I'm Trying To Find Out If I Have It

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I'm not sure if I have high functioning autism or Asperger's. I'm sick of it and ready to do anything and accept anything. I've always had problems as far back as I can remember. Things got worse. It's convenient for me to say that things got worse after a "trauma" that happened while I was 13. Things goy worse and I may have had ptsd... and probably did.

But I've never been a "normal" kid. I've been anything but. And of course things are complicated by the fact that my Mom never wants to see or imagine anything but her children are absolutely perfect and flawless - and my Dad is passed away... and I think he was ignorant of alot of it; I think the symptoms mainly traveled on his side and that the "weird genes" did definitely too, if there are any and I believe there are. So, thinking back to childhood, what's different about me? I was hyperactive, always different from other kids but I had friends, but it was other "kids I could influence" with my strange occupations and funny quirks and things. I was always preoccupied with something and was quite disruptive in class. It was only later that i figured out many kids didn't really like me. I was in my own world. This is what I think.
I was told I was popular by the teachers and a natural leader. I liked drawing and was very good at it. I was a quiet kid, very shy and sensitive but don't remember not making friends easily. I've always had them even though I was little -especially then. I had a few close friendships that I loved. My brother always talked a lot about some narrow subjects that fascinated him (airplanes and such)we had to listen to repetitive, obsessive talks about planes all day long, he had tempers and fits of rage when we were kids (I did not)...and he would bang his head and scream when he got mad. I always used to wonder why my older brother of two years would act like this when I would sit quietly in my room well behaved, he would also be hard to get along with and not make friends easily. He is also more clumsy than me...by far, and would take everything literal. He would get mad over everything and I always thought he's annoying and I had to put up with him. You can see that he had the more obvious blatant autistic traits, and I can see this, this is an honest assesment of me and my brother when we were kids.

Now. What changed everything for me was when I had trauma. Something happened to me at age 5 which I recalled again at age 13, and sent me into a panic mode, which quickly spiraled into chronic and severe, lasting ptsd unfortunately. I think this was when my life really changed and became worse/ hellish. (It/some of these things may have been latent and just waiting for a trigger, though) I dunno and that's something I ask myself about.
I think we had different symptoms me and my brother. My dad was very smart, high IQ, intelligent and extremely workaholic... he didnt have many friends and studied his pursuits and was wrapped in them. He would frequently be ill tempered and angry, short emotion blasts and obsessive perfection, and rigidity. There was something odd, off and not normal on my Dad's side. I never knew what it was but I knew it and dreaded that thing my whole life. His brother my Uncle has a form of Tourettes and had extremely bad tics growing up.

I don't know I always thought I was the more normal one growing up in my family, compared to my dad and brother, I was calm. But I realize I have so many problems now. I've got difficulty regulating emotion, outbursts, can't hold or keep a job. Fight constantly with my family, troubled relationships. It seems more like BPD, after the trauma all of this started for me. Like I said, that's how it was. I don't know, I have trouble with people. I isolate myself a lot and don't want to be around them. I spend a lot of time alone and I'm fine with That. I do get lonely though. I am stubborn and I like to do things my own way and think my own way. I am on in that regard, that I've done so much reading and other things to try and just be separate , Independent from others. I've always been naive, and I'm not good at reading others whether they are playing me or not. I've been fairly naive and took people at their face value, which led me to lots of trouble early on. I avoid all relationships. I don't like that I do this. I thought it's trauma but I don't know now. Given my history what do you think? I've been as honest as I can. please forgive my typing and my writing isn't perfect.

I want to add the fact that I wasn't able to read socially other people growing up though I tried. This is something not easy at all for me to admit. I have dreaded really coming around to this fact. But it did happen, and I think the reason it doesn't anymore is because I avoid relationships and people...
I also am selective over who I choose.

I don't know if this was just a phase growing up or not. Something that all teenagers learn? This is all complicated by the fact that I've adapted ways to cope and blend into and fake things, amd generaly just became better at "acting". So can't really tell anymore what's the real me anymore if that makes sense.

Ive learned and recalled in some sense how to feel and act and read peoples cues as I got older. Maybe this was jist a part of trauma?i dont know.

