h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

this is very intresting for my wife and myself because our grandson has Asburger syndrome and he is very clever and a credit to his mum.

Frank

I'd like to add my congratulations too! I teach children with a variety of special needs and have come across a few with Asperger's in my time! The part about words having tastes or smells and so on is new to me! Congrats once again!

I haven't got time to finish reading this now, much less post a comment, but I need to bookmark this excellent entry so that I can finish it.

Fianlly finished. That was an excellent entry. I think the sign of good written information on Aspergers (apart from the obvious clarity, succinctness etc...) is that it is genuinely useful to the totally unititiated, but also helps people who have any experience at all with the syndrome to understand what they are dealing with. I stopped working with kids with special needs just over six months ago, and while it is, in many ways, something I am, with the best will in the world, happy to be away from, I do miss them sometimes. It's easier from a safe distance.

There are too few intelligent people who have the skills and the patience to work with us on a regular basis.
We can drive a saint insane.

Damn right you can. Can we learn something today that doesn't in any way involve tropical fish? No? Never mind, just a thought...
On the other hand, I have a really nice painting of a fish on a piece of cloth (year seven art) as a leaving present, so it's not all bad.

As an aspie now in mild remission (I'm 41) I congratulate you upon a truly excellent article
combining both insight and humour. I'd recommend it to my friends if I had any.

But where are the aspie support groups?

You are an Aspie (like me), so why would you want a (social) support group, when there is the internet and books readily available?

Oh the joys of summer! Apart from the blocked or runny nose, has anybody else noticed other odd symptoms of hay fever, blighting their lives? For instance itchy inner ears, accompanied by wax build up, itchy nostrils, grit in eyes and running thereof? Then there is the scummy feel of pollen all over your skin, like a crusty suit of armour. Also, for me at least, the sneezing is now accompanied by coughing fits, owing to the drying of the mucous membranes in old age. So does any of this strike a chord with anyone out there and can they add to the list? Forgot to mention the visible presence of pollen scum on rivers and ponds, for those who would say it is imagination on my part: if  it can be seen that easily, then it can also be felt that easily, by those sensitive enough to notice it and be irritated by its presence.

It’s like when I have a shower. My wife said why do you always squeeze your eyes shut tight? Try opening them and see what you get and I did – a stinging sensation, just from droplets full of soap suds, floating in the air. As for wool on naked skin - it irritates the hell out of me as with The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Anderson.

There is also the other senses, when it comes to sensitivity. For instance I cannot stand the taste of cherries. I once started drinking some cherryade and felt woozy but since then I have avoided them, except for when mixed with cream and cake, enough to drown out the taste as in Black Forest Gateau. This also happened with gin. To me it always tasted like what I imagined drinking perfume would be (lavendar is the scent equivalent of this – horrible!). Cucumber gave me wind but tasted of nothing. Whisky makes me want to gag and I could only take it, if it too was mixed with something else. As for fruit – the taste is always too sharp for me, even if I need vitamin C I can only take it in pill form or my mouth shrivels up (oranges sweet? You’ve got to be joking!).

Smell wise, Eau de Cologne always made me violently ill – again I wasn’t sick but it had my senses reeling, dizzily. Getting back to summer, flowers just overwhelmed me with their scent and bright colours blinded me. Noise too crushed my spirit worse than anything. Sunglasses could take care of too bright a sun, blinding me but loud music always drives me insane as you can’t shut it out easily but maybe noise cancelling headphones work for sound sensitivity nowadays? Well I remember Brixton In London and music so loud, that even though I was in the top right hand flat, the noise in the bottom left hand corner, sounded like it was being played loudly in the flat above me (which it didn’t because it couldn’t as there was nobody above me). There were at least five or six floors, so quiet it wasn’t. At that time people would also drive by in their cars, windows open, music blaring or walk by with ghetto blasters to the same effect.

All in all, being hyper-sensitive can be hell but it can also be heaven as we may feel sensations well beyond what normal people can. It is a two edged sword and like Stephen Fry said about his Bipolarity, he would willingly accept the overwhelming lows of sensory overload, in order to keep the ultra highs too, rather than lose the best of the pairing.

By the way, Wrong Planet is the name of an American website run for Aspies by Aspies. The UK's National Autistic Society has a quarterly publication for much the same purpose, plus a newly opened website of sorts (Aspies United).