What should I have her read?

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Okay, so I've told my girlfriend about aspergers and all that, and I tried to explain some of the "symptoms" I have. As far as I know, she listened, but every now and then we get into a fight because she thinks I'm just being an ass or being lazy, or I guess I'm bad at assigning the right tone to the words I say to make them match my mood, and she thinks I'm bitching when I'm just trying to explain something.. I've told her about this forum, and I told her I'd appreciate it if she looked around here to get a better understanding of aspergers. However, she doesn't really like sitting at a computer, and I'm also guessing all these topics would seem a bit overwhelming, you know? Like, she wouldn't know where to start. I know I wouldn't either... So does anyone have any recommendations? Should I try to get her to read a book about it instead? Which book?

This has been a huge problem for me. "don't yell at me"...... "I'm not yelling". No matter how much people know about AS they will not understand the experience. They relate to your problems in an NT way. It's like telling people you have clinical depression, 90% of the time they will say something like, "get over it, everyone has a bad day". What I would recommend is that you read tony attwoods book, complete guide to asperger's, together. Give personal examples as you read. TBH, when you're in a relationship, no matter how much someone knows intellectually, they will still be ruled by emotion. You just have to keep reminding them that there are things about your behavior that you have little control over but you're trying to improve.

P.S. A partner understanding AS is not an excuse to not improve problem behaviors. Just sayin.

If she isn't in to interactive media, you could always print out relevant material from the net to enlighten her. It's not always easy to find good literature about AS but there's a wealth of it online.

Doesn't Rudy Simone have a book called "Dating a Man with Aspergers" out? I don't know if it is any good, but her "Aspergirls" book I thought was quite good.

Yeah, I haven't read it, but she has both:
"22 Things a Woman Must Know If She Loves a Man with Asperger's Syndrome" and
"22 Things a Woman With Asperger's Syndrome Wants Her Partner to Know"

I know, and I'm trying, but the problem is I don't even realize that I'm doing anything wrong unless I see her upset, or if she tells me. But if I just see her upset, and she doesn't want to talk, I never know what I did wrong, and I never get a chance to know what I need to do right.

Hell, it took me being with her for almost two years to finally figure out when she was trying to tell me, non-verbally, that she didn't want me to touch her. One day I just had an epiphany. I don't know why it took so long, and I feel kinda dumb because of it, but I just want her to understand what I deal with every day and how it affects me so that I CAN improve. If she doesn't understand, she'll just think most of that stuff is me being a dick or whatever, you know ?

Like, for some reason when I'm sad or depressed about something, she always thinks I'm mad. Maybe it's because in both cases sometimes I tend not to want to talk... I dunno. I get the whole "don't yell at me" thing sometimes, and I get "keep it down" ALL THE DAMN TIME. I just want her to understand that kinda stuff.

Yesterday, we had a conversation about me finding a better job. I was feeling down about my dead-end job at pizza hut and how I had to go deal with people, and I just didn't want to. I started talking about it, and she said i should find a better one then. But then I said I already tried. She said I need to keep trying, which I understand, but eventually I stop seeing the point because I keep getting the same exact result, no matter how many times I try. If I'm lucky enough to get an interview, I must come off as dumb or something, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong or how to fix it. All of this constantly having to learn how to properly disguise myself to deal with certain people makes me just not want to deal with people, and when I come home from my job, even if it was a short shift, I'm almost always completely exhausted. I just wanna shut my brain down and relax, but then she thinks I'm just being lazy.

i spent the best part of seven years wishing and saying i wanted to get out of a Pizza Hut style job. When i finally did and changed for something more steady i realised that the food job was actually quite a good job to have, despite the unsociable hours. re interviews you literally could be unlucky. you could have been interviewed for ten jobs that happen to have an average of 75 candidates per position and could be doing everything right. Re your girlfriend, ask her to tell you when you get on her nerves and to explain why because literally don't know. maybe you could give us some examples of when she gets annoyed unexpectedly plus a bit of background. we might spot patterns and things

The job market is tough these days. At my work I was brought in to help interview candidates for a job. When I was brought in, they had narrowed the applicants to 12. We looked through all these resumes and several people be eliminated for what were BS reasons, but we had one job and 12 people, so what are we supposed to do? The field is now down to five. How we will pick one of them, I am not sure. A dart board maybe.

It's hard to get a job. Don't be hard on yourself. It wasn't like this when I was younger, and hopefully it won't always be like this from now on.

I know the job market is tough right now, but I've had this problem even when it wasn't tough. Maybe I just had unrealistic expectations as far as how easy it should be to find a job, I dunno. I just know that I friggin' hate interviews, and they don't usually go well. Why does getting a job have to depend on how well you can come up with BS on the fly and NOT how well you can actually perform the job?

Also, I can't entirely blame my parents, but I sure as hell wouldn't feel this way if it wasn't for them. For as long as I can remember, they basically beat it into my head that everything I do is wrong, and as a result I have absolutely no confidence or ambition whatsoever. And because of the sh***y job market, I can't pay my student loan, so I catch hell for that from my mom all the time too... My mom apparently vented to my brother about it too because he called up to tell me how I'm some fat lazy immature piece of s**t and "not a man," cuz apparently man doesn't mean male human and isn't defined by having male genitalia anymore. Nobody updated me on the definition change.

It's not even about putting myself down, I'm just sick of being in this world that's completely incompatible with me. Nobody seems to get me at all, no matter how much I try to explain things, and people always jump to conclusions and get offended. This would all be fine if I could just not deal with people at all, but I kinda have to. And I need money too. I have no clue what I want to do with my life, but I'm sick and tired of struggling with EVERYTHING. And I'm sick of feeling like s**t because I can barely afford my bills.

Last edited by DerStadtschutz on 20 Jun 2012, 6:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

This topic interests me because I've never read a book about autism in my life, and I've been diagnosed with HFA for almost my entire life (since I was a young child).

Take her to an aspie support group meeting.

Its easier to understand AS via others with whom you are not emotionally attached.

I'm not aware of any aspie support group, and I don't know that if I found one, I'd even be allowed to go, as I'm an adult who was never diagnosed with anything. Also, I figured it would be best for her to read about it as opposed to talking to a bunch of strangers about it. I don't know if she'd even want to. She seemed to at least be somewhat intrigued by the idea of checking out this site, but like I said, she never got around to it and said that she didn't like reading a computer screen. And since Aspergers manifests itself somewhat differently in everybody, wouldn't it be best for her to learn specifically about how it affects me specifically?

Edit: So I just did a search for local aspie support groups, but I didn't find anything useful in my area.

I know - because ''NTs are better at putting themselves into other people's shoes'', why don't you make her ''put herself into your shoes'' by using her ''social imagination'' that NTs are supposed to have, then she can imagine what it is for you and understand you and your AS a bit better?

Well, it is thrown around on here a lot that NTs have all this power of empathy and can put themselves into other people's shoes and use plenty of social imagination to understand other's feelings, so there is no reason why they can't use it on people with disabilities?

NTs actually are no better at understanding autistics than autistics are at understanding NTs. They just don't need to understand us because we're the minority.

Anyway, try going to your local library and seeing if you can find a good summary book about AS there.

Also, keep in mind that some people aren't willing to learn. If she doesn't make a decent effort to learn about and understand AS, maybe she's not the right person for you.