Aspies For Freedom

Hello-

I have a bit of a problem, and I hope I have come to the right place to get a good opinion.

I have recently moved in to a house with three other roommates. One of them I am about 90% positive has AS.

I am not a professional counselor, but I graduated with a degree in psychology-which I am not saying ‘makes me more knowledgeable’-but during my studies I read several books on Asperger’s to present a paper, have known a few people with AS, more specifically one whom I have grown up with my entire life-he is a family friend, and many other members of his family also have AS. I grew up with him and am still friends with him. And, I don’t know if this means anything, but I find myself to be extremely perceptive and sensitive in regards to reading people, emotional, and social situations and ‘normalcy’ and just basic human interaction than most people. Thus, I usually pick up on a lot of social/psychological stuff that most ‘NT’ people do not pick up…..

I do not say any of that as a way of boosting, but more as a way to build my case that I am not ‘seeing Asperger’s everywhere’ but rather am really seeing a lot of AS characteristics in my roommate. Eye contact, ‘unusual’ voice flatness, dislikes/problems with social interaction/isolates himself, bluntness without realizing ‘social appropriateness’, nail-biting, posture, strong like for routine, certain reactions he has, spotty employment history/lack of full-time employment (he’s 35 by the way), excellent vocabulary used in everyday sentences, extremely high IQ, he’s a ‘factbook’ for knowledge, common interest in engineering, etc etc. The list goes on-all of these are things I have noticed in him on a very regular basis.

After watching him, interacting with him, and doing more and more research, I am pretty sure that he has AS.

And I don’t think he knows it, is the thing.

And I think it’s probably affected his life in a lot of negative ways, and I think continues to do so too.

It popped into my after he was watching something on TV and mentioned AS randomly. He didn’t say that he has it, or anything, but rather just mentioned it as some sort of random fact. After thinking about it, obsessing about it and doing research, I came up and asked him one day about that-that he mentioned Asperger’s and I was wondering where he had heard of it. He sounded somewhat puzzled that I was asking such a question and replied that he just read about it.

There’s always the case of course, that he just didn’t want to tell me-and that’s okay, I understand-but it didn’t sound like he was hiding anything, it sounds like he genuinely just read about it in a book, being he studies a lot of different stuff anyways.

There’s….a LOT of other complicated stuff I will not go into, perhaps in another post here somewhere, as I do have a lot of questions.

I mean, for example. He has a girlfriend and has had a history of many different relationships as far as I can tell. They have been dating for 5 years-haven’t moved in together, and he is not ‘the marriage type’ he says. She travels a lot, and they see eachother maybe a few days a week, if at all. She hardly stays over either. I could go into other things that lead me into a suspicion that he is perhaps not ‘content’ but that would create a very long paragraph.

The whole thing strikes me as odd.  I understand not getting married, as being ‘married’ isn’t something you need totally for a relationship. But do those with AS, I mean, if they love someone-and I realize that AS people probably experience and show their love in different ways-and have been with them for that long, then…well, don’t they usually at least want to be with the person more than that or maybe….live with them? Maybe he feels a lot of anxiety towards living with a significant other so he avoids it. I dunno. I don’t know many non-AS women who are okay with being in a relationship for 5 years where the guy doesn’t want kids, marriage or living together…maybe she has AS too? Maybe he doesn’t want to be with her anymore and is just in the relationship because it’s being with a girl? Comfort? I don’t know. it's just things like that-things where, in his life, if he knew he has AS, then he could understand himself more I'm sure. How perhaps it affects his relationship that he may not realize, or how it could explain a lot of things, or how he can better learn to communicate with others or communicate in his relationships-or perhaps knowing he has AS may help to explain a lot of things in his past that maybe he blamed on himself, or others.

Either way, I am struggling with this. I don't know if I should tell him or not that I suspect he has this. I don't think it's a bad thing, not at all. I'm not a judgemental person who thinks it's something negative, I would just like him to better understand himself. It's just the fact that I don't know how he'll react, and secondly I don't feel like I have a 'rapport' with him. When I interact with him, it's so difficult because I can never read what he's thinking or what his reaction is-he's sometimes very blunt but overall, I feel like he's blind to my feelings and I am blind to him. I feel like I have an emotional blindfold on. It's very hard to become friends with him too, just because he's so non-outgoing socially, and I can't tell if it's with people in general or if he IS interested in being friends with people but doesn't know how to go about it. I have tried my best-I hang out with him from time to time, and also ask for hugs from him or asks if he wants a hug (I always ask heh-it's a good way to communicate). So we do have some form of relationship, but it's still very hard to interact, because it's hard to read if you are liked or are actually being rejected since those with AS often don't give off those kinds of cues either.

I tried so hard to tell him today of my suspicions, but I just couldn't. Instead I just ended up not telling him and he just continued to guess for a long time. I probably just gave him the wrong impression.

I just don't know what to do. If I DO tell him, how exactly do I go about it? Should I tell him in the first place?

Hi Chinadoll,

It's pretty rare for people to read up on aspergers to the extent that they can casually drop the word into a conversation - my guess is that if he does know about it, then he has looked into it for a reason.

This may mean that he has aspergers and has decided not to talk about it, it may mean that the idea has been previously suggested to him and he has dismissed it, or it may mean that he has a friend or family member with aspergers, and probably knows all about it.

