Suspicion my girlfriend might have aspergers

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luceat
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29 May 2015, 4:49 pm

I tried asking for advice on reddit first but I only got two replies and both of them were just jokes about aspergers, so after a quick google search I decided to try my luck here since you guys are the experts on this matter.
I always thought that her social behaviour is somehow off but until recently I just wrote it off as just a lack of social skills. I don't know that much about autism/aspergers so before I try to talk to her about my suspicion I want to make sure that it might be actually related to autism.

So let me get right to the point, here's why I think she might have some form of autism/aspergers:
- When we first met she rarely made any eye contact. She does make eye contact, it's just on average rare compared to other people.
- She shows not much interest in other peoples hobbies, emotional state etc. as in chatting with her is one-sided.
- It causes her discomfort if, for example, her furniture isn't perfectly lined up with the parquet floor tiles.
- She opens all her windows after cooking / eating for 15-30minutes no matter how cold it is outside. Generally speaking a lot of smells cause her strong discomfort.
- She hates certain food because of it's texture even though she likes the taste of them.
- She doesn't like it if things don't get done the way she would do them.
- She never had any friends. She's not a loner, she always wanted friends but never fit in with the other kids at school. It's the same now at the office where she works, she tries to befriend her coworkers but for reasons she doesn't know / understand it just doesn't work out.
- She's fluent in two foreign languages just from watching tv shows in these languages. She mastered English (third language she learned) in less than two years. (perfect grammar, native English speaker can't tell that it's not her mother tongue)
- She misinterprets the way people speak with her very often as them beeing rude to her.
- Her Kindengarten teacher already noticed atypical behaviour. For some reason I don't know her mother never had her checked though.
- She's got synaesthesia (not sure if this is in any way related to asperger)
- Highly detailed and impressively good long term memory, she knows every song that was in the charts in the last 5 years. (she didn't listen to radio regularly before that)
- She's currently in a major depressive episode
- For some time I thought that she might be a highly sensitive person (HSP). I talked with her about it and she has every symptom of HSP. HSP and asperger have very similar symptoms. Her lack of social skills makes me think that she might actually be something inbetween HSP and aspergers.
- Fixated on details / perfectionism . It takes her longer to get work done because she's concentrating on unimportant details

There are a few more things I noticed but I think the list above shows you guys why I think she might have aspergers. It's obvious that the way she's thinking and interpreting peoples behaviour is atypical. Since she's currently suffering from a major depressive episode I think it would help her tremendously if she found out the cause of her depression.
Am I interpreting to much into the above points or is there a possibility that she actually has aspergers?
How should I approach her with my suspicion. Bear in mind that she's currently extremely fragile emotionally so I'm not sure how she'd react to me thinking that she's got aspergers.



kraftiekortie
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29 May 2015, 4:55 pm

There are indications that she might be Aspergian.

Then again, I'm not "there," and I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist--so it would be presumptuous to offer any kind of "diagnosis."

It might be relevant to your relationship--it might not be relevant to your relationship.

It might be good to mention it to her; it might not be good to mention it to her. It depends upon her, for the most part.

I'm sorry she's going through a major-depressive episode.

Do yourself a favor: wait until she's in a better mood before you broach the subject of Asperger's. Also: assess her feelings about autism in general.

She might (with at least some justification) believe that she is merely a "variation" upon the "normal." If she expresses that view, don't push the idea of Asperger's too much.



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29 May 2015, 9:42 pm

She could be.

Kraftiekortie has good advice. Find out what she thinks of Aspergers first.

What makes you think her depression might be related to Aspergers-type difficulties? (Read that as being said curiously, not combatively.)


_________________
So you know who just said that:
I am female, I am married
I have two children (one AS and one NT)
I have been diagnosed with Aspergers and MERLD
I have significant chronic medical conditions as well