Do you disclose?

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Don't be sorry. Those problems aren't really the same as my problems but that's not your fault. It sounds like you've been through far worse than me anyway.

At the moment I feel like time is my worst enemy. It always runs out. I'm getting older at the frighting speed of one year per year.

Going back to school helped you? Maybe I should try that. Maybe if I went back to school I'd have less time for worrying about stuff.

I don't want to pressure you into going back to school. I mean, the best job I could get was McDonalds so I decided to go back and get a computer science degree. And yeah, it helped get my mind off of how horrible my life was and how dead I felt inside. I was already 24 so I just decided to go for it. I don't look my age so no one ever questions me.

Don't worry. I pressure myself enough. At the moment my main source of motivation in life is guilt. Maybe I shouldn't go back to school. The employment agency say they can get me a better job (then my current one) in the next few months but I thought if I go with their job I wouldn't be studying (something I haven't done in a few years) and if I wasn't studying I'd never get a professional job and then I wouldn't feel like a "real person". They say you should aim high, dream big, etc, it's not that I need the money, I already have enough money but in my current state I feel like I could use a major ego boost and the classier the job, the bigger the ego boost.

Maybe that's just cognitive bias and I shouldn't base my self worth on my job title. Maybe that's cognitive bias because I just want an excuse to get out of more difficult work. Catch-22. A professional job would be much harder and have longer hours. I feel like I'm at a Morton's fork. If I get a pro job than it's harder work for longer hours but if I get a lesser job than it's humiliation and I get older and older while still doing a job that would normally be done by a teenager. I hate those Morton's forks. And that's only one of my problems.

Maybe if I get some part time unskilled work I won't have time to do a major (some people work while studying full time, not me) but I could at least do one or two subjects. Maybe algebra then calculus. I failed maths at school.

Yeah, I do a lot. Not everywhere, but in most places yes, because I'm involved in the autism field professionally and people seem to pick up on it anyway even if I don't tell them anything. Sometimes people do annoying stuff, like ask me to "talk about my experiences with it" (um, what do I say? Describe my entire life from birth until now?) but mostly there has been no harm from the disclosure.

If you have autism, who're you going to tell anyway?

I do mention it to people, but only in a joking way. For example, if I commit a faux pas I may say something like: "sorry I have aspergers syndrome I can't read body language." Aspergers syndrome is pretty well known to the general population, at least here in the US, so I can count on people understanding the humor in it when presented as such.