Why did I wait so long?

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Hello, my name is William Peckham and I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 1998 but was unaware of it until 2009.

After being informed by an Army recruiter that I was autistic and therefore barred from enlisting I hit a huge rut in my life that almost ended in my suicide, but the day I was going to do the deed an old friend of mine who I had not spoken to in a few years came up to me and asked me to hang out for a bit and introduced me to a social circle that made me rethink my decision to end it all and showed me that some people would be willing to accept me, at least that little circle of an inland surfer, a schizophrenic, and bipolar gay man would anyway, but that was still three more people than I had before. We were really close for a while, and being a group of stoners, social activity was consistent and relaxed. eventually, people being who they are, social schisms came about and they all hate each other so I lost by stable social circle and learned to prefer the people I met online over those of meatspace. I got into tabletop roleplay eventually and through that met the girl of my dreams. She was introduced to me because her friend knew her parents had her screened for autism in the past and although she was only considered borderline spectrum, we still shared many mental traits and mannerisms such as mumbling sentences back to ourselves after speaking and having spent our K-12 years living in elaborate fantasies in our heads rather than risking social interaction. Meeting her and winning her heart was the biggest boost of social confidence I ever felt, and it inspired me to go to school to learn to help young children with autism so that they could get more help in school than I did. She knew I was autistic, and she still loved me for it, even taking offense at a woman who had the audacity to tell her she shouldn't waste her time with me because she was pretty and smart and could do better. Unfortunately, after two happy years together without a single conflict she dumped me out of nowhere by blocking me on social media and refusing to speak to me in person. In the three months since then all of the progress I had made getting more comfortable with people has eroded and the people who I once thought were my friends at game turned their backs on me in favor of the girl who wears cute outfits and bakes them cookies, many of them won't even speak to me in-character anymore. The only service they ever provided me after the split was to tell me that she dumped me for being too autistic and that I was not allowed to interact with her in any fashion at game unless it was with hand-written notes. Now I am alone except for a few friends who live far away and my mother who worries greatly for me.

I've known about this website for a few years, but I always figured it wasn't worth my time to investigate since I was making progress on my own, but now I know I was wrong. So very, very wrong. I'm so sorry I neglected you, my brethren. I should have come here as soon as I heard of my diagnosis, or even beforehand so I could have learned to understand the plights you all live through every day and informed the ignorant masses so that maybe they could sympathize rather than dehumanizing us and using our condition as a derogatory term.

I love you all.

Nice to hear that.

Cool

sorry for your loss. especially that all the friends seem to have flown the coop with her. you have proven that you can make friends. it will happen again. don't let your grief interfere with your studies if you can help it. welcome to WP.

Hi ya and Welcome!

Welcome

I'm sorry to hear about your break up. If it helps, I've lost partners over reasons beyond my control as well.

One in particular left me because I was 'too nice'. They said I should have been more stern on their bad behaviour, so apparently them playing up was my fault.

I was still new to the concept of dating, so wasn't sure how to act in a relationship. I'm guessing my Aspie logical way of thinking was the problem here, as I believed the logical way to be in a relationship, was to be a grown up, and act like one; treating the other person with mutual respect, without the need for them to take on a parental role.

This seems to be a common theme in all my relationships, although I could just be picking the wrong people to enter in to a relationship with, I'm not sure. I used to pick people on how well we could relate to one another, as opposed to how well I thought they'd behave.

Of course at the time I didn't know anything about Aspergers, and so hadn't suspected I could have it. Now that I know about AS, and how it effects me, I feel better equipped at trying again to find someone out there.

@Hart: At least I know that being logical hasn't just caused me problems, though I hate to hear that is the case. I don't get why so many people seem to only want emotional fortification and not logical advice, not even a balance of the two. I even have male friends that freak out at me for not lying to them when they are making bad decisions, they say they want sympathy and that somehow me telling them how I think they can handle a situation to make it better is telling them their opinion is wrong. At least they told you why, even if it was a totally nonsensical reason. It actually sounds like they were shifting blame to alleviate their guilt, but as a total outsider I barely have a picture of the situation so I am merely speculating. Still, I feel for you.

@cathylynn: I'm going to do what I can in school, and my advisor is going to ask the student I feel most comfortable with in my Abnormal Psychology class to give me math tutoring since the tutors employed by my college only know how to teach people who already have a degree of competence in mathematics and I have never passed a math class in my life. Thank you for the encouragement.

@1401b: Howdy

Welcome