I can't seem to get a grip on the world.

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For a long time in my childhood, I sometimes wondered why I was different. I had very few friends and did not really connect with people easily. My social circle right now consists of the same three friends I've had during that time. I never really developed any social skills because I was homeschooled until two years ago. I used to be optimistic, but I eventually developed a pessimistic attitude due to an short lived interest in the horror genre and going through a dark phase (as I call it.) for a few years.

As hard as my late (adoptive) mother tried, I never could be "normal". The result of that sheltered childhood turned me into a recluse, which I have remained as for 6-7 years. My mother once told me that I had something called "Einstein Syndrome", but after doing some Internet searches one day, I found that I might actually have Asperger's.
Being in college right now, I still have a rough time. Whenever I talk to people (including women), my heartbeat is faster than normal and I get nervous.

I always feel like I shouldn't be socializing with anyone else other than my family and three childhood friends, because of my interest (video games, writing, and anime... to an extent). My pessimism was fueled even further after 2011, when three deaths occurred in the family. Two of them were in the same month (pets) and the third happened later (my adoptive mother). That was a year where I went further downhill. I never could properly mourn over those deaths and still repress it today.

I tend to beat myself up when I do something wrong and in most situations, I come in thinking "I'm going to mess up, because I always make mistakes." As a result of that, I highlight the negatives in myself and ignore the positives as a way to prevent myself from getting closer to people. With my "friends" at college, all socialization ends after I leave the campus. I never invite them to my house or pursue any further contact. Even if it isn't apparent to them, I'm only using them for my own benefit. Just like the world does with everyone else. Another issue is that I always worry about what other people will think. "If I watch anime in public, will they think I'm a freak?" "Why do they avoid me? Is it because I'm different from them? Inferior? Superior? Do they fear me or do they even care about something other than themselves?"

In my reclusive existence, I find myself escaping into fiction a lot, because I can't come to terms with the world and society in a terrible state. But I've been told that I have to escape from the "dreamworld", even if it makes me feel better. If there are any positives about myself, I guess I don't have much issues in being a public speaker and I'm able to write things (including a novel that I have been revising a lot.). In addition, I can be a hard worker (provided that I have no distractions.).

Sorry for making you all read this wall of text. It's a habit I can't get over.

Hey, stop beating yourself up! It's okay. You've got a right to feel what you feel. It's real and valid and it's something many of us have experienced.

Condolences on the death of your mother. That is not an easy thing to have to live through, and it is entirely understandable that it still hurts. Have you considered counseling? This is called "complicated grief"--it's what happens when someone grieves and does not make progress toward stability. It happens a lot. Your history of depression (what you call your "dark period") most likely made you more vulnerable to this. And being a college student, you are much younger than most people are when they lose their parents.

You are also having problems with anxiety; once again, a counselor could help. Sometimes it helps to remind yourself that your anxiety is an unpleasant emotion, not a reflection of the world around you. It's like this: When we were cave-men, fear worked to make us run from predators. It had a function (and still does) in keeping us safe. But sometimes, in modern times, when we fear things it's not something we can run from or fight, and so our fear just stays turned on. After a while, that becomes absolutely exhausting. Anxiety disorders are extremely common on the spectrum.

I was home-schooled as well. I think it was a net benefit because I escaped the inevitable trauma of high school. And "trauma" is not hyperbole, either; there are people on WP who literally have PTSD because of their experiences in school. For them, school was as stressful as a battlefield.

Do you have access to your childhood medical records? That reference to "Einstein syndrome" makes me suspect that you might have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder at some point, perhaps informally.

Unfortunately, I do not have any access to those medical records and as for counselling, there are no counselors at my college.


Now aside from the "Einstein Syndrome", my mother never mentioned to me anything else about that subject. With my anxiety and reclusiveness, I even asked my biological mother once if my introvertedness is biological. But I found that it was probably just me.


Now for a while, I did have someone to relate to. Specifically Shinji Ikari from the controversial anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Watching that show helped me a little bit. (Even I don't like it now because of it's incoherent plot.) But that only got me to repress my grief.

It may be strange, but I still sleep with a plush catfish my (adoptive) mother purchased for me a few months before she died. It took me a while to give my security blanket, though.

Even with issues and all, I always forgo the thought of suicide. There's still a life to be lived.

I think homeschooling is a bad idea. I'd imagine even NT's could have trouble coping with the real world if they never got the proper school experience. After all, all the other kids are in school, getting to know each other. That could easily make you feel left out.

I, myself, wasn't diagnosed (with AS, got a couple other diagnoses as well) before I was 20, which made me feel like I was inferior. I was looking for a reason why I had trouble getting to know people, and that was what I came up with. I thought that maybe people didn't wanna get to know me, but to be honest, I wasn't that easy to get to know.

I understand the wall of text, I'm the same.