Looking for answers

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I know these types of boards pop up a lot and apologize for adding to the clutter of 'what am I' boards, but I'm at a lost for where to go right now and feeling so down that posting on a board in the hopes of one nice answer would be a pick me up. First of all, I don't expect a diagnoses, don't really want one. I just want to know what I most resemble so I can see what those type of people do to cope. I mean, if I'm like them, the solution is kinda similar right? And if it's needed, I'm sorry for posting this here, if it's inappropriate please tell me.

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I guess I'll go for the obvious reason I came here, first. I'm completely socially awkward. It might be that I'm lying to myself and I'm not, but I FEEL awkward and incredibly anxious. I want nothing more than for it to end quickly. I'm so terribly afraid that I'll do something wrong and they'll be upset or offended that I'm too tense. I know they won't kill me or hit me, but I can't relax. Whether by genetics or by nurture (my mother had me live as a hermit so I wouldn't tell her secrets) I have no clue what to respond past the beginnings of a conversations. Ex. Person: 'Hey how are you?' Me: 'Fine, you?' Person: ** they nod and waddle off**

If they don't leave, I get highly nervous. Like I didn't do the proper process right and now I gotta say something, anything, so they'll go away. I don't seem to do any odd movements or sounds or repetitious stuff that might be called a tic. In fact my fiance has commented that any time we're in public it's like I'm encased in a 'shell' where nothing can get at me and it's like 'I snuffed out my personality' while I'm outside the house. He complains that I shorten my speech to one word answers or if I talk in sentences it's a monotone like I'm bored or angry. I have trouble making eye contact and I hate what I refer to as 'weather talk'. I can't figure out why you would want to talk to someone if you aren't trying to make a real connection. Talking to me about politics, the weather, yesterday's meal, or your cousin's church mate's daughter is a total waste of time and just angers me. Especially because I keep thinking they've brought this up for a reason and I'm too dense to see why. So when the conversation ends and they leave, I feel like I've let them down by not divining the real reason and moving the conversation there. It's compounded by the fact that I later realize I could of been considered rude by not filling the silence and flogging the dead horse of conversation with them.

That's the biggest thing that pointed me to 'on the spectrum' as you might call it and that's a stretch to guess that by so little. I love music and to read which might be a 'special interest' or might just be a hobby/distraction I like to enjoy. It's hard to judge for myself whether I just intensely like my hobby or if it's more. I was better than average at school, but a long step down from the College course/Honor students. I spent a lot of time on my own in complete silence and have been known to freak out if it gets too loud. Nothing major, just my emotions get out of hand and I have to leave immediately or make the sound stop somehow. I don't know if it matters, but visuals never seem to freak me out, just noise.

I don't know whether to blame myself or others, but I'm without any form of support other than my fiance. Last time I talked with my mother she tried to kill me (she's on meds now for her mental problems) and my father has stayed on the sidelines my entire life. He'll let me call him and talk, but he's so distant I feel like I'm burdening him. When I don't call him, we almost go entire years without speaking and the phone call we do fit in is only a few minutes long, 'cause inevitability he goes 'well, I guess I'll let you go' and I take it as my cue that he's had more than he can stand already. After high school I moved to a city to be with my fiance and ended up being too afraid to leave the house to try to make friends. Clubbing would have me in a terror if only 'cause of the noise and I'm not sure what a girl in her twenties is supposed to do for friendship beyond that. I've taken to watching tv shows and it just seems that characters emerge with best friends they've known for decades. They never explain how the friendship starts.

I did have friends in high school, but I was in the 'weird band circle'. We prided ourselves on being different, so if someone did something kinda quirky and out there it was assumed to be a joke or just fitting in. I'm no longer sure where to go to get that feeling that even my quirkiest things would be accepted.

Btw, I don't want random tests to see if I have anything. I feel like you can sense which answer is the 'correct' answer and which is wrong. I mean, if it asks do you like to be alone or in large noisy groups you know which one is less normal. I feel knowing which is the 'normal' answer stops me from being completely honest and trying to push the results into what I wish them to be. Which is why I've tried to research this without getting a list of the symptoms I don't want to convince myself I have anything and be wrong. I'm not looking for an excuse, but a way to start living my life again and to enjoy it.

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**** If you just wanted to tell me what you think I have you can stop here ****
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The reason I'm looking for help now is because my fiance's family doesn't like me. The reason I'm in a relationship with my fiance is he doesn't lie to me at all. He also excepts my differences without noticing it. He just seems to think it's me and I'm awesome. So he's been honest and told me his family doesn't like me, it's been over four years now and they still don't like me. In fact, I've done stuff in the past that apparently offended them and made it worse. I found out last month that his mother has been deliberately hugging me to torture me. She figured that since I didn't like to be hugged she would do it more often. Which is why, when I visits she gives at least 2 hugs a day. One when she first sees me and one before I sleep/leave. If she can turn the conversation to touchy feely things she'll sneak in another.

