Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I¨m a 47 year old male. Im suffering from and on medication for depression and anxiety linked to the recent separation from my partner. After 7 years of couple therapy she had enough. Linked to this I have started to seriously consider whether I may have Aspergers, after reading an article on it. Many of our difficulties stemmed from her concerns with lack of spontaneity, adherence to rigid routines, anxiety at small changes in daily routines and in the home environment, as well as my behaviour during our interactions (inability to keep eye contact, taking some of the things she said too literally, lack of empathy, extreme introversion, etc.). Many of these things have dampened all my previous relationships. When I first suspected Asperger´s may be the answer and told her, her response was "i didn´t know how to tell you". Since then I have gone in an obsessive frenzy to try to figure out whether this is the case or not. I´ve done all the tests I have been able to find (the whole Baron-Cohen catalog and all the others you find online). When I saw all the scores were typical of aspies I started to read Tony Attwood book to get a better sense. When I read this stuff, a lot of it resonates with past experiences and my life. My first reaction was one of relief. I finally had a template that could explain past difficulties and the way my life has been. But this has been followed by a more complex cocktail of emotions. Anger at nobody having noticed before, fear at the implications, a sense of shame at being wrong about the "self diagnosis". I´m concerned that this could be my depression talking. I am utterly confused and insecure. I have talked to some colleagues, partly to see their reactions and find some validation. The irony there is that I have been unable to tell from their responses what they were thinking (doo!): surprise, "i always thought you were weird and rude", "you must really be loosing your plot", fear... Go figure. I´m seeing my GP next week and have also engaged with a psychotherapist with experience with autism. So hopefully I will be finding some answers. But I guess engaging with others in this forum may also help me to get a better sense of who I am. But also to break the loneliness.
thanks
Hi Mazinger,
Firstly, welcome to the forum. Your story is so typical (but also individually different) of many people on the forum. It is very hard for someone to tell someone else that they might have autism. Some people react very badly to that but obviously withholding that insight can also have a bad outcome. There is no right and wrong in this, people make decisions and some of them turn out to be bad decisions.
When you go and see your GP I think it is a good idea to separate out two sets of things to talk about.
a) why you think you fit the criteria
b) why having Asperger's (i.e. autism) is causing such a problem that requires treatment or special help.
A lot of people can see the autistic traits and behaviourrs in themsleves but this does not necessarily mean that they need a diagnosis and treatment.
In your case it sounds fairly straightforward, you are sufferring mental health issues and social issues that deserve to be treated and dealt with.
You need to understand that they will help deal with the consequences but the underlying autism is not treatable, and does not need treatment. (except that you need help in learning to live with it) You need help with depression and anxiety and these can be resolved if the underlying root cause can be understood.