Will this explain my childhood?

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I'm here for the first time seeking answers. I hope I can get a few replies here.

I don't have any kind of diagnosis for Asperger's syndrome.
I am a (soon to be) 26 year old, (technically 25 with less than 2 months to go) female.
I have a boyfriend who I've been with for five years, and he's frustrated to no end with me.
He says I don't know how to communicate, I resort to name-calling during fights because I can't give examples to back my side of the arguments.
He says that I spend too much time on my computer. He says that I get angry too easily and take everything too personally.
I apparently come off overly sensitive but don't care about things that he thinks I should; politics and how they affect people, news articles, riots in other lands, etc.
He thinks I'm cold and heartless. And I don't really have much interest in physical contact.

We're having a rough spot in our relationship and so I've been trying to figure out why I behave the way I do and how to fix it.
I don't understand why he feels the way he does a lot of the time, even if he explains it to me. It just doesn't make sense.

He claims that I'm depressed all the time, and I'm not.
I am sometimes very, deeply lonely because I have no friends and he doesn't share any of the same interests as me.

He needs constant reassurance that I love him, and I feel that he's just being needy and clingy and silly.
I don't spend all day, everyday asking him if he still loves me.

So, I feel as though I'm typing far too much.

My questions are pertaining to things such as testing, symptoms, doctors...
I'm somewhat afraid of doctors and so the thought of seeing a psychologist or therapist somewhat terrifies me.
I don't know what I would say to a stranger. I feel as though I would probably be inclined to lie just to remain within my comfort zone.

I have taken all of the online assessments that I could find - and they all point to the likelihood that I could have Asperger's.
However, I loathe the idea of accepting this and self-diagnosing because I'm not an expert and I've been taught not to believe everything you see, hear, or read in the news, television, movies, or internet. I also don't know the reliability of these sources.

I am interested in knowing what behaviors/symptoms/whatever are truly indicative of Asperger's.
My boyfriend things it might do me good to see a doctor and be tested. He also worries that if I am diagnosed, I will be open to manipulation.
He thinks I might start believing I should change my behaviors/mannerisms/beliefs to fit what a psychologist or "professional" tells me.
I also feel concerned that were I NOT to receive a formal diagnosis, but rather be told I'm normal, I might actually fall to a bout of depression.
Through all of my reading/research, I've come to wonder if this could explain my inability to make friends though I want to and try SO hard.
That it might explain why I was bullied in school - and just why my childhood was so hard, in general.

What kind of questions should I be asking myself?
What kinds of behaviors should I be looking for?

I appreciate anyone who read this long-winded post.
I also appreciate any help and any GENUINE responses to my concerns.

Some of what you said sounds autistic, I'm particularly looking at how your boyfriend says your depressed all the time even though your not - because we tend to have facial expressions that seem blank and fixed to others and we don't even realise.
You say he needs to be reminded often that you love him, this is also somewhat autistic given that we are not very affectionate in an overt way.

Heres some things you should think about, some of them might seem unusual or random, bare with me.

* Do you have intense interests? passionate interests?
* Do you walk on your toes?
* Do you have a bad sleeping pattern?
* Do you have trouble describing your emotions or the emotions of others based on facial expression?
* Are you extra sensetive/under sensetive to light, sound, touch, smell or taste?
* Are you clumsy? Bad hand writing?
* Have people told you you were rude, even though you don't think you were rude?
* Do you prefer animals to people?
* Do you make repetitive movements like rocking back and forth, vibrating your legs, flapping your hands - to sooth yourself?

You might be somewhere on the autism spectrum if you say yes to most of this.

The best thing to do would be to go to a doctor that you trust. Don't be scared of doctors.

@Phonic

I don't think my interests are so intense that they might be called obsessive. But my boyfriend disagrees.
I studied martial arts when I was younger, so I developed an interest in Japanese.
In college, I minored in Japanese and watched a lot of Japanese shows online to improve my listening and comprehension.
I'll admit I was a little extreme with those... as I might watch a full series (12-16 episodes) in one day, at an hour long each, and then turn right around and start another.
I'm currently trying to teach myself Korean as well.

When I was working on a website a year or so ago, my boyfriend got really upset with me because he said he felt like he was forcing me to stop to eat and that he had to drag me away from my computer at 5 or 6 am because I wouldn't go to bed. But I was just trying to fix some broken coding. I'm not really even into web design, I just wanted the site functional for my own personal use.

And since I'm a writer, I will sit and work on my novels for 6-8 hours straight and become furious when interrupted. Still, that's what I went to college for, so I see it as working on my career.

I don't walk on my toes... My mother curls hers under her feet when she's sitting on stools or certain types of chairs, and I have that same habit.
Other wise, I'll say no to this one.

