24 Jan 2012, 1:06 pm
I sent this email to a couple of people - no response back yet. Apparently there is no place locally to get diagnosed. I'm afraid - my marriage is in trouble. We suspect I may have aspergers, and now that we think I might have it - he keeps looking at me ALL THE TIME! I feel like such a freak. Can someone tell me if I might have it? All the online tests I've taken say I have aspergers or high functioning autism (not sure what the difference is).
I am 41 years old and am on my 3rd marriage. We've been married now for a little over 5 years.
For the last several months (and even periodically during the rest of our marriage), my husband keeps telling me that I behave more like a man than a woman. He is currently going thru withdrawls from prescription medications (Xanax) and says he is suddenly aware of all that is around him. He says he notices that I don't need nor give a lot of affection. He feels that I am very cold. His mother has said the same thing. I thought everything was ok. But when I look within myself, I think I've become very good at pretending to be what I am not, pretending to follow the rules that everyone tells me I should follow. I say the right things for the most part, but not because I mean them, but because they are a script that I've generated in my head. When I think about it - I often practice what to say before I say it. The only time I don't is when I am working and the conversation has to do with work related stuff.
I've gone through 3 different online tests and they all say that I have aspergers and one even scored me higher and said that I have a very high functioning autism. I wanted to talk with someone who knows about this disability/disorder or whatever it is and let me know if I indeed might have it and what can I expect to deal with in the future. I'm confused as what I can change and what I can't. I fear that my husband won't be able to accept me for who I am - which is all I have longed for my entire life - acceptance. Instead I find myself without friends. Nobody seems to want to stay around me for very long and I don't know why. I just can't seem to connect with anyone.
Growing up I spent a lot of time alone in my room. My sisters are both much older than me. I would hang out sometimes with them, and very rarely had close friends my own age. My favorite time was being in my room imagining that I had landed on this strange planet in a place that was messy and I had to create order. This was the game I always played when cleaning my room. I would move my room around at least once a month reveling in the ability to create new order and find new ways to put the pieces of my room together. When I was 7 I had an attempted molestation by a middle school boy who said he thought I was a boy. I was never given counseling for it and it plagued me for years. That same year, I started having problems with my knees dislocating - this would later lead to 4 surgeries (2 on each knee) before I reached the age of 16. I spent most of my childhood in casts & braces. Much to my relief - that also kept me out of gym at school, which is where my awkwardness would have been evident. My family always jokes about the dreaded "Burnett coordination" as none of us are very coordinated in our actions.
Around the age of 11 I began to have issues with dizziness. I told everyone I couldn't open my eyes because the world was spinning out of control. I can't tell you now whether that was true of just a fabrication to get attention. It took about 3 months of going from doctor to doctor - eventually I ended up Johns Hopkins hospital where they worked with my mother and me to get me feeling "ok" again. At the age of 14, my father retired from the CIA (which I didn't find out until 2 weeks before his retirement that he was in the CIA), and my mother and father moved me from Maryland out to California - leaving behind my sisters and friends. I was so distraught over the move and everyone lack of noticing my distraught that a couple of months before we moved I tried to commit suicide by taking a bunch of pills. I had my stomach pumped and saw the school counselor for 1 session - but that was the end of that.
I had suicidal thoughts off an on for years until I had my first child at the age of 20. At that point my children became my life and I did everything I could to be there for them. Like I mentioned, I've been divorced twice - both times due to alcoholism - but now I am beginning to wonder if some of the problems weren't due to me.
I have been told more than once that I seem too quiet - that I am extremely passive. I don't see myself that way as the voice in head is quite loud at times - if only I could get that voice to move to my mouth 
. But I know if I say what I am thinking, the world will look at me weird and reject what I am saying. I appear to be in a world all my own. I recently decided to write a book - the title I picked was "Invisible". No one I spoke to could understand what that title meant and I couldn't really explain it either - now I'm wondering after all I've read if that title doesn't just hit the spot.
Here are some of quirks that I've kept private, because I know that no one would understand - they don't seem to fit the realm of the real world:
I HATE small talk - no doubt about it - I have no idea how to do it and it's seems pretty much a waste of my time.
I HATE indepth conversations about feelings - can't people tell from the small amount of information I give them what I am thinking? Do we really need to say it in a hundred different ways or use a hundred different words?
I feel awkward hugging my adult children and even my family (mother, father, sisters, etc...). I can say I love you to my children, but they often say it first. I hardly ever say I love you to my parents or sisters.
I have to gear myself up to meet new people. I practice in my head what I should say and the fact that I will probably need to shake their hands. I try desperately to look for clues that they want to shake hands - sometimes I'm way off and the awkwardness just hangs in the air.
I LOVE systems! I love creating order in business processes. I have my bachelors in Business Information Systems and my masters in Accounting. I did both all online and while working full time at the age of 28. I can sit in front of a computer for hours creating spreadsheets. I can figure out just about computer software program. I am self taught on just about anything technical. People ask me how I know how to do that - all I tell them is that I just "get it".
I LOVE reading! I can read 100 pages a day if given the time. I prefer fiction to nonfiction except if it's of a subject that I am fascinated with.
I type words in my head all the time. As people are talking I pick out certain words and imagining I have a typewriter in my head, I type them out over and over again.
I categorize things into groups of 3's - whatever I see I always pull out groups of 3's.
I LOVE my dogs and I love horses. I often feel that I relate to them my better than people. They don't talk back and they don't expect me to respond. I don't have to have any sort of dialogue with them. They accept me for who I am and they don't want anything else from me.
Two of my greatest escapes are 1) closing my eyes - if my eyes are closed, then you can't see what I am thinking or feeling and therefore you can't see me. 2) being in places where I can't be seen (bathroom, closet, etc...). I HATE being watched. As a child my sisters used to torment me by staring at me. I always ended up crying and screaming to just leave me alone. When I go into a bathroom I breathe a sigh of relief - it's as if the world has been removed from my shoulders and I can just be me.
Another side note - I talked with my sister a little bit. She always said that I was like a ghost in the house - seen but not heard - quiet and in the corner. She told me that her son was diagnosed with AS while in middle school.
When I try to show affection or love to my husband - he comes back with "it seems fake". I don't know how not to be fake. I try my hardest. I try to do the right thing, but it doesn't seem to come out as heartfelt. I don't know how to change that. I wish he could just take what I give as my way of giving love and not question me so much.
24 Jan 2012, 2:37 pm
It seems we have similar professions and - at least partly - similar interests!
I'd like to tell you be proud of your children, I'd very much love them too, if I had any...
And yes, according to what you wrote, you are most likely on the spectrum (not necessary Asperger's, there are other diagnoses, too).
24 Jan 2012, 2:58 pm
24 Jan 2012, 5:03 pm
Ojani - thank you! And yes - I am very proud of my children .
R83 - I've ordered that book along with Rudy's "Aspergirls". Hopefully these will help me with my journey.
One question - is there anything I can change - or does my spouse have to accept the fact that I may not respond the way he wishes I would respond? Our biggest issue is he feels alone and that I'm not there emotionally for him. I'm not sure how to fix that or if I even can. He wants a partner that will take a very intimate journey with him. I have no idea what that even looks like. When I try - it still just doesn't seem to be enough and I ended feeling extremely anxious.
24 Jan 2012, 5:59 pm
