I can't figure out what's wrong with me. Could it be AS?

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I could go down a checklist of the signs of Asperger's, but I always feel like I'm trying to make it sound true. So instead I'll just give a brief overview of my life.

I'm 34 and I live in the laundry room of my mom and brother's house, because I have nowhere else to go Previous to this I lived in the unfinished garage at my father's house. The cinder block walls and concrete floor got really cold in the winter, and the snakes and spiders found their way in during the winter, but it was better than getting a job. I had a job at McDonald's when I was in high school. I only worked in the back, and lasted almost a year. Other jobs? I was a telemarketer for 6 hours, and quit. I lasted 4 hours at Arby's because they had me working the front counter. I did training at Lowes Home Improvement, but quit before they could get me out on the floor. I did overnight stocking at Walmart for 3 days, but quit when they started training me on a register. I've helped my dad with a few scattered contract jobs running data cable in offices, but the experience always leaves me bitter and angry at him and the world.

I've had 2 girlfriends in my life, and those were both in early high school. I've had 2 people I would really consider close friends, and one I'm not in contact with anymore. Other friends just feel like people I spend time with so I'm not alone 100% of the time, and in the past decade all of those have been people I met online. I have zero friends that I see face to face. I did move around a lot growing up, being a military child. So not making friends easily, and moving a lot, meant that I didn't make many friends.

I stutter a bit on occasion. I think over everything I say before I say it, and feel like my mind is racing all the time. I sometimes take an interest in something and spend hours or days on it, then abandon it and might not come back for quite a while. I count things in multiples of 4, usually in even sets. I'll check 4x on the right side of my mouth, then 4x on the left. If I chew 4x more on the right, I'll do it 4x more on the left to make an even number of pairs of 4. I do this with my steps while walking, with tapping my feet, and many other things. I don't feel like I have to do it, but I find myself doing it a lot, especially when stressed. Though in general I manage to be pretty laid back all the time (maybe I'm just good at burying it, I don't know).

I spent about a year and a half seeing a therapist. This was probably 3-4 years ago. It was initially suggested that I had Schizoid Personality disorder. During my first meeting with the therapist, he told me my facial affect wasn't neutral enough to be Schizoid. Therapy sessions would typically play out in a very "questions and answers" type of conversation. He would prod me and I'd only answer with one sentence, if that. I never felt comfortable with him, and never really opened up. The entire year and a half could be summarized by "Fake it until you make it. Get a job and pretend to be happy about it, and eventually you will be." (that's almost a word for word quote from him.) I had a "community assistance" contact for a while. This guy was around my age, and would take me out for walks, to grab lunch, basically to do social things. He was astounded at how social I could be, despite constantly telling him my therapist that I didn't like social interaction. (I'm not afraid of it, just don't like it... usually.) I had to stop going to therapy because the government assistance program that was paying for it dropped my therapist's office from their list of supported clinics.

My family refuses to believe that I take issue with social interactions. My mother tells me I'm an extremely outgoing and friendly person. Of course she's also told me I'm a sociopath, and I don't think she fully understands what either statement means. My brother just thinks I'm a sociopath, and my father just thinks I'm lazy. I tell them I need to see someone to find out what's wrong with me, and they insist there's nothing wrong with me, and I don't need to see anyone. BTW my brother is diagnosed with agoraphobia and social anxiety. He's super shy and afraid of... pretty much everything. So if I say I have social issues, I hear, "You're nothing like your brother!"



So... no job, no car, no friends, no relationships. I buy groceries with food stamps, and get my asthma medication from a free clinic in town. I use video games as an escape (playing mostly free to play online games, and online games my friends offer to pay for), and surround myself with the few online friends I have. They occasionally suggest we meet in person someday, and I recoil and offer excuses. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of what they'd think of me, or if I just don't feel like I know or trust them well enough.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I hear you about the job situation. I've also had trouble holding down jobs.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Finally, someone else who counts things in 4's! I thought I was the only one. Actually, that was one of the symptoms that had me convinced I had OCD for years. Then my 2 boys were diagnosed as on the spectrum, I read a bit about AS, and figured out I was really an Aspie.

