paper so that I won't forget it later. Otherwise my mind is at rest.

Later

I'm not sure the cause. I've made some major changes to my diet. I've also been riding my bicycle to work more, and have been wearing ankle weights at home. The ankle weights are something I'm trying. They actually have a calming effect. I've also been praying a lot and been spending more time reading and thinking about the Bible.

There is clearly more stress in my life with preparations for a trip to Eastern Europe, but I am feeling better than I have in quite some time.

Fibromyalgia - Asperger/Autism Connection?

Aryeh Abeles, MD and other contributing doctors have authored research recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study put forth the notion that Fibromyalgia sufferers have a lower pain threshold.

Maybe it's better to sayt that they have a greater sensativity to everything. Maybe Fibromyalgia sufferers sensory defensive.



Having recenly been reading the book "Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight: What to Do If You Are Sensory Defensive in an Overstimulating World", I started wondering if there is a connection between the overstimulated state of our Aspie brains and the existance of chronic pain.

I wonder if Aspies have more occurance of Fibromyalgia and other similar conditions?

This is a very short post. Just posing the question, curious of what anyone else is thinking.

Adam

I did it! I went out to lunch!

My department participated in a personality profile exercise that was intended to expose how each of us interact and work along with our personality strengths. It has been helpful for me as I try to understand the others in my department and their actions.

I've been studying the report on me and beginning to realize that I don't do chit chat and I avoid social gatherings with people from work. I don't go out on the team lunches. I quit doing them partly to save money, and because so few people would show up. But since our department was merged with another, the team lunches usually include eight or more people.

I also realized that social interactions do help others with whom I work. Also, if I am planning on changing careers and being a missionary, most of my work will be social interactions, so I decided to go on the team lunch.

I'd forgotten what an auditory assault a restaurant at lunch time can be. Wow. There is so much talking that it sounds like the roar of a mighty ocean or a giant water fall. I really had to focus in on what people's words so that I could catch what they were saying. Fortunately I sat next to a man and women that each had teen or pre-teen children heavily involved with sports. Soccer to be exact. That made it easy to make open ended questions in my mouth (I know that's improper English, but that is how it starts in my brain). I listened and asked clarifying questions about as much as I talked.

I have a new goal. It is to become a better communicator. I think that I have always been approachable and, at least, middle school age kids feel comfortable telling me anything. Social "outsiders" tend to approach me more readily then others, but I want to be a warm and welcoming person to whom people can speak even while I maintain a measure of control commensurate to the situation.

I know this will take time and conscious effort, but I've seen people do it. People that you just wanted to talk to, because you know they would listen to what you had to say without mocking or judging. Yet, those same people would guide the conversation so that you didn't "spew" for an hour. An Aspie can get going and "vent" for hours, sometimes without really saying anything. It isn't necessarily helpful or productive.

At other times I've been in productive meetings in which an individual controlled conversation in such a way that everyone had their say without any one person monopolizing the time. That same person kept the conversation on task and the meeting on schedule. He also did it quietly and confidently. He never seemed to have to yell or compel. He just was the leader. Now, he was the "official" leader, but I bet in informal settings this individual portrays a similar sense of leadership.

Such skills will be of great benefit to those around me regardless of where I work.

O.K., so back to lunch. It was fun to hear about other people's children. I enjoy that. The food was good, but I like what I bring in better than restaurant at lunch, and I also like to sit quietly and think at lunch. Yet, those around me seemed to enjoy the experience as a normal part of life.

I think that it is a good thing to do.

Adam

Monk

I've been watching the detective/situation comedy show "Monk". At first I didn't find it funny, because it seemed to fit my world too closely. Actually Monk also reminded me of an extreme example of my son.

O.K. me too.

The difference is that Monk does all his OCD stuff. I do it in my head. I notice little things, and choose to just let them go.

I used to think that I didn't have enough self control. Stuff like that makes me realise that I've got lots of it. I crave order and the world around me seems to be wildly chaotic. There times when I am quite peaceful, but often I other must impose order upon the world around me or simply live with the chaos.

We Aspies need to understand that because of the way we are designed, much of the world around us will be annoying or excruciating and that we can only fix some of it. If we can't make our environment suite our needs we need to employ our mind to overcome the need.