In any case, if he is familiar with the term, that's all that's needed - it's up to him to look into it any further, if he so wishes.

So my advice would be not to say anything.

As far as the relationship thing goes, I once knew an NT couple that dated for 4 years without moving in together - so it seems that it's not unprecidented for couples to do so, regardless of their neurotype. There's no way of knowing from this post as to whether or not he's content in his relationship, but I don't believe that it's an aspie issue...

As far as interaction goes, lets work on the assumption that he is probably aspie, if you believe this to be true. The best way to develop a good interaction with most aspies is to get involved in something they are interested in doing, rather than just talking to them - if he's not socially outgoing, then he's probably not very interested in social interaction for the sake of social interaction - but this doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't want your friendship.

Best of luck, and I hope this helped in some way...

- Zakkie

Hi there China Doll

I think you need to think exactly what you both can gain from having this conversation or whether you bringing out your suspicions would actually help to cement your friendship or whether it would actually jeopardise it further as he clearly hasnt been forthcoming with information if indeed he has any suspicions about himself.  I also believe that if you dont have such a solid trusting friendship that telling someone something like this about themselves could be quite damaging for you both.    

Theres the teeniest part in me that wonders if you feel rejected by him and reading through what you wrote about his relationship I did wonder if you have more than friendship feelings towards this guy?  

If you really do want to chat with this guy about it perhaps you can chat about Aspergers in a round about way ie in general conversation.

regarding his relationship I can totally understand, different relationships work in different ways.  I have had relationships where I have been in the pockets of the other person every single day and every single night, yet others where I have only seen the person once or twice a week ... it depends on the circumstances and what both people want at the time.  I also feel that with relationships a lot of other factors come into play for example relationships that we experienced as children, previous experiences of adult relationships, current circumstances and aspirations for the future for ourselves.  I personally need a lot of space and dont enjoy crowds or too much going on at once but I am not aspergian . In my current relationship we lived in each others space for 6 months before I couldnt handle it and now we see each other most weekends and speak on the phone everyday or text... he wanted more but respects that my life is pretty stressful with my son and appreciates that I do need down time for my own sanity! So really I suppose what I am saying is that how he is handling his own relationship may well be right for them both and may of course not be down to any form of aspergian traits in any case.  

Of course if he does seem really unhappy in himself perhaps you can offer support by simply being there for him if he ever does want to talk and the way in which he will be able to talk with you is when he totally trusts you and the way to do that is to be really very clear and straight with him and possibly fairly neutral with emotions too.

I hope this helps

Rosie

Why do you want to tell him?  If he seems happy with his relationship then however he conducts it is up to him surely?

If you you feel rejected as a friend then just say so - but if he tells you he cares about you as a friend you may just have to accept it and realise that he isn't going to keep telling you.  I'm NT and I find that difficult, but to make my relationship with my husband work I've simply had to accept that's the way he is.  Even before we knew about AS I realised that he was never going to react to things as I do.  Speculating about how someone else feels about their relationships seems a bit pointless unless they are unhappy and ask your advice.  

I reckon I've lived so long with the AS husband I'm getting to sound like him!!  Since we've been together I think I see things more his way and am less anxious about relationships.  If your friend isn't worried about his life, why are you?

My wife and I, though married (obviously), still live in two (adjoining) flats. There's an inside door, so we don't have to cross the landing, but our rooms are at the ends of the building with the childrens' rooms and living room in between. That's about how close together we feel comfortable. Of course we consider ourselves to "live with each other".

No need to butt in, there, I think ...

Going over how this thing you learned in psychology class might make his life happier and help him to be less depressed is NOT a good way to deepen a relationship.  You will come across like a privacy blind therapist rather than as a friend.  Those parts of him are likely at this point not your business.  If he decided to tell you that you should reanalyze your entire life from his emotive perspective and while at it tell him all about the painful parts of your life so he could put them into perspective, you'd probably tell him to bug off.  On the otherhand, if you came to him and said, "You confuse the heck out of me, but I think I've found a diagnostic model for a personality phenotype that matches you.  Should I try to use it or is this not you?"  then you are coming on the basis of something that might matter to a relationship between you and him.  That's not asking him to reanalyze his life or tell you his dark secrets or anything, it would be a friend.

I had a girl pull something like you are describing on me.  It was someone I was vaguely interested in and during conversation she asked me if someone at my apartment had problems being social.  I completely stonewalled her question, reviewing the social status of every person in the apartment but myself because this apparent thinly veiled attempt to get me to confirm a diagnosis or a problem about myself was not her business at that point.  Honestly my reaction was to freak out and be afraid someone had talked about my diagnosis and it was running rampant through the grape vine.  Given that a previous attempt to disclose diagnosis to someone who was close enough to know had resulted in a reaction "of course you don't have that because you aren't a psychopathic sex pervert" I'm pathologically afraid of rumors and will only tell the closest of associates.

Just remember that, people with AS are likely to have a history of being stereotyped and maltreated by society as a result be very private individuals.  Until you have a relationship deep enough warranting telling such things he may resist any attempts to discuss either his psychology or what that psychology means for his life history.

You can try this, he's a 'factbook' so start with trivia.  Complain about Jenny McCarthy.  Talk about your friend with AS.  Talk about famous people suspected of having AS.  Watch his reaction.  You should be able to tell if he knows or not.  Then tell him directly,  "I've suspected you of having it, you know."  Obviously, do this when no one else is around.