Unsure if on the spectrum... Please respond?

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First off, yes I know only a professional can give me a diagnosis, but since that isn't going to happen any time soon, I wanted to ask the opinions of some autistic people themselves.

This is going to be long, I'm sorry. Here is some stuff about me:

Communication/Social Skills Problems:
This is a tough to explain one. I?ve always been known as ?the awkward one?. I?ve been told that I take things too literally (although I think more often people take me too literally). I don?t seem to get it when people don?t say exactly what they mean, but I definitely do get sarcasm. I?m often outcasted, especially by more ?normal? people and when there?s no odd/nerdy people for me to make friends with, but it could be a lot worse.
The only real problems with this are things like for example, for my recent internship evaluation, I was told my work was excellent, but they refused to give me a good review because of my poor communication skills. People tend to also get mad at me a lot for being ?slow on the uptake? or acting too weird and embarrassing them or offending them. My roommate gets offended a lot when I don?t have the energy to verbally respond to her properly, no matter how much I?ve tried to explain. I do like my friends for the most part, but I sometimes feel it's so exhausting that it's barely even worth it to keep them. I don't want to be completely alone, but I feel like I can't be around people that much.
Overall, I'm doing fine, though. I've always been able to make friends. I can get along with people well at school and work and have friendly conversations with the people around me.

Academics (it might be relevant?):
Other kids would tell me I was the ?stupidest and smartest person they?d ever met? or as adults would say, I had book smarts, but no common sense. I did well in school and was in the gifted program, despite always having been extremely forgetful and ?flighty? until high school, when I also became very depressed and failed several of my classes. This lead to me being diagnosed with ADHD (I never told the person diagnosing me I was depressed. I didn't really understand that's what I was feeling at the time).

Stimming:
One of the biggest ones I do is a kind of very intense rocking in which I hit my face against my bed or a pillow, sometimes until my nose bleeds. I also had several different rocks and other vestibular stims, like swinging my head around. I never consciously initiate it and tend to stop when I realize I?m doing it (which sometimes isn?t until I feel blood). I always do it when deep in some kind of emotional thought. I also do some smaller motions that could be considered stimming, but they don't have that feeling of it being completely in my own head when doing it.

Sensory Sensitivities:
I?ve never been good with dealing with loud or annoying noises, but they have to be pretty extreme and it isn?t enough to be an everyday issue. If I?m by myself and there is a noise I can?t stand I will lay down and cover my ears or put in headphones until it stops. I?m not very capable of doing much else in that time. With some specific noises (like loud chewing) I will hit myself. I don?t know why, but it calms me down. But if I?m in front of other people I?ll do my best to ignore it. There are other things, like certain textures, I?ll try my best to avoid, but they?re not as bad.

Shut Downs?
Speaking of loud noises, I was recently pressured into going to a club with some friends. Luckily, it wasn?t very crowded, but it was really loud and there were flashing lights and I was so out of it by the end of the night. My coordination was really off, I was less verbal, and I just felt very disoriented. On the way back I felt too exhausted to move at all and was like a statue. (I feel like I should note I wasn?t drinking anything).
This is similar to periods I?ll have where I?m extremely tired and I can?t process what people are saying and come up with a response or when I can I can?t get the words out most of the time (this is what I mean by ?less verbal?). I?m not sure if it?s just depression or a shutdown stress response.
When I was little I also used to sometimes have these episodes of depersonalization (I think) that tended to happen in loud, crowded places, but that doesn?t happen anymore.

Questionnaire test scores I've gotten:
AQ: 32
Aspie Quiz: 147 Aspie, 73 NT
RAADS-R: Have taken multiple times and gotten anywhere in the 130s to 150s.
I have actually gotten well above average on reading faces tests, whatever that means.

If you got through all of that, thank you for reading! As I said, I'm not looking for a diagnosis, I'm just curious about opinions. I suspect that if I am on the spectrum, I'm on the borderline, but this sense of "there is something different about me" is wearing on me. Then I feel like I'm exaggerating all of it and I just need to work harder to be more normal and pleasant to be around.

It's a fairly good chance that you are on the spectrum by what you have just told us. The problem is that it's hard to determine how accurate your own self-assessment and description of your own behavior actually is. I remember that my own self-assessment of my behavior pre-diagnosis was quite off the mark.

Yeah, that's definitely a problem. I also have no idea what people usually feel and what's abnormal. I bet a lot of people feel different or left out, so it's hard to know where the line is.

Either way, thank you for your input! And for reading my boring life story.

A lot of that sounds kind of similar to me and I have aspergers, except I find it hard to hold conversations with new people. Anyways you don't have to be more normal, perhaps more pleasant to be around...but I think a lot of people even people without autism need to try a bit more to do that. I mean I do not mean that insultingly at all I know I have some traits and things I do that can really annoy people and I try to work on that....but I also try to keep in mind there are things other people do that really annoy me. Earlier my brother I guess was just kinda joking but what he said sort of upset me cause I was already kind of sensative feeling so he asked why I have to get so butthurt over stuff....and all I can think now is that it was a good question, why do I do that so I know I can be a bit hard to deal with at times.

Welcome here.

I am sorry i dont know what much else i can type.. some days i just like to keep it short and straight to the point, but i think you have AS tho. Alot of the stuff here that i can relate too.

I am the reverse. I am smart outside of academics but weak in terms of academics.

your story sounds aspieish. here's a brief test based on the criteria docs use:

www.iautistic.com/test_AS.php

Hi, thanks for reading and answering! Hope you're not feeling upset about your brother anymore. Some people are just more sensitive, it's hard to help.
I guess all people have their annoying habits, an unfortunate part of the human condition. I think everyone should try their hardest not to be hurtful or rude, though.

I don't find conversations with new people are easy, but I can do them, even if I can't always do them all.

I think I would qualify, but I'm not sure if my social skills are all that bad enough to be significantly impairing. That's why I feel like I'm more on the borderline. I know I've read that close family of autistic people tend to have more autistic traits than average, but not necessarily enough to have a diagnosis. As it's something that seems to run in my family, that may be where I'm at.

I would have to agree here. Even without formal diagnosis most people on WP are dealing with the issues you described.