Has your high functioning autism diagnosis helped in any way? My therapist basically said that the only thing she would do for mild autism is social skills training, and she would be doing that with me anyways, since I have social anxiety. So there wouldn't be much point in a diagnosis. I stopped going to that therapist though because she doesn't take insurance and her schedule is not convenient with my work.

There are things I would like to excel at, but another part of my problem is I suspect I suffer from cognitive slowness and that this might prevent me from excelling in some areas. If I am always going to lag behind in something, I would like to not put my time and energy into it. I think most people look down on you if you suck at what you do. For example, one of the things I love to do is learn new languages. I have been teaching myself a couple of for a while now using (pirated) CDs. But I am concerned that having slow cognitive processing speed could prevent me from being able to effectively communicate in foreign languages. Hell, I have trouble even communicating in English. Wouldn't I look like a fraud if I tout myself as someone who loved learning new languages and then it is revealed that I actually can't speak any of them very well at all? Unfortunately it seems most things I am interested in would require some cognitive ability. It would really help if I could know my limits, but it isn't very easy to determine something like that. And the problem is people are so harsh and judgemental. If you present yourself as incompetent at things you do, people judge as an all around incompetent person. People seem to put you into one of two categories: competent people and incompetent people. I do not want to be put into the latter category, because I think that is what limits my ability to be socially valued and to score desirable dating partners.