Hello
I am 36 years old and have spent what feels like my entire life trying to make sense of myself and my place in the world. My father died when I was a young child, after which I only ever remember feeling anxious all the time about everything. I have always placed a great deal of importance on that life event in explaining the way I was, whilst at the same time unable to shake the feeling that something else just wasn’t quite right. I have tried counselling a number of times over the years which has had little impact, but today I had a conversation with my therapist who I have been seeing for a number of weeks now and we discussed the possibility that I possess a number of traits compatible with autism.
Socially I have a small group of friends, all of which I have been friends with since school, some since primary school. Despite this, for much of my early high school years, I remember hearing about how they had met up at the weekends or after school, whereas I was always very isolated, choosing instead to stay at home. Latterly, when we reached the age where house party’s/pubs/clubs became the norm, I embraced this but would drink heavily and would only feel comfortable having a drink to sip on in social situations. I have had various jobs and am on course to complete my third degree at university later this year, however in all that time I haven’t ever made a single friend that I have managed to maintain contact with after leaving said jobs/courses. My two previous uni courses I had one friend on each, but on both occasions it was them who reached out, whilst I awkwardly accepted their advances, deep down really wondering why they even wanted to hang around with me. Similarly, I had one friend from a previous job who I have no idea where the friendship arose from and I just sort of went along with it, without really feeling any sort of deep connection with them.
Generally I feel very awkward conversing with people on a day to day basis and will often struggle with awkward silence, or what to say next. I can initiate conversation at a very superficial level, “hi how are you? What did you do at the weekend?”, however maintaining the conversation or going beyond this really basic chat is a challenge and I often feel very embarrassed answering their questions, as I feel they will think I am weird or boring or have nothing interesting to say. I did recently have someone at work tell me I “fly under the radar and play it safe”. Another scenario I can recall is sitting getting a haircut and feeling incredibly tense and nervous about the fact I wasn’t talking, to the point my back was covered in sweat when I stood up.
The eye contact thing definitely resonates with me in that I can make eye contact with people, but I will be constantly in my head trying to manage when to look someone in the eye when I am talking with them and how much is too much. I also think when I am talking myself I tend to look away from the other person, or if someone is explaining something to me, I tend to look at the ground, or in to the distance.
One of the things we discussed today was the fact I have always had jobs where hyper-focus is helpful and I have been known to immerse myself in reorganising the workspace, one example of which was in a very large department and did this work almost completely on my own.
Conversely, in my home life I often put off tasks like cleaning, tidying, laundry etc because I often find myself far too drained or exhausted and simply want to use my spare time to recharge. Despite this, I crave order at home and can often become quite distressed when things aren’t clean, tidy or the way I want things to be, which has caused friction in my relationship. This distress just makes it more likely that I will put off doing the task and sometimes it feels impossible to even start.
My current relationship is a huge reason I started seeing my current therapist, as I have been feeling very overwhelmed thinking about committing to a serious future with her, much of which I think stems from the fact I constantly feeling like I am trying to maintain order and control in my own life and the thought of sharing responsibility for a home and a family with someone else who may see things differently feels very daunting. I have only had a small handful of serious relationships, each of which lasted less than two years. My current is the first to move beyond this point and the first time I have lived with a partner.
I am constantly worried about the future and have this need for everything to be right and for everything to play out the way I want, to the point I will stress about every possibly outcome.
Its difficult to really express everything that goes on inside my head which has led to this, but talking to the therapist today it just felt like the penny had finally dropped and so much of my behaviour finally made sense. I have spent most of the day on a bit of a deep-dive into ASD, but I still have more questions and answers. So much of it I identify with, but then some other areas not so much.
I guess I just wondered if everything I described resonates with people on here.
