Trying to learn more about my condition

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Hi Everyone,

Let me start by saying that I have been unofficially told by my PDOC that Iikely have Aspergers (though a diagnosis could be difficult because I have learned to cope over the past 28 years) but I have always been treated for ADHD. I don't naturally understand people. I mean I am learning how to understand them cognitively, but I never naturally picked up on social cues or knew what they were. Over the past 4 or so years I have made great progress in my understanding of others, but it is still a daily struggle especially when I get overwhelmed with any kind of fear which seems to flip a sort of switch and knock me back into a more "primitive" and less programmed mindset.

I am a 28 year old male living in Silicon Valley with my lovely wife and working as a software engineer. Computers are the one thing I have always been capable of dealing with and able to understand. Physics, Math, Computer Science, etc. They all just make sense to me. They are predictable constructs that don't deviate. Human beings, not so much. They are incredibly irrational and tend to act in ways that make absolutely no sense to me. When I attempt to explain this, they tend to get a tad bit upset

My wife is the typical human being with an added bonus of social anxiety. Up until the last year or so I have been unable to understand why she would tiptoe around people. It's illogical. I have recently made some significant progress in "feeling" connected to others. I can't really explain it and I don't really think it is fully integrated but I can watch people know and sort of understand with very vivid and sharp empathetic emotions what they are feeling. Before a few months to a year ago, this was NEVER the case.

I have to have order around me. I cannot deal with disorder. It makes me incredibly anxious and I start projecting systemically how the disorder could continue spiraling into more and more disorder. I can visualize it, and this tends to only work me up even more. My wife, being a neuro-typical human being, does not appreciate it when I pitch a fit over a sink full of dishes or a pile of unwashed laundry.

Recently I started practicing mindfulness, distress tolerance, and truly studying human nature through self help books and observation. I am wondering if anyone with Aspergers has had success with dialectic behavioral therapy? Mindfulness works well until I get upset and then my entire reality sort of "warps" back into my old way of thinking until I calm down.

My wife is pregnant and I don't want to subject my child to unhealthy behavioral patterns. I can accept that I am hard wired this way but I cannot accept that I could not "program" my mind to be more understanding of my family. Any advice here would be great. Even better, maybe if someone told me that what I am experiencing with my need for order, my obsession with the mechanical and mathematical nature of things, my lack of natural understanding in social situations, and the emotional turmoil that I experience when there is disorganization around me and I can visualize a "trend" leading to more disorganization is simply a byproduct of this condition. I need to know that I am not alone.

Thanks,

Andrew

You sound like a fellow aspie to me. Not being able to understand others, needing order, loving math and computers, thinking neurotypicals are irrational and make no sese - all this sounds like Asperger syndrome to me. I dont understand people and social cues either, and I believe people are irrational too. they also dont make sense to me. they're unpredictable, and I dont know when they're going to lose their temper over things I dont understand.

Many aspies are father/mothers. dont worry about it. You baby will have an awesome aspie Daddy. nothing wrong with that.