I live in a house which is dominated by Aspie’s and Aspie’s who all have fascinations with soft feeling things no less. (Due largely in part to hyper-sensitivity issues).
The Then
For instance, when Aspie Teen was about two, he went and hid in our bedroom closet. About a full minute later, he came out holding my wife’s blue and green silk nightgown against his face like Linus from the Peanuts gang, his eyes wide open. He stood and there and proclaimed “MOM…it’s MAGIC!” And from that moment on my wife lost custody of her nightgown.
That obsession hasn’t lessened in all these past eleven years.
When Aspie Monkey Boy (the middle boy) was a baby, he received a very soft fluffy baby blanket. He would not lay on anything else besides that blanket from that point on. Not only that, but I couldn’t stop the wifey from taking it every chance she got.
Eight years later, Aspie Monke Boy will still go through the stores on shopping trips, rubbing his hands and face against soft items as he goes by.
The Now
For Christmas, Mrs. Aspie Writer got a plush purple fuzzy robe, a plush purple blanket, and VERY plush, VERY soft, fuzzy blanket that she loves to wrap around her entire body at night. (Are you sensing a recurring theme here?) Nothing else I got her this year holds a candle to those three things.
Last night, Aspie Baby climbed up on the bed where mommy was cuddled up in her two blankets. He stripped out of his soft fuzzy one piece footsie pj’s, snuggled up beside his mommy, pulled the VERY soft purple blanket around him, being very careful to leave some to rub his face against, and started watching Smurfs for the 15th time that night. (I’m starting to sing the Smurf melody in my head at work now, thank you very much).
The Debate
I personally don’t get the fascination. As long as it’s not too scratchy, I can sleep on it, wear it, whatever. However, Mrs. Aspie Writer can’ even try it on, if it doesn’t first pass the touch test. As you may imagine this can get very frustrating for me. How many clothes out there are THAT soft really? Especially prior to buying them and having them go through the wash with fabric softener a few times? And you can’t buy anything online because of this. The result is when we go shopping for clothes with my wife, (and believe it or not I like to go clothes shopping), it ends up being me pointing out outfits and her touching them and giving me “that look”.
“That look” is a combination of “what are you thinking”, “are you nuts” and “no freaking way mister” all rolled up into one sarcastic semi-belittling look. Now it’s not always ” that look”, sometimes it’s just a matter of our tastes clashing, or her not seeing herself the way I see her, and not being able to picture herself wearing something that I’ve pointed out. We’ve done this for so long now, I KNOW what the issue is most of the time and most of the time, she will remember to tell me what the issue is with a piece of clothing.
Things To Remember
Aspie’s who deal with hyper-sensitivity issues have to live through so much on a day to day basis. Imagine sitting at your house, and you hear the filaments burning in the flourescent lights, you can hear the garbage truck that’s picking up trash all the way down the road. The TV your child has on upstairs, the one that’s on downstairs, the children playing, the tock clicking, the washer/dryer going. All these sounds going SIMULTANEOUSLY since Aspies who deal with hyper sensitivity issues have no filter that can tell their brains to process these sounds individually. They have no built in Fade button like on your car stereo where you can filter more sound to the back if you want. Add on top of that the smell of the garbage can, whatever your kids are eating for lunch, the stuff down the drain in the garbage disposal, the bathroom someone just used. THEN on top of that you feel the label in the back of your tee shirt, the itchy scratchy feel of cheap fabric on your body as it rubs you every time you move. Here is a video that might help shed some light on it. (Though I’ve been told that this video still is not accurate because it introduces the sounds individually)
I believe my brain would melt and you would find me in a fetal position sucking my thumb and drooling.
Now our side of the story…We may be at work or school all day dealing with a myriad of things that really push us to the limits of our understanding, patience, will to live etc. We may work in a factory where our senses are bombarded all day or a busy office where the phone rings all day and the constant flux of foot traffic through our domain irritates the living s** out of us. At my job I supervise eight people. Our department has CONSTANT traffic through it. The doors are all locked from the inside and we have to get up and open them everytime someone wants in. My staff CONSTANTLY come ask me quetions about every little thing. My ADD brain is TRYING to focus on what I’m doing but I get interrupted constantly. Some of us may work in customer service industries which is one of the most trying places to work. We have to deal with all sorts of people from nice one’s who are a pleasure to ones that we want to follow and attack from behind. Tt the end of the day, all those things are external and we possess the ability to block it out to some level of success, but it’s VERY tiring and exasperating for us as well. It’s exhausing mentally and physically. And then we come home to have to be dad, husband, honey do-er as well. We know you’ve been run through the mill all day. But so have we.
