Support thread for women who suspect or know they have ASD traits or are on the spectrum

[OxfordBags]

Hello, all! As the title says, I hope this can be a support thread for those of us who suspect or know we have some (or many) Aspergic traits; where we can share experiences, stories, problems, worries, knowledge and info, and hopefully benefit and help each other too.

I found a great link a while ago that is very comprehensive in its description of how Asperger's presents in women and how women experience it. Some of it is strikingly different from the male model and how most people perceive Asperger's. Here: ASD in women

I truly believe two things: 1) that ASD in females is woefully misunderstood and under-diagnosed and 2) that our current understanding and the definition of the AS Spectrum is, in itself, rather ASD in its rigidity, and that there is an actual spectrum of traits much broader and more nuanced than the current model, and that there are a hell of a lot of people struggling with some very typical ASD traits, who nevertheless do not have all the traits required to fulfil a formal diagnosis of having Asperger's or High-Functioning Autism.

So, with that rather typically ASD-style long-winded and unnecessarily detailed intro out of the way, let's chat!

I made him turn off the tv! She wasn't interested anyway. We don't have the tv on in the day, I don't think she needs it and if she's going to play with noisy toys they're enough on their own!

Well I've read the whole thread now. Makes very interesting reading. DH is encouraging me to go to the doctors and ask their opinion so I'm not just 'self-diagnosing'. I started writing down everything that I think fits and it's a lot! I think I'm realising that (diagnosis or not) I'm not 'normal', that trying all my life to be NT when I'm not is what's making me unhappy. I need to stop living my life along the lines of 'Should I..?'. What do other people do, what do other people think and concentrate on what I like.

Stuff from up thread - I had a difficult relationship with my Mum (she died 7 years ago) - she blew hot and cold, very affectionate at times, very critical. She was a perfectionist (?OCD elements) and got angry if you didn't live up to her standards. Health wise - I have asthma, eczema, IBS/gluten intolerance, hayfever, migraines. Will mention thyroid when I see the GP. I'm ok on the pill but went off the chart with the mirena.

I actually do go out but I have a specific set of friends who I spend time with and would rather do one-to-one stuff than big groups.

The more I read, the more I suspect it's true for me! Up psyching myself up to ring the GP practice.

How are you feeling now Batman?

Can I ask, do you guys find holidays stressful? I've just come back and it was such hard work! Went in a group and they wanted to go to the beach everyday (urgh I hate the feel of sand!). I just get panicked when packing that I'll forget something, disorientated when I get there and often feel shattered by the time I get home!

Bowl and golf - is that a new joint thing or two activities? :) I know exactly what you mean about finding everything stressful. I confess I'm happy and stressed simultaneously because after a break our cleaner starts back today. Happy because the house will be clean, stressed because I have had to tidy in anticipation of her visit!

That sounds intense! :)

I'm not sure if I want to join in properly and have to sustain a group thing , but can I just pop in every now and again?
Have just contacted someone about a private dx. I would like to give myself permission to accept my crap school, uni , work stuff and how nothing so far has been 'the best years of my life'. I hate touch, I am bored by other people telling me stuff and forget what face to do after a while, I hate eye contact and so just stare at people a lot, until I remember that's not it either.

Hi

I haven't read the whole thread, please accept my apologies. I tried the online test and got 37. However I was very badly emotional and sexually abused as a young child so I don't know if this is what has made me so weird. This abuse included being kept in solitary confinement away from other humans e.g school holidays I would sit in a room alone for weeks - my family hated me and wanted nothing to do with me and I've struggled my whole life to make friends. One thing that made me wonder if my problem was abuse v aspergers is that it is often brought up in things I have read, that with aspergers there tends to be lack of co-ordination. I have always been an outstanding athlete so that really doesn't tie in.

I have just lost another job as I could not cope with being in an office around people. I was allowed to work from home for a while as my work was outstanding, but eventually they needed me back full time and it was impossible :( I have had a cycle for years of being able to force myself to work for months (desperately unhappy as I hate my career) with longer and longer time off back and forward until usually I am forced to resign.

I can't keep going like this and feel I am coming to the end of the road. I have no family (all dead), no face to face friends (online only). I have not even had a kiss or any sort of affection in 15 years (thougb I usually lie to be socially acceptable). Dating is impossible as is having a family/children of my own. I am not lonely as I have the cats, but my emotional life is bleak. I am dead inside.

