Undiagnosed, considering trying again

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Hello, I was away from this site for a long time, was told there was no way I had AS, figured I had just attached myself to the idea of it and allowed myself to obsess about it, so I made myself stop. But as much as I change my life,moved again, taking classes (in my fifties no less), trying to put together some hope for a future, I came back around because it's explains so much! Since on here before I have managed to alienate I don't know how many new people in new situations, heck in new cities. Being back in school has also brought up some old issues. All this, plus trying to plan for a future makes me again think a diagnosis might help me manage somehow.

Sorry for the long post, but I would love to hear a little from other adults who have been through some of the same things.
Thanks

I've been thinking for some time now that I might be AS, but when I mention it to others, they often tell me they don't think I am. Most of them site various reasons, I'm too confident, I give speeches, I have a job that is very social, I do fine with interacting with others...and the list goes on and on. When I say I am not really that confident, that I hate to give speeches, that I forced myself to learn to do certain things for work, people often say I am just trying to be modest and that I feel the same way as everyone else in the world does.

I've contemplated the things that these individuals have said to me, and yet I still keep coming back to the fact that people at work don't understand me at all. I have to explain myself twice as much just to get a point across. I know things that average people around me don't, simply because I research everything because I just have to know (and I like to know). I interrupt people constantly on the phone because I can't tell the difference between a pause and when someone is done talking. I don't socialize. A neighbor said to me yesterday, "About time you are getting out." They mentioned that they hated being stuck at home, and followed it by, "But then again, you spend most of your time cooped up in that apartment, don't you?"

The list goes on and on. Much like you, I do not have an official diagnosis, but the more time I spend here the more I feel like I have finally met a group of people who think and feel as I do...

I find that neurotypicals tend toward the status quo, which to them is maintaining the illusion that you are NT as well. Everything is interpreted with a confirmation bias, which means they'll fixate on symptoms they know about that you don't have.

At least, this is my experience. I wouldn't mind if someone - NT or not - wanted to have a serious talk about why they don't believe I'm autistic, but they'd need to have some seriously good arguments at this point, and explanations for everything I've experienced that points to me being autistic.

I too have held down jobs that required being social, but I managed those for no more than two years at a stint. It was like playing a role and the whole time the interaction (Bull s!@#) was filling me up somehow, then I would meltdown. Hate to think about how many jobs I have run away from.
The therapist that I worked with on my anxiety and depression (using cognitive therapy) was great about so many things, and when I mentioned AS, he just chuckled and said "no, you don't have that", and since I was focused on improvement without concern for labels, I let it slide. So many of these assessments I can pass with flying colors, but it's the day to day, year after year stuff that weighs me down. The short amount of time for tests or therapy and all of it, to me, is a completely different situation than sitting in a cubicle next to some person who can't shut up, or working in a customer service environment where idiots feel it's ok to tell you that you need to lose weight or get your hair cut (the kind of people who haven't read a damned book in decades).
Defensive reactions to so many things, some man I knew who literally could not read felt it his place to criticize a rafia hat I was wearing to keep the sun off. Cute hat, cost some money, and all I could think of was all the things about him that I had not criticized feeling that people have a right to be who and what they are. Situations like that seem so strange to me, but most interaction with others do.
And as far as work environments go, all the crap that goes on like breaking of rules, unfair treatment, people expecting you to talk about the most dumbass things as part of the "socialization" process just is too much over time.

And the neighbors that think it's their place to comment bothers me on many levels, creepy that they watch or take note of how often you leave, then they think about it enough to decide to comment, the comments are designed for more than one purpose, to judge, to seek information etc. Very often I have felt like telling neighbors and the like to bite me (and have).
Maybe I am just hard to get along with.
I too have a problem with people understanding me, prefer email to phone calls, and still they don't understand, and it's spelled out for pete's sake. It's like asking someone if it's cold outside and they say "blue" and it just irritates me so.