I'm a 23 year old female who has always been really good at school, effortlessly, I've scored a 41 on the AQ test. I've always been really introverted but people have seemed to be attracted to me, especially men, I'm fairly attractive from what I've been told. This is a really long post, I'm sorry.
Background story that lead to realizing I may have aspergers: I’ve been a heavy drinker for a while now and one night I decided to get a nightcap at a local fancy bar by myself, it went from me having one drink to me waking up from the impact of crashing my car. I remember talking to some guy and I think I got caught up in talking to this guy and had way too much to drink. In the chaos of that, there was no body around at all and I was incredibly confused and drunk after getting out of my wrecked car. I walked around aimlessly and then found a bar and the bartender was nice enough to pay for a cab for me to get back home. Once I got home I called my parents with my roommates cell phone, and was hysterical, my parents decided to drive 45 minutes to where I was. I guess from the anxiety and confusion I decided to swallow about half a bottle of prescription anti-depressants (I quit taking them about a year before this incident but still had them in the pantry) I guess I had a seizure and my roommates called 911, and I was brought to the emergency room. Apparently I was unresponsive for a while but eventually I woke up, with my wrists strapped to the bed in the ICU. It was terrifying.
After that they sent me to a type of mental hospital for 3 days, it was the worst/ most interesting place I’ve ever been. Since then I have been seeing a psychologist and a therapist regularly and been put on Zoloft and Wellbutrin (again). I expressed to my Psychologist that in the past I never felt like I was given the time of day with psychologists and that they only just gave me pills and saw me 6 months later. I first saw a psychologist when I was 16 and my parents discovered I had been cutting myself, so I was put on anti-depressants after filling out this ridiculous and painful like 100 page questionnaire.
Jump forward to now, I had started reading up on aspergers and felt like I immediately knew what was wrong with me. I mentioned this to two friends of mine, and both basically said "that kind of makes sense" and one of these friends' Dad is a psychologist and has a cousin with aspergers. It turned my world upside down. I asked my psychologist about the chances of me having aspergers and he basically said, “What makes you think you have Aspergers?” The only thing you can do to help with aspergers is to treat the symptoms, which for me are mainly anxiety, ADHD, and depression, which he has been treating me for. He mentioned nothing about a diagnosis and kind of quickly changed the subject to talking about my anxiety and doubling my wellbutrin and told me to look into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
A very long list that make me think I have aspergers:
• I will not spend much time grooming or on hair, my mom has always yelled at me for having messy hair. I rarely wear makeup or fix my hair because its too much work and takes too much time, especially if I'm going to work or school.
o I get told often I am “unique, weird or creative” ever since I was very young.
• Happiest at home or in controlled environment, especially when alone.
• May have been diagnosed as autistic or Asperger’s when young or may have been thought of as gifted, shy. May also have obvious or severe learning deficits. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 3 years old by military doctors but my mom didn't believe in it and didn't put me on Ritalin they wanted to put me on.
• I played violin and percussion growing up, I was always really good at it, but quit right before beginning the HS band because over the summer before high school started the band director fussed at me for not being able to sight read and I couldn’t play the music without reading it first. Also there was some sort of band camp you had to attend which I was not interested in.
I can't lie to save my life.
o I am a photographer, I have a degree in Studio Art, my work has been featured in numerous national publications. I have often been praised for my attention to detail and my “eye” for photography. I've always been very visual, and I've noticed that suggested careers for people with Aspergers is photography, I found that interesting.
o I've always been really good at math and computers. I was in advanced math classes starting in 7th grade and continues throughout high school, I graduated half a year early and just went to community college for the last semester of high school and received a full scholarship to a University. Always had an affinity towards computers and a natural talent to learning how to understand different programs.
o I scored like a 32 in math on the ACT, the highest score is a 36. But I've always horrible at history and anything related to fiction. I'd rather read memoirs and realistic books rather than fiction.
o I’ve always learned by rewriting things over and over again, making notecards and making outlines.
• I have incredibly bad anxiety, about pretty much everything in my life.
• Strong sensory issues, I'm basically always cold, except for when I sleep, I have to have a fan directly on my face or I will sweat all night. I always smell and hear things that others don't.
o Cannot concentrate when there’s too many people talking or obnoxious music or sounds like motorcycles and vacuums, I used to leave the house when my mom would vacuum.
o I used to have extremely bad eating habits but worked towards eating different things when I went to college, because I was embarrassed about being picky, I'm not that picky anymore.
o I'm not sure if this is stimming but I have always had a habit of rubbing my face or tapping my fingers or legs. I've also recently started getting these scabs in my head and I've been picking at them so much and it's become kind of a nervous/ bored twitch/
• Temper or crying meltdowns, especially in my early teens and when I was a child.
o Mutism: I moved to a different state when I was in 7th grade, I didn’t speak to any other kids at my new middle school for over a month, I tried but nothing would come out.
• I've always been told I'm mono toned , and even asked where my accent is from because people can't "pinpoint" it.
o Ive been told on numerous occasions that I’m very standoffish, blunt, and always look like I don't want to be bothered or look like I'm busy.
• I have a really hard time with making friendships with girls, all of my best friends have been males. I think mainly due to hating small talk or talking about stupid things like makeup and boys.
• My first and last serious relationship was a complete s**tshow on so many levels.
o I can only enjoy sex while drunk.
o My cat is my best friend. I love cats more than humans.
• I've always had a very quiet voice but whenever I get excited in conversation I apparently talk to loud, and have been told to lower my voice or calm down.
• I have an extremely bad memory, especially with meeting people and timeline of things taking place.
• Only feel comfortable socializing while drinking alcohol, which has led to kind of a drinking problem.
If anyone has taken the time to read all of this, your opinion and advice is what I'm really looking for. I've been reading a lot of posts on R/Aspergers and R/Aspergirls and finally decided to make my own. I'm not looking for a diagnoses, mainly just advice.
26 Dec 2014, 9:49 pm