Sorry to hear of your problems. There are online tests you can take, but your situation sounds sufficiently complex that you should see a professional to sort things out, and not waste your time trying to self diagnose a difficult situation.

You should seek the counsel of an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional, and not the opinions of a rag-tag collection of random strangers on a social website.

You’ve been having quite a heat wave down there!

You just can't help yourself, can you Kortie?

The man is concerned over whether or not he has an ASD, and you just want to talk about the weather!

That’s how we welcome people, Sir!

Maybe you ought to try it.

It’s true. We can only speculate...and at the most offer an educated guess.

Welcome. And talk to us—who have experienced similar feelings.

In the long run, unless you can get some sort of “accommodations,” a label doesn’t mean much. In fact, sometimes, a label serves to confine us to a certain “role.”

Welcome to wrong planet.

Asperger's Syndrome Therapists in San Antonio, TX

Do not pick the first person on the list. You have to make sure the clinician knows how Autism presents in adults.

As far as your parents I am likely from their generation. There was little knowledge of Autism never mind the "high functioning" types when they were raising you. Also seeking professional help was very stigmatized when we were growing up. Only the truly "crazy" or rich people with to much time on their hands sought help.

Also as Autism is highly hereditary they though certain traits common in your family were normal when in fact they are atypical.

ASPartOfMe, please don't give out this sort of link. It looks as if you googled aspergers therapist San Antonia and got this list of counselors from Psychology Today (shudder). The big font heading "Asperger's Syndrome Therapists in San Antonio, TX" makes it look like these are people qualified to treat Asperger's Syndrome in the San Antonia area. Dollars to donuts, these are simply people who registered with Psychology Today and checked off boxes of things they want to treat ... with zero expertise at all. In fact, there might not even be any boxes, it's just every therapist who wants to be shown in a search of this sort. Marketing, pure and simple.

Stewartee, don't shop around for a diagnosis that seems to sort of fit you. Don't self diagnose. Don't ask a bunch of random people on the Internet (not all of whom even have autism, even if they think they do).

You need to seek a diagnosis from a licensed psychologist (Ph.D., D.Psy) or psychiatrist (M.D. who is board certified in psychiatry). Although money may be an issue for you, get yourself seen through a community mental health center or other low-cost source, but state that you think autism runs in your family and ask to be assessed for that as well as anything else that can be causing your current problems.

Only a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist can give a professional diagnosis of autism - and not all of them can. So you will have to advocate for yourself PRIOR to the assessment to make sure this person is qualified. (Just ask them what special training they have in adult autism. If they say none, they are honest but unqualified.)

You do have other conditions that treatment might be useful for, and you can get started working on them, and defer the autism evaluation until you have located an appropriate person. Assessment and reporting can be slow, often taking months to occur, but at least you'll know.

Good luck!

Here's a better link for a place to start looking for help in San Antonio:

https://atcoftexas.org/clinics.html

That is exactly who I linked to but I did caution the OP.

I would advise the same with the organization you linked to. Because they are licensed and say they treat adults does not and often they do not know what to look for when assessing adults.

this is hard for me to say, but I f*****g hate my brother, I do and that's how I feel. He's a regimented, stubborn ass hole whom I suspect of having autism or autistic traits. I barely got by my Dad and all of his BS... but then s**t crap took on a different form with Pat. I'm not caring that I'm using his name. The truth is my Dad didn't treat me that well and my Mom loved me but at a distance, but was too weak to stand up and too narcissistic to care, really and that's
the truth. She went with it. I felt neglected as a child, even though I had a roof over my head and food to eat and toys and things to play with. My parents didn't really pay any real attention to me, and didn't pay attention to me as a person or my needs or what i wanted. this was how I felt neglected. anytime I said anything about this, I was guilt-tripped by my mother and shamed for speaking about it. she uses that manipulation tactic quite frequently. and, it took me quite a while to figure out she is narcissistic. So, I never really had any love in my house now that I think about it. I'm pretty sure that I had a happy childhood, because who doesn't have a happy childhood I mean you're a child. but I definitely had a bad time growing up. There was no room absolutely to be myself, no room to express emotions. It's as if I was completely minimized
Am quite sure that I saw something in my dad and in my brother that totally turned me off and embarrassed me. This thing that I saw I think was autism or something like that on the spectrum. I saw my brother and always thought to be different, and always was trying to be personable, bright and happy and basically the opposite of that. I saw the inflexibility, rigidity, a flat affect... Anger, and all of these unpersonable traits. we're basically my father and brother went all forward with it, and didn't see any problem with it. That's the first place I was alienated from within my family. come to think of it I've always felt alone. Only the faint love for my mother that I got that she would sometimes give that would slip in between the Rays of how she was, it was enough to sustain me. I knew that she loved me she just couldn't express It. I do anything for Mother's Love, so I learn to flatter her in her vain Pursuits, I did this without thinking. from right off the bat I knew my family wasn't a loving family.