I got half way through a degree I love but could not afford to finish. I have desperately tried to force myself to work for the last 2 years to save to finish my degree, but the money I need is too much and now I have lost another job. The job market is so bad I doubt I will get another.

I feel such a total failure. I don't know if getting a diagnosis would help me. Would it be something I could use to back up the need for home working for example?

I am totally desperate. Thanks for reading. Any advice very much appreciated.

I am just on my way to work Bengal but I get you, I really do. Hang in there. will post later. Hugs.

Bengal I saw your post on the Its easy to make friends yeah right thread and thought about directing you here. What an awful time you've had. In some ways I wonder if it's chicken and egg with the abuse/traits you have? I think a diagnosis might help you to understand better who you are, you may also get support and advice for work. Have you had counselling for everything you've been through?

Hello to Nerf too. I'm new around these aorta too, gearing up to ring GP practice procrastinating! I realise I do well in interview ironically because I spend the whole time thinking Make eye contact! whereas it's too exhausting to do it all the time.

Hi Bengal. I think is work backwards tbh - the abuse, whether it not you have aspergers and so your parents justified themselves, is terrible and probably needs addressing first. But I'm not trained in anyway.

I was dx OCD last year and have asked them if they can look at aspergers.

Thank you for your replies. I was lucky that in one job I had good private health coverage so was an in patient in a psychiatric hospital for a month for intensive therapy and CBT, which helped greatly. Aspergers was not mentioned, but it wasn't looked for. I expect they took the most obvious thing and concentrated on that. If you take a 4 year old child and sexually and emotionally abuse and torture them, with no love or affection of any kind - then that child will not have a good outcome. I was cared for in the first 4 years, which gave me a chance until that person died. It was there n the hospital I realised I could not continue with my high stress career and the cycle of constantly moving jobs. My psychiatrist felt I would eventually kill myself if I continued forcing myself to do something I was so unhappy in.

The three years at university studying something I was truly passionate about was the best I have ever had. I was close to top of my class in all subjects, won prizes for my work etc as it was my passion and focus in life (and has been lifelong) so studying was incredibly easy for me. I actually had friends and study groups I was a valuable member of etc. If I could continue this career path I believe I could be happy, but it is not to be.

I see all my classmates graduate this year and I am the only one not there. It was not enough to have an abusive family, they were poor too. I cannot get a loan to continue my studies without a guarantor. I have desperately forced myself back to the career that made me so unhappy - but on a very low salary as I was gone too long. In two years I have saved virtually nothing, and now all that money will drain away living until/if I can force myself to work again. I will do anything to earn money. I am not lazy, just unable to cope around people. Sadly virtually all jobs require that.

I just feel such a failure. Other abused people/ women with aspergers are able to hold down jobs, have children, have relationships. I just fail at everything. I feel if I was an animal, euthanasia would be the preferred option. I don't have a quality of life, and although theoretically it is possible, without a lottery win it is highly unlikely. I don't want to die, and its a decision I don't have to make for a few months until all my savings are gone. However I feel logically this is the kindest and most humane option for me, and although there is massive relief I don't have to force myself to work anymore, there is great sadness that my life is probably drawing to an end.

Dear Bengal, you sound so very low that I wonder if you should phone up the Samaritans, especially as you are talking of suicide?

I don't have a relationship, though I did have a child and do hold down a very menial job which pays ok, but I love to work alone, so it suits me well.

Is there anything you can find to focus on for now to get you through this very rough patch. Possibly and absorbing book or dvd box set. It probably sounds trite but I find these things do take your mind off how bad you are feeling when you get distracted by other peoples' lives.

Also you may find there is a depression support group in your area. I know "group" is a bit of a chore for us people who like to be alone, but it would only be for a limited time. Say one and a half hours? Then at least you could hear that not everyone is having a wonderful time.

The best thing I can think of for you is to stop comparing yourself to anyone else. You are a unique person who has survived a lot of trauma.
Stop being unkind to yourself, your need to be your own best friend and love that little kid who was treated so badly.

