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Hi, my name is Jeff. I've always wondered my whole life why I just couldn't seem to talk to people. I've always gotten stuck on certain subjects, I can't even count the number of people who have asked me "don't you ever talk about/do anything else?"

Then I started reading about Asperger's and I couldn't help but laugh. It was almost like reading my own biography.

Just out of random curiosity I took the Simon Baron-Cohen test online (evidently I'm not aloud to post urls yet, but google is your friend) , and scored a 46, and that was giving myself the benefit of doubt on some of the questions where i felt my real answers were somewhere between the choices provided.

So here I am. I'm 25, married, holding a job. My job is luckily in one of my fields of interest otherwise it would be extremely difficult. My wife has a very hard time with my difficulty in reading her emotions and my tendency to run on speaking for longs periods of time, covering multiply issues without giving her time to respond, also my extreme reactions (in her mind, they feel justified to me) to being interrupted.


No official diagnosis as I have no health insurance and little extra money to pay doctors with.

Sorry if this seems rambling and incoherent, but then again I suspect there are other people on here whose minds work like mine and this wont seems odd at all.


Jeff

Edited to fix a typo before i went completely insane over it.

Last edited by vt420 on 24 Aug 2008, 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome to WP!

Hi Jeff!

It sounds as though you have done really well. There is lots of discussion about relationships and employment here!

Magliabechi.

I've always been able to reason my way around the stuff i can't do intuitively, it just takes me longer than nt's who don't have to think about it.


my relationship with my wife is on the rocks partially because of some of my aspie tendencies though. Part of me wishes I was in the position to be able to get a formal diagnosis, but then again I don't know what good it would actually do me.




I get so frustrated with myself sometimes, I can mentally understand what I should be doing or saying in a social situation but in the moment it's just not what comes out.


I've always done well with technical things and number and horribly with people. The people part of my current job is by far the most difficult. I work in an auto parts store, which is great from one side in that one of the fields I obsess on is cars, but then the social skills issues, and my lack of patience for people who don't know what they're talking about rear their ugly heads whenever I'm dealing with customers.



ugh.... more rambling. I should just go to bed. Not that I'll be able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. but it's worth a shot i guess...



Jeff

Hello, Jeff, and welcome to Wrong Planet.

yo

welcome to wp. how did you get to know your wife so early in your life?

Hi Jeff

Your story sounds all too familiar to mine in many ways.

There are some good books out there on relationships like 'The other half of Asperger's Syndrome'. You both need to read them and it's your wife that needs to understand AS and decide whether she wants to try to cope with it as Aspies don't change. I know, I've tried so many times.

Welcome

Hi Jeff, welcome to WP

pure luck. I originally met her in high school, but we never really got to know each other then. We ran into each other one night when I was trying to force myself to have some social interaction at a coffee shop (and not doing so well) and talked the whole rest of the night and it just kind of went from there. We've been married 4 years now and have a 3 y/o daughter. Not to sound cliche but, she is my rock, other than 1 friend I have with a lot of the same traits and tendencies as me, she's the one who comes closest to actually understanding me. Not that she always likes it, but she seems to get it most of the time. Among "normal" people noone else has ever shown me so much understanding and patience.

Jeff

Jeff, you are one of the luckiest aspies I know.

well, thank you. It's still not all smooth sailing, both in our relationship and the rest of my life. The process of finding and getting a job is absolute torture for me. It took me a long time to convince her that it wasn't just laziness and lack of motivation too. Even going in some place and asking for an application of giving someone my resume if awful, let alone following up and interviewing. 99% of the time I'm sure I end up coming across as disinterested if not downright rude, but it's just that it's so hard for me to talk to people. And of course I don't know I'm doing it at the time. I've been lucky in the jobs I've managed to get, most of them haven't required much in the way of interaction with the general public.

I'm kind of afraid of coming across as a fake without a real diagnosis, the only person in my life I've talked to about AS is my wife, and even that only recently. I was screened multiple times for ADD as a child, and every time it was either they psych thought I was fine or not bad enough to justify doing anything about. One even came right out and said "It's not ADD, it's just ignorance," I was about 10. I couldn't believe that a so called professional would ever say something like that.

In retrospect I can see some of the symptoms in younger me, I would pick something and absorb everything I possibly could about it. I would then go on, and on about it to no end, not letting anyone else get a word in. I never got along well with much of anyone. I've been accused my whole life of being both self loathing and acting like I'm better than everyone. I never could tell if people were being seriously mean or if it was all in good fun. I never understood what was wrong with how I said things and why they made people upset (still don't). I've had teachers think I was dumb. I've had teachers think I was brilliant, and just didn't apply it. I've had teachers think I had ADD (hence all the screening). I never wanted to do group work, even the things that were supposed to be group projects I always wanted to be in a group of one. I could never do creative writing assignments to save my life. When I even tried I was always told that I wasn't being creative enough and my characters were flat, and other such garbage. I would write papers that read through smoothly and made perfect sense to me, and get told that it was incoherent, or lacked proper transitions. I never minded learning the nuts and bolts of language, it was the stupid crap that got to me. Having to write fiction. Having to write an opinion paper on an issue I really had no opinion about. Being told I was wrong for presenting both sides of an argument for the sake of completeness. I actually was relieved when an english teacher pulled out the grammar books.

Before I knew about AS, the aspie traits made me hate myself, I spent most of my teenage years and early 20's depressed and withdrawn. I wish there was a way I could know for sure, but I just can't afford to see anyone, and am also afraid of just being blown off, or just stuck on an antidepressant and told to go away. I feel like no one will believe me.

It makes me so angry when people wont accept "I don't know" as an answer to "how are you?" or "how are you feeling?" If I knew i might tell you If I say I don't know, it's because I don't!

I'm sorry this turned into such a rant. Being an aspie is something I keep hidden from most of the people in my day to day life. It feels good to be able to let it out in a space where others have a good chance of understanding what I'm going through instead of trying to blame it on something else, or treating me like I'm doing something wrong for the way I am.

This seems rambling and random even to me. I hope that it all makes sense.

Jeff

Jeff, don't worry about having no diagnosis. some people here already protested, that this forum was polluted by fake aspies, but those were only exceptions. we can get obsessed about things and as i read here, everyone got obsessed about reading all the stuff about AS, specially those who didn't have a real diagnosis. if you are being honest and knowing so much about it, could you voluntarly choose to be a geek? it's not something that makes us look cool, like being EMO or something.

what is most important is the fact how we feel about it. mostly we are relieved and everyone says the same, that reading about AS is like reading his own life story. it is lifechanging experience when suddenly all the differences from others have one simple explanation.

psychology is not an exact science, you cannot rely on that anyway. there were people here writting about how they brought up their idea of having AS in front of their therapists and they refused them with no testing at all, because those 'professionals' don't like others doing the diagnosis instead of them. it was like saying, hey you missed this, i think i have it. no, you don't, i haven't miss anything!

you definitely have the autistic traits from what you write about yourself and whether you are officially diagnosed or not, it should make no difference to you. if you are convinced, that's all you need. it doesn't matter what made you convinced.

i liked some of the traits you wrote about, i could identify with them. like writing a paper with an opinion on something i have no opinion about. people just don't understand, how i can have no opinion about things. i don't understand why they have to have opinions about everything.

Nice to meet you, Jeff.

Hi vt420 welcome to the "right" planet many of us are self diagnosed and as we read and research more and we begin to really understand, with that comes acceptance and true indentity.