Hey, guys, been recontextualizing every problem in my life in view of possibly having broad autism phenotype and wanted to bounce some things off you for a sanity check.

1. How do I know if am overapplying autism? When I learn something new, I try to use it to explain EVERYTHING. And autism seems to completely explain everything that's gone wrong in my life to such a degree that I think it can't possibly be true.

I'm thinking about how I completely fell apart when I went to college. I used to think that I just "got depressed." But now I'm thinking I was having autistic burnout because I lost my routines, had to get used to a new place, was living in a dorm where I had NO privacy--I shared a room and I remember regularly crashing the Christian Student Union's office (anyone can sign out keys to the student clubs) and sleeping on their couch just so I could be alone.

I'm further thinking that my struggling with a liberal arts education was related to autism. I probably could have allowed myself to get interested in very many subjects, but all I could think about was, "how do I get a job when I get out of college?" and it was extremely demotivating because a liberal arts degree is a bullshit job qualification, not that it's a bullshit degree, but if you want to be "qualified" for a job with a liberal arts degree, there is probably a good deal of bullshit to shovel in the interview because you actually have no demonstrable job skills to speak of.

I remember very clearly thinking, "How is reading and writing papers on various subjects preparing me for a job? What is the job skill I am learning that I can apply to jobs I find in the classified section?" How am I going to convince anyone to give me a job with a degree in English, or Medieval Studies, or Sociology?

Close to 35 years later, I can´t get a second interview for a job at a grocery store, so I think my fear was well founded.

[As well as, "If I like reading and writing papers about medieval monks, would I like reading and writing papers about legislation impacting work safety requirements in, say, grain elevators? Probably not."]

I've also been getting really extremely radical in the last year, like so radical that I think humanity itself is fundamentally and irrevocably flawed. I worked for a company where I very clearly saw advantage go to people who curried favor the most, and I could smell the bullshit wafting off of people when they'd come visit from the central office. It was extremely clear to me that the only thing that really mattered was politics and that the first job of every institution is to serve itself.

Several months ago, I though, "wow, I've really absorbed Noam Chomsky's systemic critiques and embraced anarchist politics" but, really, maybe all I was doing was allowing myself to see the world through autistic eyes.

I've also had a pattern of working a job for usually a max of a year or two then quitting. Not finding another job, just quitting and moving back in with my parents. Sometimes I'd daisychain a few jobs together for a few years, but I'd always eventually collapse.

And that is exactly where I am now. I've worked steadily for over 7 years and am I just exhausted.

2. If autism truly does explain why I am unemployable, how much does it suck that I can never get a diagnosis for it?

I don't have any sensory issues, I don't have any problem reading emotions, don´t have any serious trouble getting along with people for brief periods. I've been TOLD by plenty of people I'm autistic, but I've been to plenty of psychiatrists and therapists and nobody's really brought it up and I've been deemed NOT autistic by one psychologist who was specifically evaluating me for autism. She even charged me a lot of money and made me wait several months for a pretty drearily uninformative report.

1. I have done a LOT of** therapy** and found most of it entirely pointless, which would track if the bulk of my problems are from being atypical in an NT world (see question 1). I don´t think I have a question here, but it just seems like the default for every problem is "go to therapy" so I feel like I have to say: a) I've been to therapy b) people who do therapy are very likely NTs that can not relate c) therapy is not going to help me get or sustain a job, though I can 100% find a therapist that says they can help me.

I also want to say that I'm simultaneously the HAPPIEST about myself that I have EVER been at the same time I am the most HOPELESS about my future that I have ever been. Before I would pile up all this shame and responsibility on my shoulders, but now I see that there's nothing "wrong" with me, I'm just built differently in a way that puts me at a disadvantage in the social world.

1. What now? I know I think I need to be self employed, but I don´t even think I'd be good at that. I have no real skills, and all the self-employed thing I can think of involve the same social bullshit as regular work. My girlfriend was telling me about interviewing a tree guy to do some work on her yard and she said she spent like an hour or two talking to him about her trees and how they were doing and I thought, "Damn, she'd never hire me, I'd say, 'It'll be $800 for the job, it'll take half-a-day. Here's my phone number, my license, and my insurance. Have a nice day.' "

Since this is a question dump:

1. How do I make friend online? I give up on IRL. I've tried discord, but it is so annoying with everyone always chatting all the time. I don´t play online games. I'm intensely lonely, but I'd rather be alone than make constant small talk and salve people's hurt feelings constantly because I said an inconvenient truth. I literally have no friends but my girlfriend, and had only one non-romantic friend for a few months in the last 20 years.

Thank you for reading this far and also sorry for writing this.