About me. Sorry for the length

[Steve_F]

Hi. My name is Steve and I think I need some help.

 

Hopefully I have come to the right place. For the last 3 days I have been researching AS/ADD among others and I think I might be a sufferer but I just don't know and I am a little scared because I just became a father 3 months ago. A daughter named Darcey. I want to be a better person and a better dad.

 

A bit about me?

 

I am 28 and currently serving in the Army

 

OK, I grew up an only child in a household which moved around a lot. I attended 16 schools in total and recieved consistently exceptional reports but low exam grades. My teachers described me as having the ability to debate and reason like an adult at the age of 8. My reading level was often 5 or 6 years above that of my age.

 

At the age of 11 I read 13 volumes of the Webster's Encyclopedia back to back. At school I was bullied that did not faze me as I spent most of my time alone often reading or playing games in my head or making games up. I was often late for school through sheer daydreaming. One time because it became extremely important to kick a stone from outside my house all the way to the school gates. A distance approximately 1.6 miles. At school I could not bear to part with it so I kept it. I still have it.

 

Growing up I favoured a particular toy (often small 6 inch army figurines with movable limbs - modern day GI Joes) and would invent hugely complex scenarios involving the positioning of the toys. These games could go on for days and I would shun other children. Each toy had it's own voice, attitude and personality. I played with these until I was 16. Even now my wife has asked me why I look so wistfully at the toys in the shops. I would still play with them if it was socially acceptable. I can;t describe how much fun it was to play. The game unfolded in my head like a move. Maybe I should be a film director?

 

If my mum tried to bring other children to the house to play I would divide the toys equally but go into another room to play. I remember clearly thinking to myself as a child that other kids could not understand the rules and complexity of my games. The world that figures inhabited had to be realistic. Gravity existed and any notion of non-realism had to be discarded. No flying men or super strength. I would lose my temper and tell my parents the other child was not "playing right".

 

Apart from that I spent every spare moment reading. I would read anything, instruction manuals, cereal boxes, books, comics and I still do. At any one time I am engaged in 25-30 different books. As an adult I subscribe to over 10 magazines and periodicals and recieve 50 email subscriptions a day from news to russian political updates to computer programming.

 

Teenage Years

 

I recieved good GCSE's grades but my teachers were upset because I lost interest in the exams half way through and stopped writing mid-test. The exam itself stopped being important to me so instead I wrote entire fiction stories on my spare paper and took them home with me. I still have them. I constantly daydreamed at school inventing elaborate scenarios where I was the hero. I still do this now. Reports my parents kept said that if I spent as much time studying as I did looking out of the window then I would be a straight A student. One time in school a stray dog wandered into the playground so I walked out of school to a local butchers and spent my lunch money on meat to feed her. When an older boy who bullied me for years kicked the dog in the ribs I flew on him in an absolute rage and beat him so badly I was suspended. Nobody really spoke to me at school but that's fine. I love my own company and will happily sit for weeks without speaking to anyone. I did get bullied though I still have feelings of revenge for my bullies 20 years later.

 

I studied for 10 A-Levels and wanted to take more but the studying was always more important than the passing. My book addiction grew as well but my social skills never improved. I still remain awkward in group situations and would rather everyone just left me alone to do things by myself. I avoid parties and pubs and social occasions.

 

University

 

I stopped my A-Levels halfway through and applied to Derby University on the strength of my AS-Levels. I was accepted to an experimental degree which allowed me to choose any modules I wanted from the degree catalogue and make my own degree. In my first year I studied political science, journalism, spanish, german and java programming. In my second year I added Yugoslavian History, Marketing, American History and Systems Management.

 

This did not seem enough but the University blocked me from studying Theology and Molecular Biology. Now I just read about those things in my spare time.

 

University bored me so I left and joined the Army. My job allows to me assimilate huge swathes of information daily. However I keep recieiving bad reports for not caring about uniform, teamwork or traditions. I recieve excellent reports for logic, memory and the ability to recall and recite anything I have been told.

 

I am told constantly that I speak to anyone regardless of rank as if they are my equal and I need to stop. I can't understand why people think this I just tell the truth.

 

Personal Relationships.

 

I have had several long personal relationships and am now married. However my wife is close to leaving as she feels that she bores me. I spend all of my time researching new projects or reading. At the moment I am writing 3 novels, I maintain 7 blogs and am coding 2 websites. I also direct and make my own videos. During the day I weight lift, run and study kickboxing, jujitsu and boxing. I am really upset at myself that I have no time for gymnastics as I want to learn.

 

I hate working in a team. I tell everyone that I will complete all of the tasks because I don't believe they can do them to the same standard that I can. I try to be empathetic when I see mistakes in peoples work but I actually pains me to see them fumble and I get angry. I just do it myself instead. I don't like Team Sports either. I like to be responsible for winning by myself. Other people just don't understand the way I do things.

