Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello guys
I really think I have or am on the spectrum but I just don't know where to start to communicate this to anyone.
Can someone help and advise me how I go about best communicating how I feel?
I am a 29 year old man and for the past 6 years or so I have essentially isolated myself and lost all my friends. I manage to live socially on a very basic level but it always gets overwhelming and the relationships/friendships die.
I find it so difficult to communicate in groups of people or with new people at all; I have to be drunk and then I am okay.
I have no idea how to 'get' places i.e. i'm constantly wondering how people have 'done' what they have done - i have no idea or vision of every owning my own home - how do people know they have the money for that?
I recently done that autism test and scored very highly. But the thing is my mind races so fast and is so fixated on 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME' and self obsessing thoughts that I lose focus of anything else.
I can do tasks only one way and I have to be shown. I'm most happiest at work when I get to do that task over and over again with no deviations and if there is any change I am completely stumped and it stresses me out too much and then the confused self depracating thoughts come in.
I've had one relationship but it ended because I was so fixated on how things 'should' be, where the relationship 'should'be at any one time it put to much pressure on my ex.
I just don't know how to explain any of this to a doctor because face to face i wont be able to recall any of how i'm feeling and my verbal communication is often jumbled and poor.
Does this sound like I have something wrong with me, it's got to a point in my life now where I feel in despair and am becoming quite angry over everything and every situation.
You have communicated how you feel perfectly well there! Why not write these types of things down and show them to your GP if that would be easier than describing them verbally? I often take notes with me to important appointments in case I forget something (or go off on a tangent) and I don't think that's at all unusual.
Some of the social difficulties you mention sound familiar to me, as does the overthinking of things and the feeling of having had to learn everything in life manually that the rest of the world appear to be pre-programmed with (an analogy someone else on this site used but one I can definitely relate to).
Have you read much about autism to see if you feel it relates to you? There's quite a bit of information on the main site here as well as within the many discussions. Some of the online tests can give you an indication of whether you feel that asking your GP for a referral for an autism assessment would be useful for you and you can take the results of your online test with you when you go to see your GP.
I like the title of your Thread, I agree that autism is more about 'Feeling Different' than 'Having Something Wrong With Me' but then again I have had a while to get used to the diagnosis and I was much less accepting of my own differences before I knew what was causing them, especially when I was younger.