Abifae - Ciao Babies!

[Wifezilla]

Oh heck yeah

 

[Farmfresh]

It is interesting that you started talking so late. I work primarily with elementary kids and we have a few that were non-verbal when they went to middle school. Maybe it is not too late for them too. We have LOTS of kids that don't talk at all when we get them at 5 and then we are trying to shut them up by about 7 or 8.

My hubby who is dyslexic didn't learn to read until he was in middle school. Now you can't stop him. His teachers always called him dumb and the fact is he has a higher IQ almost everyone. I find that with the kids a lot. Sure they have those autie traits, but never believe they are stupid! It irritates me when people talk around them instead of TO them.

 

[abifae]

Well, I think that autism email group is the result of making them think they're dumb. I'm really glad I was never told there was anything wrong with me. Other than being fat, ugly, stupid, useless, etc etc etc. LOL. Typical things moms tell kids. But I was never diagnosed with anything that gave me an excuse.

For the record, my mom still thinks I'm fat, ugly (she likes my hair), dress funny, teeth are too yellow, I walk weird, and I don't wash my hands enough.

So I guess I'm not better yet.

It's never too late. Sometimes we are more serious about the delay part of developmental delay. Considering I only hit puberty at 30... it is possible my brain wasn't developed enough for speech til I was 9.

 

[sunsaver]

Thank you both for sharing! That was very informative. Sorry this post is so long! I have a strange ability to remember almost my entire life, even things that happened before i learned how to speak (1 or 2 years old) I have no symptoms like yours abifae, but i was listening to a shcizophrenic woman with three doctorates, who knows 5 languages, tell about her experiences. I knew exactly how she was feeling. It's not like a normal hallucination, but more like a change in how you see reality. Words are especially problematic. My brain will make mutiple associations and link words with personal meanings that have nothing to do with what the speaker is trying to communicate. In a complete break down, the voices i hear are real and are coming from my friends and family, the tv or radio, but suddenly they all seem to be reading my mind and/or attacking me personally. There's a sense that you know what is about to happen before it happens. I'll think something, and then the person in the room with me will say something directly related to what i just thought, as if they are reading my mind. It's very terrifying. Actually it's my own mind that is making the loose word associations that drive the paranoid delusion that everyone is reading my mind. A suspenseful TV show, like CSI (one of my favs) can be terrifying to watch during an episode of paranoia. It's like a panic attack that never ends, usually after a round of sleep deprivation from a normal panic attack. I've only had three major attacks during the last 20 years so i feel lucky. It was a huge mental effort to comeback from the second one, though. I was close to becoming a man who never spoke again and just followed orders like a robot with no ego, no sense of self, just an open book with no verbal ability at all. I had to force myself to believe that the radio was describing real events that were happening to other people, and not a running commentary on my every thought.
When im not having a full breakdown, the symptoms are often enjoyable. It makes it easy to write poetry or fiction. It has made me even more empathetic to others, because learning about the troubles of others makes my brain problems seem small in comparison, and i think it is good therapy for me (suffering loves company). Other pleasing symptoms are: i can think 'i need a cast iron dutch oven' and then later that day i'll find a cast iron dutch oven. Or i can think about a friend and the friend will call me. Or i'll think that i need some rain and it will rain. Science says these are coincident events, but when the Controller of Reality is granting my every wish more than twice a day, i call it a symptom, because the laws of probability rule out coincidense on that order of frequency. I like to just say that i'm "Blessed by God" because science can't yet explain the extremes of good and bad luck that i have gone through. There's also a lot of spiritual effects that i don't care to discuss. Troubles in threes and mutiples of six. Let's just say that i pray and curse more now than i ever did before i got hit with this. Heck! I used to be an atheist!
The thing i hate the most is, that every time i've gone to the doctor seeking anti-anxiety meds or tranquilizers to help me sleep and prevent the waking nightmare from returning, they ask "Do you think you are a danger to yourself or others?" Schizophrenia is not the same as sociopath or depressed and suicidal. Most of so-called bi-polar disorder may really be schizophrenia. If they understood the religious effects, that the only two options are babbling Jesus homeless guy, or zombie who follows orders, but can't seem to write or speak anything, they wouldn't ask such a stupid question. Murder or suicide are just not valid options for escaping from H. So i just self-medicate with vodka, and take milk thistle to protect my liver. God, reality, the universe, whatever you want to call it has been pretty good to me lately. Just wish i could help remove some of the stigma attached to us "mad scientists".

