Can someone help me and give me some advice please?? (Aspergers related question)?

I know this is long, but I really need help and I'd appreciate it if you could read it all and help me please.

I'm a sixteen year old girl and I have Aspergers Syndrome. I'm going off to college in september and none of my school friends are going to the same one as me. I find it extremely difficult to empathise with other people, and even harder to begin a conversation and to keep it going, thereby I've never been able to make friends easily.

At school it took me 4 years just to find a couple of friends who I could turn to and have a bit of a laugh with. And even then it was only a few special friends that I could do that with, everyone else (even though we'd been together in the same class for 5 years) still felt like a stranger with whom I could barely ever talk to.

I used to get into a lot of trouble for little things but I didn't even realise I was doing anything wrong. I didn't realise I was being rude, it just felt natural to me. So I basically just didn't speak. I didn't know when to speak, what to say or anything so I just shut up completely. I've since learned that it is rude to act like that and I have to make an effort to converse with people, but I still have no idea how.

I'm terrified of college and I have no idea how to make friends.

It's even worse because the people from schools closer to the college all seem to know eachother and I don't have a clue how to join in with them.

I'm scared out of my mind and I just don't know what to do.

A couple of years ago I noticed for the first time that I found things more difficult and that I was different and developing mentally different to everyone else in my class but when I told my mum she said I was overreacting. Everyone just assumed I was shy.

It was only just after xmas this year that I realised I had basically all the symptons for AS and made my mum take me to the doctor. I was told it was very likely that I did have it but it would be hard for me to get a referral. I don't even know what a referral would do so I didn't even try to get one.

Now I'm wondering whether I should?

Are there any medicinal treatments that can help me over come the problems I face?

And if not what can I do? I really want someone to help me but if I try to talk to my mum about it she just says that I need to 'keep doing what im doing' and that she 'doesn't think anyone can help me'. She doesn't take me seriously I don't think. She doesn't understand what AS is and keeps getting it confused with autism so she assumes I have it extremely mildly which is not the case at all.

I struggle daily because of it and I wish I could get help for it.

There's a youth group in my area who offers free councilling/therapy to 11-25 year olds who need it for whatever reason and I was thinking of going there to see if they could offer me guidance/help on how to deal with this. Do you think they'll be able to help me or will I just be wasting their time?

I feel like they might have people with more severe problems than me and I don't want to be a time waster.

Is there anything that can be done to help people like myself with AS to overcome it. I feel like I'm never gonna lead a normal life.

I'm so isolated and lonely, I can't even talk to my own family other than scripted small talk such as 'how are you, good thanks how are you?'. I just don't know how to. it's leading me to become very depressed and hopeless. Every night I battle with myself just to hold on to life because I honestly don't see any way that my life can possibly improve unless I somehow get over this problem that I have. I honestly don't see me lasting long in life unless I get help with this soon. Every day is so much effort and I get so little out of it for the effort I put in. I feel awful and I'm so lonely and hopeless for the future. I don't know what to do and I really want help.

Can you suggest any support groups?

Or any thing I can do to improve my social skills?

Or anyone who suffers from AS have you got any advice? Does it get easier as you go through life?

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated, I'm honestly losing all hope for my future. I have no one to turn to because none of my friends know about my AS they just think I'm weird and shy and my mum doesn't take me seriously. I really need some help with this.

If anyone's actually read this/answered then thank you so much and I'm sorry I wrote so much and I must seem like I'm whining and overreacting but I can't explain how hard it is to deal with alone everyday. Thanks again. Sorry for complaining. Please help..