Very Confused and Lonely. Loss of a relationship.

Hello All,

I have suspected for a long while that I may have some form of high functioning ASD, and recently am accepting and would say I am self-diagnosed. I'm hoping to go to my GP to request a referral for an assessment soon. However, not until recently have I really reflected on situations in my past and realised just how difficult I have found things, specifically social interactions, friendships and relationships. These realisations and reflections have only really come from the ending of a 4 and a half year relationship. I am very much grieving the relationship and struggling with the loss, it's still very fresh and raw. But it has made me realise so many aspects of the relationship, conversations and situations that I found so difficult, and made me realise that as time went on in it, I was hiding how I truly felt or thought , out of fear of what the reaction may be. I was masking more and more without even realising that's what I was doing. I was so afraid of losing the relationship, something I had a sense of safety in, that anything I perceived as a possible threat to losing it meant I had to change how I really felt. These are really hard things to realise, and I'm full of confusion and guilt around them, I can't help but feel that had I been my authentic self more of the time, there could have been a bigger chance that the relationship would have lasted. There were difficulties in the relationship that were not related to ASD at all, that were the majority cause of the split -  just poor decisions by myself. But the reflections on this relationship have led to more realisations as to how I have been in the past with social interactions and friendships. 

I don't know if it's possible or if anyone else has felt like this but I can't help feeling like perhaps my relationship became my special interest. Is this possible? It was for so long the only thing I was interested in investing time into, in talking about. Most of my decisions were to do with spending more time with my partner, doing things I thought could make her happy, and trying to build a life together that we'd both talked about so much. Me and my partner became so intertwined. Now that it's over, I feel very lost and confused. I don't have any friends, as I've always found making friends difficult and the few i had going into the relationship slowly faded. Now i've just lost my best friend. 

I'm doing more and more research into autism and how it relates to me and my experiences and difficulties. I've felt so isolated and lonely for most of my life (i'm only 24 but it's still taken it's toll), and having a better understanding as to why is good but really difficult to come to terms with. I wish I knew these things about myself a long time ago as I've been so confused about so many parts of life. 

How did you feel when you started to really see how autism could have affected your experiences in the past? Part of me feels like having an understanding of them helps me, but also i feel like I'm finding it hard to accept myself.