Do I have Aspergers or am I just very odd? — Scope | Disability forum
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Do I have Aspergers or am I just very odd?

serendipity123
serendipity123 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
edited October 2017 in Autism and neurodiversity
Hi, 
I find myself feeling increasingly confused about what is wrong with me. 
Do I have Aspergers like I keep thinking about and taking online tests for or am I just very odd? 
Let me just list a few of the reasons that I believe I may in fact have Aspergers.

Firstly my desire to be alone but yet to fit in. I long to fit in with others and to feel accepted and normal but it never works. I say the wrong things at the wrong times, people laugh and say I'm a one of a kind and have no filter and don't care what I say but that couldn't be further from the truth. I desperately want to fit in but I just can't. I have very few friends (I mean like 1 possibly 2 but I'm not sure if one of them is just classed as someone I sort of know now). I've had friends in the past but the friendships end and I'm not all that bothered to be honest but then on the other hands I really do want friends. A lot of my time over the years socialising (which I do roughly once or twice a month as that's what I feel comfortable with) has been involving alcohol as I feel more comfortable around people to speak when I've had a drink but now I choose not to drink I wonder what I have in common with these people. 

I feel highly uncomfortable with people in my home, it makes my whole body feel rigid and I don't know how to act or speak and people have told me in the past that they don't feel welcome in my home although I do everything I can to try and make them feel comfortable. 

Next I move onto relationships, I have had 2. My first serious relationship was at age 25. I am a lesbian and only came out at this time and I believed I loved her more than anything but I'm not sure if I was in love or just obsessed. I felt an immediate connection to her as she was a person I felt comfortable around me and I wanted around me and this progressed into a relationship after a couple of months. Things then went down hill. I was constantly obsessed with the idea that she didn't really love me. I found it hard to read her facial expressions and tones towards me. She would say things that she thought were funny and I would be very offended or she would say that I was too literal and obsessive. When we finally ended she said that the main problem was that I had zero sense of humour but was not a bad person. I found our whole relationship overwhelming and didn't understand the norms of being in a couple of I'm perfectly honest and then I was obsessed with our breakup for about 8 months afterwards until I met my current partner.

My current partner and me have been together now for almost 2 years and I am now 29. 
I love her very much and she sais she loves me which I believe. We are planning to get married next year and plans are going forward and being made. 

She understands me more than anyone ever has and has made me so much more aware of myself but any arguments/disagreements we have are always due to a lack of my understanding and/or coming across as rude when I say things when I really don't think I am most of the time. Sometimes I can see her point eventually but sometimes I just can't. 

Im very pedantic about things and this amongst other things makes her believe I have an anxiety disorder but it doesn't feel that way to me. I need to follow certain routines and do things a specific way because that's just how it is. I don't need to have control of things but I need things to be done just how they should be because why would you do things any other way?! 

She has two dogs and I can slightly bare the small one as she's a chihuahua but the large one is a sprocket spaniel and he's messy and boundy and jumps and runs about touching people and wanting to be really close to them and I just cannot stand it so we came to a compromise that when we are at my home they stay in the kitchen (it's large) with a stair gate across the doorway and I cope to a reasonable level with that. 

The thing is I love cats... REALLY love them and I can cope with anything a cat does and it must be really hard for my partner to see me be so off with her dogs but I just hate big boundy dogs they give me a feeling I can only describe as being forced involuntarily to sit in a room with a thousand wasps if you have a wasp phobia! 

I found it so hard to adjust to not doing everything I usually do when we were first together because I understand compromise in a relationship but it really got to me so much that on 2 occasions I broke up with her.

I really don't know why she loves me at times I'm so lucky! 

The thing she hates most about me is that when I feel sad or uncomfortable I close myself off from talking, eye contact, everything going and I go within myself sometimes for weeks. I am better now mostly not lasting for more than one day but that is because of her but sometimes I want to do that so much because it's comfort for me, I can't explain why but solitude feels like I can breathe. I truly believe I'd be more than fine solitary for the rest of my life but if I say that to her it hurts her allot. I try to explain that I love her and I want to marry her and be with her forever too but sometimes I long to be alone and just feel like I can breathe and it has nothing to do with anybody but me. 