It's taken me a long time to figure out how to do that, and I'm not sure how to explain it yet. Part of it has to do with the sense of being separate from my body. I've heard other Aspies speak of their brains as if it were separate from themselves. I often have that sense. Often feel as if I am a passenger in my body. I think that sensation has a neurological component that is part of sensory integration disorder.

I have "leveraged" that sensation that the "me" part of Adam is separate from the "body/brain" part of Adam, and learned how to step away from my brain. I call it filtering. I remove me from the part of my brain that is in anguish. Sense it is at arms length, I can endure it. For extreme situations it takes a great deal of discipline and energy, and sometimes it doesn't work.

It's an important skill that has helped me survive and grow.

Adam

Adam

Crunch Attack!

I was sitting at work trying to stay focused when the person in an ajoining cubicle starting loudly crunching celery or something. They were loud open mouth crunching down onto the celery stalk. There is a rush of high frequency pulse that are the crunching of the celery. That sound also reflects off of the inside of the mouth like when you talk into a tin can, but it changes frequency and tone as the shape of the mouth changes. I didn't see the celery. I can only guess that is what it was.

It was like shooting needle like daggers through my brain and chest. I felt physical pain.

You know, I think since I went cold Turkey and cut out Gluten, Dairy, and a few other things I've been more alert. That's good. On the flips side my senses seem like they've cranked up a notch. I've also never heard any one crunch that loud. That was yesterday.

Today it was wheat crackers. The crunching wasn't so bad as the sound of some one eating wheat crackers with their mouth open. Accompanied by smacking sounds. I tried to endure, but I finally had to rush out of the building and find my hiding place. I sat down and put my head in my hands and rocked back and forth. Even after I was "over it" my chest still hurt. It was like being under attack.

I have a pair of earplugs that I wear when I mow the lawn, the cut the volume of a sound, but I used to wear earplugs when I was a furnace duct cleaner. I could wear the earplugs while the loud machinery was running and still carry on a conversation.

Sound isolating headphone are not covered by insurance.

When I got home it made me appreciate my wife even more. At her loudest she doesn't crunch and smack like that. I can never tell this other person that I'm appalled at his lack of manners. I'm just shocked that an educated individual would still eat with their mouth open.

Don't I sound like an Aspie. I feel it 100% today.

Read Light! Green Light!

I finally admitted to my wife recently that the color of traffic lights holds no special meaning for me. I know that it means STOP, but to me it's just red. If the red light had the word STOP in it that would make more sense. I've actually seen a traffic light (long time ago), that had the word STOP in small black letters printed on the lense. When the red lense lit up, it not only was red, it said STOP.

Most of the world sees that little red light as meaning STOP, but to me it's just a red light. Maybe I already said that. So, I have to remind myself "Red means STOP", when I come to a stop sign. It's usually second nature, but often enough I'll be talking to my wife while I'm driving, and she'll say, "It's red honey".

The other drivers in Michigan (and other parts of the U.S.) owe my wife a debt of gratitude I suppose. I don't get nearly as distracted when I'm by myself. O.K. there have been occasions that I've gone careening through a stop sign or traffic light.

It's inconvenient, but I actually enjoy that Marge and I only have one vehicle. Then, when it's warm enough, I just ride my bike to work. Much simpler. I also enjoyed taking rapid transit to work when I lived in the Chicago area.

Obssessive Compulsive?

Many people see Aspie behaviors as OCD, but in my opinion there is a fundamental difference.

I'll say again. This is my own opinion based on my experiences and learning. I don't have a degree in a related field. See your health care provider for proper diagnosis.

O.K. here it is:

An Obsessive behavior is an avoidance behavior. The behavior does not bring pleasure or satisfaction to the individual. It is not done to get or achieve. Instead Obsessive behaviors are done to avoid some typically unrelated thing or feeling. An example is the person who washes their hands over and over. They feel compelled to do it constantly. It doesn't help them feel clean, but by doing it they are able to (for example) avoid their feelings of fear and inability. The young girl takes 5 baths a day. She uses harsh soaps, and just can't get rid of that feeling of being filthy. If she could only feel clean. Is it because she feels dirty or is it because her uncle sexually abused between her ages of 8 and 12? He told her it was her fault. The abuse stopped because he died of a heart attack. I just made those stories as examples. They are extreme, but exemplify what I believe to be the nature of behaviors that can accurately be classified as OCD.

