Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
A little bit worried about posting on here as I’ve not yet been diagnosed but have had a growing suspicion that I have adult autism, I’ll list some of my reasons down below and you can let me know if you think it would be worth approaching my GP or not. I am not overly keen on getting another label but if I am diagnosed with autism, it would be great to have an explanation to some of my behaviours that look to me, to be very similar to that of other autistic people.
Anyway my question to you is:
Do you ever become obsessed with people and does this effect your love life or how you veiw relationships? (If so, in what ways? And I'd also be curious to find out what things you do to manage those obsessive thoughts to prevent them from effecting your day-to-day?)
A bit of context:
I'm 27/F and have just gotten my first boyfriend. It seems to be a reoccurring trend with me to latch on to one particular person and obsess over them to the point it consumes my life. This happened twice before, both when I was in high-school and tbh without this obsession I don’t really feel much attraction to people beyond the platonic.
By ‘consumes my life’ I mean that I will not only spend most of the day staring into space thinking and worrying about a particular person, I’m also spending a lot of time researching and consuming media about love and relationships as well as worrying about my own relationship. It has been effecting my work, as I cannot find interest in doing much else with my time.
Usually I have put this down to just being a hopeless romantic and anxiety issues but since investigating, the possibility of having autism I’ve only just realised the two might be linked. Especially since I have demonstrated obsessive behaviour in the past; mostly regarding hobbies like science, TV shows and books. I’m worried that as an adult, people, love and sex are just a new obsession and not being sure if this is a mental health issue or a normal autistic behaviour which makes seeking help difficult.
Sorry if this post is misplaced, but would welcome any input on this issue.
A bit of background on me,
27/F I'm not yet diagnosed but have had a growing suspicion that I may have undiagnosed adult autism.
- Struggled with social anxiety and making friends most of my life, have always felt out of place.
- have experienced OCD, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts
- Used to engaging in stem like behaviour when younger (10-14yrs old) in the form of biting my clothes when stressed , but stopped as it was socially unacceptiable- this transfered into less noticeable stems like counting and tapping my forehead which I may have confused with OCD.
- Aversion to certain stimulus such as the colour red, I don’t eat red food and avoid/ stay far away from red things as possible. Also, loud noises make me irritable and tend to avoid things I consider uncomfortable to look at. For example, not sitting in a chair with scuff marks on it, I was very particular about chairs in high school and became very upset if someone took my chair particular chair and would search the class room to find it again- this did not make me popular.
-I feel as though I was far more obsessive about things when I was a child than now but was obsessed with TV shows, could recite whole movies of by heart. Also loved science – but this was encouraged so never saw it as an issue and I’m now a physics graduate.
There are other small things but these have had the greatest effect on my life.
I think I have obsessive behaviours which I woukd say are internalised. Identifying with ASC has reframed how I see myself in terms of obsessive thoughts. I don't think it's OCD, just obsessive thoughts. I do have anxiety but often the obsessive thoughts are not anxiety driven. I have obsessive thoughts about a particular person. It's confusing as I don't know how much of it is that I fancy them or how much is latching on to thoughts about this person. So it is confusing. However this is a pattern I have now recognised which has happened several times before in my life. I no longer see this person as they work at a different centre now. I haven't seen them for over 6 months yet I still think about them in an obsessive way. I don't know if this is "normal behaviour" or not.