Hi JBartram,

I don't know if you will check for answers so many months late, but I'll offer you some thoughts just in case.

As I read through your post, about halfway through I was inclined to tell you about a specific type of autism spectrum classification I've come across. Then I got to the bottom of your post, where you talk about your difficult upbringing and the way your mum 'broke your will'. This called into question for me the idea that your diagnosis 'explains' your behaviour. That's not to say you aren't aspie, you may well be. But I would be very cautious about attributing every one of your behaviours to it.

Most especially, I'd be wary of attributing your inability to cope or change to aspie-ness, where you express that certain things make you hurt, but you cannot do otherwise. I feel there may be an element of nurture rather than nature in this: as an aspie child you may have learned to adhere even more strictly to your very natural rigid patterns of action and of thought, perhaps augmenting them even beyond your own nature, in order to cope internally with your mother's treatment, and perhaps sometimes to escape or tolerate physical punishment. Each person's patterns, autistic or not, are their strengths, so it is only natural to rely on them and build them up to provide yourself with resilience.

Often as children we adapt to difficulties by changing ourself in some way, just as a flower will grow a crooked stem to make its way past a cobblestone to reach the sunlight. But where there is open air, the flower is then free to grow straight. As humans, we are not so simple as flowers and we sometimes continue to follow old coping schemes, rather than grow freely. I am brought to thinking this because my understanding from your post is that some of your own patterns and choices feel limiting and painful to you. If aspergers were the only explanation, I think they would feel natural, and forcing yourself to behave differently would feel painful instead.

Some of the rigid patterns and preferences you report do sound like your own nature... wanting multiples of things, preferring organization and small quarters, needing to do things you want to do. The latter may suggest demand avoidance autism subtype but I am no expert.

However, I see a sharp contrast, IMHO, between this autism profile, and no particular link to autism-specific traits, with the fact that you are so strongly respondent to demand in function of positive reinforcement. This is unsurprising given your parental influence sounds filled with negative reinforcement. You may have a deep and insatiable thirst for positive reinforcement. This is not dependent on autism at all, but on the fact you were deprived of a primal need as a tiny human. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is something you could look at to help address behaviour related to self-beliefs and negative self-talk. However, given how deep these wounds may be for you, CBT may be too short-term and too superficial. You may need to work with a psychodynamic or other emotional healing therapist to explore the hurt and trauma you experienced, redress it, and grow from it, before CBT can have a lasting benefit.

As an aspie, you'll always have some differences from others, and indeed your thinking may be rigid in some ways. But that does not mean you cannot be hurt. And where you were hurt, you can heal, and become a happier Aspie. What this will look like is wide open territory, but you may find that some of the rigidness melts away. This is my personal thought, that perhaps you were clinging hard to parts of your own identity, almost digging your heels in if you will, trying to assert your own life, just to survive, due to the difficult circumstances. With healing, and better circumstances, this digging of heels may not be needed, and you may find you can be lighter, and you may be able flourish rather than just survive.

Best wishes to you

~ waves ~

p.s. I am grateful for your boss. Take heart, luckily the world does have him, and other humans like him.