Aspie Lover - Delusions, Paranoia, Extreme Narcissism

Post Reply New Topic

My on and off boyfriend of almost 4 years has high-functioning autism. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with him. I care for him deeply, but he is a complete prick.

Anywho, back to the point. He's extremely intelligent. Has a very high IQ score. Can learn things quite quickly. He can get really good jobs and get paid quite well.

He, however, has some delusional thinking it seems. And he is very narcissistic. I will discuss some examples below.

- He is always paranoid that his roommates are listening in on him (this has been consistent with several different roommates). He also will put his ear against the wall and listen to his roommate(s) talking because he is convinced they are talking about him. When we go out in public, he even think strangers that are not even looking at us are talking about us. He also thinks every man who glaces in our direction is "checking me out" and gets very upset.
- He is convinced roommates are other people look at his room and "copy him." "Look, Chris bought this -fill in the blank-......this must because I have one and he's copying me." He will do that with food too. "Look, John bought frozen pizzas. He's copying me because I always have frozen pizzas."
- He thinks people deliberately take or move his items or belongings to "mess with him" or "get back at him." Like one time he couldn't find his chapstick. "My roommate came in and took that one thing just to mess with me!" 90% of the time these items are found later and they were just misplaced. But he continues this type of thinking.

- If he doesn't get a job or someone doesn't want to work with him, he is convinced that it is because they are intimidated by his abilities. Or because they can't stand the fact that he is smarter than them. Or because "they know he's right and they can't handle it." I completely acknowledge the fact that this might be true in some cases. But from my observations it's because his personality rubs people the wrong way or he sends these really narcissistic, oddly worded e-mails. He has a high turnover with jobs because of this. He gets a job because the people see he's smart and has promise and then loses it cause if they say no to him about one of his ideas, he goes on this sort of tirade.....or he starts using weird, narcissistic language.
- If someone doesn't e-mail him back, it is because they are "scared" of what he can do. He is convinced passed employers serially check his linkedin or facebook....or google his name.
- He ALWAYS thinks he is right or superior. And when I contradict him or try to explain why he is wrong, most of the time it just makes him angry and ends with him cutting off the discussion by saying "I'm right and you're wrong. And you're wasting my time" in some elaborate way.

- He has these grand delusional ideas of how "he's going to run an industry." Or how he's going to be in the center of everything. For awhile he was convinced that he would be the social leader in entering into a new type of American government/social revolution. He typically gets bored and then moves on to a new scheme.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Does he have Narcissistic Personality Disorder? I can tell he is definitely OCD.....he has to rearrange or clean his room a million times a day. He gets germaphobic. He won't let me sit on a certain coach because that where his roommate sits and it's gross. And if the common living space is even slightly no perfectly clean, he gets really moody and rants about his roommates and is completely thrown off by it. He has a really high turnover with roommates too. Really high turnover. Like living 5 places in two years. He can't handle over people habits or other stuff going on in the environment. Sometimes he can barely handle me being around....though he's more tolerant with me than he is with roommates. Probably because I have sex with him >.>

I wish there were a way for you to get through to him.

Do you ever employ "reality testing"--asking him, for example, why some stranger would want to mess with him when there's so much else on the stranger's mind other than messing with him--like maybe his wife and kids.

Has he ever regretted what he said or done? If so, perhaps you could "role play" with him. You play him. Let him be the RECIPIENT of what he says--rather like an illustration of the cliché: "the shoe's on the other foot."

How does he act with you? Does he lord his "abilities" over you?

I don't think those are all, or even mostly, autistic traits. They're not incompatible with autism, either, but there's definitely some other stuff going on there. A personality disorder is one possibility. I'm no psychiatrist.

If that's the way he is, I don't think you should expect him to change any time soon. Although the possibility of him changing certainly isn't out of the question, it's not something you ought to rely on. Consider whether that's really the sort of relationship you want to be in; in the end, it's all up to you. :/

Reasonably sure that's NPD, that sort of inflated ego isn't a characteristic of Asperger's. Good luck getting him to get that diagnosed though.

If he is so great, and wants to be a leader so much, why hasn't he started his own business? That's one way to avoid turnover.
All you need to do is pray he doesn't need to have people work under him.

I'm just going to copy and paste this advice into topics of this kind from now on: don't date complete pricks.

I doubt this guy is doing this intentionally to be hurtful. He probably has some sort of insecurity, distrust of the world, or just a mental condition causing this. Shunning him because of it will only make his feeling of mistrust worse. However, you should definitely try and help him overcome it, as it's unhealthy not just for you having to deal with it, but for him as well.

He needs to get to the point where he understands that not everyone will be his friend, but that doesn't mean they are against him, or that they feel they can't measure up to him. I have some (much less severe) difficulty myself with these sort of high/low confidence swings. I think in large part it has to do with never having fit in socially--you don't get the feedback a NT gets about how you "measure up", so you feel that people must dislike you because they either don't appreciate your genius or else see you as below them for being different/socially naive. There are people who dislike certain aspies for both of these reasons, but there are also a lot of people who just have different goals/priorities in life and don't communicate on the same wavelength for whatever reason. I think that also at times of mood instability (I have hypomanic/depressive sort of leanings) we become more susceptible to this kind of black-and-white thinking.

I was kind of like him with similar types of delusions & beliefs when I was suffering from a psychotic depression & anxiety issues. The delusions went away after I got treated for my depression & my anxiety got better which helped my beliefs. Joining WP & learning about Aspergers helped me out alot too. My advice is to encourage him to try & get psychiatric help & reevaluate continuing to stay in a relationship with him if you cant & maybe give him an ultimatum to thou I'm usually not a fan of em but if this will make or break your relationship it's fair to let him know that.

I've yet to see a situation where ultimatums create a permanent solution.

OP It's probably not my place to put forth this thought but I actually think the opposite of what Biostructure says.
People should learn that there are consequences to treating others in inconsiderate, thoughtless ways, otherwise they won't grow.

I think he has something other than HFA that is causing these symptoms. I wouldn't want to guess at what that is. A psychiatrist or therapist could diagnose him. I doubt he would see one though, because he probably doesn't think he is the problem.

Mental illnesses like mood disorders, schizoaffectuve disorder and schizophrenia develop in the late teens and early twenties and paranoia can be a symptom.

Has he been evaluated by a mental health professional?

He could be have any of the things mentioned above...or he could have type-one Bipolar (in fact, the way you described his episodes of delusional grandeur are quite similar to the manic episodes seen in this disorder). However, like everyone else, I'm not a psychologist..., but those symptoms don't sound like something related to HFA to me...

He does seem quite narcissist, the kind who will alienate eberryone around them with their narcissistic behaviors.