I wondered why they, my dad and brother were different, and why my Mom was so distant, and what was wrong with them all. I think it's safe to say my dad had ocpd. That is a full-blown personality disorder, and how that relates to autism I'm not sure. But there was something about my dad that was different and it transmitted to us, me and my brother for sure. I'm not sure if it's a set of character traits that are learned and passed down, or genetic or if it's autism. But I know that I didn't want to be that, and I wanted to be the exact opposite of that. I've never had problems being empathetic and socializing with others. I've only ever been depressed, and anxious and that's impacted me a lot. I could never say anything growing up, what I felt. Everything was rigid and you had to do things a certain way. There was no room allowed for personality of any kind. My brother seems to have, since he was the first, not really taken any care towards this. But I was the second, and more sensitive and intuitive one. I consider these traits still to be good traits. anyways, I was the second one and I saw all of this, and I think that's why I was aware and became aware of exactly what I didn't want to be that I saw in my family. I'm not saying I hate my family, I do not, but I should. I have every f*****g right to, for how they've treated me like s**t. But I realized something was off from a very young age, and we never talked about it. Because why would we?It was like the some acknowledged acceptance of this Secret, and I have the feeling that my dad's dad was like that and their family it was something that they had passed down over Generations. My Mom and Dad got together so that they could tolerate ane compromise on eachother's f****d up personalities, i Guess. It was an unquestionable way of doing things, and traits. I don't know what this means. I don't know if it's genetic, or traits that are ingrained, which I specifically suspect. My brother had the habit of perseverating, and had more autistic traits than I did. He was hard to be around, and I didn't like it. It made me feel oppressed and repressed being around him, that there was something off about him too. I am the sensitive one, I was always quiet and in the background. I was agreeable and never really cried that much. I was always smiling and soft-spoken. Which is funny now because as an adult I'm having all these problems, and borderline traits and all of these things. Now I am the crazy one and it just doesn't make any sense. Or maybe it does. I don't know. I think that I didn't fit in my family and it was just so abusive and hard that my formation of my personality turned into this way. That's what I think... and it's sad to think that way, but after all that that was actually abuse from in my family, that I was shaped this way perhaps. my mother has traits of narcissism but not the full-blown thing I don't think. I had a very hard time growing up, and I didn't even recognize it because I wasn't allowed to think that, growing up, at all. We were always told we had everything perfect and that everything was nice and everything like that. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure this out. but I don't think I'm the bad person that my family and especially my brother makes me out to be. My mom even now displays little care or warmth toward me, little or not even any affection. I had a heartbreaking family. I come from an upper middle class family that's white, the meshing of Polish and German, British ancestry. Such a sad story ,really.

Aside from whether you may have any autism, you have a lifetime of anger and hurt bottled up. Talking to a mental health therapist would help you with this. It will take time to get a proper autism diagnosis, but counseling could start almost immediately.

I want to suggest that when posting on a forum, it's best to break your text up into shorter paragraphs. A "wall of text" is hard to read on a screen. The more people read your post, the more are willing to respond and give you attention and advice that you need. If your shorter paragraphs are logically organized, so much the better, but it that isn't easy for you to do, just put a double-return (paragraph break) every 5 or 6 sentences or so. Just a suggestion.