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Loving an Asperger's (?) woman


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I've recently had a short, but emotionally demanding affair with a co-worker. I'd known her (and fallen for her) quite a while already and we'd become kind of friends, but when we started dating we quickly realized it didn't work out. Which is probably not unheard of, but I noticed some unusual behavoir of hers that makes me think she might be affected by a minor degree of Asperger's. Now this is not about blaming her for us not being a fit - the situation was complex in many ways and so am I - but I would love to understand her and understand what happened because I feel like it would help me heal. We want to try and stay friends, but this is difficult for me at the moment because I feel so much pain and still love her dearly.

Now since some of our female forum readers have stated that they have Asperger's themselves, I would love to get into an exchange about my experiences with that woman. I'm curious to know if the things I noticed in her are representative of female Asperger's and if you would agree that she might be affected by it. And maybe your words and support can help me handle the situation emotionally.

So if anyone who has Asperger's or lives with a partner with Asperger's likes to talk about this, I would be thankful. I'm happy to tell you more about that wonderful woman (let's call her "K.") and I would be eager to hear your feedback. I'm open for both PMs or using this topic to discuss it. Thanks! 😙

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  • 3 months later...

Heyo! Aspie here. I was diagnosed with autism at a very young age (Asperger’s is a form of autism, though the term “Asperger’s” isn’t as widely used anymore since it’s an outdated diagnosis), I’m pretty sure I have ADHD along with that and plan to get a diagnosis soon. I’m mostly gonna be speaking based on some of my personal experiences.
There’s a chance it could be ADHD since it has a lot in common with autism, and they can also be comorbid. But I’m just gonna focus on autism for now.
Being autistic is different for everyone, it’s a broad, non-linear spectrum. Some may be better at masking to appear neurotypical, others may not be. Some might have more sensory issues, others might not. Every autistic person has their own unique experience, they may share similar traits with others but it’s never the exact same. 
Being autistic is NOT a bad thing per se, we do struggle sometimes but it makes us special in our own way. We have a unique perception of the world around us, and many of us are AMAZINGLY talented and passionate about what we do. We are all human, and we have real feelings, but many of us can’t read other people’s feelings or convey our own properly. That doesn’t mean we can’t feel.

You shouldn’t see K differently (as in more of a negative light) because she’s autistic, she may be a bit different from most people but she is unique in her own way. Definitely someone you’d wanna keep around! I’d also recommend you give her the accommodations she may need if she’s autistic. For example I often need more context and tone indicators in conversation because I struggle with reading tone and my mind will often times get the wrong idea if I’m not provided with enough info. Maybe ask her about it if she feels comfortable answering.

Might as well add this too, please don’t support Autism Speaks because they suck ass lmao. They think autism needs to be “cured” and that is extremely sick and ableist.

I hope this helped in some way! I explained the best I could. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, I’d be happy to answer!

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Hi TenshiDrop, thanks for your reply. It's been a few months since I posted this and I've talked to several other forum members about the situation (via PM). I seem to cope with this failed relationship better and better over time. I never saw this woman in a negative light, as you said she was unique, fascinating and exciting and I felt incredibly attracted to her. She just couldn't reciprocate my needs for intimacy and passion - and that didn't work for me. I know she was afraid of the situation, being rather unexperienced, but she never acknowledged her insecurity or any other issues (while I suspect she's got Asperger's she doesn't seem to be aware of it in any way). It was hard for me to try to help and reassure her since she saw the problem in me. Maybe she was right, who knows... 🙃

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I'll admit, now I'm genuinely curious.  I'm a man with Aspergers myself and I don't think I've ever met a woman that I could say with absolute certainty was an aspie herself (I went to high school with one that I suspect had it though) and I wonder how it affects women differently than men.  I can absolutely tell you that it hasn't done my love life any favors, to the point that I'd almost given up on dating entirely.

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On 6/29/2021 at 2:52 PM, D0nt45k said:

I'll admit, now I'm genuinely curious.  I'm a man with Aspergers myself and I don't think I've ever met a woman that I could say with absolute certainty was an aspie herself (I went to high school with one that I suspect had it though) and I wonder how it affects women differently than men.  I can absolutely tell you that it hasn't done my love life any favors, to the point that I'd almost given up on dating entirely.

I've heard that girls with Asperger's are normally better at mimicking the behaviors of normal people, making it harder to diagnose them, but I grew up mostly around boys who had Asperger's as well, so I can't say firsthand how accurate that is. Though I'm also more dysfunctional than they are.

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5 minutes ago, silvermoon said:

I've heard that girls with Asperger's are normally better at mimicking the behaviors of normal people, making it harder to diagnose them, but I grew up mostly around boys who had Asperger's as well, so I can't say firsthand how accurate that is. Though I'm also more dysfunctional than they are.

That might be it, could also be that perhaps Aspergers in women may be mistaken for other things like self-esteem issues, considering that can happen even in guys.  I know that in my case as a guy, there were only a couple of people who guessed correctly what I had early on (most notably my Kindergarten teacher, who according to my parents could tell within two minutes, but never explained why - bare in mind that this was in the 90s when Aspergers was still a relatively obscure disorder), but I wasn't correctly diagnosed until I was twelve.

Edited by D0nt45k (see edit history)
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@silvermoon I wish I'd grown up around other autistics! What was it like? Also, how are you more dysfunctional, if you don't mind my asking?

