Aspie-ism

On of my co-workers said today is Autism Awareness Day, should I make her aware that it isn't?

I don't get addicted to anything very easily... except my routines.

I work at Staples in EasyTech, so I have to interact with customers. Although I have social anxiety, I am able to interact with customers, say hello, talk to them, offer help, find bits of conversation, but outside of work, someone I don’t know is lucky if I can get up the courage to say hi. What I believe to be the reason is that my brain sees the customer interaction as a basic process, simple steps that I have been guided in doing to allow me to be able to speak to them and successfully inform them about the products in my department guide them to products, and sell them. Many previous jobs, all where I currently lived couldn’t understand that. They thought that because I had trouble with conversing with coworkers that I wouldn’t be able to handle customers, and so I would get fired. In one instance, I was fired just for mentioning that I had Asperger’s after working there for two weeks. I am very thankful to Staples for hearing me out and letting me try to explain how my brain works and giving me a chance when no one else at the time would.

I have such a difficult time reading emotions, actions, and social situations. It used to be worse though. When I was in middle school, I was told by a particular teacher to read these cards that just had faces showing expressions. I was supposed to figure out what each one was feeling of these like 40 faces. The best I could do was happy, sad, angry. Apparently some faces I was supposed to guess jealousy, doubt, fear, worry, excitement, surprise, and other more specific emotions. I would take another look and wonder if I was being messed with.

I have no idea how much of my Asperger's has to do with my social anxiety and introversion, but I would assume very little considering how social I was when I was little. When I was younger, I would talk to people all the time, try to make friends, talk about my favorite things, and couldn't stop talking. It wasn't until middle school, where I got picked on more than ever before and found out about my diagnosis that I realized people didn't like that. I was made fun of for my actions, my inability to read social situations, and going on and on about something I loved, but no one else cared about. I was made fun of by lots of people in school, had bullies that picked on me, step-brothers, even my friends and parents, my father worst of all. One time my father told me he didn't like to take me places because I was an embarrassment to take out into public. He told me that I should just choose to not act the way I do. He said if I just made that choice, I could be "normal." So I think my introversion has more to do with people not accepting me, and instead mocking everything that is me and everything that I love to a point where I am afraid that someone is going to hate me if I open my mouth around them.

People think that I hate them because I don't have much control over my facial expressions. My face almost never reflects the way I actually feel. When I am in a normal, content, calm, or mildly happy mood, people see me as looking pissed off, it is even worse when I am deeply concentrated on something, because it looks even more to others like I am glaring. I have gotten into a lot of trouble with a lot of people, parents especially saying, "what is with that look?" And I have no idea what they are talking about. I don't know how to control it, and forcing emotional expression is quite troublesome. The only time I tend to force it is when I am at work and deal with customers, then I have to force a smile. It's not always that I am unhappy, it is just that I don't feel happy enough to naturally smile.

Sometimes I freak out because I make a weird noise or say a random word in public as a tick in public. Then I feel like I am being watched and judged. Sometimes when I text or message someone, I cannot think of what to say and type one of my random words, or I spell out a sound I make. That's not so bad because I can always delete that and the person will never know, but then there' she fact that for some reason, I have to say the words or make the noise that I typed out loud. This is where I quickly look around in fear that someone is looking at me.

Some things that bother me are really petty. Like I have a designated water glass that sits in a designated spot, no one seems to respect that. Someone uses it, washes it early, messes with it, or worst of all, puts another glass right next to it! I only found out a few months ago that this is actually common for Aspies. Cool thing about Asperger's is that there are others out there. That means I am not weird alone, which is pretty awesome.

I don't know if it is my Asperger's or my Tourette's, but I say words that I make up sometimes. Kerfluffle is one of my favorites.