I've posted the same stuff on these threads before, and I guess I'll do it again. I'll leave out the expected power, and a couple sensitive details, though.

My weird social habits and problems with school didn't really bother me when I was younger, before the autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Whatever, I liked being weird, on a level at least, and I was enthusiastic about my dreams of making comics for a living.

Only, things kept degrading over the years. Friends drifted away, and I got more and more scared to make new ones, having trouble connecting with people, often feeling either alienated and uncomfortable when others' interests were too different from my own, or feeling rejected when my hyperfixation on my own interests put other people off. The isolation has resulted in crippling depression. Those problems with motivation and executive functioning that made school projects impossible in grade school caused me to fail some simple community college art classes. I couldn't bring myself to work daily on drawing comics without quickly burning out. I got fired from my job over mistakes other people wouldn't have made, not checking the right website about whether my jury duty was still on, and forgetting to get written record of my being there.

There have been ups, but they've been temporary, or not worth it. I moved out of my parents' place briefly, had enough money and free time to rent space at a studio, working on my comic in a structured setting, eventually building up enough mental stamina to spend a couple hours a day drawing without getting overwhelmed. But I went on a long road trip (something I thought as a teen would help my depression, but as an adult just seemed like an opportunity to take while I could) and when I came back I spent too much time working on easier parts of the project, and when I went back to drawing panels and pages, the momentum was gone, and I couldn't build it back up. I couldn't hold a job, I ran out of money, I left the studio and the apartment and moved back with my parents.

Dating happened for several months as well, with its own ups and downs- she was on the spectrum like me, accepted and helped me more than anyone else, but it ended, partly from my screw-ups and partly because it wasn't meant to be.