CW: abuse, hate speech, bullying

I(35F) am on the spectrum. I have ASD1, formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome.

For the past 5ish years, I have been obsessively trying to recover from BPD. I was told by my therapist on many occasions, "You have empathy, you reflect on yourself, you are in remission, you are handling things so well, you are beyond most people." Yet still having insane problems in my relationships. I felt like I was going crazy. I felt hopeless, helpless, and like living had no point. If 40-60 hours a week of poring over articles, books, doing DBT, self esteem workbook and worksheets wasn't helping my interpersonal relationships, I felt like maybe I should just give up. I was thinking, well I'll leave the country be a performance artist, live alone, or in a commune, and have casual sex. 

I started keeping notes on every person I met to try to understand what the fuck was going on. Relationships wouldn't even go beyond hanging out 2-3 times. I was alienating everyone! 

Worst of all, after my victory post I wrote about me and my husband, things took a steep turn for the worse. Things went balls to the wall crazy and tested the fuck out of us and we failed at every turn. 

It made no goddamn sense, why would I get a clean bill of health and then stumble so hard?

I have Asperger's and that comes across VERY weird and has cost me a lifetime of being bullied, not getting jobs, being outcasted at work, and being in therapy for ten years with a ton of success in many areas, and very poor interpersonal relationships. I would go as far as saying that BPD therapy had me constantly watching myself so much, that the interpersonal stuff was made worse by therapy.

The moment I "came out" to myself as autistic, my whole body relaxed. I have been masking my whole life. I have been masking even harder because of therapy. I can't make eye contact or my mind goes blank. My posture is relaxed and my body wants to do stuff all the time - STUFF I GOT REPRIMANDED FOR as a child (now I understand this is stimming, and I don't give a rat's ass if someone doesn't like it they can eat hot garbage) by my mother, who very specifically called me R\*T\*rded all. the. damn. time.

I was bullied at school, the butt of every joke. I was pushed out of a tree pretty high up. I was headbutted in the stomach. I can't even tell you the insane bullying and abuse I went through for being weird. I was called ugly 100 times a day every day for three years. I changed schools and hid under the radar a bit, but still, I was the outcast. I at least found a bunch of other misfits thank fuck.

So yeah my self esteem was in the literal toilet. And all I kept doing was failing. Spending so much energy for nothing. Nothing to show for it. 

I met my husband when I was 25 and it was instant attached at the hip. I think I was not ready for that, but didn't have a voice. He was super clingy and controlling. He was better than my last one though. I gave him an ultimatum to go to therapy or it's over. He went to therapy. He finally realized he had BPD in 2016 and he's doing absolutely AMAZINGLY and extremely successful in his career, doing absolutely amazing, and he is over two years sober. He's getting into the best shape of his life, he's really just soaring in every way. 

We had intermittent connection, and it was absolutely killing me (because I was failing in all of my other relationships!). We'd go weeks with small misunderstandings, distance growing rapidly, he'd turn me down on bids for connection, worried it would go bad, then we'd finally come together, we'd both be anxious, it would go bad, we'd talk in circles, just tearing our hair out, we'd get to the brink of ending it, and then when all the pressure was off, we'd come back together have passionate sex, fall in love all over again, connect deeply. And then little things would happen and it would pile up and start over.

Sounds borderline af right?

That's what we thought. That's what our therapist thought. But yet, NONE of us could fucking pinpoint what the fuck was going on.

Well it was my undiagnosed Asperger's. It was my masking. It was my constant policing and hyperfocus on "recovery".

I dropped the mask. I am just being myself. I am VERY monotone and come off as extremely stoic and serious, but even when I am elated my face is pretty chill. We are connecting easily. It's insane. We're cooking dinner every night. We're approaching each other with ease. We are not clinging, just living our independent lives and coming together. No more eggshells bullshit. It's actually easy to clarify things. He used to think I was doubting him, judging him, questioning him. But, with ASD1, I can't read tone, and a lot of things go over my head, and I can't process auditory information that fast, the words come out of someone's mouth and hit me like shapes and pictures, I just start hearing sounds instead of words with meaning this is the only way I can describe it, I need things repeated a lot, it seems like I'm not paying attention, but I just get lost. So he would point something out to me that he saw in someone else and I would always (and maybe will always) be like, "Oh really? I didn't notice that." He thought I was basically saying, "fuck off youre wrong" constantly. But I genuinely was asking because I genuinely cannot read read social cues or how people are feeling. In my brain, we are all islands and we will make it very obvious when we feel a type of way. The truth is, things are extremely subtle, and those things go right over my head.

It's crazy because I never thought someone "like me" could be autistic. I had a completely wrong idea of what autism is. I was born with a cleft lip &amp; palate and this type of birth defect can coincide with autism. I am still coming to terms with it, but for the most part it was the missing puzzle piece I needed to fully understand myself and love my unique and beautiful self. I am working with autism therapist to help me bridge the gap.

I just wanted to write this out for any women, and people AFAB who may be at their wits end with BPD and wonder why the f they can't get better. It might be autism!