Is it Aspergers?

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I hope that someone here can offer me some advice. This has been playing on my mind for awhile and it's possible that Aspergers could explain a lot about me. I'm not looking for a diagnosis or anything, I just want a bit of feedback before I mention it to my therapist tomorrow as I'm scared to even bring it up. I'll try not to ramble on too much but this is porbably going to be a long post so I hope some of you stick it out until the end!

I am 22 and I have been in and out of therapy for the past 2 years (with another period in therapy during my teens). I've seen doctors and psychiatrists; and I've done everything from CBT to Hypnotherapy and nothing has worked. I have had various doctors suspect Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Clinical Depression etc. etc. and then pass me on to some form of specialist who almost always looks at me and concludes that I am "just a bit depressed", offers me some pills (which either do nothing or make things worse) and sends me on my way. I am definately not "just a bit" depressed, you'll have to trust me on that. I've even had one therapist actually give up on me.

It is only because I read a conversation about aspergers on another forum that I decided to look it up and found myself going "that sounds like me!" at almost every criteria. I've done a few of those online tests and scored highly on all of them. Aspergers even explains a few problems that I have that I thought were entirely unrelated to anything, like my diet.

I'll give some examples:

I am near useless in any social situation. I will only talk at length to someone who I have known for a long period of time; and even then I am usually awkward even with my girlfriend and friends that I have had for over 10 years.

It is nigh impossible for me to make friends and the friendships that I do have I struggle to maintain. I have one friend who I only still speak to because they phone me occasionally, I only phone them if I am told that I should. I only have two other friends and I only speak to them via MSN, because talking to people on the internet is much less stressful. If they were not online we likely would have drifted by now.

When I was at college or university I would make a few friends, enough to survive when I had to be in a room full of people at least, but I would not want to see them outside of the class and definately would not be comfortable with them in my house.

I would much rather be on my own and often the only reason why I want company is so that I have someone to tell about whatever I happen to be interested in.

I tend to talk at people rather than to them. I have always been told that, while I am quiet usually, once I do start talking it's impossible to get me to shut up and that I get these obsessions with things and bore everyone to tears talking about them.

These obsessions that I have are always intense and all consuming. Throughout my life I have become obsessed with insects, reptiles, fish/aquariums, hermit crabs, countless video games, roleplaying games (i.e. Dungeons and Dragons, I have countless dice and rulebooks, though I have never played a single game), evolution, photoshop, miniatures (for wargames, like Warhammer 40,000) and so on. These seem to cycle or fade out entirely but whichever one I happen to be interested in becomes the only thing I can think about for weeks or months at a time. It's often the only thing I want to talk about too.

I was always the smart kid and, until school became incredibly social towards the end, I was always a long way ahead of the curve especially in english, maths and science. I sort of tapered off into being average towards the end because school just became a living hell to go to as I was bullied heavily for the last 7 years of my time there.

I have a habit of ending almost every sentence with "do you know what I mean?" or similar because unless a person actually says "mmhm." or nods then I'm not sure if they're listening to me.

I almost never make eye contact with anyone if I can avoid it. If I do make eye contact then it's because I am actively trying to. It is bad enough to the point that I will often go into a shop or restaurant and buy something/order without actually seeing the persons face at all, preferring to look at my hands or the menu instead. This has become a problem a few times where I have tipped the wrong waitress!

I am absolutely terrified of talking on the phone to pretty much anyone who isn't my mother or my best friend. I have a tendency to just agree to whatever is being asked of me, without thinking, and then not remember much of the conversation, if anything at all, because I was too busy concentrating on what I needed to be saying. This applies to using a headset to talk to people in online games too, I just don't want to talk unless it's to someone I know. Even then it's uncomfortable.

If I have to go into a busy public place, like into town or into a shopping center, I need to have somebody with me. If I go alone I will likely have a panic attack becuase of all the people and the noise, having somebody there (usually my girlfriend) to act as a diplomat helps me to handle it because I can hide behind them if someone tries to talk to us. If we go shopping, I have to stick with the person that I am with even in the same store, I feel out of place and vulnerable if I am not right next to them.

I have to rehearse before speaking to anyone. Despite the fact that I eat at Pizza Hut frequently and always order the same thing (which we'll get to), I always have to practice my order beforehand and am constantly asking my girlfriend if that's what I'm supposed to be saying to the waitress.

I also have to have time to prepare myself before I go anywhere or do anything. If my girlfriend wants to go out somewhere she has to give me a few days warning or I won't be able to go. I have to schedule time for it, I don't like to do anything spontaneously. My ex-girlfriend told me that I was "no fun" and I think that this might explain why.

On the subject of food, I have been a picky eater for my entire life. The doctors all told my parents that I would grow out of it but I didn't. I survive on toast, crisps and processed food (i.e. thin chicken shapes with a lot of crispy coating on them. I like my food to be crunchy or I won't eat it). I occasionally eat a pepperoni pizza without the sauce, but it has to be almost burnt before I'll even touch it. That's about the extent of my diet, I can't eat most things because the texture of the food makes me gag. I also cannot be around strong smells, especially food smells. Being in a kitchen at christmas is a nightmare.

