Question:
Is something wrong with me?
First of all, I am a boy and I turned 15 last year in October. I have autism. All my life I have had feminine interests and have felt like I've been a girl in a boy's body. For years I had just ignored it, thought it would go away or more accurately, didn't care much either way. I almost forgot about it until recently and now all these memories came flooding back. It started earlier this year in January. My memory has never been good and I can't remember when exactly. So, around January, something new happened to me, I started thinking differently. I used to whisper to myself because it helped me think. Never in public, of course. When I'm in public I think in my head but now when I think about anything, it's in the form of 2 different people talking to each other. The worst part is one's male and the other is female. They both have different opinions, different fears, different looks, etc. The problem is, since this happened, everyday I'm constently thinking and acting more feminine. I'm straight, and this is beginning to affect my daily life. When I was younger, I loved violence. I watched gory things all of the time. Recently, my older sister showed me a show called 1000 ways to die and I litterally felt sick to my stomach while watching it! That isn't like me at all! Me and my sister were laughing at gory things last summer! A lot of things are scaring me and upsetting me that normally wouldn't bother me. I don't know what to think anymore and I don't understand what could've caused this but I'm afraid to tell anyone because I'm afraid that a counselor or a psychiatrist will diagnosis me with something bad and I'll go to an insane asylum or something. I really hope that's not the case... Please help!
Answers:
I don't know if i can give you the right answer, but i can tell you this. I am a 27 yr old woman, i have asperger's syndrome (high functioning form of autism). I talk to myself alot, and it is usually a conversation between myself and someone else. It is just a coping mechanism for me, and this may be what that is for you. It is easy for us to work ourselves into a panic about things like this. (i do it alot) but really, i would not worry about it, just be yourself, and do whatever you need to do to help get by in this neurotypically dominated world. it is very stressful i know. if you need to have two personalities that talk to each other (even if one is a girl) as long as you know what is going on, i don't see anything wrong with it. maybe others will, but really, us autistics have to do whatever we can just to get by from day to day. whatever makes you feel better.
I would really suggest you read the book "Nobody Nowhere" by Donna Williams. it is the autobiography of an autistic woman, and alot of what she talks about doing sounds like what you are explaining. i think you would get alot from the book.