By sleeping pattern, do you mean routine? I have an 8-5 job, and so I make myself go to bed at midnight (or 1) every night, though I'm not tired.
And though I set my alarms to wake early, I am always 5-15 minutes late for work no matter how hard I try to fix it. This really upsets me because I worry that it angers some of my co-workers who do get there on time (even though my boss doesn't mind at all, luckily.) But during weekends or breaks, I stay up all night long and sleep all day - doing both based simply on whenever I get tired or whenever I feel like waking up.

As far as my emotions are concerned, I feel like I express myself as well as anyone else. I cry a lot and when I get angry, I do get really angry. But my boyfriend and some friends have told me that I don't know how to handle anger, I repress it and bottle it up, and that I don't know how to explain how I'm feeling without getting frustrated and resorting to crying or name-calling. I don't totally agree with that...though there have been cases of it.

Last night, my boyfriend and I both took the "Theory of Mind" (i think it was?) Eye test for adults? And he got all but one of them correct, and I only got 5 correct. So we seem to be in agreement that I can't read emotions based on eyes alone (They all looked bored to me.)

There are only small things really in terms of my sensory perceptions. I am and always have been a terribly picky eater, my mother used to have to cook me a separate dinner from my brothers and dad. I would scream if she tried to put socks on me that had seams running along the edges of my toes. I cannot be near scratchy wool and itchy tags in clothing always come out. My boyfriend cannot give me light touches or I start to itch wherever he's touching.

My mother and I go to musical theatre quite frequently, and I have to plug my ears when people applaud behind me or whistle or if the performers sing too high. Otherwise, it feels like the sound hits my ear drum and I'll pitch sideways as if hit by sudden vertigo.

And also, I can't sleep if it's silent. My ears begin to ring until I have a pounding headache and can't sleep because it hurts too much. I sleep with my ipod and my boyfriend lately has taken to informing me that I'm damaging my ears by not giving them time to "reset" and that my hearing will suffer by the time I'm 40. I simply can't sleep without music though. Never have been able to.

In terms of coordination, I'm quite good and bad at the same time. I'm very active and played a lot of sports growing up. As I mentioned, I did martial arts; I also played baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. I'm also good at darts and tennis and air hockey. However, ever since I was a little girl I constantly would walk into doors, walls, trip over my own feet, hit desks, tables....I'm always waking up with bruises with no idea how I got them.

My handwriting is very neat. Not beautiful, but everyone seems to like it. I was criticized in middle school by my teachers, who accused me of writing "too tiny" in order to "get back at them" for who knows what. So, I had to learn to write large. I never could do cursive, and that is quite sloppy. But my combination of cursive/print that I do today is considered very eat and legible by everyone I know.

Rather than being called rude...I've been told I'm extremely blunt. Though this was from friends and it may have been their way of telling me politely that I'm rude without hurting my feelings. I've always been terribly concerned with being rude - and I go out of my way to not offend someone. As such, I've been taken advantage of and walked on and bullied all through middle school, high school, and even sometimes today in the workplace. This is mostly because I'd rather take it than hurt someone.

I love animals. I had a horse when I was little - and promptly began collecting everything "horse" related. I rode all the time, I read all of the fiction books about horses I could find (such as Bill Wallace's "Beauty".) I have always had dogs and would be completely lost without them. I have two now and would take in more if my boyfriend would allow it. In fact, the only reason we have one of them is because she was a stray that an acquaintance found and if he couldn't find her a home, the pound was going to put her down.
But yes, my boyfriend's parents have six dogs and he says I spent more time "talking to them" than I do talking to his family.

I don't rock, that I'm aware of. I bounce my leg but I'm also high energy, so I have to fidget or I'd never be able to sit still. I was fascinated with pen-spinning, and so I watched several youtube videos until I could do it, so now I constantly spin pens at work so that I can sit still.

And I'm not sure if I was being asked to reply with the answers or if you were just telling me to consider them.
I only just realized after typing all of that, that you might not actually care what the answers were.

But if you do have any feedback after all that, then thanks!

Interesting. You should print this and show it to your doctor and see what s/he has to say. It's worth looking into it.

Hello and welcome! Try taking this questionnaire(I think the questions start on page 9) and let me know what you got. Also, you can take it to your doctor as well, in addition to what you wrote here. Print it out and try to take the test very quickly at first in pencil without thinking too much thought about the answers. Good luck.

http://aspdx.org/doc/RivtoAdultASDTest[1].pdf

Here's a common misconception: having Asperger's means you are a clear cut of all of the symptoms and impairments that Asperger's entails. You are flat, dull, lacking empathy. You hate change. Change makes you anxious. You're gait (style of walking) is awkward, clumsy. You're able to focus extremely well at one thing, to the point where you don't see the outline of it (like staring at a table but you don't see the corners). Tunnel vision.

