My life story: "some manage to complete university degrees in difficult subjects, only to fail miserably once they hit the job market."

I always wondered what was wrong with me until I got my dx seven years ago. It was as though the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders, though life is still anything but easy.

Too bad that nothing like that will ever be available in the US.

"but that they have trouble when it comes to matters of the heart, making it difficult for them to laugh at funny things or comfort those who are sad"

Nothing to do with my Aspergers' at all. No, the heart is easy, it's acting and game-playing and multiple layers of socially acceptable dishonesty that are challenging. It's primate dominance games that are challenging. It's people who think "it should be obvious I'm sad because I'm acting angry instead of sad" that are difficult. Or people who are clearly, obviously, repulsed by us but are socially trained to not let it OVERTLY show, while they desperately signal to everyone around us that "they're not one of us". Monty Python's "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" routine appears to some of us with Aspergers' like a parody of sheeple trying to teach us how to be social.

Most Aspergers' disabilities can be overcome, not just worked around. It may take ten, or twenty, years of exercising the brain, but it's easier than recovering from physical brain damage, and people do that regularly.

The best therapist I ever had (I was initially seeing her for depression), who eventually gave me my dx said that I was ever-so-slightly "off" - just enough to clue neurotypicals that I was clearly not one of them. I have never, ever been able to read people unless I have known them for a very long time and even then signals sometimes get crossed.

The therapist told me that she couldn't even begin to imagine how complex and sophisticated my coping mechanisms had to be to successfully get through college and an elite law school. Actually, it wasn't so much those things as it was my deliberately distancing myself from anyone I didn't want to deal with. I had few friends, which was fine with me, and held myself aloof from anyone who sent off the sort of vibes I had learned to distrust. The academic part was easy; I've always had an ability to focus and concentrate on complex materials and draw connections between disparate concepts.

I have never been able to overcome my awkwardness in social situations - it's at its worst with those I meet for the first time unless it's someone I meet at a trade show or get-together related to my avocation. Then there's a common ground to talk about to get through those first few awkward minutes. In a job interview I answer questions "yes" or "no" and sit there like a stuffed owl because I don't and can't know what the hidden agenda is, and there is ALWAYS a hidden agenda.

Very much agree about the game-playing and multiple layers of socially acceptable dishonesty and the dominance games, though. I just do not allow myself to be put into those situations anymore. Nothing good ever comes of it and it isn't worth the psychic stress.