I manged to call a sort of truce last month and she's agreed to stop. Of course, if I can't fix this maybe I'll offend her again and she'll start touching me again. The only thing that can freak me out more than noise, is being touched by another woman. My mother abused me for all of my childhood and having another women get near me, just sets my nerves going.

I'd love to hear a name of a disorder or things you do to help you through similar situations. I don't have a job, so I'm trying to avoid going to the doctor. Some mantra or at least some advice to know there's someone out there who's heard my specific story and cared enough to respond would be at least a little helpful. It seems that no one cares. Every time I get up the courage to call a helpline or doctor I get smacked down before any one hears the whole thing and I'm told no.

My fiance's mother has also offered to help me financially by paying doctor bills and for any prescriptions I might get. I'm afraid that the offer doesn't sound the same to me as it does to her. I'm afraid that even though she said it open-ended there's a hidden catch in there. I'm not sure if she'd feel I owed her something and if so, what that something would be. Any thoughts on it would help... I doubt asking her would be socially correct? I mean, it's what I would want to do so that probably means I'd offend her by asking. I'm also worried that somehow she'll figure out the real reason I'd like to go to a doctor. She just thinks it's only my inability to leave the house and being anxious around people. I've avoided telling her about anything else or my theories about it being a tad more than social anxiety.

I'm going to start by saying I'm not a doctor, so anything I say is just my opinion from my experiences.

It sounds like you have some symptoms that fit somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum. However these could also be the symptoms of the damage caused by the abuse you experienced in childhood. It could be a mixture of the 2, who knows.

In my opinion it can be worth exploring this stuff, but it can be a very difficult journey. Before you start that journey ask yourself if you want to, and why. If you want to do it for you, then fine. If you are doing it because of your future MIL, then that may or may not be a good idea.

I am going to question your perception of her. Please don't think that I don't believe you, I am just trying to see if there is a different way of looking at her motives. You seem to think her motives are all negative. I can't say because I'm not there, but perhaps they are not. It may be torture if she hugs you, but is she doing it to torture you, or is it just that she is completely clueless and thinks she might be able to help cure you by hugging you, not a good idea, but not as nasty.

Finally it sounds like things are good with your fiancé that's good.

Take care and good luck

Perhaps it would be accurate to say I'm doing it for myself because people like my Future MIL inhabit this world. If everyone was rather blunt and honest I could say there's nothing wrong with me and be happy, but they're not. I'd like to understand everyone else and would really love it if I could stand in a small group of people and be relaxed. That's my goal for the moment, I've other problems and wishes, but that's my small maybe obtainable goal.

Going over my first post, I was a bit harsh of her, but I'm extremely angry with her. While it wasn't to 'torture' me per se. She was aware I didn't like to be hugged. She thought I was projecting my mother (who I won't talk to) onto her (who I have trouble talking to), so in a weird twist of logic, forcing her body to enclose mine was supposed to fix the issue? I just can't figure out how hugging me when I hate it and that creeps me out was supposed to fix things so I've taken to seeing it from my eyes. I'd only do something like that if I absolutely hated the person and wanted them to die. Mostly we talk through my fiance and he was the one who told me bluntly that she knew and did it anyway. Without the outlet of confrontation (which terrifies me anyway) I've taken to hating her from afar. I feel that if we ever could just honestly talk openly I could at least go back to a neutral indifference of her, but it seems that no one ever wants to talk. If I talk to people I offend them, if I don't talk I've offended them.

She's also told me to my face that I'm immature because she said 'I love you' to me and I didn't respond in kind. I don't love her and even if I did parrot the words, she'd know I was lying... at least I'd hope so. You can't just all of a sudden love someone, when you have years of bad history.

Another reason I'd like to figure out how to be in groups of people is because my fiance's family is close. Every 4months or so, some major holiday seems to roll around and they gather. If he goes without me, he spends the whole time making excuses about how I'm not there. Apparently it's socially unacceptable that I don't want to go. So when he comes back, he's miserable. And if he doesn't go, he gets calls over the next few months and people casually mention how he wasn't there. The problem is, when I'm there he wanders off into the 'men's corner' of the room and talks cars/computers and I feel lost. I can't even pretend to understand what they're talking about. I've tried to tell him before we go to not leave me alone and that's the reason I dislike going, but he can't help it. If his family says they need him for something, he has to help. So I'm left alone in what I view as a sea of hostile people. His mother's interactions with me make me see the whole family as bad. I know it's wrong, but when I'm standing there I panic and just want to leave before they say another cutting remark to me. I'd love for him to just cut all ties and be done with the stupid bunch of people, but he loves them and I can occasionally see them do things that indicate they do love him back. Causing him angst over this is only hurting him, he wants to be with me forever and wants to be loved by his family (with my family, I can understand the longing), so making this work is important to me.