Hi everyone,
I'm Ian and I've joined this forum and finally decided that I would like to seriously consider seeking a professional opinion. But before I properly get down to doing that I thought I should try and cover all the grounds first and make sure that I'm not just overthinking things or, as a friend said when I was speaking to him about it, being misled by "confirmation bias".
I've been wondering every now and then about whether I was on the ASD spectrum. The first time I thought about it was when I came across this article about adults who only started suspecting and were diagnosed with Asperger's/ASD later on. I found that I related a lot to that sense of being an "alien", the deep-set feeling they had among other people that somehow they did not belong, or couldn't quite figure out how they fit in. I looked into ASD a lot after that and started to do a few of the tests, and when I got positive results on them I started wondering if it was possible. I gave it up however because I didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with the NHS and everything. But recently I've been prompted again to look into it after watching The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and realising that while I know I'm not outright autistic, there was something there highly relatable that I could sense.
For me, I had an incredibly difficult childhood, particularly because I was bullied a lot in primary school. I never really understood why: I do however very clearly remember one occasion where, when confronted by the teacher (I don't remember the details, but I must have somehow decided to tell the teacher or something), a classmate of mine accused me of sounding very "bossy". I never understood this accusation because the fact was that I never really interacted with a lot of the children anyway, and preferred to be just with the two friends that I'd had for a long time, and never really hung out with the bigger groups or anything.
That wasn't the first time when I was younger, though, that I've had moments where people just suddenly seemed to be turned off by something I'd done or said – I never knew why. Like there'd be these people whom I thought were my friends but at some point they'd suddenly switch and be really nasty to me or blank me out completely. I've also had a very difficult time learning how to make friends or even just talk to people and part of the reason why I now suspect ASD was because I read somewhere that ASD children don't often know what is appropriate or isn't, and the earliest thing I can remember was when I was six when I somehow was told or knew that this girl sitting next to me was upset or something and I thought the thing to do was to stroke her hair gently like a pet animal or something like that. As you might have guessed that didn't go down too well with the rest of my classmates.
In more recent years, I'm glad to say that socially speaking I've been doing quite well, and I'm able to talk to strangers more or less without any averse discomfort or anything – and in fact I work as a tour guide now which puts me in touch with strangers on a pretty regular basis. But it doesn't mean at all that I don't struggle with social situations. In fact, one of the reasons why I'm beginning to seriously consider seeking a diagnosis is because very recently – only just about two or three months ago, actually – I was at the pub with these new people I'd met after joining an LGBT Christian support group (it's a long story) and, to keep it short, I got really upset with myself after I got home from the pub because I couldn't believe how terribly I fared at the thing. I didn't know how to enter into any of the conversations going on around me, I kept worrying that this particular guy really didn't like me, and I just felt like I didn't know what to do with myself the entire time despite the fact that deep inside I really wanted to stay there and speak to these people and get past myself. And it wasn't the first time I'd gotten upset at myself for not doing well in a social situation: every now and then I'll think that I'm doing fine when I find myself in a new situation where I flounder utterly and don't know what I'm doing.
Social problems aside, throughout my life – even know – I've had a rotating set of interests, mainly with languages – though there was a point at which I was obsessed with fashion. It got to the point where before going to bed I would lie there and recount the names of all the models that I knew, just for the heck of it. I definitely collected as many books as I could on the subjects that I was into, even if I didn't read all of it.
Among other things, it's also a regular occurrence that I'll be out with friends and a bus or something passes by or comes to a halt next to us and I'll be the only one blocking my ears because I can't bear the sound of it.
The reason why I'm not sure if I should get a diagnosis is because I don't know if I'm reading too much into things (confirmation bias) or if it's some other thing. I was confined for a night in an institution a few years ago because I was in the army (I was educated outside of the UK and as a permanent resident where I was you have to serve conscription for two years) and I suffered a bit of a breakdown because I couldn't handle the demands of working in an uptight office environment (I wasn't fit for combat training anyway) and basically got a bit suicidal. I do also suffer from a fairly mild case of OCD and the psychologist at the institution gave a preliminary diagnosis of OCPD but the medical officers that saw me later on didn't really agree and simply prescribed me anti-anxiety medication. Working with a therapist really helped me a lot and probably helped me get this far – I mean, moving to a new city all by oneself is not easy by any shot – so I think part of the reason why I'm hesitant is because I don't know if I'm wasting anyone's time trying to get a diagnosis if, at the moment, I am more or less getting along just fine.
I'm incredibly sorry that this is so long: I don't know think I realised when I started this post how much there is on my mind. Thank you for reading this 
Edited to add: I'm not sure if it's helpful, but my tentative AQ10 score (knowing that outside of a clinical context these tests aren't definitive at all) is 6 while my AQ50 is 41.
