Hi All,
My Name is Mike, I am 40 years old and have recently been made aware i might have AS.
Apologies in advance for the way i write ( i cant really punctuate), but it makes sense to me, but maybe not to the reader in places.
That said..
For me this come as some relief but also i find dispair, for many years i have struggled to understand / know why people react to me the way they do, i have tried many ways to communicate and it doesnt seem to get any easier.
My partner (T of 10 years) has recently suggested that i may have AS. T has had some experience of other mental health problems (i dont like to call them problems but dont know what is PC these days) through her previous employment as a carer for people with special needs.
T has recently bought some books on A S, (Freaks, Geeks and Asperger's Syndrome by Luke Jackson & Alone Together by Katrin Bentley).
Portions of these books that she has read aloud to me match my behaviour like it was written about me.
So i now have some comfort in finally begining to identify and understand what makes me "tock" I have AS!
i am very literal in almost everything i do, which i guess some people i know find amusing but in my personal life it is not that amusing, i get in trouble because i dont think beyond the meaning of the words i hear, i dont hear the invisble "i need your help" when T is talking to me.
I find that conversation turn into arguements, i have recently begun watching myself afterwards (To explain i switch off and re run the video in my head and try to relive the event to see what happens in my head)
i discovered that random faces (you know those photos we take of people enjoying themselves socially, when we look back we caught some random grimace and at no point did anyone actually see that face but photos are odd the way they capture stuff that way) anyway i see these micro facial reactions (bit like the guy in the TV series "Lie To Me") in realtime and it causes anger within me, also i get confusing contradicting information, the faces + odd emphasis on words + body language all of which seem to cause anger, this anger builds i become dizzy and can end up exiting through my mouth when i dont want it to.
to make matters worse i also struggle to understand why all the "normal" people dont have live updateable white boards in their heads like me, i recently had a conversation with T re the Alone Together book, the man in the book has AS, it mentions that AS people can have "white boards", "volume control" issues, the need to "correct errors", "lack of theory of mind" (not knowing what others are thinking) difficulties interpreting facial expressions and body language, all of which i know i have in spades.
so we were talking about these and what i recognise about these things, during which time i got angry, raised my voice, felt like i was being attacked, T's face and body language told me she was being agrressive, then we have an aguement and T tells me to stop shouting (i dont think i was but ok i accept i might have been) and it all went downhill from there.
the logical part of my head tells me that T is trying, she has found books, she is comunicating with me, we are talking, but we are also argueing, arguements worse than i can remember.
I dont get why she can read out something she thinks is like how i am and then not apply that rule to me in the same sentance, "oh look you find it hard to recognise facial expressions & body language" and then wondering why i sometimes react at her.
this causes the most frustration to me, in my head, i feel dizzy, i feel angry, but most of all i cant understand why you can tell me something then ignore it when communicating, as i said to T, why learn french and refuse to speak it??
Emotionally i am slipping into dispair, knowing now more about what is going on doesnt help the overwhelming feelings of dispair. i feel that i am losing that which is so imporant to me, my partner T and our 7 month old baby girl.
I fear that she is not strong enough to see this through with me, she is very angry with me, now i am sitting here alone crying, fearing the inevitable breakup, i really hate being so literal, part of me is a bit scientific "all evidence" points to the inevitable, i cant let go of what i see coming, i really dont want it to happen, are there drugs to prevent AS is there any solution to turn it off??
i decided to reach out for help, i dont know where to turn, i want to fix myself, i dont want to suffer any more, i just want to be "normal", if i lose my T and our Baby i dont think i will make it any further. this is unsettling to me as information normally makes me feel more secure this is the reverse the more i find the more worried abiout my future i become.
Mike.
