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CocoNuts
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01 Nov 2011, 3:48 am

Hi, I'm new here. I have had a boyfriend who has asperger's for one month. We get along really really well, but this has brought some more confusion in my life.

The first thing is that I really feel bad when I notice that he's anxious but can't do anything to ease his mind. Like when we're in a place with a lot of people - thing which I don't feel comfortable about either - and he will roll his eyes a lot and have several other tics and I feel bad because maybe he's there just to be with me and that's making him feel stressed and I can't help >.< 
Is there anything I could do to make him feel less stressed in this kind of situations? i know it's impossible to make such generalizations and that e best idea would be to ask him, but I haven't been knowing him long enough to intrude like that.

The other thing is that I've started questioning my own lack of social skills, weird interests and such. I did some research because I wanted to be sure that I wouldn't mess anything up with the guy, and noticed I fit so many of the characteristics of AS. I'm really bad with people, can't make small talk at all, don't like phisical and eye contact with people I don't know very well, get anxious when there's a lot of people around or for noises and bright lights, I have pretty high i.q.,  when I was a child I would read a lot of enciclopedias about animals (now I'm interested in science in general but still remember most of the useless stuff I learned) and people often got angry at me because I kept on correcting them. Oh and I'm clumsy and disorganized too. I scored as "very likely an aspie" in all the tests i took on the internet. I didn't take this seriously until once I was out with my boyfriend and other people they were all confused by his behaviour and trying to explain him I joked "I'm not as strange as him, am I?" and nobody answered. I know I'm probably just paranoid but the hints are there :/
Yeah this isn't really a question. But advice would be appreciated on both topics



Callista
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01 Nov 2011, 3:57 am

Regarding crowds: Talk to him about how you can help; he'll know himself best. He might be able to help you, too. You both hate those situations. For that matter, maybe you can get each other out of them occasionally.

As for having AS yourself: No clue. But I will say that there are a great many people with ASD traits who are not diagnosed, either because they are only close to the Spectrum and not quite on it, or because they learned to cope on their own and never really made use of any outside help. There's no reason for a diagnosis if there isn't any significant impairment involved--but you could easily have some of the same autistic traits that your boyfriend has. Maybe those similarities are even part of what helped you two form the relationship in the first place. Autism blends quite smoothly into the typical--it's not an isolated phenomenon, but more of a genetic trait that, if it expresses itself in an extreme fashion, causes disability. Plenty of people have the autistic traits but not the disability--probably more people than there are people with autism proper.


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CocoNuts
Snowy Owl
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Joined: 30 Oct 2011
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01 Nov 2011, 8:24 am

The thing is that I've always felt pretty bad about not being able to make friends or creating a vacuum around me during a conversation because I said something weird, and I'm probably looking for a way to tell myself it's not entirely my fault.

About my boyfriend, I just don't feel ready for asking him direct questions. He's very reserved and I respect that, I just don't like seeing him like that because I understand how he feels.



Callista
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01 Nov 2011, 4:00 pm

Do you find it easier to communicate by IM or text message? Sometimes people find it easier to have a serious conversation in text--it gives you time to think about what you're saying.


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