I feel like a failure

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It's hard to tell with swbluto. If he isn't being serious then he really should know better by now as most people here tend to take things at face value.

It is probably sarcasm or an attempt at humor.

I think you (OP) should relax and be yourself (as others have stated). After I was diagnosed with Asperger's, I walked out from the clinic onto a bright Cincinnati sidewalk and said to myself, "My journey has just begun." I felt reborn---with an explanation for my eccentric and misunderstood life. I realized why I had such obsessive interests. I realized why I had sensory issues. I realized why I was socially awkward. I realized...I realized...I realized. I focused on the good things, realizing my challenges were probably here to stay. So I focused on those good things and expanded with them---music and interests. I feel so much more settled now in my personal life. Work?---well, I'd rather not talk about that. We all have challenges.

I don't know if even swbluto himself knows when he's being serious or not. At least that's my impression.

If one obsesses as much as he does on whether he has a condition or not, either facetiously or seriously, one can't be that normal. This isn't an insult, just an observation. I don't know why everyone needs to find a label to explain how they are odd or different. After all it's not as if God himself invented neurological labels and tests. Most of these labels and tests are invented by flawed humans with sometimes flawed theories. So seriously, who cares whether you conform? Once we have the ability to identify "autism" based on specific genetic and/or neurological structures, we'll be able precisely identify who definitely "has it" or "doesn't have it". Until then I'm not holding my breath. If you're a borderline case you can take online tests ad-nauseum, even get professional evaluations, and still never get a completely straight answer. Of course if people enjoy obsessing over such matters, all the power to them. I mean, I can understand the drive and need to "discover yourself".

Bingo!

I think it's pretty apparent that you can't "pass" the test. If anything, you fail it if you score too highly.

But, if being autistic or semi-autistic endowed me with the necessary characteristics for genius-level accomplishment (Characteristics like a singular focus, a different way of thinking, highly spatial thinking, etc.), I wouldn't hesitate to be autistic if I had the choice.

But, reading the previous posts, I see autism isn't a prerequisite for ultra high level achievement.

Well, you start to feel a need to find a label when...

1) Your team-mates at a fast food restaurant think you have mental problems or you're ret*d.
2) You actually test at a very high IQ so you know you're not ret*d. (Memory is still questionable, though initial memory screenings suggest I have a really good memory.)
3) Your computer science team-mates stab you in the back despite all the effort you contributed to the project, whereas it's pretty clear no one else was treated like that. This is significant because the aforementioned social problems were thought to be related to "weird geekiness", but when you're out-casted by fellow computer geeks, you know it's not because of geekiness. IQ differences remains a viable hypothesis at this point.
4) "Socializing" seems to be beyond you and all the "social skills self-help books" seem to have a prerequisite of having this "conversational skill" that you clearly don't seem to have, for some unknown reason. I mean, it's pretty obvious that you can respond to people, but people find it either perfectly boring or weird, and tend to universally avoid you.
5) Your apparent inability to relate with people even persists when your peers are at a similar IQ level, suggesting that the aforementioned problems are not because of IQ differences.

Investigating, you find your thought processes tend to perservative, you seem to have pallilalia and echolalia, and you tend to be gullible and literal minded. Cousins report that you have very unusual facial expressions. You know your natural speech patterns tend to be pedantic, though you can conform if needed. Ya know, you can talk like normal people if you need to. And you also know that your tone of voice tends to be far less expressive than normal.

You research schizophrenia and find that you score normal on social and physical anhedonia scales even at the old age of 24, suggesting you're not at risk of developing schizophrenia. So, the question is, what's the monster hiding in the closet?... The closet that is your mind? Schizophrenia? Autism? Some freaky-deaky high IQ boring weird person personality disorder that has yet to be invented but is being promised soon by the proliferating amount of disorders thanks to the pharmaceuticals-sponsored pathologization of normal human variation?

Seriously, I wonder how easy it would be to game the test to see how low or high you could score it.

It's pretty easy for me.

It involves quiet = autistic; loudness = neurotypical
crowds/other-people = neurotypical; solitude = autistic
numbers/dates = autistic
imagination = neurotypical; little imagination = autistic

That kind of thing.

Last edited by swbluto on 13 Oct 2011, 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here, try this quiz:

http://psychcentral.com/addquiz.htm

Do you or can you use Meta-Cognition? I see some introspection here.^

To eliminate ADHD, and I've posted some of this before.
Try this simple litmus test:
You like science, and when you observe your overall "self," i.e. all cognition, your whole scan of consciousness, what do you sense?
What I'm suggesting to do is to think about your cognitive performance over time. Do you sense an intermittent sluggishness or an intermittent botched up confused mental state? Does your Logic get all twisted up by a thought sequencing problem?

I believe one can universally sense that, when having ADD, you need some 'kick' to move you forward in these stuck zones. I've had my own rush of adrenaline come to the rescue as a kick, and you know it's all biochemical when a clarity of thought surfaces. Likewise with, say, caffeine or ephedra.

If ADD is central to the problem, then this pervades all spheres of activity: reading, watching TV, and interacting socially.

There was a user here that had just straight up theory of mind problems.

ToM was central in her case , in other words she had zilch sensory issues, etc.

She struggled with these facts because the vast majority have these.

Because of that she opted for NVLD, but Aspergers fit.

She eventually got her dx in Israel.

Probably a little difficult in the Middle East for a middle aged woman, but the longed label came.

Hope you find what you are looking for.

I can totally relate. I think the secret to achieving anything is to be ornery. Just do it. That's the advice of every creative genius and every successful business person I have ever heard, and I believe it. Just keep at your project, whatever it is, until it succeeds. Whatever it takes.