The truth is, everybody is designed differently when it comes to chemistry and brain structure. Same with Asperger's. Not every Aspie has all of these symptoms. Not every Aspie is like Adam (from the movie). Me, I'm trying to diagnose myself, because I feel that there is something about me that sets me apart from normal people.

When I say "normal" I mean people that don't think too much about things, don't get overwhelmed as easy, can enjoy intercourse (without thinking about it or getting anxious). People that don't get trapped deep in their head. People that have it easier. People that don't talk about themselves too much. People that can handle multiple things at the same time, without getting overstimulated.

Basically I am describing my frustration. I am a one-task, one thing at a time kind of person. I have to complete simple Gestalts, one at a time. If I try to think of more than three things at once, my brain freezes. It gets uncomfortable. My mind adjusts to too many things by becoming tunnel vision. That's my way of coping, by going inward. It's depressing..

Does this describe someone with Aspergers? Does this describe me?

Oh by the way I'm new to Wrong planet. I hope you can join me in this discussion, I'm looking for answers as to why I'm wired the way I am.

Looking back at home videos from my childhood, I noticed this stare I had. I would always look down, with an opaque look in my eyes. It took me a while to respond when my mom and dad called my name. I had trouble adjusting to new things, like riding a bike, because my mind was taking in too much. I could just tell, there is something wrong with this kid.

You know who I blame? My mom's obstetrician when I was born. The guy was supposed to perform a C-section on my mom, but decided not to. So here I am, stuck in the womb, losing oxygen. The man takes his hands, grabs my head, and forces me out. Like shoves me out of the tube. The bastard could have given me possible brain damage by doing this, and this might be why I am wired the way I am. Why I've had to suffer through transitions. Because of that stupid gynocologist.

i must say, most of the answers you posted are either common among autistics/aspergers or even a diagnostic criterium.

as for the fear of doctors; i have that too, but when i went to a psychiatrist lately, it felt really good. since everything you say there stays in that room, and once you realise that, you can let everything flow out, get it out of your system, which feels great.

also, getting diagnosed does not make you more prone to manipulation, it actually shields you from it.
once you know what your 'problem' (used in the widest sense possible) is, you can start working around them or, at the very least, be aware and therefor less affected by them. also, an official diagnosis can get you into several helping programs offered by your local authority, as well as financial compensation for said programs.

If I weren't a behavioral science student surrounded by fantastic disability advocacy professors to lend their advice, I'd probably have blown a gasket a by now; the revelation of ASD's likely application to myself is only two months young, and your ruminations pretty precisely match my own (even after taking the first few steps into the diagnostic process). The thought of seeing a professional about the matter scared the living daylights out of me at first. Still does, really. I'm terrified of losing my sense of self-concept in the wake of "management," or even worse, the thought that maybe my self-consuming suspicions were somehow misguided from the start. But, I know I have to get this uncertainty out of my system at some point. I broke my usual tendency of being only ~10 to 15 minutes late to EVERYTHING by being a whopping half hour late to my intake interview (aka, I missed half of my appointment); I was wildly scatterbrained that morning from anxiety, and the hazy-cloud-coverage-induced migraine didn't do any favors. Missing highway exits can be a b***h... I guess the point I'd like to make is to keep your faith. No one can know your mind better than yourself, and anticipating the potential for a margin of error is only the offspring of neuroticism mated with knowledge

Welcome!

Welkome to WrongPlanet.

The WP Kink

IMO, from my own experience, it is worthwhile to get diagnosed as an adult if cost isn't the main factor. It can only help you better understand yourself and your bf to better understand how you think. It may also give you some insights into what your individual strengths and weaknesses as each Apsie is different. If you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met one person with Asperger's

Just my two cents,
Allie Kat

When I read your post I was so relieved that I'm not the only one questioning if I really have Aspergers. I'm 29, will be 30 this year. It all started with my son [he's now 10] being diagnosed with Autism when he was 5. That was when I began reading the DSM books and finding out as much as I could about ASD's. The more I found out about it, I cried my eyes out. Though I did not get medically diagnosed, these resources had the answers I had been looking for forever. I had no clue, never knew why I was different. I knew deep down that something was amiss. That was when I began to put together the pieces of the puzzle...why I had little success in finding a career, not being able to bond with my co-workers, feeling super stressed working in fast paced industries. Why I never had a real boyfriend, why I never had friends, why I felt so awkward and out of place, why I felt I was taken advantage of in many situations. I dug deeper and thought about more stuff that had happened in my life. Of course, while I struggled through my teens and 20's I often wondered why I wasn't at the same pace as my sister [who's a year older] and other people in my age group.