 

I am upset that I am running out of time. I have fears and panic that I will pass away before I have seen everything on earth and completed everything. I have at times took the steps necessary to be a lawyer, a Doctor, an Actor and a professional bartender. This week I considered leaving the Army to become a biologist but realised it would never work because I also need to be a Fitness Instructor, a Snowboard Teacher and a professional fighter. My wife has asked me to pick one thing but I can't. It physically hurts to imagine only doing one thing. I should open my own bar - I studied stocktaking and bar managment in my old job and designed a whole new system for delivering, storing and selling stock. It uses no cardboard and has zero wastage. It is carbon nuetral almost. I should contact someone about that. I like the idea of being a cat burglar. My army trainers told me I should consider becoming a sniper but I was put off because you have to work with another person. I would do it if I could do it by myself.

 

In my spare time I have taught myself to do magic tricks, count cards like a gambling professional and play poker. Once I won my first major tournament I gave up and got bored. For a while I maintained a mathematical equation to beat roulette but I was wrong. It was a fun 2 weeks getting the proof though. I have never played roulette since.

 

Yesterday I started work on my third academic paper for a military journal but the other 2 I wrote last month are unfinished.

 

I am reading books on physics, mathematics, string theory, codebreaking, archeaology, programming, web design, theology, atheism, cooking, the history of Africa and studying Islam.

 

I also need to learn Arabic, Dari (Farsi) and Pashto which is difficult because I am also learning German on my way to work.

 

Emotions

 

I only cried when my grandmother passed away because my family were looking at me. When my Auntie and my Grandfather passed away I didn't cry either and the thought of visiting their graves leaves me apathetic. It's a grave. Although I married my wife I don't think I am feeling the love that I should. I read about how people feel and I don't have any of that.

 

I feel empty most of the time unless I am focused on something. I am really depressed because I don't think I love my daughter the way everyone says I am supposed to. It was the same on my passing out parade for the Army and my subsequent promotions. I didn't feel pride. It felt like it was eating into my time and the parade was an annoyance. Even maintaining my Army uniform is nonsense to me.

 

Before my wife I cheated on over 20 partners and repeatedly but I didn't feel bad about it. I wanted to feel bad about it. I did. I feel like crying just wrighting this because I have so little empathy for others. What is wrong with me? Why do I care so much about being able to learn binary and hexidecimal but I will not even meet people from work for a beer afterwards? I actually get angry if they phone me to disturb me.

 

Right now as I write this I am re-sorting and categorising the 3000 gigabytes of learning material I have downloaded from the Internet onto my hard drives and access daily. I will have to go in a minute because I am working on a mathematic algorithm for football odds to make money for my dad.

 

At University I would often stay awake for 50-60 hours at the weekend researching, collecting, studying new things or playing games. My long term girlfriend would have to sleep alone because I could not drag myself away from the PC. I reached really high levels on MMORPG games and lived inside them. Then after they bored me I deleted them without a thought. Months of work, hundreds of hours just deleted. Then I would find something new.

 

Money? I honestly have no concept of money. I have it. I spend it. I don't have it. I am unfazed. I have the same level of happiness regardless of my bank balance. My family was homeless at one point and I remember it vividly. I had something to read though so it was OK. During my summer holidays from school I spent every day in the library from when my mum went to work to when they got in. I would love to own a coffee shop with a big bookshelf and just read all day and drink coffee.

 

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This is the first time I have admitted to myself that I have a problem.

 

I have started to get headaches. I don't want to be addicted to learning and information anymore. I don't want to be able to correct every person around me. I can't have a hobby because it is superceded immediately by a new project. I collect stamps, coins, postcards and old books but they sit in drawers unlooked at now. All of my workplaces have told me that my colleagues think that I consider myself superior to them. I have always replied it is not my fault if they don't know things. They reply "that is exactly the attitude we are talking about Steve". I am frustrated and angry just reading that sentence back to myself. It is not my fault they don't know things! Why don't they get it?

 

I love being around people that know more than me. Professors or priests or old people with stories. I like to listen to them.

 

When I come out of the cinema I can recite almost the entire script from memory. I can remember the majority of chapters from a book and reference periodicals.

 

I am constantly late for everything, almost every day. I always have been. School, college, work, University and the military. Sometimes hours or days late. I don't understand why everyone is so fixated on punctuality. Everything will be fine. I have things I am involved with and I will make it eventually.