I think of OCD is a mental illness.

I think the Aspie or anyone in the Autism Spectrum (Classic Autism, PDD NOS, etc.) engages in repetitive behaviors for two reasons:

1. To compensate for neural dysfunction
2. To compensate for over or under stimulation.

Firstly, the individual in the Autism Spectrum is experiencing symptoms based on physical malformations in the brain. Most if not all Aspies are dealing with Sensory Integration Dysfunction (see the link). So repetitive movements such as spinning, rocking, jumping, touching or sniffing certain things are compensating for a deficit in the typical function of the brain. The movement can help the Aspie achieve a sense of calm and balance.

Needing to touch or physically experience certain things helps them attain a sense of where they are in relation to their world. These movements can help them feel grounded instead of feeling as if they don't quite exist in the physical world or aren't sure what they are in relation to the physical space around them.

Secondly, the person in the Autism Spectrum may have certain behaviors that help them cope with the world around them. Certain rituals that help them deal with a confusing world instead of having a melt down.

Some of the treatments may be the same at first, but I believe long term treatments should include teaching socially acceptable ways for people in the Autism Spectrum to meet their sensory needs, not look for ways to extinguish all of their behaviors.

Ultimately, the parent or care giver needs to give careful consideration to all aspects of the condition. An individual in the Autism Spectrum may also have OCD issues. It would be a shame to take the short cut and treat both Autistic behaviors and OCD as the same thing.

Adam

Clothes Make The Man

I tend to wear the same kinds of clothes most of the time. To me all clothing is a uniform. A uniform has functional use and signifies ones function or role. So, for me to change my clothes, I have to be willing to change into another part of me.

So, on Sundays if I'm digging the church ministry vibe (how's that for slang) I stay in the outfit that I wore to church. Especially if it feels like Sunday. By the same token, I don't want to wear my jeans out to landscape or do lawn work. I put on my "grubbies". Those are my clothing set aside for painting or for lawn work.

I was just thinking of that.

I wonder if that's why some of us Aspies will tend to just go to bed in our clothes. It's the transition. There have been times that I've gone to bed in my clothes and gone right to sleep. Then later, when I wake up at about 3 am (which I do about every night), I change into sleep wear. On those occasions if I would have changed into sleep wear right then, the transition from one me to the Time To Sleep me would have stirred me up a little. I wouldn't be as sleepy then. I don't do that every night.

We are very careful not to let our children sleep in their day clothes, because you can imagine that it could easily become a habit. If I wake up in the morning in my day clothes, I feel very strange. It's as if my sleeping didn't quite count because I never put on sleeping clothes.

Sounds weired huh? It's that whole Aspie thing in which internal things need to be externalized in order to be managed. I'm still coming to understand it.

Please post comments or questions if you would like. I'm curious if any others have had these experiences.

Adam

It's Only Water Pt II

My wife pointed something about showers to me as we were talking on the way home from work. She thinks it's a transition thing. That makes a certain sense. It is a definite transition going from one thing and then into the shower thing.

Sometimes I take a bath when I get home so that I can take my time. I enjoy a bath better anyway. It's less to think about. A bath is one thing, a shower is lots of things shooting out of a shower, and how do I know if I'm rinsing everything right.

Just dunk me in some warm water instead, and it's a nice transition into a pair of sweats or jogging pants. Some nights when I come home I intend to stay in my work outfit until it’s nearly time for bed. Other nights I'm into something casual right away, and I have no intention of leaving the house.

I rarely change into an intermediate outfit such as jeans or something. I only own one pair of jeans anyway.

It's Only Water

A parent asked me if I ever resisted taking a shower as an Aspie child or teen.

I personally can't shower every day, because it makes my skin feel dried out, and then when the fabric of my clothing moves back and forth on me it creates an intolerable sensation. In the winter especially, when the heat is on and things dry out, I can only shower about every other day. So, for that reason, I too dislike taking showers, because if my skin dries out I can't escape it. There's nothing worse for an Aspie than an overwhelming sensation from which one is able to disengage.

