Obsessive about college GPA

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Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I'm somewhat new to these forums but have bumped into them from time to time. Let me just start by saying that I do not know if I have AS.. I had never even heard about this form of autism until a few months ago when I was googling strange quirks I have been noticing about myself while in college.

I'm about to begin my second year of college and I'm majoring in biological engineering. So far I have kept a 4.0 but it seems that I am becoming increasingly obsessive about school. Sometimes, I will spend hours researching different majors and all of the requirements for that major - What that major can do, what requirements are for graduate study in that major. Then, I will open an excel spread sheet and make out an entire 4 year plan for that major. I will spend a few hours on this making absolutely perfect. I have done this obsessively for the past semester, partly because I still do not know exactly what field I want to go into after I graduate, but also because it relaxes me. Honestly, it is starting to get in the way of my studies because sometimes I won't be able to stop thinking about my 4 year plan and I get anxious. The only way to calm this anxiety is to look at my 4 year plan and assure myself that I am making the right choices and taking the right classes. Then I can go back to studying...

Also, I obsessively study. This would be fine and all except for that I find it hard to make friends because all I can really think about is school and learning. I can go for an entire day without having any interaction with ANYONE and hardly even think twice about it because I am so enveloped in studying. Even thinking about getting anything less than an A makes me very anxious and almost sick feeling. I am even to the point to where I don't like it when I don't get an A+ in a class. I'm not trying to be arrogant or boisterous, I just want to know if anyone else is sharing this same type of obsession.

I totally identify with the studying obsession. I think it has isolated me but I enjoy my homework more than I do the company of most people my age. After having several rather frightening experiences where the anxiety over studying and getting perfect grades drove me to begin hallucinating, attempting suicide etc. I decided to talk to the school counselors and they determined that I had a severe anxiety problem. I'm currently taking a low dosage of citalopram (I'm very sensitive to it and more than 10 mg a day makes me nonfunctional). I've also been working on trying to view my studies in a different light. (I really love school and I'm intending to get my PhD in history so I feel that I really need to learn how to be in school without it destroying me.) I've been told that for grad school applications and the like, it's actually better not to have a perfect GPA, since it might give the impression that you only took easy classes. At any rate, I ended up failing to get a perfect GPA despite my best efforts and struggled with a lot of depression and anxiety over my potential to get into graduate school. As it turned out though, I got into the grad school that I wanted (my GPA was a 3.94). I've also been told that in terms of getting into grad school the single most important thing a person can do is procure good letters of recommendation from professors.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the difficulties I've had with my obsessive studying. Feel free to pm me if you ever need someone to talk to about it. I also advise you to utilize your school counselors (there are probably people there to help you plan out your major as well). Good luck and remember you're not alone.