Looking for 2 other roommates who want to live to MPA for the Fall 2006/Spring2008. Katie already lives there so we just need 2 other people for her to keep the apartment. We are both very easy going and enjoy playing sports. Katie is deaf and mostly uses sign language to communicate so if you want a deaf roommate come on down! haha If you don’t know sign that won’t be a problem because I know sign and will be able to
interpret. Let me know asap if you are interested. Thanks!
I am looking for deaf roommate, I have 2 hearing roommate already. I like to have deaf so i can talk eaiser. I will graduate next year. So it will be fine. please contact me
but it would not be fair to the deaf community to pretend to be deaf. i’m merely looking for creative options. all right, let’s try googling “asperger’s roommate”.
Local program helping those with Asperger’s Syndrome:
Even though they’re smart, they often can’t hold jobs because they can’t get through the typical small talk in an employment interview. Friendships and intimate relationships often elude them, and even renting an apartment can be a daunting task.
aint that the truth. this additional quote from that article made me laugh:
They tend to be very literal in their speech, says Betsey Parlato, president of Chapel Haven. “If you say it’s raining cats and dogs, they look around for the animals.”
many of the nonsensical things people say bug me, cuz they don’t make any sense, but “raining cats and dogs” always cracks me up.
hunh, this blog is by someone who has asperger’s syndrome, has roommates, and lives in the bay area. i didn’t know.
i know my friend lb has lived with roommates, big noisy houses, and even gotten girlfriends and her now partner thru them. how in the heck she managed that, i don’t know.
another page has a few quotes about people with autism’s experiences with roommates:
Having your own room is HUGE because it’s the only way you can “escape” the other people when you need to. It was necessary for me to regroup periodically in order to be able to be social. That is only possible if you have your own “space” to escape to.heh, I just would dissapear into the adirondack wildreness all afternoon, sometimes even at night, which is awsome but u cant get any work done hiding, i did alot of the library thing, and tended to do more school work for projects, essasy, ect then normal, resulting in good grades, i just hated not being able to go ‘home’ because some dude was in that 15′X15′ room with me.
i feel the same way living with roommates. i hole up in my room, shutting myself in, won’t come out hardly at all, because i need that space, private space, all my own, not disturbed. all the while realizing how hermit-ish and weird i’m appearing to whatever roommates i have, i can just imagine them thinking, “what is *wrong* with her? is it so hard to be social?” yes, it is, thank you for asking.
while i’m at this, i should probably go into the general problems i have sharing housing with housemates:
in order to get anything done, i have to have things precisely arranged. if i’m expected to clean the bathroom, i need to have a mop specifically just for the bathroom at all times, waiting to be used, and cleaning problem, in the bathroom, easily accessible, in a way that’s efficient and makes sense. same with the kitchen. ideally, each room has its own cleaning tools, otherwise i get too lost going from room to room, i somehow can’t get myself to use a bottle of cleaner from a room far across the house. i am a very picky eater, with a rather limited diet, and i specifically buy food that’s very ordered and particular in my mind, with recipes and meals already planned, and once i’ve got the concept in my mind, it’s hard for me to let go. no, i don’t want to share meals, and no, i don’t want you eating my food, though i know some people in this world really are into that commune-type living; rock on, free spirit. i, however, have precisely arranged my food items in the refrigerator, and i have photographed, in my mind, the exact placement of all my items on their various shelves, and they’re perfectly aligned, and every time i go into the refrigerator and see my stuff has been moved, i have to move it back into the “right” position.
you talking on your phone in your room. you walking down the hall. you with your music on in your room. you with the tv on in the living room. you making food in the kitchen. you shutting doors. you making bathroom noises. you coughing. you sneezing. you scratching your head. you setting your cup down on the dining room table. you opening the front door. i am excruciatingly aware of absolutely everything you do, the noise is all pervasive, i can’t escape it, i have to have my vornado fan set on high, with its industrial noise, to block out all your noise, to give me peace. this stresses me out. i know you’re not a bad person for being human, for making human noises, but my hypersensitivity has made me realize that it’s really a good idea to find my own place, some place quiet and clean and my own.
your pubic hair in the toilet, your pee stains, you blowing your nose, your foul toothpaste crud on the sink. i know we’re all human animals, but i’m not sleeping with you, so i’d rather not deal with your wadded up toilet paper on a daily basis, i mean, that’s just a little bit too close, given i barely know you. =)
communication problems. as i’ve mentioned before, i think that most “normal” people communicate using body language, hints, hidden symbols, or something, but expressly most peoples’ communication is not contained in the actual words they use. most things that people say, they really don’t mean anything, if you analyze their words, sentence patterns. i will stand in a kitchen, a roommate trying to communicate something to me, but the words he’s using aren’t making any sense, and he’s contradicting himself, and i try to ask questions so i can understand what he really means, and he looks at me like i’m deliberately causing trouble, why am i making this so difficult… this gets old fast. i don’t like feeling like i’m a bad person, unfriendly, unsocial, causing trouble, when all i’m trying to do is communicate clearly and effectively. for so many years i really did feel that there was something wrong with me, that i was a bad person. now i simply know the inapplicability.
i need my routine in order to be happy. everything’s very specific, the items in my room are precisely arranged, organized by color, texture, shape, everything is cleared away, lifted off the floor, because i don’t like clutter. i am aware of every wall surface, every shadow, the way the light feels falling on me, the passing of sunlight and clouds outside the window, it’s all arranged into a rhythm, and there i am in that rhythm, and unmolested, i can feel at peace, create my own safe world, my haven, my retreat. but if i’ve got housemates in that space, i can’t feel that peace, i’m too easily distracted, too hyperconscious of everything surrounding me and it’s… stressful, really, i don’t know how else to describe it.
and the problem with this situation is that people with asperger’s syndrome oftentimes will have frequent gaps in employment, trouble pulling things together financially, and many times can’t afford to get their own place, or simply can’t manage it. when you’re struggling just to survive on the bus to get to work (noise! crowds! people! people clipping their fingernails! run, run for the hills, flailing your hands!), and sitting at your desk is like being in a hyperpitched battlezone, it really drains you, you give all you give just to get thru each day, it’s hard to kick it up a notch, treat yourself like a first-class citizen.
all right, that last paragraph was a little too “woe is me” even for me.
“i know my friend lb has lived with roommates, big noisy houses, and even gotten girlfriends and her now partner thru them. how in the heck she managed that, i don’t know.”
I don’t know either! In some ways, it worked pretty well though. I always had my own room that I could hide in which is what i did most of the time. I also lived with people i knew and who knew more or less how i am.
I didn’t have to leave the house to be social. that was a pretty huge thing. Even though I liked to be alone most of the time, it was realy nice to know that I could always leave my room and find people to hang out with if i wanted to. I also felt safe because I knew that if there was ever some kind of emergency, there were people around to help.
I did run into some of the same problems that you do especially about house cleaning, sharing food, and people moving my dang fake hot dogs out of the particular corner where they have to live in order for all to remain right with the world.
“sitting at your desk is like being in a hyperpitched battlezone”
not sure what to say about that except that it perfectly explains something i have never been able to find the words for. thank you.
“and people moving my dang fake hot dogs out of the particular corner where they have to live in order for all to remain right with the world.”
every time i read that, or even think about it, i bust up laughing. oh, that the entire fate of the world depends on the precise arrangements of fake hot dogs. not only that, but i completely understand. =)