I do enjoy baths, because it is like being buried, and I can warm up better. It's that whole desire for deep pressure. I've always wished the bathtub was deeper so that I could be completely covered with hot water. I used to squirt Vaseline intensive care oil into the bath water so that I wouldn't get dried out. That left a terrible ring in the tub though.

So, I was thinking, what if I was a parent of a teen who found it unpleasant to shower. Well, approaching it logically, there are really only one of two reasons to show (three if your married). One could be that you enjoy it or find it soothing. Then you would want to shower every night before bed just to relax. I know of people that shower every am and every pm, and enjoy the way it makes them feel.

The second reason is because people need to keep themselves clean. It's better for your health and keeps you from disturbing others with a smell that they find troubling. It really doesn't matter what smells I can or can not tolerate, if people around me can not tolerate the way I smell, then I need to fix it. Some people just load on the perfume and I have to keep a small distance from them (discretely so as not to offend). There was one time I was sitting in church and a man sat down in front of me. He was wearing an attractive suite actually. However, it smelled as if the suit had been used for a bed by a wet dog. It was a powerful odor (one of the reasons I really don't want to own a dog).

I tried to ignore it, but finally couldn't take it any more. My family was spread out along the entire row, so I quietly got up, walked to the back, and then re-entered on the other side of the row.

There are certain detergents that my wife can not use, because they have a powerful fragrance, and I can smell just the least hint of mildew on a towel (you know, that sour smell). Sometimes I put on a shirt and if it smells odd to me, I won't wear it. It just goes right back into the dirty clothes hamper.

Back to showering.

So, if you don't like to shower, but you don't want to offend people by being odoriferous, then you could do like the French do. When I visited France as a child, I noticed that the bathroom at the hotel had a toilet shaped sink called a bidet. It was for cleaning the parts of you that get smelly when you don't shower much.

Think of it, if you didn't shower for a month your knees and elbows wouldn't smell really, nor would a number of areas. If you don't have a bidet, then lay a towel in front of the sink in your bathroom, wash the smelly areas with a soapy clothe, and then rinse with a warm wet clothe, and dry yourself. The nice thing is you can take the wash clothes that you used, and the towel for drying yourself and roll them up inside the towel that you laid on the floor. Toss it all in the dirty clothes hamper and everything is neat and tidy.

It feels a little odd blogging about this, but it is a sensory issue. For some Aspies their senses are on over drive, and we get overwhelmed. There are ways to deal with that and not feel like you are a weirdo.

Let me know if you find this helpful or if you ever struggled with this. Maybe there is a way you dealt with this that other readers would like to learn about. Leave a comment.

Later,

Adam

Hyper-Sensative

I used to take pride in the fact that I heard everything and could figure out what it was, that I could tell where my wife had been by the smells that clung to her coat and hair. The volume knob on my senses is boosted a little higer than the average neurotypical. I understand that those of us in the "spectrum" are either hyper-sensative or hypo-sensative.

Did you like my cool buzzzzzz word? I'm in the spectrum (Autism Spectrum Disorder - ASD). Are you? This is the first time that I've ever been in. I was in the band Sojourn for nearly 15 years and I never felt like I was in the local music scene really, let alone a cool in singer guy.

I wish that I could turn the hyper-sensative part off whenever I wanted. When I walk into the men's room at work and I'm greeted by an odious cloud (i.e. it stanks), I can barely get out fast enough. Problem here. While at work it is incumbant upon me to exhibit a certain professionalism and also try and be as neruotypical acting as possible. I can't yell "Ugh" and bolt out of the men's panting and realling once I've made my escape. That kind of behavior could have career limiting consequences.

Today, I walked into the men's room to . . . alright I just say it. . . use the urinal. Well, the sink is right next to the urinal and there is only this little tiny wall in between. I don't do the whole, "Let's be naked together!" thing, and that includes hanging out with guys peeing or showering together. . .

I remember once I was at a county fair grounds, and I went to go . . . how do you say urinate politely. . . to take a tinkle. The "men's room" was a cinder block shed, and the one urinal was sort of an 8 foot long trough with water running on one end and a drain on the other. Who came up with that? It certainly wasn't an Aspie or some one in the Spectrum, I'll tell you that much. "Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's all drop our pants, stand next to each other, and pee in a trough!" Now you know why our society has problems, it's people that design eight foot urinals are also comming up with the Clapper or plaid polyester pants.

