I hope that this is OK to post here. It has been suggested to me for a long time by several family members that DD1 may have some form of ASD, but I have been very resistant to this idea. Recently however, I am beginning to think it may be the case.
She is extremely intelligent and is G&T in many subjects including English, which is something that initially made me think she could not be on the Autistic Spectrum. Her language development was very early, which I think is not really in keeping either.
BUT she does have many other traits that make me really wonder. She has no real friends. A group of four girls who she sits with at school, but no social interaction outside school, no texts, phone calls, social media and definitely no meeting up with anyone, she says she is happy by herself. She had one friend in primary school and if we saw people from school in the street, she would look down at her feet and leave me to reply to their Hellos. I put this down to shyness. She genuinely seems to have no interest in having friends, which I must admit I find odd, because my friends were everything to me at that age.
She is also obsessive about things. When she was 3 she could identify every flag of every country in the world. I thought this was cute. She had an obsession with how high up her legs her socks were pulled when she was 5 or 6, she would be hysterical if they weren't identical to the millimetre. There have been various obsessions over the years. At the moment she wants to become a doctor, I have been into her room in the middle of the night and found her watching episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Any medical drama she will watch for hours. She is obsessed with anatomy and physiology and disease. Not just interested, she is constantly reading and studying about it and I have to nag her to stop to go to bed. But she has also developed obsessions about sensory things too. The temperature of her drinks has to be chilled. She keeps a jug of water in the fridge and when it ran out the other day and I suggested she had tap water, she just lost it, she was hysterical. We have a throw on our sofa which she cannot let touch her. I thought she was just being really awkward about these things, and really lose my temper with her. but I'm beginning to think that they are genuine problems for her.
She has no sense of humour. She cannot understand jokes because she says they are incorrect. She used to try and make up jokes, but she was just stating facts. She is gets really irritated that I think something can be funny if it's 'wrong' or doesn't make sense.
Sorry this has been long and rambling. Basically I am finding her incredibly hard to deal with and am not sure if what I thought was teenage awkwardness is actually something more. What would pursuing a diagnosis mean, are there benefits? I think she would be very upset if I suggested to her that this might be the case. I think I feel that if it was Asperger's I could begin to understand her a little better and maybe our relationship would improve. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have.