If not AS then what?

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I am seeing a new therapist as of next week. I don't want it to be another 'simple self esteem issues' disaster. This is seriously effecting my life and labels aside I need support with keeping employment with the communication issues I have.

Fact - I present behaviours and traits that make life difficult in ways other people my age/gender/background do not appear to experience. I'm being let go from yet another job.

Social

Perform badly in conversation it always seems so unpredictable and so easy to forget, there appears to be some collective hive of knowledge everyone else has access to and I do not.
Has recently discovered that people not only make eye contact in situations that are not dates or job interviews but do this frequently throughout the day and even with strangers. How baffling.
Finds the joke funny but forgets to laugh
Has a question but does not think to ask
Can Handel the flow with conversation until a third person becomes involved, I begin to lose track and can never figure out when it's my turn to talk.
Can normally see what i want to say/do but cannot express this verbally

Physical

Could not walk in a circle without walking in a straight line
Picked on in school for my way of walking
Stimming varies

Mental

messy, loses everything and always late
If someone says I'm 2 minutes away I literally expect to see them in 2 minutes and will even question them as to why they thought they where just two minutes away when they were in fact 20 minutes away.
Becomes obsessed with a craft project or will obsess over an abandoned building, how it can be renovated what it used to be used for
Like to line things up in my field of vision

Childhood

No friends, very much desperately wanted friends, believed I had missed the day at school where everyone stood in a line and had magic words whispered in their ear to allow them to communicate with each other.
Remembers things like showers and brushing hair being painful.
Abysmal handwriting, coordination
Many photos of me not looking at camera and holding hand oddly
Often told off for holding hand oddly and lack of friendships
play centred around constructing and arranging things


Not in keeping with AS

Quite good with recognising facial expressions, humour and sarcasm
Expressive use of tone of voice when reading aloud from early age
Flexible thinker, seeks new experiences, seeks if not sees knowledge of bigger picture,
Don't talk about thinks that are not interesting to others,
Do care for fashions a little but would rather put my money towards a 3D printer.

The label itself is not the issues the consistent denial of a little support where support is needed is the issue.

well for instance if u can see the whole picture now, or recognize sarcasm etc doesn't mean you were able to do it when you were younger.... etc etc, I totally understand what u said in the last sentence... DX doesnt matter support is what we all need ( as/ nt whoever)... maybe you have social communication disorder with tocd... gad with scd etc etc ... multiple variations... or asd.... hope your new therapist gives u final answer so u can settle this within urself...getting 'correct' DX can be bitchy...so good luck...

ps I get mad / confused/ upset if they don't call/come back in the time they said 'll be there... especially when ppl say c u later...oh well that's an exact information lol wish u good bro (now I sound like a rapper, but my hyperactivity kicked in again so sry 4 that) ijuuuuuuuu and I also got fired from 2 part time jobs I have had, and being AS in my field is not + attribute

until someone finds some pathognomonic (and most likely neurobiological) marker for determining the presence of autism (a feat which will most likely be complicated by the fact that autism is, one, heterogeneous, and two, a poorly qualified construct)... diagnosis boils down to criteria i.e. a formalized list of "major traits". i think if you have enough of the "major" traits to qualify -- and it can be proven those traits significantly impact your quality of life -- then given our current behavioral model (barring TBI or some other more apt diagnosis) you have autism. even if there are a few "minor traits" here and there that don't fit. i think its unrealistic to expect anyone to have all the traits of autism anyhow. particularly the minor traits which tend to be informal and stereotyped. 

major traits: qualitative impairment in three major areas: socialization, communication and stereotyped/repetitive behaviors abnormal in degree or intensity. (i count sensory issues as a major trait also).
minor traits: issues with inflection and intonation, rigid thinker, disinterested in fashion, dislikes fiction and prefers rote analysis, introverted and avoidant.

the minor traits are things people notice, i suspect, because they're recurrent enough in the autistic population to be notable. but a person can have the major traits of autism without having all of its minor traits and that doesn't make their struggle any less. minor traits can be a particularly dangerous barometer because people (professionals included) start thinking because you have a friend; because you don't like math; because you read something other than encyclopedias; because you told a joke once; because you told that joke using inflection; because you own a pair of designer tennis shoes - you must be perfectly fine. which is lousy and myopic psychology... some of minor traits could just as well be chopped up to personality differences endemic among our population, expressed through the lens of this syndrome.

at any rate, sorry for the rambling oration. i don't know your story... it just always irks me when people don't get help because professionals minimize things. hope you find the answers and support you need whether ASD or not. i also hope you find someone who won't just discount things if you do have ASD.

Please remember, for those of us on the Spectrum (or close to the Spectrum, or different in other ways), there is an inverse relationship between "easy" jobs and "hard" jobs. The worse job I ever had was probably working as a checker at Kroger grocery store where the so-called managers condoned bullying behavior. And to the extent they noticed it at all, they tended to blame the person being bullied for being different. Compared to this, professional furniture sales or preparing taxes at H&R Block was a piece of cake.

And just like baseball or poker, streaks can happen either way.

Use us here at WrongPlanet as a resource. Tell people you want strategic suggestions for a job hunt or work situation, then give us the outlines. People here sometimes come up with pretty good ideas.

My personal best judgment call of the major traits of being on the Asperger's-Autism Spectrum are these:

1) sensory issues,

2) patchy social skills,

3) intense intellectual interests,

4) stimming, and

5) (maybe) meltdowns.