where to start...

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Joined: 15 Oct 2009
Age: 45
Gender: Female
Posts: 1

16 Oct 2009, 2:40 pm

I'm Nikki and I'm 28 years old, married a year, no kids (yet). I don't have a diagnosis (and don't really have the funds or resources to go about getting one right now) but I've come to realize in recent months that I have a lot of the traits of Aspergers or similar. I've got a friend who has Aspergers and he recommended this site. "Wrong Planet" is a pretty good description of how I feel most of the time. I apologize in advance for my rambling and hope that most of it makes sense. ;-) I have a cold and my cold medicine is giving me a bit of a case of medicine head, so please bear with me.

I've been aware for most of my life that there was something "wrong" or "different" about me, but particularly since adolescence. Till fairly recently I figured I probably have bipolar type 2 (my brother does) and social anxiety but that still doesn't explain my sense of being a fish out of water, like I'm in the wrong environment. I hadn't really considered autism before till I read an article about how Aspergers may go underdiagnosed in females because traits that society sees as out of place on boys (such as extreme shyness) may be considered relatively normal in girls, and because Aspie girls tend to be better able to imitate their peers' behaviors than boys.

I find it really hard to make friends on my own, without some sort of proxy, and when thrust into a group of people I don't know well I tend to go off by myself, if not physically then mentally. No doubt this makes me seem unfriendly and disinterested, which I'm really not, but most of the time I don't know what to say and if I try, it comes out sounding stupid, so I just withdraw. Social contact is like a drug for me...I crave it but when I actually spend time with other people, I tend to feel wrung out and exhausted afterwards. Consequently, I spend most of my free time on the Internet. I'm the person at work who gets along with pretty much everyone, but is never invited to hang out.

I've often wondered why living seems so easy for most of the world. All your life you hear about how lying, cheating, and stealing is wrong, and how honesty is the best policy, and how good always wins over evil, but then you get into the real world and it seems like none of those idealistic platitudes hold true anymore. Seems like most people are OK with this, or at least accept it, but I find I struggle with it almost daily.

Woo. There's more but this cold medicine is kicking my butt. That's all I got for now.

Nikki