@D0nt45k Wow, that's gotta be a record, two minutes to discovery. 😛 Everybody could tell something was up with me as a kid but they were never sure what. (Now, as an adult, I met my brother's GF for less than a minute when he introduced her as they were about to go somewhere. Wanting to make a good impression, I used my Very Best Social Skills™ and gave her a generic greeting. I remembered to smile and everything. ...So the first thing she says to him when I'm out of earshot is, "he's autistic, isn't he?" 

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I'm autistic and non-binary, but also asexual so I'm not much help. 

Asperger's isn't a term that we use anymore because it came from a Nazi scientist who did unethical experiments on autistic youth. It used to be a term for "higher function" or "better at masking", but these days the autistic community is moving away from those ways of labelling people. It's more helpful to think of autism as a spectrum where everyone has different support needs! 

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14 hours ago, trekkie said:

@silvermoon I wish I'd grown up around other autistics! What was it like? Also, how are you more dysfunctional, if you don't mind my asking?

@D0nt45k

I don't know, I guess it was like a normal person growing up with normal kids?

As for dysfunctional, I completely shut down in most social situations. And I'm never really part of this world, I'm always off in another, daydreaming.

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On 7/1/2021 at 2:17 PM, SilverSnake said:

Asperger's isn't a term that we use anymore because it came from a Nazi scientist who did unethical experiments on autistic youth. 

I don't want to demean your choice to not use the word, but this is largely a myth propagated by social media.

Asperger was demonstrably not a Nazi - the entire Nazi membership lists are in the public domain, and there is a lot of difference between him 'doing experiments on autistic youth' and him 'referring one or two children to a clinic who later committed some atrocities'.

A lot of the anti-Asperger arguments all link back to one single paper which is undeniably interesting reading but leaps to a lot of unsupported assumptions.

 

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8 hours ago, BB1BBB said:

I don't want to demean your choice to not use the word, but this is largely a myth propagated by social media.

Asperger was demonstrably not a Nazi - the entire Nazi membership lists are in the public domain, and there is a lot of difference between him 'doing experiments on autistic youth' and him 'referring one or two children to a clinic who later committed some atrocities'.

A lot of the anti-Asperger arguments all link back to one single paper which is undeniably interesting reading but leaps to a lot of unsupported assumptions.

 

Pretty much this, not to mention that it was almost impossible for any German or Austrian scientist from the Anschluss until V-E Day to conduct any serious research without some sort of backing from the German government...and that meant the approval of the NSDAP by extension.  That'd be like throwing out much of modern aerospace science just because much of it is based on German wartime programs (some of which, admittedly, did make use of slave labor to build aircraft and missiles...with the attendant sabotage and poor workmanship that tends to come with using forced labor to build things as complex as those).

Interestingly, iirc it was argued by some at the time that the condition Asperger described was actually positive, as being bookish, having a strong work ethic, and a single-minded focus on particular tasks were seen as useful or even desirable in certain fields (particularly science, engineering, and the arts) and may even be something to encourage fostering in the population at large...possibly even in the eugenic sense.  It was only post-war, primarily in more liberal societies like the United States that valued one's ability to be social and form connections over one's individual abilities, that it came to be seen, universally, as a disability.

Edited by D0nt45k (see edit history)
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I was a bit annoyed when the DSM removed Asperger's and just replaced it with "the spectrum" as that's far too broad to really be all that helpful, as I went to school with kids who had more severe forms of autism then I did, and Asperger's was a good way to separate high-functioning people like myself from those with more severe conditions, grouping them all together I only see leading to more problems.

Edited by LifeIsStrange (see edit history)
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7 hours ago, LifeIsStrange said:

I was a bit annoyed when the DSM removed Asperger's and just replaced it with "the spectrum" as that's far too broad to really be all that helpful, as I went to school with kids who had more severe forms of autism then I did, and Asperger's was a good way to separate high-functioning people like myself from those with more severe conditions, grouping them all together I only see leading to more problems.

Yeah...I'm convinced that that particular reclassification may have been somewhat motivated by non-medical factors, perhaps more a matter of convenience for certain people and nothing to do with the well-being of patients.

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  • 4 months later...
On 4/25/2021 at 12:26 PM, JensH2 said:

She just couldn't reciprocate my needs for intimacy and passion -

 

On 5/21/2021 at 4:18 PM, silvermoon said:

I have Asperger's and am female, but I'm also asexual aromantic, so I doubt I could provide the OP with aid.

Belatedly reading this, I suspect Silvermoon's response (and DesperateJill's in other threads) casts light on the situation.

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I was never formally diagnosed but more recently a lot of people around me have noticed that I must definitely be on the spectrum. But from a young age everybody always knew that I was abnormal and weird, and I was in the emotionally disturbed class for most of my school years despite being of above-average intelligence. But I was diagnosed with a lot of things such as depression and ADHD and hyperactivity and a lot of other things that are associated with Asperger's and autism and stuff.


I have always struggled though functionally and socially, and I just find it very hard to deal with social situations, and pretty much have no social or romantic/sexual life whatsoever and am a 37-year-old virgin, soon to be a 38-year-old virgin, and I feel I have few prospects of that changing anytime soon. I think that's partially because of my poor social skills and limited ability to connect with others, as well as my abnormal sexual interests, which when I try to look for a partner tend to be my main focus, sometimes single-mindedly, which makes things rather difficult.


When it comes down to it is I just don't know how to relate to normal every day average people like a normal every day average person, because to me such behavior of average people is as baffling as I am to them, and I think that few people around me have really wanted to get to know me for the real me or have to deal with my issues. My dad constantly complains about how I am not social and how I avoid people, and basically thinks that if you are not extroverted or something like that or wanting to be around people that there is something deeply wrong with you, and I think, at least in America anyway, that is the common view.

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