Hi Everyone, I looking for some help, I'm feeling a bit lost

Hi Everyone, so the last 5 days have been a bit crazy and I'm not sure what to think so I'm hoping someone can maybe help. 

I'm currently going through a separation with my wife, (we've been married for 15 years and have three kids, we've been separated for three months but we are still living in the same house) and this has started to bring up a lot of things from my past. 

My wife has been doing a lot research into Autism and ADHD for the past year and my oldest son is working with a learning support assistants at his school. They think he may be dyslexic and have ADHD. 

During my separation with my wife she said that she thinks I'm narcissistic, this hurt me a lot. Now after many conversations with my wife, she now thinks I may be autistic but I'm just not sure.

I've done lots of online tests and I always score very high.

I've put down some of my thoughts yesterday but I just don't know what to think or do. I've copy what I wrote below, its a bit long and it feels strange putting this on the internet as I've never really done anything like this before.

I don't know if I'm now looking for reasons that support this new idea and I'm trying to find behaviour in my past that supports the theory that I'm autistic.

Right here you go.

• Childhood

I was raised in a very strict religious household that dominated my upbringing and meant that most of my childhood was focused on the sometimes very strict church teachings. This made making friends at school very difficult and I didn't make a friend outside the church until I was studying for my A levels. I didn't make any close friends at university and spent most of my time with people I already knew.

As a Child I liked to invent games with words and numbers, I would sit for hours playing a game I invented where I would count the outer and inner parts of letters to see if a page of text would turn out to be even or odd. The goal was for the page to be even.

Examples of even letters are as follows a, d, b, o, p
Examples of odd letters are as follows x, c, n, m

I also used this system to try and work my way from the top of a page to the bottom without stopping, an even letter meant I could move right and an odd letter I could move left.

I also had a game where on a car journey I would blink every time we passed a lamppost or road markings.

I played these games for many years until I decided it wasn't “normal” and whenever I started to play them again I would pinched the back of my hand until it hurt to stop myself. This worked, but I still find myself doing it every now and then.

I've always been fascinated with facts, information and maps. I like collecting information about various subjects and I tend to find most subjects very interesting.

• Communication

I’m dyslexic so I struggle with written communication but I feel like I have a wide vocabulary when talking to people. I do struggle with pronunciation and will often mispronounce words or use them in the wrong context. I used software that reads your text for every email or long message I type for work.

I often find I don't say what I want to people, specifically with people close to me and I will try and get the information I want out of them without being direct.

• Social Interaction

I don't really like being in a large or small group and will tend to stay on the outskirts. I have a lot of social anxiety before any social occasions or group activities. Unless I’m talking about a subject matter I know, I often find I don't know what to say and this makes me very anxious. I am very self conscious about how I look and how I’m perceived and I have ongoing issues with my body image.

I will try to run through multiple conversations in my head before most interactions so that I can use them in a social environment. I will practice these conversations over and over again until I know what I’m going to say.

Over the years I have learnt a few key social skills that seem to work well, eg, asking people questions, this is great because I can then use this information if I see that person again. Also, asking people for help with something, I have used this idea with success at work as generally it’ll ingratiate you with a group or individual people.

I’ve found I’m very good at using different personas with people and groups and I’m able to switch between them depending on the situation.

• Sensory Difficulties

I suffer with constant tinnitus and have a very distracting ringing in my ears at all times. I’ve found I can not concentrate with office or house noise happening around me but I can zone out and super focus if I need to.

I can’t focus and struggle to form thoughts if there are multiple noises coming from different locations, eg. cooking noises, music and children all happening at the same time

• Friendships

I have one close friend and one another person I'm friends with from 6th form and I have never really been part of a large friendship group. I will try and think of multiple conversation points before meeting friends or family so that I have something to talk about.

• Employment

I have been successful at work, my job requires me to remember a large amount of technical detail and information, I find I can do this with ease. I’m then required to use this information in different situations and apply it. There is also a large amount of problem solving and I get a great deal of satisfaction from solving technical issues.

My job also is heavily reliant on strict orders of operations, certain projects require processes to be done in a very specific way. I have found over the years that I’m able to retain a lot of technical information very quickly and then apply it.

• Need for routine

Routine is incredibly important for me, I like to plan my whole day/week (usually in hour slots). In general I know the time and distance to most places so I can plan as exactly as possible the time it takes to get anywhere.

If I’ve agreed to be somewhere, I will be there at least 5 mins early, just in case something happens. I will plan ahead of time, what time I will be eating and what I’ll be eating, when I’ll exercise, when I’ll be cleaning up and what, what I’ll be watching on TV and so on. If something happens out of my control that gets in the way of this, it can make me very anxious and annoyed.

I devote a lot of time thinking about my daily/weekly plan.

I’m very good at day to day tasks and like to plan them out with lists but I sometimes find any job or project that isn't on my normal day to day routine very hard to do and it can take me a long time to do that task.