Hello everyone!
I do not have Asperger's myself, but I suspect that a friend of mine does, although I am not
sure. As I care a great deal about her, I hope I can get some advice on how to understand her
better from people on this forum.
I'm male, near 30 and live in Sweden with my girlfriend. My friend lives in Belgium, is
female and in her 30's too. We became friends due to a common computer interest, and
communicated over the internet, and then met in real life on some computer conventions.
She has also visited me at my place a few times.
It took a little while before I understood that she wasn't like most people I know. While I
found out that she was a bit "weird" (no offence!) quite soon, it took some time before I
began to see the "pattern". One day I saw a documentary about Asperger's, and my mind
started wondering if my friend had it. I am still not sure, as I ofcourse can't "diagnose" her,
but I wonder what your guess is? Is there a chance that I'm on the right track?
She often misunderstand me. She doesn't seem to understand when I'm ironic and/or make a joke,
but rather interpret things I say litterarly. She doesn't seem to get body language (like smiling when you say
something "awful" would indicate you mean it as a joke and not for real).
She is emotionally unstable, and let things "get to her" very easily. She has been depressed, and
she has talked about committing suicide in the past. During one visit to Sweden, she was emitted into a
psyciatric care unit at a hospital for talking about suicide. She was there for a week, but the
doctors didn't seem to know what to do and there was also a language barrier, so she was
pretty much just kept there for a week. Then she stayed at my place for a while before returning home.
This was a few years back, and she has not said anything about suicide for quite a while now. I still
regard her as "unstable" eventhough I can't see signs of depression at the moment.
When she visits me, we engage in our common computer interest, or perhaps watch a movie. When I
was at work, she was alone at my place with my girlfriend. When they were alone, she hardly spoke a
word (and it's not that she is shy). My girlfriend thought it was really weird, she didn't get any response
when she tried to speak to her, and in the end she felt really akward in the situation. This repeated every
time they were alone. My friend was quiet and minded her own business, being on the internet a lot,
almost like my girlfriend wasn't even in the house. In the end my girlfriend was really freaked out and now
really dislike my friend, being very negative to the occasions when she visits. I understand why, because
I have seen this tendency in my friend before, but learnt to cope with it. But it's hard for me that the
two of them don't get along. I never told my friend what my girlfriend really thinks about her though,
as I don't want to make her upset.
She can't be in certain environments. Like she hates smoke for instance. Lots of people hate smoky
environments, but she refuses to go to any place with lots of smokers, even if it's just for a short time.
She seem to enjoy nature a lot though, talking walks. And she seem to like her own cat (don't know about
other animals).
She often think people talk crap about her behind her back. In a way, she is kinda paranoid about that,
always worrying about what others think about her. Sometimes it's a prophecy going true. Like she gets it in
her head that person X thinks that she is weird, and tells other people that behind her back. Then she starts
behaving strange towards person X for that reason, which eventually leads to person X actually starting to think
that she IS weird, and perhaps eventually tells someone just that.
Even when I tell her that person X does not talk behind her back, where did you even get that idea from,
she doesn't believe me. Often she has a weird explanation for her belief about someone talking behind her back,
something that is not logical to me at all.
She has a tendency to "burn her bridges" when it comes to friends. For instance, once we had a mutual friend, but
now she does not want anything to do with him anymore. She has labeled him a liar. He was uneasy about
some of her behaviour, so he simply made up some "white lies" not to have her stay at his house, because he
didn't want to tell her that he couldn't stand living with her (a bit like my girlfriend thinks about her). She found out,
and since she does not understand the concept of "white lies" she was very disapointed in him. In a way, he
probably was a bit relieved when she decided she didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore as he
was feeling more and more uneasy around her. I guess he should have been honest with her from the beginning,
but he made a "white lie" not to make her sad, it wasn't ment in an evil way. She have blown off quite a few friends
in similar ways.
On a positive side, she is very smart and artistic. She likes arts, she paints and photograph things. She
reads a lot, and have an amazing memory (which she attains by some sort of memory technique, remembering
by associating things that happened with a special song, and when she hear the song she can then remember
details about the happening).
Perhaps I should mention we are not speaking to eachother at the moment. She interpreted something I said the
totally wrong way and stopped talking to me a few days back. But, I have no intention of just giving up our
friendship. In a way, she's like a kid sister to me.
So, do someone else also think that she might have Asperger's? And if she do, what should I do to make communication easier with her? Sorry for writing such a long post.
12 Jan 2009, 7:08 am
