I really like this girl so I want to help her. In the beginning our relationship was pretty good but I saw signs of some social skills problems. I thought she was just a little socially immature but I chalked that up to other reasons and felt maybe she could improve.
As she got more comfortable with me she actually got significantly worse. I thought she just was naturally not liking me and we weren't compatible but I soon realized she literally hit nearly all the symptoms of autism and not a little, to the max. I would bet my life on her being autistic so I'm not looking for anyone to cast doubt on my diagnosis. She's just good at hiding it as best she can and frankly, I had no prior experience with autism so I wasn't really trained to catch the signs. I don't think her parents are aware either (for various reasons) and she can't keep friends long enough for them to truly understand. I might be the only one with enough perspective to diagnose it. I asked her if she would be willing to go to a psychologist to help with her anxiety issues but she refused because she's scared of them.
Any advice on how to bring this up to her? I'm thinking maybe just tell the mom but I'm not sure the mom will believe me or do anything about it. The dad would be worse.
I was about to just call it quits on our relationship because it's def not working but I do think if she accepts she has autism and works with me it could potentially work. She's given 0 indication she thinks she has autism and she works in social work with disabled people and had training on autism so I suspect she's potentially in denial or scared of accepting it.
Looking for some advice.
I'm very much like this as well. Albeit a lot worse when I was younger. I've learned to deal with it. It just takes some time and some other methods. Take a break from people occasionally and find a quiet spot. Airport? I hang out at the empty gate away from everywhere and walk to the gate right around boarding. Some place like Disneyland? I'd probably look for a sit down restaurant I could go to and get a bit and take a breather. At a certain point it gets built into your life, I naturally gravitate to places like that on my own.
Like others said, don't try to fix her. Accept her as is or leave. In my life it took me getting away from people that always wanted to solve me to be happy, and guess what a lot of the other things came after. "I'm going to break you out of your shell" people just irritated me.