wispfox

Utterly fascinated by the answers I'm getting to my previous post question, but in some cases at least, I think I phrased the question poorly in terms of what I actually wanted to know.

I don't mean the physical appearance of the inside of your eyelids (although, I note, that I _do_ also see; it's why I need as much darkness as possible to sleep), although those answers are surprisingly varied as well.

I mean... visualizing, imagination, things like that.

My imagination is not visual. The closest I get is motion (gestural communication? body language? Not really sure), and that's really only if my mind is wandering, I'm dreaming, or I'm parsing a figurative statement literally (as I nearly always do before catching the intended meaning).

Do you "see" the room around you if you're trying to navigate it with your eyes closed? Some other similar thing where you're seeing something with your eyes closed, but it is not the inside of your eyelids?

I note that I do sometimes see color/light flashes, when listening to techno and similar. But that's there with my eyes open in that case, too, it's just clearer with them closed.

When you close your eyes, do you see something?

( again, cut to allow you to answer before knowing why I ask )

It's _really_ odd attempting to summarize my life for the past 15 years. Also, my life, when compared to 'typical' people, is really quite unusual. :)


There was sun for _days_. And it's starting to no longer be the worst part of sinter for me. Feels a rather lot like I've been asleep for months. But then, I was both overwhelmed on multiple levels _and_ dealing with winter. Which is not over, and which I'm sure I mill be reminded of soon enough. :)


Sometimes I find really absurd things to fret about. Usually, the best tack to take in those situations (if I can make myself) is to tackle them head-on.


It's interesting to try to find the line between 'useful things I know about myself' and 'because I believe this limitation exists, I won't be able to beat it'. For example, I have trouble remembering proper nouns (yes, this includes people's names). This extends to vocabulary, whether it be foreign language words, terminology, or pretty much anything where there is a word to learn that has no real reason _why_ it associates. This made such classes as Anatomy & Physiology (I&II) and Organic Chemistry _hard_. They had some bits that were about 'why' and not just straight memorization, but it was still an amazing amount of memorization of words that did not generally have any logic to them. I tend to use flash cards for this (both writing it out and reviewing them are useful).

But... it means that I am _so_ used to this as a known broken bit in my brain that I will get pretty much instantly frustrated if someone is trying to suggest ways to work around it. I suspect this is due to how much energy I've put into trying to figure it out and workaround it, but... how do I _know_ that someone else might not have a useful insight that will be helpful? For the most part, my reaction to this is that I spent most of my life fighting with this; what can someone else possibly know? Any random person, probably my reaction is reasonable, as long as my reaction remains not excessive in intensity. But what about people who study how people think or learn or remember?

What about my tendinitis? I'm pretty sure I know more than most doctors I've talked to, about my specific problem, and I get _way_ too many suggestions, even still, 2 years in. I _am_ improving, though. And sometimes I still get helpful suggestions from complete strangers.

Or my spatial awareness lack. Sometimes people are amazed that I can do [foo] without using multiple dimensions or visualization in my head, but I cannot figure out why it would be needed. So clearly, I can overcome it in some cases. And some people can explain things to me which I would expect to need functional spatial awareness or visualization. But most of the time, this is not so. Such things as torque _completely_ did not work in my head in Physics II in undergrad, because I could not find a way to understand it without spatial awareness. Same problem with trigonometry and matricies.

But at the same time, things I _do_ understand, I can explain. I can write instruction and why and such _really well_ if I know how it works. It won't be formatted in a pretty way (it'll probably be plain text), but the information will be there. And I write great docs, because I don't remember details - I remember concepts - so I write the details & the steps down for later use by me and by anyone else who needs them. And because I'm so easily confused (I do _not_ do a very job at assumptions, I begin to think), I will tend to find all the weak spots in others' explanations.

So the question here, for my memory for things with no reason why (such as proper nouns), and for my spatial awareness is this:

Where is the line between being realistic about the ways my brain does and does not work, and "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." (Richard Bach. Illusions, I think)

I guess as long as I remember to verify my expectations of how I do and do not work, and what I can and cannot do, I'll be alright. There are certainly things that I thought I was awful at that was proven wrong (writing coherently, for example. When I was still only writing by hand, the act of writing by hand always distracted me from what I was trying to say, so I would tend to lose track).

And one good thing about the winter crap (silver lining, much?) is that it makes me question _everything_ at least twice a year.

I feel like I've asked this before and just failed to follow-up, but I cannot find evidence of this, so I ask again.

If y'all were looking for an autism spectrum disorder specialist from whom to get an adult ASD diagnosis, how would you go about finding such? (I suspect I can guess my diagnosis, but even so)

I am reasonably confident that it's _much_ harder to diagnose a) as an adult who has developed coping mechanisms, b) if one is female, and c) if one is (mostly) functional. Thus specifying both 'adult' and 'specialist'.

I also wonder how much having a sleep disorder, a mood disorder, and partial face blindness will screw with diagnosis. Heh. Because I cannot be simple. :)

La!

(and now I wonder how many people reading this are diagnosed as being on the spectrum)

I am a space alien. This makes me wonder if I should change my 'faq' tag to a 'space alien' tag. And if I have other tags which ought to be space alien tags.

I am also very fond of the book Born on the Wrong Planet, even though I don't yet own it (my mom lent it to me a while ago). And less dramatically familiar to me, Thinking in Pictures (because I don't have a visual memory or spatial awareness, and do _not_ think in pictures. Otherwise, though...)

This space alien post brought to you by another space alien.

And I was very, very, very fond of the space aliens in Sesame Street which were thoroughly startled by the grandfather clock and the phone. They don't beep, but I bet they are why I _do_ randomly start beeping.

Ok, hungry is winning, and there is work to be gone. Food now. Alienness later. Because there is always alienness.

It's really fascinating to watch how much better I am at coping with my various broken brain-ness when I actually get enough sleep.

Normally, I have _serious_ trouble with getting stuck in details and have major trouble seeing the larger picture. When I get enough sleep, however, my ability to stop drowning in details and see what higher level improvements would help things improves significantly. This is a rather good thing, since otherwise details will eventually overwhelm me badly (this is the most common reason for me to get burnt out, actually).

Yay for many bits of brain working better today, and making all sorts of 'these things really should happen, you know, and my time would be much more useful _here_ than doing those related but less useful things which would get fixed by fixing things _here_' suggestions.

I do love documenting the processes that I know well enough to explain them. 'Really, it works better this way, but no one has written it _down_ yet!' Of course, I _don't_ like trying to explain to people _why_ my way is good, so if people are actively against the idea, I tend to get annoyed and just not worry about it. On the plus side, though, where my skills are strong, this tends to not be an issue. Hell, I just had a random co-worker wander over while I was explaining what I thought needed to happen and throw more useful stuff into the conversation.

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Y'know, I'm beginning to wonder if I _care_ if the sleep med is likely to cause dependance. It's not as if I sleep well or easily without it, anyway. (tolerance would be bad, though...) I want the doctor to call me back and tell me, already!