I do hope you feel better soon. x

Oh Bengal you are in a terrible place. MrWallet has made some wise suggestions. I don't think there's many people who have been through half of what you've been through and come out unscathed. Yes other women with Asperger's do what you've said but they haven't had the abuse you suffered. Please call the Samaritans or get back in touch with your psychiatrist.

I have booked an appointment with my GP. Started a list of things that make me think I may have Aspergers. It's quite long!

I find it very hard to use the phone, but I think you can e-mail the Samaritans. It is a good idea - thanks. A friend said I should go to AA for support (and lie as I am teetotal anyway) in order to get help from people who also may not be having a good time. I will also approach the Dr and ask about being referred for therapists/maybe a diagnosis.

If I had the energy I would try and look for volunteer work with animals, but being depressed makes me unreliable. The basics such as washing are daunting just now.

So many things about aspergers does ring a bell with me. When I was 10 or so I went through a phase of taking a lot of books out of the library, from the adult lending area, all on psychology and body language. I had to try and teach myself how to interact with other people properly and not stand out so much. What the rules were. I always knew I was different and I hoped they would teach me how to make friends. I am ok with eye contact but I make too much ( so probably give people a very intense stare) and find it easier to just keep looking at someone than keeping shifting my gaze. I genuinely have no idea if someone likes me/doesn't like me, is flirting with me etc unless they tell me.I also can't recognise faces which makes new jobs in particular very hard. Funnily enough I have always been able to read the body language of animals very easily, and I get on with animals far better than I do with people :) the only reason I am continuing for now is for my cats - I promised them I would always love and look after them. I am so tired and miserable, with no prospect of this ever exchanging, that I don't realistically think I can keep going another 5 years or so. I wish I could regime them somewhere nice and be set free.

Another thing that makes work very hard, is my sensitivity to noise. Open plan offices are not good. Luckily once I get caught up in a piece of work everything around me disappears and I go into my own little world. This is another reason I would be unable to have children - I cannot cope with high pitched noise, and not constant noise. The fact I have always accepted I could never have children is one of the things I am most grateful for. I would have liked them in an abstract kind of way, but I always knew I would be an unsuitable mother and in no circumstances could ever have one. I always accepted this, but would have loved to have them if I had been normal and with a normal family to support me.

Funnily enough one of my earliest childhood memories is of being forced to wear socks with a seam that went accross my toes how distressing it was. Also labels and even areas of hard stitching really annoy me. Flip flops with the little strap between the toes - just agony!!!

It's nice to know parents these days (I hope) children and adults with SN have more help and advice. I was just considered spoilt, naughty, arrogant and wayward and was referred to by everyone as being "exceptionally highly strung". I don't know how much of my mother's rejection of me was due to her frustration at how difficult I must have been and the criticism she had about me from everyone. Being a girl and particularly being an ugly girl who was a tomboy didn't help. Nor did being smart. There was nothing I could do right, no matter how hard I tried :(

I don't know what sort of work you do, but could you offer your services from home, even if it's something like an office support service, maybe for small businesses? I know it's not that interesting but it could give you some income to save and maybe return to uni in the future. Here are a few links which may give you some ideas of the type of things people do from home, you may find there's a gap in the market for your skills.

startups.co.uk/home-based-business/

www.theguardian.com/money/2010/sep/04/50-side-businesses-from-home

www.workingmums.co.uk/

www.fish4.co.uk/jobs/work-from-home/

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/make-money

I can't bear seams in socks either and I'm NT. There is help and advice for ASD and SN kids, but the general population has no awareness or tolerance. Kids are seen as spoilt, excused from bad behaviour because they have a label etc.
Schools do not always see what we do as parents, lots of our kids hold it together at school and meltdown from being collected. Accessing the help which is available can be a huge struggle as everything you say is doubted and queried and you are made to feel like a liar and a parental failure Here's a little of what it's really like www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs_chat/2156697-ASD-filtering-Panal-school-have-said-no-issues

GP appointment tomorrow....bricking it. Scared that she's going to disregard me but I'm hoping at least to get my thyroid levels checked.

Thanks Batman! It went better than I could have hoped. She listened and was nice. Wasn't convinced about my being on the spectrum, said I was only just on it if I am but clearly I'm unhappy so referred me for assessment with my local MH team. I've been before for counselling but they nap have psychologists. So I'm pleased and relieved :)