Salutations

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Hi all,

I'm not sure if I have aspergers or not, but my mom always has been telling me I do, and I do recognize myself in at least some of the symptoms I've read. I have a tendency to ramble to people about things, regardless of whether they're interested or not. I can't tell if I do it because it annoys them and I want to annoy people (so I'm just some kind of sadist) or if it's because I cannot tell they are not interested in what I'm saying, or both.

So far I've stayed in school, which has made it pretty easy to get along, because you generally do well in class-rooms if you have a tendency to ramble, at least if you're somewhat articulate. But it has made it difficult for me to form any lasting "socially acceptable support systems", to quote "The Guild".

I'm a graduate student in philosophy at UCSB, I'm pretty lonely (though in a sense I don't mind being lonely, because I always have some interest or other with which to occupy my time). I guess lately I've been spending a lot of time doing whatever random things seem to interest me (I watched some movie version of "Hamlet" twice in the past couple of days). I also get high a lot, and I'm worried that might be causing me to think I have aspergers, but I think sometimes that maybe I like to use it because it distracts me from feeling bad about not being with other people.

(I have a very developed sense of guilt, and usually feel guilty when I'm not doing something that I think people whom I approve of would approve of.)

Welkome to WrongPlanet.

The WP Kink

Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the Planet.

How do you know if you have aspergers? Because I know that I am socially awkward and that I ramble. When I was a kid, I know that I would stand off from all the others on the playground and wave their hands, or, if I did play games with them, I refused to play the games they wanted to play and insisted on playing special games which I had invented. (I also always refused to play any game by the rules -- so I could not play Candyland with my parents, because all I wanted to do was move the pieces around, and I couldn't reconcile myself to moving them around in the way they were "supposed" to be moved around.

But I worry again and again that either I have aspergers, or I'm just a bad person (because I have had my share of difficulties with people, ever since middle school. I went to Reed College, but even there, people found it somewhat more difficult to get along with me, than I imagined it was for me to get along with them.

Perhaps when I tell people they have aspergers, they also resent it, because I am implying, they feel, that there is something special about me, and that they should deal differently with me than they have before.