I am 27 years old. All I need someone to do is just reply that they read this and maybe offer some constructive advice. Please don't tell me I am not alone because you guys are on the internet and while I may not be the only one in this position, I am alone in my own world. I want to get myself diagnosed with this because I am tired of failing. Let me start out with my strengths. I have a higher than average IQ (in the upper 100s which is still within normal range). I can form well reasoned arguments if given enough time, I can come to my own defense sometimes, I was able to get a B.A. in Psychology with a 3.2 GPA, I lived away from home for 3 years at college (even though I came home every weekend), I can keep appointments, I can interact with children very well, and most importantly, I honestly think that I have the capacity to work in neuroscience from both a biological point of view and a psychological point of view. I did very well in my bioposychology classes during my undergraduate degree. I aced my graduate level memory and cognition class. I even was allowed to help a professor do research in a limited capacity and the research was going to be peer reviewed. The only class that I needed constant tutor help with was statistics and research methods. The hardest part of research methods was trying to get my words on the paper in a coherent manner.

With all of these strengths and all of these smart traits (I am not trying to tell you guys I am smart but I have to give myself a bit of credit for getting this far and working this hard), anyways, with all of this, I cannot look people in the eye without having an anxiety reaction, I cannot control my emotions when I am with my family, I get frustrated easily because I regularly find myself not knowing how to overcome something or what to do next, and when I get frustrated, I cannot verbalize my emotions. I remember having about $400-$500 worth of Legos when I was a kid and spending hours a day just building things. I have had only had about 4 friendships during my life that lasted over a year. When I was a kid, I would only play with 1 other kid and he stopped being my friend about 10 years ago. During college, I was best friends with my roommate but I haven't talked to him in 2 years. Whenever he would invite me to do something with his other friends, I would get jealous and territorial. I wouldn't get into arguments or anything, but I would only want us to do something and not all these other people. I live at home at 27 with no job prospects, no friends, and no romantic relationships. I get very depressed because of all of this. I recently called an autism center and they are having me come in a few weeks from now. I scored a 44 on the AQ test and I know that should not be used for self diagnosis, but I consider myself very honest about my issues and I am good at analyzing myself. That being said, if 32 is clinically significant, then 44 must be definite proof. When I said earlier that I am tired of failing, I meant that I am tired of things just falling away from me. When I started college I had every intention of going further with my degree, but that just did not happen because I failed to get letters of recommendation and I just gave up because it was too stressful. When I tried to get a job with my degree, that failed as well because I would find myself in interviews saying stupid crap that had nothing to do with the interview. I just gave up after 5 interviews because that became too stressful as well.

On top of that, because I am able to hold a reasonably coherent conversation with my family, my mom, dad, and sister do not understand what I am going through. My mom actually does a bit better because since I was a small child she has taken me to doctors (sometimes 100 miles or more away) and she has begged them to diagnose me with something. They always said it was ADHD because it was the mid 90s and that was the pop-psychology bulls*** back then. We went to a neurologist at one of the best hospitals in the country and even she just said ADHD. And as it turns out she is now one of the leading autism neurologists in the city. As for my dad, he keeps bringing up the fact that because I am not disabled like he is, I have no room to complain. He is an amputee. He views this like one would view having anger issues. If you go to anger management and try hard enough then you can learn to overcome the problem. My sister is less than helpful because she criticizes everything I do. Like when I said that I was getting diagnosed, she asked me, "What good is that going to do?" And I told her that it might help me find a job that could give me some accommodations. Her response was to judgmentally ask me what accommodations do I expect to get. She said that no job is going to give me accommodations because they would just rather hire someone who didn't need accommodations. I replied by asking her what she expects me to do and she said that I better learn to live in the real world if I want to make it. So that is what I am dealing with. I have no friends, no girlfriend, a family that doesn't understand even how to spell autism and surely doesn't even know what it is, and no job prospects. And as for a job, I know that I am not going to be happy unless I am doing science of some sort. I can't work with computers like my dad wants me to and I can't just take a 9-5 desk job in an office like my sister wants me to. I will get too burnt out too quickly. All I want to do is science.

So yeah, I feel like I am alone.