 

I am hyperfocused on things until I lose interest. I will block out everything. Once for a course I memorised a 308 page document in a weekend for a presentation I had to give on the Monday. I passed the course but I was told that I worked really badly with others in the syndicate. I had to leave because they couldnt see that I was right and we had a large argument. Me versus them. When they checked the book I was right. I don;t care about the course report. It still bothers me two years later thinking about that argument. I was right, why couldn't they see that?

 

I have to be right about everything. Unless I am proved wrong. Then I will sit and listen in fascination, like sponge. Why was I wrong? I see. I see. Got it. Got it. Nod. I love subject matter experts. I once gave a brief on the entire Allied Invasion of Italy without any notes. I had learned it the day before. Even now I can't understand why people require notes or cue cards or teleprompters. I wish I was at Oxford University sitting in lectures listening. It depresses me that I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge.

 

When I was 12 years old I became so good at Chess my school sent me to a big tournament and we had a seminar afterwards. The UK champion (name escapes me was there) and I told him I had developed my own opening gambit. So we played and he managed to beat my opening but he told me that I was far more advanced than he was at that age. I stopped playing after that. Don't know why but I lost all interest the next day. I wish I had someone to play Chess with now.

 

I become extremely annoyed if someone phones me and interrupts my time. I am obsessed with the idea of remembeing things, I hate the idea that in 5 years I won't be able to remember the name of the author I read so now I maintain lists of every TV series, film and book I have read. My browser favourites has 196 entries.

 

I might take up Yoga to clear my mind. Or start wrighting more lists. I have no time for my daughter and she deserves more than that. So does my wife. I have to go now. I am studying CISSP and PRINCE2 for when I have to leave the Army. I think I will become a computer hacker/penetration tester. Unless a publishing company picks up the rights to my childrens novel. It is half finished and I actually really enjoy writing it.

 

I am sorry this has become such a jumbled stream of consciousness I just don't know where else to go and I can't go to the Army Doctor and my head is hurting. I want my marriage to work. Today I tore down some posters on the wall at work and used a magic marker to completely map out the political dynamics of of the Central Asian Sub Continent and how they will lead to instability within 15 years. The diagrams, boxes and text covered an area approximately 12 feet by 15 feet and I am still not finished. My boss asked me why I did it and I don't know. I just saw it in my head and needed to put it down before I forgot it. I don't know why that is important here. Maybe it is.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Tally

[Steve_F]

I have read this back and it seems very much like me. me, me. I didn't mean to be. I am sorry. Sometimes I want to live on a desert island and just be completely alone. I took a few online diagnosis quizes after a friend with an MA in psychology asked me to. They were for ADD.

 

A score of 70 = see a doctor immediately. I scored 105 out of 110. I hope my daughter is not like me. I can be a horrible person completely wrapped up in my own little world uncaring about anyone else.

 

On the wired.com Autism Quotient quiz I scored a 35. My wife scored a 7.

 

I just spoke to my parents and they said that as a child I displayed strange behaviour but they never investigated it.

 

When staying over anywhere I always woke up at night, let myself out and made my own way across the city to my own bed. This happened in the USA as well during a blizzard.

 

My mum had to cut the tags off of all of my clothes because I could not stand them touching me. I couldn't wear socks with seams. << Tactile Defensiveness?

 

I had to have the same pack lunch for years and any variance used to upset me massively. A ham and coleslaw sandwich and a flask of chicken soup. Every day for 5 or 6 years.

 

My mum used to let me sit in the magazine aisle of the supermarket while she shopped and come back for me about an hour later and I would have a pile of magazines read and stacked neatly waiting to go.

 

I see maps in 3D. I thought everyone could until I joined the Army and people struggled.

 

I can't believe my parents hid this from me So many things about my life make sense now.

 

How do I fix this without going to an Army Doctor? I am so glad I found this forum.

 

Edited May 10, 2010 by Steve_F

[Tally]

Hi Steve, and welcome to the forum.

 

Don't feel bad about talking about yourself, it was your introduction, you are meant to talk about yourself

 

There are quite a lot of things that do point to Asperger's, especially the fact that you have had lifelong differences. Some of the things do sound more like mental health issues, but many people with Asperger's do develop mental health problems, so it's possible you have both.

 

Asperger's was not acknowledged as a diagnosis until 1994, and even then was very poorly understood. Your parents probably would not have heard of it when you were a child. Autism was suggested to my parents when I was a child, but they dismissed the possibility every time. I had to wait until I was an adult and learned about Asperger's for myself before I could seek a diagnosis.

 

Even if you got a diagnosis of Asperger's, it would not change the way you are and the difficulties you are having in your relationship. What it may achieve is to help you and your wife work out why you don't understand each other and help you find better ways to communicate with each other. But you could do those things without a formal diagnosis.

 

For now, your best approach might be to read up on Asperger's, discuss it with your wife and your parents, and see if it still makes sense.