This week has not been easy. First of all, my husband got diagnosis aspergers syndrome, or as the psychiatrist said "You are clearly autistic, but the level you're at, we call it HFA".
HFA is a high functioning autistic. That means that he is within the numbers of the scale that shows if a person is on the autism spectra, but that he is functioning well measured to our society's standards.
The short version:
I have suspected this for two years (we've been together 2,5 years). Or, to be honest, I did more than suspected it, I kind of knew somewhere, for sure.
During my last pregnancy (his first time being a father), he acted so strange. I just couldn't figure out if he was not happy about the baby (but he bought all these baby stuff, even imported toys and clothing etc), or if he was afraid to feel (in case things didn't end well with our son), or if he just hated me and the fact that I became unexpectedly pregnant. It was the last thing I felt most sure about, because he didn't respond to the babys movements in my belly, he didn't speak to me or asked about how I was (it was a tough pregnancy on top of all the other shit), he ignored me totally when we were around others (exept for when we met with his family, then he always held my hand and sat close to me). To make a long story short- he seemed to be a complete asshole.
As time went by, and we moved in together, I started noticing strange behavior patterns. He always seemed to do the same stuff in a very precise order that couldn't be interrupted, he struggled with finding answers when we talked (he actually struggled for usually over an hour, sometimes longer, even in the smallest daily conversations, then he might answer - but very often the answer never came), he made strange noises and had tics..
So, chitchatting never happened in our home, silence always happened, to put it nicely.
This thing with heavy delayed answers and problems to take initiatives to actually take action even to the smallest things is a big trouble in his life, but he has always thought he's just lazy or clueless.
Well, however. That's when I realized he wasn't a jerk at all. He had been able to "hide" his behaviors fairly well for as long as we didn't live together, but now when we shared more than our office at work, it became harder and harder to hide.
My heart breaks for many reasons here. He must have struggled so unbelievably hard to behave "normal" around me (what now normal really is in our world?), he did know on some level that he had troubles and was different from others, and - I'm actually sorry for my self, for all the pain this has cost me.
Now, back to this week. He seemed to take the diagnosis quite ok. It was a very good psychiatrist who did this whole examination and all the tests. He came back from their latest meeting feeling relieved, saying that he finally had some kind of answer to why he'd felt like some kind of alien most of his life.
What broke him down completely was that he went to an interview about an important job at the marina some weeks ago. A job he really, really wanted, and he has more than the skills and education they asked for. He is very well educated, actually he's a captain and a really good administrative worker as well.
They got back to him just yesterday, after three long weeks of waiting, and told him that he didn't get this job. They told him that he had all the education right, but that he was too slow in answering them during the interview, and they need someone who can make fast decisions and act on these in the blink of an eye.
They even said that he was better off behind a computer than at the marina. You can imagine how he feels about hearing this...
Now he just sits, quiet, sad and refuses to do anything other than eat. He feels that he is heavy retarded and that everyone can see it. He's ashamed. And I'm completely clueless of what to do, how to help him. Can I even help? Please leave comments if you can come up with any advice.
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