in which i discuss my worries about my mental health

[dreamingpixels]

For some reason, I feel very embarrassed talking about this. I have to get it out somehow, though, and I think I'd be even more embarrassed bringing this up to my one real-life friend (Michelle), so you guys get to deal with me. Yaay.

To put it bluntly and short, I think I might have Asperger's Syndrome.

It would explain a hell of a lot about why I am the way I am. I suck at normal conversations and social interactions. I focus too much on random and obscure stuff, to the exclusion of things I should be worrying about. (Do you need to know something about Sailor Moon? I can give you the birthdays of half the characters, and tell you the original air dates of each season, and tell you all about how they cut so much out of the American version and what they cut out, but ask me about classwork, like Flash, and I'll give you a blank stare.) I have to stick to my morning and evening routines or I get really out of whack. (Each morning, I get up, take my blanket and put it on my chair, go get a cup of coffee, and surf the internet until 7:30, when I get dressed. I talk to Bryan, and we get ready together - even his being gone on Friday mornings throws me off. At night, I retrieve my blanket from where I left it on my desk chair, read or watch TV in bed, and then burrow under said blanket in a very specific way and sleep - if the blanket is gone, there is no way in hell I can sleep) I can't make friends for shit. I just don't know how to relate to people in real life.

I almost want Asperger's to be the answer to all that's wrong with me, because then it will have a label. Then, I can say "oh, it's because of this" and not feel like such a horrible, miserable failure of a human being.

I'm going to see if I can meet with Dr. Moose this week and bring it up with him - he's my usual doctor at Student Health Services. I really hope he doesn't laugh me out of his office. I don't know what I'd do then. I don't know where else to go.

Comments

[syntaxofthings]

Hey, new theme! A little creepy... I've been reading too many vampire books.

Doctors aren't allowed to laugh you out of offices. Seriously. It's part of their laws (I hope). Though even I've wondered and taken online quizzes that say "You are 80% autistic!" I really think if I were, someone would've picked up on it by now. I'm more convinced it was just my state of mind - my mental health was so low that I seemed like that.

Anyway, I don't think there's anything 'wrong' with you. You're unique, just like everyone else! <3

[starstrider]

I have to agree with the other reply. I've interacted with someone who had asperger's, and granted theirs was very severe, it's something that is so noticeable it would have been picked up when you were younger. Obviously I could be wrong since I'm not an actual psychologist, I just was never under the impression that asperger's (even functional asperger's) was something that could be minor enough to be undiagnosed.

It's still a good thing to bring up and discuss with your doc though. For one, the fact that you're looking for a term means you're striving to understand yourself in a definitive way. In therapy, they say the only way to overcome something is when you know what it is. If you feel chaotic, you can't order yourself until you can say "I'm angry." You know what I mean? So, your search is a significant development in understanding why you are the way you are, which is key to both accepting it and/or changing it.

And you're not the only one. Somedays I think to myself that I'm practically a psychopath or something. Anyway. I don't understand social situations most of the time. I read people extremely well and that, in my opinion, is the only reason I'm good in situations. But I don't understand social gestures 80% of the time. I'm not a creature of habit by way of big things--I don't care when I eat breakfast or lunch or dinner so long as I eat when I'm hungry. But I like beginning my day and certain way and I like ending my day a certain way and at the stable everything has to be just so in my tack box or I'd kill someone with a hoof file. Sometimes I totally wig out in the middle of the day for no reason whatsoever and need to run around the house like a crazed wolfish version of Smeagol. I'm almost not joking. We're all terribly unique, strange, crazy people who live on the outside our whole lives even though the window is really facing a hyper-realist landscape painting. But hey, you're not a horrible, miserable failure of a human being.

Anyway, good luck with the appointment. And by the by, if that's your doctor's real name, then that is the best freaking thing I have heard all day. <3

[christinathena]

I just was never under the impression that asperger's (even functional asperger's) was something that could be minor enough to be undiagnosed.

That happens all the time. That's the reason why there are more diagnoses today than in the past. I wasn't diagnosed until my mid-20s myself. People just assumed that it was just me being strange. That my school problems were just being lazy or being bored with classes. They thought i was just "strange", but didn't consider any label, other than a diagnosis of ADD at one point.

[starstrider]

Aha. Well, like I said, I can be wrong. =)

[nan]

Definitely see a doctor because self-diagnoses can be harmful.

[callum]

Don't self-diagnose. There could be a million reasons why you can't relate to people or need certain routines in the morning.

Though that "not being able to read people" is usually pretty indicative of something on the autism spectrum. IDK, that would be the key thing I would look for in any "diagnosis." If only shrinks remembered this key trait, there'd be less of it being overdiagnosed.

Go to a professional who can more accurately help with these issues.

[nightwhisper]

Sometimes I think I have those types of tendencies as well. Unfortunately I am super doctor-phobic, so I'm sure I will never have it (or my depression issues) diagnosed. :[

[ex_fathomless325]

I sometimes wonder this about myself. I'm just... awkward. I always have to try too hard to make conversation normal and never feel like I'm doing it right. >_

[technogoddess]

They have tests for it. Whether you have it or not, therapy can help with your symptoms. Group therapy too, which is probably best for learning more effective social skills. Social skills CAN be learned, so don't despair!

[thesynchronomes]

Doctors are there to help - they're there to talk through any worries with you and any health issues you may have. You're very brave to talk about it, and I wish you the best. *hugs*

[moonbathe_skin]

I have personal experience of AS although I don't really talk about it online.

If social impairment is actually preventing you from working or making friends, it is possible to be diagnosed and there are treatments such as CBT which have proved to be helpful -- and I'd say group therapy would be the least useful treatment!

From personal experience people on the autistic spectrum seem to benefit the most from friends and family understanding and helping them, and giving advocacy when needed.

It probably is scary to discover this possibility as an adult, but you're not damaged goods as you say in your tag!

[shadowgate]

Please, please, please don't self-diagnose! (not that you really are but with the internet most people do that and are often very wrong!) If you seriously think you may possibily have Asperger's do exactly what you are doing and talk to a doctor. I know a couple people who do have it. One person a very severe case and another a very mild, almost unnoticable who is also the brother of my best friend. I have also taught children with Aspergers. It is a lower branch of autism and while I don't really think you have it as it would be most likely noticed when you were a child, but it is possible it has gone unnoticed if it is a mild case. You are doing the right thing by discussing this with your doctor and I wish you nothing but the best as it is not always easy.

*hugs*

Don't be scared, be glad you are doing something about it!

[dreamingpixels]

Well, one reason it may not have been diagnosed when I was a kid is because of my mom. She seemed to have a negative opinion of any sort of mental or emotional disorder (for example, when my depression was finally diagnosed when I was 17, and I'd been dealing with it since I was 12 or so, she just told my psychiatrist to give me pills, she didn't care what, just give me pills to fix it), probably due to her own depression. When I'd get fidgety or do inappropriate things in church, for example, she'd hiss at me "Beth Lynn! Stop being autistic!" So, yeah. She only dealt with her own depression when she was two steps away from Child Protective Services coming in and taking us away, back when I was a senior in high school (my 15 year old sister had started smoking and mouthing off about how crazy my family was to everyone, and I was literally living in a tent in the backyard at that point)

[shadowgate]

that would never be fun. Child negelct is a scary thing, I've dealt with it in a different light. I'm glad you are doing something about it. If you were diagnosed, you wouldn't be the first adult to be. I just wish you the best and hope things turn out better for you.