I think I have something mentally wrong with me

[Hour-Glass]

Ever since I was young I've thought that I'm not quite normal so I've always assumed I must have something wrong with me. But recently I noticed that although sometimes I act strange but sometimes I'm totally normal.

For example, sometimes I will be too nervous to answer a question that a teacher asks me but other times I will talk super loud and confidently to the people on my table. It's weird, I'm usually normal but suddenly a burst of either confidence or anxiety just washes over me.

One of the other things that concerns me is that I talk to myself, like A LOT. I am almost always talking to some imaginary audience as if I am being recorded. Sometimes I do it on purpose but most of the time it is out of my control and I just do it naturally. I also have to talk myself through every little situation, even the most basics like ordering takeout food, I'll say my order like 20 times in my had before I say it. And in a normal conversation I will repeat what the other person said in my head. Another thing that I do is talk to myself as if I were multiple people and pretend to be in a scenario. A normal thing for a 4-year old girl... I'm a 15 year old boy. It's also worth mentioning that I sometimes I have 'the dream'. I always have the same dream when I'm stressed out and its super freaky. I wake up sweating and shaking and I feel like people are watching me and I have to really focus (like headache focus) to calm down.

But back to the anxiety, I don't always feel nervous around others but when I do it hits hard. I usually ball up all of my anxieties, fears and insecurities and then usually about once or twice a month I just let it out, I cry and get really angry/sad for a solid 20 minutes until it's gone. I always feel bad afterwards and end up in a bad mood for a few days. These situations also happen sometimes when I'm super stressed such as writing my first job application or doing particularly difficult homework (I take school very seriously).

Throughout my life I've only had one major incident when I considered myself 'depressed'. After watching an episode of Doctor Who (it sounds stupid but hear me out) where they discussed the afterlife I became terrified of death for roughly a four month period, I would often not think about it at day but at night I would think about in bed and sometimes cry myself to sleep. This was a good 2-3 years ago and I'm (pretty much) over it now but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I sometimes try and think about why I do these things and the I always think about one thing. Two of my cousins have aspergers and we get along really well; people even say we could be twins (as in personalities) and a lot of my friends are autistic. when I was a child and even now I have an obsession with collecting things just to line them up and then get mad when people touch them. I'm probably just being ridiculous but I sometimes think I may be on the autistic spectrum.

The last thing I will mention is my social situation. As a child I had lots of friends and I would play with them all of the time. Then I just stopped, by the time I was 6 I had one friend (autistic) and he was my only friend for about 4 years but I had an on and off relationship with him as sometimes I would rather sit on my own than play with him. During these years I was bullied a lot which was why I wanted to be his friend so much (he was bullied too). We went to different secondary schools so in my first year I had like no friends and got bullied quite a bit. After I ignored them they lost interest in me (they still bully me every so often but not like they used to) then I made a few friends. For the last 4 years I have had the same 5 person friend group and as I approach graduation I am afraid I will be alone again.

Thank you for reading, I know it seems like a lot of random things thrown together but I wanted to say as much as possible so I could get some advice on what's wrong with me. I hope to hear what you have to say.

[peyton_o]

Hi you sound like you're in a difficult situation, I don't know a lot about the autistic spectrum, but you sound like you have a good amount of social anxiety problems. I have social anxiety, and sometimes like you said, we feel and act totally normal but sometimes we have horrible social problems. Just cause sometimes we're normal doesn't mean we still don't have social anxiety disorder