 

[abifae]

My brain will make mutiple associations and link words with personal meanings that have nothing to do with what the speaker is trying to communicate. In a complete break down, the voices i hear are real and are coming from my friends and family, the tv or radio, but suddenly they all seem to be reading my mind and/or attacking me personally. There's a sense that you know what is about to happen before it happens. I'll think something, and then the person in the room with me will say something directly related to what i just thought, as if they are reading my mind. It's very terrifying. Actually it's my own mind that is making the loose word associations that drive the paranoid delusion that everyone is reading my mind.

I do that too. There isn't much difference between schizophrenia and autism that I can see. Maybe they're separate and I have both. Schizophrenia, bipolar, autism, depression, and dementia all run strong in my relatives, if I'm related to them

Almost all the autistics I know hallucinate. But since they are told they cannot, they say that they just never let go of things they sense and those things stay in their hearing or vision all the time. lol.

I remember the very day I realized the radio was NOT speaking to me. It actually threw me into a three month freak out. lol. I knew Auntie then. I think she spent a lot of energy on reassuring me I existed. I am still not at all certain of that, but I've found an equilibrium.

I remember everything I've ever done, I just don't trust any of it happened in this reality, and so I don't count any of it. My way of dealing with how hard it is to pick and choose reality is to simply hold all of it as equally true and not true, and to not believe anything. Obviously my senses lie all the time.

It's hard to know if I'm more on the schizo or autie side of the deal, most days. But I no longer feel like cameras are following me and the radio doesn't play songs to give me thoughts and I'm not certain everyone else can hear my thoughts, but I still hear most of theirs.



My friend, Matt, says my brain is Carnivale.

I used to be scared of school because I thought the teachers were brain washing the children and stealing their thoughts.

Now I know I was utterly right. hah!!!

I live all my life like it's a story. Literally, there is narration in my head. Everything I type is followed by "she typed" and anything I say is followed by "she said", etc etc. It's all a big story book.

 

[sunsaver]

It does sound like you have some similar symptoms. I was so bored with school that i spent most of my time reading college textbooks, in the 5th grade! I had no social skills and got picked on by bullies all the time. I have a weird hatred of anything sticky on my hands, and sometimes engage in OCD hand washing when dealing with artificial products. But i can keep my hands in organic soil all day, then pick my teeth! Weird!
I never get sick, which is really weird! I guess i just don't believe in being sick. My friends are always getting colds or the flu. I think that these symptoms are just in their minds. I haven't had any of these symptoms since my 2nd attack of schizophrenia, back in '98.

 

[Henrietta23]

Getting to "know" Abi has given me great insight into my own childhood! I had no diagnosis and might not have even if I were a kid today. I was just an odd kid. I've conformed some and fit in much better and have stopped telling people what I was like as a kid because they don't believe me.

 

[sunsaver]

The people who have known me for years have always called me weird. I was talking about solar power, organic gardening, sustainable agriculture, and other "weird" subjects, long before they became mainstream. I'm glad that i'm not so weird nowadays, and can speak more openly.

 

[abifae]

Sunsaver, yeh. The overlap is incredible. I think bipolar/schizo/autie are the same damage just expressed differently. Especially because having any of the three increases your chances to have any of the three. Not, auties have auties... but auties can have bipolar, schizo, or autie. And ditto on "weird" conversation that seems a bit more popular now.

Hen, I forwarded something my mom wrote about me (it was a list of why she hates me, written in the midst of her acting like my best friend and everyone wonders why I don't believe her change of heart hah!!) to Auntie and reading it absolutely proves I'm autistic. My mom wrote a list of proofs that I'm not autistic that were things like 'she was always weird, and walks funny' and this entire list that is so purely autism it's funny. But it was on her list of proof I'm not.

 

[abifae]

bwahaha.

Dibbles a very Lemmings like game, only everything they do kills them horrifically. To make a "bounce" they rip off their heads... to climb, they slam their body into a wall and the next ones use the sticky inside to climb... It's awesome. Not as graphic as I'm making it sound. They sadly wave goodbye when you give them a task.