Adrift on the flotsam of the NT world...

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EVERYONE:
I recently concluded that I am ASD positive. I am (as yet) undiagnosed, but seem to be leaning that direction more and more. If not for some horror stories from people on other forums, I might have already been diagnosed. I meet 95% of the criteria (except I have limited empathy...but that may just be an adaptation) so the diagnosis is foregone (from my perspective).

I'm just having trouble coping with the world. I always thought that everything was designed for someone else: someone taller, someone with a better memory, someone more organized, someone more focused. I've never felt that I belonged on this planet at all (yes, I get the irony...& that I'm not the only one). I thought that once I knew what it was that made me different, I would be able to effect some sort of change that would compensate for what is "wrong" with me. It seems exactly the opposite has happened.

Since I realized that I have ASD, my fiancee has treated me more and more like a 2-year-old, and less and less like an adult who faces particular and specific neurological difficulties. I ask for certain things, and never receive them. Little things such as: not changing plans abruptly -or- not throwing me a list of 50 things to do and expecting them all done first. I don't think that is too insane. I don't think I'm insane.

I have been abused fairly severely in the past by women who likely knew I was on the AS, and said nothing because it gave them leverage to manipulate me. I was even subjected to about 2 years of textbook 'gaslighting' wherein the woman worked very hard to convince me that what I was perceiving was not actually reality and the fictions she made up were actually what was happening (this is the most sadistic thing I could ever imagine, and has damaged me beyond belief). On top of manipulation and abuse by people who were supposed to help me in life, there was a fairly consistent streak of bullying, beatings, and other schoolyard cruelty.

So: ASD, PTSD, PTSD, PTSD, PTSD, possible psychotic break (because that's what gaslighting does to someone eventually), crippling self-doubt (another gift of gaslighting) on top of pre-existing self-doubt, schizophrenia (from the drugs I later found out I was given to supplement the gaslighting), and a handful of other undiagnosed psych issues. It hasn't been an easy life. I'm sure there are those who are worse off than I am...but I've never met, heard about, or read about one.

My question is this:
HOW IN THE HELL can I hope to live a "normal" life considering the damage already done? My fiancee is a wonderful woman 90% of the time, and the rest of the time she doesn't mean to set me off...but it happens anyway. Once the same scenario has played out 5-6-7-8 times, I start to wonder if either a) she is doing it on purpose just to spite me (aside: she's a redhead who may or may not have been a bit spoiled as a child...so there's that) or b) it is an unavoidable clash of our ingrained personality traits.

I also have trouble knowing when I'm just frustrated with the state of things (there's been no lack of frustrating 'life-stuff' in the recent past) and when I'm really asking myself to do something I'm not capable of. My fiancee has very specific expectations of me, but I can't meet them all. For example: she is always "doing 10 things at once" and expects that everyone can do that. Also, whenever I say that I can't handle things a certain way, she responds with something (very parental) like "That's the way life is" or something to that effect. It always comes across as patronizing and/or condescending, and it is very frustrating.

How can I ask for things to be in a way that I can deal with them without being treated like a 2-year-old? I have remarkably high function, to the point that people look at me sideways when I tell them I'm not NT. I guess they think I'm "just a little odd", but inside my head I might as well be from Mars. At one point in my life I used to be "a cutter"; not because I was depressed (I was though), but because I kept expecting to see green come out instead of red and I couldn't bring myself to believe I was even human (especially considering the cruelty I knew them to be capable of).

I'm so tired of feeling lost, but I really don't know what can be done. The internet is like a black-hole of people spouting their personal experiences. I guess that would be useful to other people with the same experiences, but I don't know anyone who is nearly the cold little ball of diagnoses I am.

NOTE: I probably should have split this up into about 4 other posts, but I had to get it out of my head.

ADMIN: if this post is incorrectly categorized, feel free to put it where it needs to be. The forum hierarchy is a bit confusing.

My best recommendation is to find some local support. A therapist who understands. A local group of adults with aut. That kind of thing. It sounds like you have a lot to deal with all at once, and trying to do that alone is making it extra hard. When I hit that stage and I try to do it alone, I crash - just because I tried to do it alone.

Good luck to you.