Do parents tell their kids they have AS?

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I am somewhat in the same boat as you are. I have always been strange, but only found out why recently. I found out myself after browsing the web. My mother never accepted the fact that anything was wrong with me that wasn't my fault. Apparently she figured that my poor social skills at 3 years old was just me trying to be naughty . So, in many ways your situation and mine are similar.

I know you arent looking for job advice, but if you want to get a job while being weird, you'll have to look into technology. Most people with AS/HFA who have good jobs work as engineers, programmers, scientist, etc. This is mostly because we are good at it, and suck at everything else. You said in your post that you work in music. The problem with this is that music is less about getting the right result (because there is no correct answer) and more about being able to convince other people that you have a good answer. You may be able to compose a beautiful concert, but if you cant sell the idea then it is useless. Since selling the idea requires a good bit of social skills and communications (2 things you, and I, lack) you arent likely to get a good job in this field.

However, the technology field is nice because it is based mostly upon your skills, not your stunning personality. This of course isnt true in all situations, most good employees with poor social skills get automatically rejected by HR. But you'll find that if you can fake normality long enough to get passed the HR interview, then the other people working in technology are generally more accepting of weirdness. Keep in mind that this only works if you are surrounded by other techies, or have a techie boss. Working at a large company (say microsoft) means that you can deal mainly with other engineers/programmers/etc. If you try for a small company then odds are you'll need to work with the customer, and your boss wont be so understanding.

If your looking for a job with flexible hours, you could always try programming on contract. My uncle does that. Basically the company will give you a task like, 'We want you to add a new feature to the software. We want it within 2 weeks, and when you finish it, we will pay you'. So my uncle spends the next 2 weeks at his house programming, and gets payed when he delivers the code. He says that it pays about as well a normal job, but the hours are more flexible, and there is less hassle to deal with. I personally have no idea how you would go about getting a job like this, but it sounds like something you might enjoy.