Possible Solution
When your partner gets home…give them 20-30 minutes to unwind. Then pass the reigns over to him and get out of the house for a while. Partners who are left behind: let them go! They need time too! Come together later and discuss the challenges you went through that day and how you felt going through them. This will help both sides understand what they deal with on an daily basis, and create more empathy for each other. Aspie’s don’t lack empathy after all…they crave it. As for the fuzzy-ness. After dealing with all that stimuli can I blame my wife for using the fuzziness as a comforting tool? Of course I can’t. AND I might add that since she’s gotten the blankets, she’s sleeping more deeply and more peacefully than she has in YEARS. Unless of course Aspie Baby wakes up. LOL. We all need comfort. We all use different things to bring us that comfort…food…drink…distractions like books and tv’s or movies and music. At least with a good fuzzy blanket they can still snuggle you while simultaneously being wrapped in their fuzzy goodness.
myaspiewife 
hi this is more of a question then a comment but im desperate here 😛 so im rly hoping for an answer i searched books and stuff but this is hard!!!
im married to an aspie wife and 2 beautiful kids.
my question is based on feks todays! happening…
i went to take a shower, thought for my self yeah lets shave and feel alittle bit better.
when i started shawing from the bathroom my wife called on me from the kitchen asking if i could take ouer son. i answered, yes i will take him as soon as im done shawing (had half my face with shaving gel and hes only 7 weeks old ) so when i was done shaving i went for the baby just before i got there my wife said,,, i take him myself ( and as i felt she was kinda upset that i wasnt gonna do it, and huffed ( she claimes she said she didnt)( i feel she doesnt notice it so i know she doesnt mean any thing bad about it) but when i came back i said in a kinda stressed way that plz try not to huff evrytime u say something to me it makes me feel bad. she took this as arguing and she got realy mad at me because i have no right to yell at someone when they are making dinner for u. (i tryid to say i didnt wanna argue i just felt bad when u huffed. she got mad again and said i should not say she huff) i feel evrytime i take up something thats bothering me in a stressed way she get angry at me cause she misread stressed from angry and we end up talking about me arguing and that i felt bad in the start is forgotten and never happend…. im sooo confused. what am i doing wrong?
the question is, is this just me thats crazy im actualy starting to feel crazy cause i dont know what goes wrong :S
You’re not crazy. What might be going on is she’s not hearing or interpreting your tone correctly. This is a common Aspie trait. They don’t/can’t pick up on the different tones in people s voices or read their body language correctly.
Also, once she’s gotten into her head that you’re yelling/screaming, it can be very difficult to convince her you’re not yelling at her. This is probably one of the more frustrating aspects you’ll run across. Just be patient and pick your battles.
thx alot i actualy needed to hear that more than u can imagine or u can probobly imagine it ^^ but im rly trying to focus and read about asperger and i know alot of people bealive asperger doesnt exist but it do, it rly does 😛 i was one of them before but is it i mean 100% cant an aspie c another point of wiew on 1 thing? is it always THAT concrete i mean, feks if i say something to my wife that she might take hurtful i understand her, i even say to her i rly didnt mean it that way, but she refuse to bealive me because it said ( and for me it wasnt even ment bad) and today we are back at the same place, i say something wrong she say something hurtful ( and i know she doesnt always mean it that way) but when i even try to compare a pattern in that she say stuff that hurts me and i do the same , we both do it, doesnt mean we actualy mean it but why am i always the bad guy? cause sometimes i feel hoplessy in love with her and will do anything just to have 1 nice day with her. but i always end up feeling hurt for something she said and feeling guilty by the thing i said because i know it hert her. but she acts like it doesnt mather i got hurt in the first place ( and today i took up something that i felt was confusing and ended up like this)
im the bad guy i say bad stuff u dont mean yours im a big dumb monkey / i hope this is not how evryone ends up feeling, is there a god end to all this aspie marriage?