hello!

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Joined: 17 May 2009
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 14

18 May 2009, 6:42 pm

Hi all! I don't have a formal diagnosis of Asperger's, but I'm about 95% sure I have it. I would have never thought so had I not read an article about a girl with it and she resembled me so much it was almost scary. Since then, I've read a few books and tons of online articles, and it's strange how all the stuff I never understood about myself now makes sense. For example--not understanding small talk and getting annoyed when guys flirt with me (even though I'm a girl and people expect me to 'get' that stuff and respond in the same way), sensory stuff (I don't like being touched and I run out of the room if someone scrapes a fork against a metal pan cause I hate the noise), the fact that I 'research' my 'hobbies' online for hours (thankfully my boyfriend thinks that's 'cute'...most of the time ) and all my other little 'quirks' seem to be explained by this diagnosis.

My friends and family think I'm very eccentric, but if you didn't know me well, you'd never know it by looking at me. I tend to space out when people are talking and/or get irritated when people change the topic when it's something I want to talk about. For some reason my aloofness is usually overlooked, probably because people think I'm nice. I'm extremely curious and I always ask 'why' about everything. This annoys people sometimes, but I honestly want to know.

Oh I've also read somewhere on this forum that Dr. Brennan on the show Bones is probably a good fit for a female with Asperger's...I find that ironic because since the show started, people have told me how much I act like her. My friends laugh at me all the time because they make cultural references, or use some kind of cliched phrase that everyone in the world has heard but me and I just stare blankly at them.

Not sure if I want to pursue being formally diagnosed or not. I realized lately that my coping mechanism is to intellectualize most stuff, especially social situations--I analyze people's behavior to death, which has made me pretty good at reading people over the years, so getting a diagnosis would be mostly just to feed my curiosity. I think my method works most of the time. The problem, though, is in closer personal relationships where you KNOW (intellectually) what the other person is saying, like if they're upset with you and you understand why, but you don't empathize with them and then they're just mad at you for 'not caring'...so yeah, I'm still working on that. And probably will be forever.

Well I've rambled enough. Hi again.