I have a problem when it comes to multitasking. I cannot do it at all. If I am doing or thinking about something then it is at the expense of everything else. I become incredibly frustrated if I am distracted whilst I am trying to do something, having to completely stop what I was doing before to deal with the distraction; it will then take me a long time to get back to what I was doing previously. Even if the distraction can be ignored or put off until after I complete what I'm doing, often the fact that I am now aware of it will completely prevent me from continuing my task.

This even applies to those occasions where I am putting off doing something important. I put it off until the last minute, but I am unable to get on with my life in the mean time as I am to busy thinking about the work that I'm supposed to be doing to do anything else at all.

I am a massive perfectionist, which doesn't help with the last two points, I have a tendancy to want to plan everything out in detail before I will even allow myself to start (which often is enough to prevent me from starting entirely as I begin to plan the best way to plan and so on.)

I have a tendancy to take things very literally. I am constantly having my feelings hurt by my dad, who has a very sarcastic sense of humour, then being told that I am over reacting and that it was a joke. I would always be scolded for saying something when I was younger and not understanding why, being told that it was my "tone".

I'm very specific about what clothes I wear. I will also only wear one type and brand of socks and underwear because I find anything else to be uncomfortable against my skin. I also find that I cannot wear anything that has a thick tag on it as it will drive my crazy all day. When I was younger I couldn't stand to wear shoes for similar reasons, even now it is a nightmare to find a new pair that I am comfortable in.

There are a lot more exmaples, the more I think about it the more I come up with (such as how I often fight with my girlfriend as I don't like to be touched while I eat) but hopefully I have gotten my point across.

Of course I have a couple of doubts about it, primarily that I do have a sense of humour. I love satire and word play, my humour is very dry and sarcastic and I am obsessed with musical comedy too. (which reminds me of another thing that may be relevant, I will often listen to the same thing over and over again for months. I'm currently doing this with Tim Minchin's songs. It drives my girlfriend insane.)

I also had a VERY vivid imagination as a child. While I was very young I had tons of imaginary friends, I used to act out scenes with my toys and pretend to be my favourite characters from TV or games (I did this for much longer than most kids and was bullied because of it.) I was, however, very much in my own little world for the most part. I would play with other kids, but they would have to join me in my world and make an effort to play with me, if they weren't there I would just continue the game by myself (and I often preferred it that way).

My current therapist and I have figured out that I have an incredibly well developed "alter ego" that I put on when I'm forced to speak with someone who I am not comfortable with, like a doctor or a psychiatrist. As I mentioned earlier, I rehearse a sort of script before I go in, and I have come off as (and been described as) a "well dressed and well spoken young man" among other things, which is not how anyone clsoe to me would describe me at all. She believes that this may have gotten in the way of them knowing anything about me that might be useful for a diagnosis of anything, explaining why they have all told me that I'm just "going through a hard time" when I know for a fact that the stress, depression and anxiety that I have currently is a culmination of things that I have been dealing with since before I can remember and why they always come back no matter how much I try to manage them.

I'm just looking for answers, and so far Aspergers makes the most sense and explains the most of my symptoms (including, as I've said, some things that I haven't even thought of like my diet). What do you all think? If I've missed anything out, just ask!

P.S. I hope that this is in the right section and that noone minds me asking all of these questions. I don't want to upset anyone, I'm just looking for some help. Thanks.

Gary

You would probably be the best judge of whether or not you're an Aspie, especially if you take investigating this consideration seriously.

I'd suggest watching videos of Asperger individuals for starters. Research out the movies and books of Asperger characters. At the very least, you'll become more educated. At the most, what you learn could probably have a major impact on how you life if you were to know for sure that you're an Aspie.

I think that you are probably right, but I am not a terribly good judge of anything about myself especially right now.

I have incredibly low self esteem and a recurring theme in my therapy right now is not knowing who I am. I have done a lot of research and I feel like aspergers fits, but then I doubt myself.

What I was really looking for was some input from people who have Aspergers or are familiar with it who might be able to say whether or not I'm barking up the wrong tree.

I will keep researching though, I have been obsessively for the past few days!

Thank you for the link and well done for getting to the bottom of my wall of text, I hope a few more people manage it too.

it sure sounds like it, i would ask the therapist. dont be scared i mean its not like if you get diagnosed it starts there. they can help you understand more.

You might want to see a psychologist who specializes more in developmental delays. People with Aspergers tend to stay off the developmental delays radar because they are academically capable. Schools tend to be happy to ignore social problems if the academics are good and the student isn't disruptive. I bet half the Aspies who get diagnosed here are only ever discovered because they also have ADHD which can interfere with classroom activities. Not a single pediatrician has ever noticed that something was different about my older two kids because they were verbal and good at school. My youngest had a diagnosis earlier in life than his brothers because he didn't speak until he was five.

I think it's something that you might want to look in to.

I just got back from therapy. We had a good long talk about it and she told me that it sounds possible. It's not her field though, so she can't know for sure but she is going to ask some people who know more about this and get back to me next week to see where we can go from here.

Thank you for all of the support, I will let you all know how it goes.