Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello All,
My name is Ian and I was wondering if anybody might be able to offer some advice on my situation.
I do not want to bore anyone or downplay issues others might have with my own particular set of circumstances but I am emotionally exhausted and I think I need some help after a lifetime of what i guess might be Aspergers.
I've always felt that there might be something wrong, if that is the right way to describe things but my path through life has encouraged me to push on no matter what, often ignoring things or finding coping strategies to deal with what is painful social interaction.
I am 41, of (measured) above averagee intelligence and hold down a well paid senior management job in the City. Again, this has until now, convinced me that I can't have a problem , because how could I do this otherwise?
However, I've started to accept (although I've always known) that what I do to get through each day and perform well, is a series of well rehearsed routines mimicking what I see as normal social interaction.
I am aware that there are those who find me more than a little odd due to my mannerisms but as my work has always been good, it's put up with.
There have been a number of occasions in my current employ where I have crashed and burned spectacularly however. I had to give a disciplinary to a senior member of staff last year with our HR Director.
I can't describe quite how badly this panned and what should have been a simple , short task , turned into somewhat of a horror show.
This confused the firm quite considerably and they sent me on a £25k management course to 'fix me', which again I found very emotionally difficult, as these courses tend to focus inwardly but I did learn that my behaviour does actually impact others.
I have lost my best friend inthe last 18 months, due to some behaviour of mine at his mother's funeral (which in hindsight must have appeared appalling but I'm still struggling to see the issue) and I feel that things are starting to fall apart around after decades of holding things together.
I am not one for melodrama or self diagnosis and would never want to appear to be trivialising a condition that I can imagine causes a lot of grief for people.
I am fortunate that I have a supportive wife and fantastic children (the only three people I feel natural around). Without them I thnk I'd be far worse off
I suppose I'm most concerned that at my age and with a seemingly polished facade, that he won't take me seriously, that he won't be able to see past my act.
I don't know what it's worth but I scored 42 on the test I found for autism online, which I understand is towards the upper end of the scale.
Any advice that anyone who has some experience of the condition would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Ian
Hi again
I understand what you mean about having a box for everything in your head and wanting a reason for why you feel the way you do. I was in the same situation a few weeks ago - I hate getting so upset when things get too much for me and I thought there might be something "wrong" with me.
Then when I thought about the idea that it might be aspergers which was the underlying cause it seemed to make sense, so the thought that I might get a negative diagnosis for aspergers worried me.
The GP said a formal diagnosisis is more usually done for children, so that they can be given support during their development and education. At my first consultation he asked me how I thought a diagnosis would help me, so I said that I thought it would help me understand myself better and learn how to cope better with stressful situations. I also said that I thought it would mean that the CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) he had recommended for me could be tailored to my needs, however he told me that it would be the same whether I have aspergers or not.
Between the first and second GP consultations I sent him my AQ test responses to assess and considered my options. I was advised by some people on here that CBT or any type of counselling /therapy should be carried out by a therapist with expertise in autism / aspergers, which seemed to me like it was not the "one size fits all" answer the GP seemed to be telling me it was. I also researched it on the net and asked my friend, who had CBT a few years ago, about how useful she found it. I discovered that it is based on the idea that negative thoughts cause negative feelings, therefore by learning to change how you think you won't have negative feelings. That's no use to me - my anxiety isn't caused by negative thoughts, it's caused by an instinctive reaction to things like: sensory discomfort (crowds, certain noises, etc), phobic responses (e.g. feeling trapped), being overwhelmed (by having too many things to do / being given too much information) or not understanding and being scared by another person's hostile (whether real or perceived) response to me.
I also discovered that the formal diagnosis route usually involves you taking a parent or someone else who has known you along to the assessment so they can answer questions about what you were like as a child and assess whether you had developmental problems. This would not be possible for me, and even if it were, at the age of 55 I would not be happy with it.
So when I had the 2nd consultation with the GP and he offered me a referral based on my AQ test results, I declined. By then I had decided that as I would not get any useful help from the medical profession, there wasn't much point. Also, by then my reading about aspergers had started to give me clues about how I could learn to cope better myself.
You can get a private diagnosis if you just want to "tick the box" so to speak, although I've heard that this is not always accepted if you do later need to access services or get disability related benefits.
Sorry about the extremely long post, but I just want to end by saying don't think there is anything wrong with you. You just respond differently to most people in certain situations, but you're obviously intelligent, thoughtful, and have the ability to learn about yourself, with the benefit of a supportive home life, so I believe you can work things out.