Anyway, so I walk into the bathroom and some one is at the sink. So, that means I have to step into a stall and wait until they leave, and then use the urinal. I felt like an infantryman in a cloud of mustard gas in World War I, the smell was so bad.

Maybe I should stop here.

Perhaps the point is. . .I'm not sure.

My wife did by me a pocket size can of Oust Dioderizer spray. I think I should just start carying it with me.

Adam

Sunglasses in the Office

I'm finding that I wear my sunglasses at my desk all the time now and I can actually read things on the computer screen comfortably. Also, in meetings, I put on my sunglasses if the words on the page are pulsing. It just cuts down on all the intensity.

I had heard about going to get a test done that would tell you the optimal tinting for your glasses so that it was easiest to read things. I've seen news shows about people whose lives were changed because they could finally see clearly with tinted glasses. Sometimes yellow tint. They look goofy, but if they work, let me at them. I'm not so sever that I haven't been able to survive, but I'm realizing how much discomfort that I put up as just a matter of life.

At home, we use lots of soft lighting and have very few bright overhead lights.

I don't suppose I can get everybody in my life to turn the lights down a little.

Adam

Sunglasses are great!

I've noticed that the sunglasses help me feel less agitated by my environment. In my odd scrambled way, having the sunglasses make things seem a little quieter. Then I put in my earplugs and things are just so peaceful.

When I ride my bike and it's quite cold the earplugs help keep the cold air from whistling into my ears. So, as I was riding I realised that with my ear plugs (less sound) and sunglasses (less intense visual input), I felt like I was gliding through silk. I have often enjoyed walking (or running) in twilight. I remember as a child running through the neighborhood or woods at twilight playing some kind of game. I was hard to catch. When I ride my bike to work on the paved hiking trail and it's still dark, I find it peaceful and I can still ride fairly fast.

So, here I am walking across the campus with earplugs, sunglasses, and my cool hard hat. We are required to wear a hard hat when we are out and about, and it looks like a cool construction sit guy sort of thing. No one ever looks at me odd when they see the ear plugs, because there are areas with loud machines in which ear plugs are required.

It's peaceful not to have to hear the ten vehicles in various places or the various machines in operation that my brain is trying to categorize and understand. Instead it is filtered out and things are much more quiet. Peaceful. One day when I got back to my desk I left the sunglasses on for hours and even left the ear plugs in for a while.

It bothers some people when I have them on and talk to them. I like people to take their sunglasses off as well, when I talk to them, so I need to be sensitive to that.

I've worn my sunglasses during the last two movies I saw in the theatre. It's much more pleasant. Unless I'm near the back of the theatre I find movies hurt my eyes. It's also so visually intense that its hard to take it in. The sunglasses mellow out the brilliance and make it much more comfortable.

The problem now is that I have to make myself not wear them. It would be easy to hide inside them all the time. I could just relax inside my darkened world, and be at peace. Then I would be recluse and not a real person. I wouldn't be able to really have relationships or help anyone or serve God quite right, because you can't have a real relationship with some one if they can't look into your eyes.

Adam

Watch My Mouth!

I sat through a two day training on Microsoft Access at New Horizons Computer Training Center. It was actually quite useful really. That said, I realized that could understand what the teacher was saying when I watched his mouth.

At times I would work on other things, wright down notes and ideas, or edit a working data base that I need at my job. However, I found that if I really wanted to catch and understand each word (and what they meant together) it was best to watch his mouth.

That brings me back to the phenomenon of sensory scrambling.

I'm guessing that the visual reinforcement of the mouth movements reinforces the auditory input, especially sense some of the auditory and visual stimulus is being mixed up. By locking them together (watching a persons mouth), it essentially defeats the effects of scrambling.

Over the years, I've made an effort not to watch peoples mouths while they talk, because neurotypicals don't expect that kind of behavior. I have a routine that I follow of eye contact for a few second, look at mouth, look back at eyes, look away, look down, repeat. People then feel like they are having a normal conversation instead of being "drilled" with my eyes in one spot.

That said, in a class situation, I'm just going to get the most out of it that I can and watch the teachers mouth.

Adam