I need advice - could be in huge trouble (long read)

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Hi to all, first i'll tell you about myself, i'm sorry this is long but i'm in a huge dilemma and its making my mental health worse.

I'm 20 years old and i was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and ADHD when i was a child (i cant remember what age).

It affected me badly through my childhood. I had severe trouble with communicating with people. I was scared of talking to people and still am. It feels like confrontation and it feels uncomfortable and intimidating. During my childhood these and other difficulties caused me to have excessive anger although now i'm very mellow.


When i turned 16 I began to reject all help, advice etc about my condition and have been living in denial about it ever since.

I was obsessed with proving to everyone i don't need help, i hid my feelings and symptoms and how bad it affected me. I left my family home when i was 18 to live with a girl i met, who lived 100 miles away and i hid my aspergers from her for a full 2 years, with an immense fear aspergers could drive her away from me and if i ignored it it wasn't there...

Anyway to my recent life, i'm now worried i have agorophobia. I take days to convince myself to leave the house, even to go to the shop. I genuenly feel scared of leaving, its like its not safe outside, and while i know that this is not true, i cant overcome the feeling.

I hate dealing with people. I hate answering the phone. I even answer it and dont talk, wait for the person to talk and if i dont know who it is right away i hang up on them.

Anyway, i am in big trouble with the law. I could be facing jail.

Basically a guy asked me to do something strange, i had been drinking and i agreed. He asked me to knock on a door and say i was selling insurance, then he barged in with a knife. Thats cutting a long story short. But the people in the house have said to the police that i was more involved than that, basically the both of us tried to rob them.

The guy i thought was a friend then also told the police we'd both planned it. I was identified by one of the people in the house and now i could be facing jail. I dont know why i agreed to knock on the door, when someone asks me to do something i often feel i cant say no. I feel immense pressure to do as they ask. I knew it was a strange request but i never knew it was going to get violent.

My problem here is i dont know where to turn.. I know my disabilities should be brought to light... and my more recent feelings of anxiety and agoraphobia but i don't know what to do. Will this (uk) court understand my problems and that i am not guilty? How can i make my agorophobia known, and my difficulties known?

I really need help because the evidence is all peoples word against mine and its not looking good, i couldn't handle jail.

All this has made my anxiety so much worse, i also sleep one night in 3 if lucky and feel so drained i dont want to leave my house where i feel safe.

I cant get the court out of my head. I cant talk to anyone physically its easier to type this than talk

Please give me advice

Oh my gosh... I wish I knew how to help you... Do you still talk with your family? Even if you're not close, can you call any of them for help? You need someone to advocate your AS for you, and just someone that can communicate more easily than you can so you get to explain your side of what happened better.

What did he do after he ran in there with the knife?! I know that you probably don't know why he did it, if you didn't even know he was going to do it, but what happened??! I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Firstly, contact your parents/family. Let them know what is happening.

Secondly, be very open with the police/court about your AS diagnosis. This might lead them to be lenient.

Good luck.

You need a lawyer, now

And, don't answer police questions (you have a legal right not to in the USA) until you have consulted with that attorney.

This is one of the moments where you have to use your AS as a defense. Normal people who end up in this situation are screwed but with a AS diagnoses, you have your chance.

Don't be too hard on yourself. I trouble saying no, and you didn't know what it was going to lead to.

I hope others in the UK can give you advice on court.

Remember you aren't alone, the WP community is here for you.

I'd say it's your fault for drinking alcohol.

yeah, and there are times when if I'm not thinking about it I'll do just about whatever someone asks me (luckily at my age & size few people try to use me as a 'mark' anymore). It's like there's no filter and idea goes into my brain unexamined. I don't know if there's scientific name for that or if it's officially associated with ASC's, though.

Yeah, I know what you mean here. Sometimes I switch off of my conscious brain/thought but I keep talking and reacting to people, and I know I caught myself agreeing to something that wasn't true (whether I understood what I heard).

Thanks for the responses, it feels helpful just to talk about it to somebody.

I'll speak to my family.. i have spoken to my mother but she's the same as me and doesn't know who can help me here. I don't want to worry her with how bad this is affecting me.

I really do feel this, i've not gotten "drunk" since this, its been a huge stress on me 24/7.

I feel like nobody really understands how complicated this can be(aspergers), they just see it as "acting strange" or "thinking different" and will underestimate it.



Well i can't really remember thats the problem, i know he was shouting about money.. i backed off (i was shocked but never wanted to say anything) about ten -fifteen seconds later it was over, i cant remember exactly, we ran away and he kicked the door. But the witnesses are saying i was doing pretty much what he was doing, they don't know anything about us personally though i suppose, just somethign bad happened to them so they just want to make it sound as bad as possible to the police to get revenge i suppose.

Last edited by C90R on 07 Feb 2011, 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is awful, i'm so sorry If there was some way you can prove you didn't know the man..

I did know him, sorry if that wasn't clear, he was drunk too and i dont know if he planned it, or if he just lashed out on the doorstep.

Its being treated as assault with intent to rob w/ a knife and we're both being charged with it.

I don't understand how it can be deemed "intent" to rob when i had no intention.

But because of the statements the witnesses have given, it seems i have no legs to stand on.

Do you have a lawyer you can speak to or write all this out if speaking's a problem? If you have representation, and can get a psych professional to assess you to determine things, etc, you might have a much better opportunity. Also, you can still hold to your side of the story - that you didn't act at all beyond what you were asked to do.

yes i do but i cant communicate with him.

I can half manage a conversation but he's not helpful and he's not understanding.

I will ask him about this and try to explain my situation, but i also feel i may need additional help as everything is so much worse now.

Depression, Lack of sleep and constant fatigue, never ending stress, paranoia, and i cant even face the world outside my front door anymore. Should i go to a GP?

I feel like my aspergers has presented me with new levels of problems or maybe its something else, maybe another problem with my mental health has developed. Its certainly 100% different from what i'm used to and used to dealing with and hiding.

Can you not get someone else to tell the lawyer what he needs to know? Why don't you create a text document, and print it, then give it to them? Can you do that? It might help a bit.