Doubting my diagnosis?

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A few months ago i was diagnosed as someone who is on the autism spectrum. While I definatly have most of the symptoms of aspergers right now, and score higher then most people even with aspergers on quizzes. I do believe my childhood was quite different than most of you, which really makes me wonder if this couldn't be something else...

The reason I got my diagnosis at the age of 20 was because I was really puzzled with myself, so I went to see a doctor and described my issues. After the meeting she send me to someone specialized in autism, which was quite the surprise to me. It took a few months to get my first appointment, and in the meantime I looked up on this and aspergers did describe how I currently feel. And after a few appointments I did get an autism spectrum diagnosis. But I'm left with questions about my childhood I hope some of you can help me clarify. We did talk about my childhood during the appointments though, but perhaps not in as much detail as I would've liked after reading several posts on this forum. My childhood memories are pretty vague but I do remember certain moments and how I was in general. I can't ask this to my father as I haven't see him anymore since I was around the age of 10 and when I ask my mother she gets really panicky. She really doesn't want to talk about it now, as she recognizes herself in aspergers and finds it confronting but doesn't want to get tested though. She did have to explain some parts of my childhood for my diagnosis, which I'll put in the list of symptoms I had as a child.

Ages 1 - 14 I was a happy kid. I liked to joke around and was very social with the people I knew and while not alot, I did have some really great friends I grew up with. All of them were really into the same intrest as me though which we mainly talked about, being gaming. But I did play pretend, tag, hide and seek and the like with them and really had a fun time. I would sleep over at their houses alot and game till late in the night. This is what makes me doubt my diagonisis. However there are some symptoms I did have and other things which might be intresting, perhaps not related to autism.

- Delayed speech, someone often visited me at my house at a young age to help me with this.
- Bad handwriting, couldn't hold a pen like I was supposed to, and still can't.
- Couldn't understand sarcasm.
- Alot of behaviour problems that got me kicked out of classes often, later on this became more of an attention seeking thing and kept doing it till 2nd grade in high school.
- I was seen as a weird kid, yet popular. My memory about my childhood is pretty vague but people often tell me this.
- Lots of problems with my stomache, this ended up being due to stress and anxiety. In total I spend maybe over a year in high school at home because of this. Before high school I was also in a soccer club because of my friends, and pretty much ended up being the bench warmer because of this. But to be honest, I was pretty bad at it too
- I often thought other people could read my mind.
- When people talk to me I could follow them for a while, but often got lost in my own thoughts while they were speaking resulting in me not hearing them.
- When trying to focus on something I got very easily distracted.
- At a certain point in high school I started thinking about why I move my body, it's weird to explain. But I started thinking every time I took a step or moved my arm. I don't have this anymore now but it did last a while.
- Always been very clumsy.
- Didn't like people touching me and didn't like eye contact.
- I don't have much trouble with sensory issues I think, but I never liked the sun. Often gave me headaches as a child.
- I would often stare at something and start daydreaming, often losing track of things.
- I was lazy and didn't like schoolwork and studing, but when I got to it I learned really quickly compared to others. But often forgot it faster after a period of time then others.
- I didn't know if I should add this, but seeing it as a symptom on many lists, I did like to play with cars and line them up as a kid.
- Don't think I had any exceptional stims, other people often asked me if I was nervous though. When I wanted something I was constantly moving around, or running in circles around something.
- I never liked meeting new people.
- I always had an issue with family gatherings since I was about 9, I have a really social family yet I always remained in seat feeling very uncomfortable and remaining pretty much mute. When they asked me something I was always caught off guard and gave a weird response.
- Every now and then I did have moments were I just wanted to be alone and do what I liked.
- I've always been a thinker or so to say, I often analyzed people to try to understand why they act a certain way. Often playing social situations in my head and think what I would respond in a certain scenario.
- In high school I didn't like when the friends of my friends stood in our group. They would talk about something else and I kinda felt left out.
- I would often tease people to get a reaction out of them, I loved it when they started chasing me for some reason. However, I only did this on people that I knew would react this way. One of these became one of my best friends in high school. When I saw that people were being bullied that really didn't like it and were sad. I would sort of feel their pain...
- I went to a festival once which I remember being a really weird experience, I was quiet and remained in place feeling really awkward just making slight movements with my body. I felt really intimidated by everyone standing so close to eachother and it just wasn't fun to me at all. People still asked me out, but I never wanted to again.
- I used to always sit with a friend on the train to high school, and talk about games. His friends were often with him though, and one day he told me " can't you talk about something else then games?". It made me feel really bad, and I pretty much ended up mute from there on anytime when his friends were around. But things were like normal when it was just us.

There are probably other things I forgot to list but these are all I can think of right now. At the age of 14 I started getting teased about my acné ( which I had pretty bad ) but I didn't know how to deal or respond to it and it escalated to bullying. My last year of high school is where things got really bad for me. I was pretty much mute, anxious and really depressed. I had several panic attacks ( uncontrollable crying ) and had to drop out of school. I ended up getting a degree home schooled which took me about a year, I regulary visited therapist too which helped me out of depression. But ever since I've had no friends and socially... Is aspergers a perfect way to describe it. I've had 2 jobs, the first one I left after several panic attacks in 2 weeks. The other job I'm still working at, almost for a year now. But it really, really hasn't been easy. I'm not going to go into detail as but if it wasn't for part time and my employers being really kind to me despite me being really awkward and silent all the time ( I got bullied in the couple of months I worked there by a co-worker, when asked for a reason... It was appereantly because of this ), I wouldn't work here anymore. But depiste this being a job where you're amongst people all the time ( I work in a supermarket ) I dont improve socially.

That's the story in short, otherwise this would probably turn into a book or something. But I'd like to hear your thoughts. Whether I could be on the spectrum or not despite having a really great childhood to my memory. It's really consuming my thoughts alot lately so hearing some other oppinions on this would be appreciated. Also, sorry if there are grammar errors. English isn't my first language.

Yah... you are definitely one of us. I'm sure your Autism Super-Ranger card just got lost in the mail or something.

Not everyone here had a miserable childhood. In fact, a lot of the activism in the autistic community centers around just this. All of this bullying and trauma around education and such has a lot to do with how people treat us; its not inherent to autism, its part of how our society treats people who are different. If we lived in another society that was OK with people being different, we wouldn't be so scarred.

So you were lucky. You were born in to a place and a peer group where you were able to find a niche. Sounds like your Mom wasn't so lucky. She's probably holding onto some heavy stuff. Be gentle with her, OK?

It is much easier for people on the spectrum to be social if they share a special interest.

You seem pretty autistic to me.

Thanks for your comments, I guess I'll let it rest. I'm glad I asked though, I feel somewhat relieved.