Next I move onto work, I have a job, Amy current job I've been employed with for 3 years now. I work night shifts in the care field. I hold my job down and I'm partly good at what I do but I have my routines that I follow at work that I work to every night no matter who I'm working with. It seems to work ok but I have no friends at work. I can make polite chit chat and consider myself friendly toward my colleagues but I'm definitely a bit of a loner that's not a loner of that makes sense? I definitely prefer it that way but then I worry how others view me. I feel bad for the people I work with at times (the ones I am caring for) as I'm not the best people person at times although I find it so much easier with my elderly residents I panic that I'm not providing enough decent conversation.

I say all this but I don't know if this is completely how I come across to others but I am very good at putting up an act. I can pretend to feel comfortable for a short time and short amounts of time is all I really spend with anyone other than my partner. My partner laughs and sais I'm odd and am pedantic and laughs at me for my obsessions with things but I just KNOW she understands and loves me although I feel I may have Aspergers and she's convinced I have anxiety and I think she's wrong there but I do worry slightly that she just doesn't want a girlfriend with Aspergers I'm not sure. 

I mentioned previously my obsessions. I wouldn't say obsessions completely, I understand it comes across that way to others and I laugh with her as to avoid embarrassment sometimes but to me they're my likes and preferences. She laughs that I'm obsessed with my local supermarket but I just prefer it. I don't want to shop anywhere else. I know where everything is and pretty much exactly how much everything costs to the penny for when I'm planning my weeks meals and costs. It's not that I'm worried or anxious about not going there because I have a weird fear of other shops but that's where I go and where I like so why would I go anywhere else? 

She also laughs because I get ideas like laminating things for the house and people and then I plan every day to laminate things I make and spend whole evenings laminating but I don't really class that as odd? 

I constantly wonder, wonder would be the right word opposed to worry, how others view me and I struggle to read how people feel sometimes with their facial expressions and I seem to get people's tone wrong sometimes and I don't know why I find it so hard. 
I've done a few Asperger online quiz/tests now and they always come back that my score is in the very high range and I likely have Aspergers/ASD and I don't know why they'd say that if it wasn't true? 

I'd to add that although I don't see her my mum has either severe learning disabilities or is on the spectrum, I don't see my dad but I do have a brother. We have a close(ish) relationship but he's forever getting mad at me and saying I'm just so rude and insensitive and it upsets me so much because I don't understand why he thinks that? 

I have 2 children, my eldest boy is 11 and I am personally convinced he is mildly on the spectrum, he's very "quirky" and has certain dislikes like getting dirty and will have a meltdown if it happens and struggles with social awkwardness and is also very perticular and routine and hates it to be different or for things to change. But he really is amazing and a one of a kind little human and I feel that I understand him fully and we are very close. 

My youngest boy is 8 and was diagnosed at 7 with ADHD with asd traits and a possible sensory processing disorder. 

I don't know if that makes it easier for people to give me an opinion but maybe it will. 
Sorry if I've rambled on but this is how my brain is all the time. It's exhausting. 
Thank you for taking the time to read my post if you managed to get this far. 

Comments

  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,671 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @serendipity123 thanks so much for sharing - I have moved your post to the Ask and ASD advisor page where I hope you can get some feedback, but as with everything on here, just remember that people can only give opinions and if you want to know more about your health, going to chat to your GP is the best place to start.
    Scope
    Senior online community officer
  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,671 Disability Gamechanger
    @VioletFenn can you help?
    Scope
    Senior online community officer
  • VioletFenn
    VioletFenn Community member Posts: 124 Pioneering
    edited December 2017
    Hi @serendipity123 

    I have to say that everything you describe sounds very familiar to me as an autistic woman! Obviously no one can diagnose you from a distance - not even a medical expert - but the signs are certainly there. Whether you look into getting a diagnosis or not is obviously entirely up to you, but it might help just to know one way or another? It certainly helped me - I was diagnosed 18 months ago at the age of 46 - just because I then knew it wasn't just me being difficult, if that makes sense?

    Your partner sounds kind and supportive - I'd imagine that she might herself find it helpful to know if there's a reason behind your occasionally 'different' behaviour (which I'm sure feels more extreme to you than it does to those around you!).

    There is some good advice from the National Autistic Society here. If you decide to go ahead and seek a diagnosis then your first stop would be your GP, who can refer you. 

    Oh and for what it's worth, I'm firmly of the belief that the things that make us different are the things that make us more interesting ;)

    Violet
    ASD advisor, Scope 

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