my ADD-PI: stimming and prosopagnosia (difficulty recognising faces)

[belenen]

icon: "ADD-PI (two electromicroscope photos of crystallized acetylcholine, overlaid & warped in several ways)"Some people say ADD is on the autism spectrum, and I certainly see a lot of similarities between my experience as an ADD person and other people's experiences with autism. Someone with autism mentioned having trained out their stimming

Comments

[tatjna]

Quite a lot of this resonated with me, especially the stuff about stimming, but I've always put it down to having OCD rather than any autism-spectrum stuff. I don't know a lot about it though.

The other day I did a class with someone new, and after the class I ran into her waiting at a crossing. She'd taken her ponytail out and I totally snobbed her because I didn't recognise her, until I saw the shirt she was wearing. It's very embarrassing recognising people by their clothes before their faces..

[sammason]

I'm so glad to have e-met you. Won't hijack your thread here with detail of my own difficulty recognising faces, but indeed it's disabling. Seems rude. I don't at all want to be blind but in that particular way, I feel as though people known to be blind have an advantage.

I wonder whether there's a spectrum of stimming. Pretty much everybody does self-comforting behaviours. In fact, I've heard that it's one of the ways to read whether somebody's lying. Good actors can show that their characters are lying by scratching the back of their own necks. People also communicate whether of not they fancy each other by unconscious stimming.

[atmilliways]

I count steps. Usually up to some number I consider significant, like 7, 14, 100, or multiples of five, usually with a preference toward even numbers. I remember doing that a lot as a kid, too.

[soundofsunlight]

I also count steps, especially when I'm stressed. I hadn't even thought of that until just now. Sometimes I don't notice things that I do instinctively until someone else mentions it.

[rotating]

i was literally twirling my hair as I started reading your entry. i was immediately chastened, but then i read on and felt better. my family is alwayyysss on my case about this and says it makes me look ditzy, but I can't control it and feel so embarrassed when they (frequently) call me out.

i count steps too!

your thoughts about face-blindness are so interesting. my mom and i for some reason both have very visual memory and are very good at recognizing faces. my dad has always been ATROCIOUS at it and would basically not recognize his own family members most of the time. my mom and i have always sort of thought of it as an something inconsiderate on his part - this is really eye-opening for me! i would definitely think i wasn't important to someone if they didn't immediately recognize me, but i really shouldn't judge people or assume they're not thoughtful just because their memory works differently from mine. :x the 2d/3d aspect of this is really fascinating!