That had to hurt!

There are so many funny stories from when I was little that it’s no wonder that I was diagnosed with Asperger’s at six. The whole not giving me a heads up about it stinks, but here are a few that I can recall off hand.

My grandma insists that I was so fat when I was a baby that I didn’t walk until I was two. I used to scoot around instead of standing and then when I started to walk, I ran from one side of the room to the other.

My biological mother used to comment about how I used to run up the wood pile outside the house and fall down the other side, get up like it was an expected result, then do it again. No pain or care that I was covered in bruises.

When I was in kindergarten, another child asked, “would you mind if I used this crayon?” I replied “yes.” Not realizing that I had just said no to the child. I was spoken to by the teacher about sharing. After telling them over and over in tears that I did say yes, they finally realized that I didn’t understand the question.

Around nine, as my family was walking down Main Street towards the pizza house, I was off in space looking across the street. I walked into a parking meter so hard that it was ringing. I just kept walking and when my dad, concerned about it, asked if I was ok, I had no idea that it even happened.

I refused to write in my journal aside from the ABC’s until a teacher made me sit there for over an hour to write a sentence. That sentence said, “I like to write the ABC’s.”

I would use large words like antagonizing in context by four years old.

When I was really little, not sure of the exact age, probably around four, I fell down the stairs (almost from the top), stood up at the bottom and asked if breakfast was ready.

I couldn’t read out loud until I was seven. I still have trouble reading out loud at times because my mind is reading faster than my mouth is speaking. I have a tendency to skip words that are important for sentence structure.

I had what I called a ‘cry pillow.’ That was safety for me. It was a throw pillow that was hand quilted by a family friend. The picture that was quilted was a little house in a neighborhood that was quiet and serene.  I was forced to give it to my little brother when I was twelve because I was too old to rely on a pillow for comfort. To this day, and I am a full-grown adult, I still wish I had that pillow. However, even if I made one that looked similar, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t feel or smell the same, so it wouldn’t work for comfort.

I was having an underhand rock throwing contest with my little brother (just got my first pair of glasses, so I was around seven) and I forgot to let go of the rock. Instead, I gave myself a third eye, in the middle of my forehead for two weeks and broke my brand-new glasses.

When all of the other kids played outside, and I would decide to play, I would use a stick and draw roads in the town where I lived so I could ride my bike to and from actual places that existed.

Since I was around nine years old, I could mimic any handwriting I saw. I can still do this, so I limit my use of this talent to drawing tattoos for people in the font they would like.

When I was a teenager, my dad renovated the house and moved the porch door to the backside of the house. The granite steps that led to the side door were still there (he needed large equipment to move them), but the door was now a wall. It had been that way for weeks, however out of habit, I had to go to the bathroom and ran up the steps I’ve been running up since I could, hitting the wall full force. Let’s just say, I didn’t need the bathroom as badly after I hit it.

Though I know a few of you tried not to laugh at a few of the stories, don’t feel as if you offend me when you do laugh about it. I know that I still laugh about the klutz that I am to this day. It’s a part of who I am.

I have crappy gross motor skills, even though my fine motor skills are exceptional. I will trip over my own two feet on a regular basis and was asked to drop out of gymnastics when I accidentally kicked the teacher in the face as I tried an assisted back bend. I do have hypermobility but controlling that hypermobility is a challenge.

My pain tolerance is through the roof as well, which doesn’t help matters. I can stub my toe to the extent that I rip the nail off and know that after the initial pain, within moments, the pain is gone. It’s almost as if my body shuts the receptors off. What is really weird is that I only feel the pain if I am focusing on the impact area. I had gone an entire day with a bleeding toe in my shoes and only realized I hurt myself when I took my shoes and socks off.

I have come home to my husband, and he has asked me what I did to get a bruise so bad on my shoulder, only to not remember what I bounced off of (that’s the common reason I end up with bruises on my upper arms). I have a tendency to ‘brush’ up against or bounce off of door frames without knowing I have done it.

I think what I am getting at is that all of these seemingly different situations of absolutely absurd things I have done, are all symptoms of the Spectrum classification that Asperger’s now lies within.

What is even more perplexing is that my body’s spatial awareness is the problem as opposed to my awareness as a whole. I can walk into any house, glance into the rooms on each floor and draw a layout of the house within 6 inches of true measure. I have found out that this ability is part of the Autistic Savant Artist side of who I am. It’s the same talent I use when my husband can’t find something and asks if I know where it is. If I have walked past it, I can picture what he is looking for in my mind and tell him exactly where I saw it last.

What is also nifty is that I have a map of Massachusetts (north of Springfield and west of Littleton) in my head. It’s pretty much limited to the places I have driven, however it’s definitely immense and growing as I branch out to new places driving motorcoach.