Getting Started

Hey everyone, I decided to start a Blog again! I'm going to try to post about different events in my life, and musings when I have enough thoughts to post (which is almost always the case) from the perspective of someone with Aspergers. Obviously I can't compare life with to life without, and anyone who's just here to figure out how to get thier AS friend/child/student/sibling/whatever to sit down and shut up will be struck with a numbing dissapointment. I'm also not going to get into a long discussion about what exactly Aspergers is, as I couldn't even retain enough interest to write about it, let alone expect you to have enough interest to read it. For more information on that, I recommend this lovely place.

What I WILL post about is common struggles I myself often go through, and how I deal with them. I'm also planning to post quite a bit on my thoughts on different subjects, hoping to start a discussion on them, or inform people of my opinions. If anyone has a specific topic they want to read or discuss here, you can email me at Sonikid@sbcglobal.net. Finally, I may occasionally post about events in my life, or things that are going on, but I'm hoping to not do too much of that, as most of my readers might have been AT events I post about.

I'll start with a few of the things that come up with me the most often. And THE number one struggle with me at the moment is concentration. Few of my friends have never had a conversation with me where I didn't zone out or lose focus (if you've talked to me and don't think I have, then it's only that I didn't tell you), and I can rarely sit through a speech, lecture, book, or sermon without my mind leaving what I'm listening to and daydreaming about some story, some memory, or some plan I might have. As far as reading goes, my main way of dealing with that when I'm alone is a kitchen timer. I set it to go off every 3-5 minutes, then set it again. If I am being particularly inattentive when reading, I lower the minutes to 1 or 2. After that, I can only zone out for a few minutes before I am suddenly reminded to get back to work.

With reading, another way I found to help me think straight is using audiobooks instead of reading. It forces me to keep moving on and not stare idly at a single paragraph for hours. The downside here is that if I do lose focus, it's harder to rewind than it is to reread. A method I sometimes use to focus for this, though this one is possibly one of the hardest to use right, is to do something that takes up enough focus that I can't be distracted, but not so much I can't ALSO think about what I'm listening to. When I listen to audiobooks, I've found it helpful to pull out my Lego bucket and build figures and robots with them. I can listen to what's being said and process it, but my brain is interested enough in the legos to wander anywhere that what I'm listening to can't follow.

Anyway, I seem to be off to an okay start with this blog. Feel free to leave a comment on whether you plan to check in here frequently, or if there's something else you want me to talk about. Look forward to hearing from you!

-Caleb