[NeutronStar]

Hi, everyone. I have difficulties connecting to people on an emotional and social level and it's really starting to affect my life. I appear cold, emotionless and uninterested in social settings and people generally think of me as the loner of the group, and this is how I have appeared ever since I can remember, even though I do love my friends. However, I have previously never had any professional diagnosis for anything purely because I didn't look for one - both my friends and I already knew I was weird.

I took the online test to see whether or not I have something on the autism spectrum scale and I scored 40 (autism related syndrome likely) and my school councillor thinks I have aspergers. I also think I have aspergers as I display basically all the generic symptoms, such as noticing patterns everywhere (like a fascination with number plates) and I have rigid schedules that I must stick to and don't understand social situations etc. I also have very narrow topics of interest that I research all the time, like the Universe and Scandinavian history.

Recently I have been feeling like a complete social outcast. I won't talk about that now but I made a thread on it a few days ago which you can see here if you want. I feel that telling my friends I have aspergers would relieve a lot of the pressure on me because it would give them and me an insight to why I am how I am.

I am CERTAIN I have aspergers syndrome but I am almost scared that I don't because I feel like I never truly belong to anything, whether it's social groups or psychological 'disorders'. In some ways I don't feel 'worthy' to have it. I am scared that they would just laugh and dismiss the possibility and things would continue to get worse. What if I don't have it? They would just think that I was using a serious thing to justify being weird as ****, and that is a thought that really hurts.

for now, don't tell them anything

you don't know if you have it for certain, and it may cause problems later on... you tell them you have it, then seek help and find out you don't, for example

[Rapunzel]

You probably need to find out more about Asperger's and whether or not you actually do have it before you start telling people that you do. A good place to start might be to ask your school counselor for more information and a referral to someone who can determine whether or not you have it. You can also look for books and information at the library and online, etc. Tony Attwood's books have been very helpful for me.

I always felt a connection to autism ever since I first learned about it (I was a psychology major), and always felt like I had characteristics that have to do with the autistic spectrum. I also never have felt able to connect socially (although online is much easier), and I've always been different - in ways that are hard to pinpoint. When I started to read about Asperger's, a lot of things that were always weird or different about me started to make sense, including things that I had no idea were part of Asperger's. I was pretty careful not to tell people that I had Asperger's when I just thought that I did, especially when if I even told them about things that I experienced that are part of it, they shut me down. Like when I experienced loud noises as painful, and they said that it really wasn't even that loud and I had no reason to complain about it, or when I said that I thought it was harder for me to make friends and socialize than it is for other people - they would just criticize what they thought I was doing wrong, or they would say that there was nothing wrong with me at all. If I mentioned Asperger's, they said that I couldn't possibly have that because of some of the things that I have done that they thought would not be possible for someone on the autistic spectrum - for example, I got married, had three kids, and also completed a master's degree in mental health counseling and became a licensed therapist. Some of the people who told me that I couldn't possibly have Asperger's were therapists or other mental health professionals.

I had basically written it off, although I still thought that I had Asperger's traits, when a new therapist I went to, just a few months ago, was talking about discovering that someone has Asperger's and it was someone he had not thought of that way before and was surprised. I reminded him that I have those characteristics too, and we went through those characteristics, and he decided that I do have Asperger's.

I do tell people I know well, or other people who need to understand my weirdnesses, now, that I have Asperger's. Some were surprised, and others said that they could see it, but it has helped them to understand me, and me to understand myself, and it helps to be able to explain why I'm different and what is different about me, and what things just don't work for me or make sense to me. But I needed the validation of someone qualified to confirm that I had it. Even though I am qualified to diagnose Asperger's disorder, self-diagnosis doesn't have much validity. And mental health professionals seem to be particularly hesitant with diagnosing this, maybe because it is a life-long condition and not something that will go away with treatment. But it still helps to have treatment for the support and to learn ways to cope.

Also keep in mind, and if you decide to tell people, also make sure that they realize, we are individuals first. No two people are exactly alike, and no two people with Asperger's are just the same either. There is no mold. Knowing about it just helps with identifying and explaining what you are like, and it is only part of what you are like.