Do i have Aspergers?

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Hello all. I've finally decided to take the leap and share my feelings here.

My name is Lucie, i’m 24 and live in the UK.
I’ve never been diagnosed or been to see a specialist of any kind. But for the last few years i have thought it a strong possibility that i might be ‘on the spectrum’, other people have suggested it also; or they generally just think im strange.

I’ve recently started to get very upset about my situation and feel that my life is missing substance. I am very unsuccessful in love. I have a lot of trouble building meaningful relationships due to my lack of being able to fulfill other people’s standards. I only talk when i have something to say. I love listening to other people having conversations, i love people watching and observing, i’m perfectly comfortable interjecting with comments here and there but i get terrified if all attention is on me or whenever i’m left alone in a room with someone. It’s not that i’m shy or scared, i just don’t have anything to say most of the time and I inevitably create this dead air silence. Despite my being weird and awkward, I’m often regarded as a perceptive and funny person by the people who know me well but that will always take time. i hate talking on the phone, which only makes it harder to build friendships. My best friends have always been people i’ve been forced to spend a lot of time with (school friends, housemates, workmates...)
New situations or unexpected events and circumstances make me very nervous. People often regard me as being overly sensitive. I quickly start panicking. This is why being at home on my own is such a reassuring feeling.

I’ve managed to go through life fairly smoothly, but i’ve always felt out of place and expected something to change and get better. Now that i’m an adult, i feel more and more anxious at the idea that i’m set in my ways and this is who i am.

I always had friends at school and was never left alone at play time. I’ve always been thought of as a very nice girl. Very polite but very shy and quiet. So although i had friends, i was never the centre of attention and i was always quite introverted and often needed pushing when it came to playing certain games. I always HATED playing truth or dare; the idea of being asked a personal question that i was forced to answer was not my idea of fun, it rather baffled me. I never felt the desire to invite my friends over to my house or see them outside of school. I enjoyed playing on my won a lot more. Spent a lot of time on my own and was perfectly happy to do so. Impromptu invitations or visits made me feel very anxious. It was an encroachment on my alone time.


One thing that concerns me is that, as I’ve grown older, especially in the last couple of years, I’ve started noticing all of these traits in my Mum’s personality as well. She has always been very quiet and reserved, avoids being the centre of attention, she can be quite awkward in her body language and when speaking to people. She can come across as being quite rude sometimes, say if she doesn’t understand what someone has said or if they’ve made a mistake she’ll look at them as if to say “what ARE you talking about?”, or she’ll often pause for a while and look at them, blinking a lot. Since my Father died 8 years ago, she hasn’t shown any signs of wanting to find a new partner and spends a lot of time on her own. I’m a bit concerned to be honest, i often hear her talking to herself and crying.
I’m wondering whether my own behaviour is simply a result of the way i was brought up and nothing else. My parents never had friends pop over to the house for a drink. I was only very rarely a witness to these kinds of friendly interactions. Maybe i just never learned how to do it.
My dad on the other hand was very VERY popular at work and in everything he did (the number of people at his funeral was a testament to this) but i was never close to him. He seemed to be close to everybody else in his life including my Mum and my brother...but not me. And i’ve always regarded my relationship with my dad as a type of precursor of things to come. If i was ever alone in the car with him, i would feel awkward, anxious and at a loss as to what to say and do. As a result i would feel resentment towards him, especially as he was always the one to point out my shyness, and he was always the one to poke at me when school reports would come back and every single teacher would have commented on my lack of participation in class. He was only trying to solve things for my won sake but I used to strongly resent the way he made me feel about myself. I didn’t like talking about myself (and still don’t). I resent people i feel uncomfortable around, the same way i resented dad. I always go through the same process if i meet new people. I can only sustain a conversation for so long. Inevitably i will peeter out and lose control and, give it a few more awkward encounters, people will lose interest and i’ll be regarded as that strange girl, which i resent. I know i'm the common denominator but i can't help resenting all the people that don't give me a chance.

I'm finding hard to talk about this without wanting to go on and on. But for your sake, i'll tried to summarise


AS A CHILD

-i wet the bed until the age of 6/ had general bladder control problems til a bit later
-spent a lot of time on my own
-cried every time mum would drop me off at school until age of 6 / i would refuse point blank to be left with a bunch of other kids at camps or holiday resorts
-never liked impromptu visits to/from friends
-never bonded with Dad
-uncontrollable crying at Dad’s funeral but felt no grief. have no recollection of actual pain and grief at losing him
-anxious, nervous around ppl
-never knew how to deal with altercations (still dont)
-took brother’s teasing very personally. made me very very upset
-every single one of my teachers highlighted my lack of participation and introversion -


NOW

-talk to myself all the time. i have the conversations i wish i’d have with other people with myself
-keep to myself
-long for some sort of company but only ever feel safe and comfortable when on my own. i would love to go out every night. i just dont have anyone to go with and wouldnt have anything to say to them anyway.
-don’t know how to make conversation
-can’t express my feelings properly
-can’t express anything clearly, whenever i tell an anecdote or describe an event or idea, it’s always followed by questions that highlight the fact that i missed out crucial details and that my story didn’t make complete sense. EVERY TIME!!
-my train of thought always seems a little muddled up, ppl find it hard to follow.
-i dont know how to comfort people
-pause between words/ forget words/ cant put a point across
-i always remember things that other ppl dont, little details
-i get extremely frustrated when people aren’t consistent or dont seem to be doing the right thing.
-i get very hung up on things that aren’t fair and find it very hard to let them go. i can dwell on these sorts of things for years sometimes



I’m starting to seriously consider seeing a specialist to see if i can get a diagnosis. Of course, there’s a possibility i might not have aspergers at all. But if i do, and i do get diagnosed, how will it help me?

If you’ve read all the way through, i salute you! please let me know whether any of this sounds familiar to anything you might have experienced yourself.

Thanks

I think the question you ask is difficult to answer - especially over the internet. But a lot of people here, like myself, haven't answered it for themselves yet. Others have professional diagnoses, and others have experienced symptoms to a point where they're comfortable diagnosing themselves. Some of your symptoms sound like traits that could be related to aspergers (in my completely unprofessional opinion) but there are always other possible explanations too.

You could try to get a professional diagnosis, or maybe just hang out here a while longer and see if others post more things that you identify with so you can draw your own conclusions. You might also have serious talks with those who have known you a long time (your i.e. mother and brother) to find out if you had autistic traits as a child. It's a developmental disorder, as I understand it, so to be diagnosed now you have to have shown traits as a young child - as in earlier than you could likely remember yourself.