You certainly sound like you could be on the spectrum. I recommend doing some reading here and elsewhere to give you a better idea. I'm self-diagnosed at the moment, as I don't have the money to see a specialist, but I reckon I fit the criteria pretty well. It has helped me a lot to know this. I read about strategies others have used, and I think I handle people and work situations a bit better now that I understand my needs better.

Welcome to WP.

I would say that no, that description does not sound to me like ASD. You have to be assessed by a professional to really know one way or another, of course. My guess would be no though. AS usually involves very severe impairment in social interaction and difficulty with social communication. What you described is more dislike of socializing and discomfort with social situations and that does often occur with AS but that's more a result of the deficits in non-verbal communication and social understanding ect then what AS actually is. ASD involves impairment in non-verbal communication: this can include things like having a strange voice (monotone or weird intonation) , lack of facial expressions and gestures or weird ones and/or not understanding other's facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice ect. Then there's a deficit in social reciprocity, this is harder to explain, one way it might show up is you "having an abnormal social approach" doing strange things in social situations because you don't know they're inappropriate. Then you have developmentally appropriate relationships not developed or maintained. You're supposed to have had all these problems to an extent that they impair your daily life and to have had them consistently throughout your life. Then, to meet criteria for AS you're supposed to have 2 repetitive behaviour (obsessive interests, rigid about routines/sameness, sensory issues or stimming i.e. hand flapping, finger twirling in front of eyes, rocking ect).

So my first impression would be that you probably don't have it but you might have some other problem. You should see a new psychologist if you want help with problems you have.You're welcome here at WP whether you have it or not. You might have something in common with the people here because people with ASD and similar conditions do often develop a dislike of social interaction.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

And Daydreamer, you might be right. Especially since I'm told I was very outgoing as a child (before age 10 or so), though I don't remember it all that well. My memories of that time are mostly of my parents arguing. I dealt with some abuse growing up, and was picked on a lot. I may have just developed some of these traits as a coping mechanism, and now I just having trouble trusting anyone.

I really would like to see a professional, but with no insurance, I'm not sure how I could. the program I was using before was cut, and didn't offer me any suggestions on where to turn. I did see another therapist later, but he didn't do regular one-on-one visits. Instead he wanted me to come to classes that were basically like group therapy, but with an activity for the group to do together. I did the the psychiatrist there once, and just from 5 minutes of talking to him, he suggested I might have an enlarged temporal lobe, but the only studies being done on that in this country are in California (I'm on the East coast), so there wasn't much we could do as far as looking into that. I came home and Googled "enlarged temporal lobe" and got hits for epilepsy and Asperger's.

It's been over a year since I made this topic. I've got a mediated settlement meeting in court on Oct 2 over school loans that have been overdue for over a decade because of my lack of income. I got a night job last week, worked one day and then had the weekend off. Today I'm supposed to go back. I have less than an hour before I need to leave, and I should be jumping in the shower. Instead I'm googling things like "why can't I hold down a job?", "what's it like to check yourself in to a psych ward?", and "can I qualify for disability if I cut off my own foot, or are self-inflicted injuries disqualified?" I spent the afternoon laying in bed crying. This is exactly the reason I have college loans to pay back and no degree. I laid in bed all day instead of going to class, sometimes crying. If I quit this job instead of going, I have to deal with my angry parents. I'm 36, what's going on?

I don't know where to post, I don't know who to ask. Something is wrong with me and I don't know what it is. No one believes me, they just think I'm lazy.

I hope your day got a bit better, whether that was going to work or getting some help. It's hard not to stay crying on the bed, but you need to just think about one step at a time. If you're still on the bed, start by moving your hands into a position where you could sit up. Then when you've got that far, actually push yourself up. Then readjust your position to where you could swing your legs out. Only then should you think about swinging your legs. Do you see what I mean? I'm talking the babiest of baby steps. Sometimes when you feel overwhelmed, you have to really break it down into very small chunks. If you find you can't do something then ask yourself what would I need to do to get to the stage of doing it. Focus on just standing up. Once you're standing, see if there's something you can do next, whatever seems most sensible in your circumstances. If that next action is showering, see if you're facing the door! It sounds a bit juvenile, I know. But a lot of the problems humans have with motivation is getting started. Sometimes you don't need motivation, you need momentum, just getting started can be a huge boost. And THEN you can start dealing with whatever the next problem is. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.