Published on 12, July, 2020
So since I was young I always knew I was different. I didn't start talking until a lot later than other kids, I always struggled with social interactions, and there are a great many reasons why I recently have come to the belief that I have always had aspergers (I'm a 27 year old man to provide context). As I have got older I have learned many of societies rules, and I think I actually function pretty well now, at least on the outside, on the inside I feel like I am constantly managing an array of filters, filtering what goes in (at least trying to) and filtering what goes out so I don't inadvertently offend or upset someone. It's tiring...
Anyway, I realise that what I am doing most likely isn't helpful, but I feel I have to do something. I think I've become a bit obsessed with Aspergers, I've read a load about it and watched hours of videos, I always do this, when something interests me I spend hours studying it, I can't break out of it, it's like I'm drawn to it. It's one of the many things that makes me think I have Aspergers, but now it appears that Aspergers is the focus of my current obsession.
The issue is that now I have studied things I have reached the point that I am almost totally convinced I fit the bill, so much so that I now make most things fit, I can't be sure that this is what I am doing, or if things actually do fit and I'm just recognising it, I also have a problem where when I believe something I can find a tremendous amount of supporting evidence, I have done this before and later been proved to be wrong, so I accept that is a possibility in this instance.
Does anyone have any advice for me?
Hello Forest!
All of us will have something like drawers in our brain. They are for standards, so that we can act without consider about how to behave. We would be overwhelmed, if we ponder about our perception and how to react to. When we grow up, we build these drawers from time to time. We do this by coping or by learning. Coping means what you are often doing, if you react that way like you can see others will react that way in this situation. Learning means, you will behave in a way that will be accepted from most people, so you are adjusted. For example, if someone will visit you with his small children, you will behave with the children in a real different way than to the adults; that is automatic related to the drawers in our brain.
But this system, which is supporting us in a fine way can become a problem always then, when we have exceptional situations. When you grew up, your parents tried to learn about your needs by your behave. So if you mostly behaved non-expressive, they also will behave more and more non-expressive in contact with you. We call it "that they will think that you are thinking" this way. If you never rectified there behave in such situations, they will become sure, that it is the best way to behave with you and that you will feel fine by that. And we have a joke about this. There is a little boy sitting with his parents at the breakfast table. All his live, he has never said a word to anyone. Suddenly he says, where is the salt? His parents were totally confused and his father said, you can speak, why haven't you said a word before? And the son answered, because I was never missing something. That means, you can become used to a form of behave, that even can be stupid, but no one rectified in the past. Have you been satisfied with the behave of your parents by showing it at the outside, no matter it was looking at the inside? People with any kind of autism tend to accept the easiest way in any interaction.
You feel that people like you, if you're solving their problems. But could it be, that they will like the problems solved instead of you? I think, that you will dislike if somebody will burden you with his problems. But that is part of your autism and it does not mean that you should behave the same. You are the one who needs help to solve your problems. If you ask, whom you can assist or help, the place around you will be overcrowded; but if you ask, is there anybody who can assist me, take a look around, mostly there is empty space. You can't imagine, how important it is to talk about your problems without any thought of becoming a burden to someone. It is the only way to express yourself by words, until you're able to express yourself face to face. A friend of mine is asperger autist. At the beginning he was able to face me to say hello, he had to turn his head down. For me it made no sense to force him to talk to me. So I wrote him by E-Mail and even that needed time on his side. After nearly two years we had exchanged 429 mail before we started to talk to each other from time to time. He is still not expressive in a "normal" way, but now there is no reason anymore to hesitate to talk with him.
If you will behave on your status quo, nothing will change. The contact with a therapist is okay, but there you are in a protected area. He will assist you in many ways, nobody else can do, but he is no social contact for you.
For how much an autist can express even in the beginning I will fill in a part of an E-Mail I received.
"You've overlooked me all the weeks. In your proximity I will burn up if I inhale and freeze to death if I exhale. Icicles are growing into my heart that lashes around rebellious. Only the basics of hope, who loads heavier than anxiety. I am tired of hope again and again to try out an optimistic pose, to withstand what I can't stand. I am tired of the mendacious endurance gauges, with whom I sentence myself to live every day. Go up! Do not let yourself hang! Head up! And then? Another day where nothing will change.
Then in the evening I will stay sleepless in my bed and the bed will become a ship, that will sink in the storm of my thoughts. And I will fall, fall deeper and deeper, until you will catch me on the bottom of my night sea to swim with me against the river. But hardly the day drew, you will disappear my imaginary friend und the sea will spew me back into my night."
Regards
Alexander