When did you first realize you were an Aspie?

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Well, there are really two parts to my anecdote. The first time I ever felt a connection with AS symptoms was when I was around 17 and read an article about Asperger's in Good Housekeeping. This was before I had had any official diagnoses, and although I correctly self-diagnosed myself with OCD a year before garnering an official diagnosis, I was still in a period of searching to make sure what I was experiencing was really OCD. This AS Good Housekeeping article was, unfortunately, a tale of one of the most stereotypical Aspies you could find. I think the kid's special interest was one of the obscure stereotypes like vacuum cleaners or deep-fat fryers. So, due to this, the only thing that I identified with in the article was having obsessive fixations on certain topics. Special interests are my strongest AS symptom, and I've demonstrated it since 18 months of age. But nothing else fit, so I disgarded the possibility of AS.

When I was 18 1/2, in January 2006, my CBT therapist (for OCD) asked me if I had ever considered the possibility of having AS. She noticed that I didn't just have OCD, that I had something else going on, too. She went through the DSM with me and confirmed that I met diagnostic criteria, but I was very skeptical, mostly from the stereotypical article I read in Good Housekeeping. It took me a good many months for me to find a book about AS that explained all the different types, including how it manifests itself differently in females. So, the first time I truly thought, "Yes, this is ME!" was when I read Tony Atwood's The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. That book is so detailed and talks about so many symptoms you never hear of in the AS stereotype that I finally was able to see that, yes, this is my life and what I have struggled with since birth. I found that book around May '06, and I got an official diagnosis from an AS specialist in September '06. I still had doubts that I really had AS, though, (due to not fitting stereotypes) until about 2008. Not a doubt in my mind now.

I've always felt like there was something "odd" about me - and other people confirm it with the language they use when they describe me "unique", "different", "weird" etc. Even people who liked me used those words. I never felt like fitted in anywhere, always had odd - often extreme - reactions to things, and always felt like I was "faking" things that other people did naturally. I have suffered with recurrent depression, with no known cause and which doesn't respond to medication, and anxiety for a long time.

I had a job where I worked with autistic adults - some low functioning, some more highly functioning. My colleagues would say in amazement "You really seem to understand them" and "XXXX says he likes it when you work with him because he knows what he's getting with you." XXXX was a service user known for being violent, but he was never violent with me - because we understood the way each other worked - yet it seemed like other people couldn't figure him out at all (or me, for that matter - I was the misfit who had more in common with the service users than their colleagues!).

Around the same time, there was a documentary on the BBC about children with ASDs. There was one boy who couldn't talk about himself at all unless he hid inside a box. To say I related to that was an understatement.

Then I started working with students, many of whom I know had a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. I was always struck by how entirely normal many of them were - or rather, how like me they were. They were classed as disabled students, but I wasn't disabled and they were just describing what was normal (to me).

But although I thought about it in passing, it never truly occurred to me that I might be on the spectrum because I just assumed it would have been picked up before I reached the age I was.

I didn't really realise it until things started falling apart for me at work during an incident where many of the things I struggle with came together at once and I couldn't cope at all. I did some reading. Then I emailed a friend in desperation on the day this happened and said "I think I might be on the autistic spectrum" and he, who had worked in the mental health field for a long time said "I have had my suspicions, and think that indeed might be the case". His matter of fact response surprised me. I was expecting a "don't be so daft" type of reassuring response.

So now I'm am going through the diagnosis process ... I don't know what will come of it. I don't know what I'll do with the diagnosis at the end - I just hope to understand myself a little better, I think and to be able find ways to deal with the things I struggle with.

I think it's helpful to know ... but at the same time it is really quite overwhelming and difficult to accept. And I am still surprised that the psych is not just saying "don't be so daft".

1. In 2003 I started reading about autism and Asperger's and saw some similarities to myself. (I have no recollection how I got interested in it in the first place.) I wondered if it might fit me, and was very unsure - I read things that sounded like me, and things that didn't, and things that I really couldn't tell if they fit or not. I eventually dismissed the possibility, thinking that the autistic-like traits I had must not be enough to count for anything. I figured it was likely just 'the horoscope effect', where you think a description fits you because you're looking for it to fit you. I felt rather embarrassed about having considered the possibility. But an awareness that there were some similarities stuck with me, and I remained interested in autism.

2. About 2 years ago, a friend told me he'd long suspected I was on the autism spectrum. He had majored in psychology and worked with autistic and other developmentally disabled people in a caretaking capacity (and eventually as a teacher's aide, but I forget if he was already doing so at that point.) It was as if that flipped a switch in my mind from dismissing the possibility to thinking it likely. Basically, the fact that another well-informed person saw connections made me stop thinking that it was just 'the horoscope effect' when I thought it might fit me. I talked to a few other friends about it and the better-informed ones of them turned out to have had the same impression, completely independently. That's gotten me quite convinced that I at least have substantial autistic traits.

3. But I still don't know if I'm 'enough autistic' to count as anything. Maybe I'd be better classified as Broader Autism Phenotype than actually autistic. Or maybe I do count as actually autistic. (I don't consider Asperger's a useful category.) I don't know if anything short of a diagnosis would completely convince me - I feel so much like I'm in the borderlands of the autism spectrum (I once saw someone refer to 'ultraviolet on the autism spectrum' and I liked that expression for it). And I'm still uncertain whether I'll try to get evaluated or not.

My experience was similar to Arak-Nafein. I am 22 and spent most of my life knowing I was different but never knowing why. No conditions I had ever researched seemed to fit. Then I took an intro psychology class at university and one of the lectures was on autism, which I had heard of but didn't know what it was. Reading through the chapter in my textbook and then information I found online was like reading my biography...that was my "eureka" moment.

I first knew it only when my counselor told me I had it after seeing me imitate the type of stimming my wife told me I did.
She and I went through the criterion and we both realized I fit enough of it to be given the diagnosis.
It took me about another month after my diagnosis to actually BELIEVE I have AS/HFA...

When I was told I was an Aspie.

After reading others' posts, I understood I should have told about knowing that I was also different from most others, but not really ever understanding WHY I was!
I first KNEW I had AS when my counselor told me I did, but before then I only occasionally wondered why I seemed so different from other people.
I have one Autistic cousin and only recently was told I act quite a bit the same way. So noooow I knooow!

About 2 years ago, when I started my first teaching job, I taught a girl who was had AS. I started reading about it, and realised I was the same as her. And so I read some more, and started thinking.
Then this year, I was diagnosed.

No, my mom has telled me it when i was 13 and when i barely though about autism (in general)

I knew since I was veeeery very young that there was something different about me, based on the way other kids behaved towards me. But I was "told" that I was an aspie until I was around 10ish.

Well, I was reading on wikipedia and I found many of the descriptions to be comparable to my own hypotheses about my social differences. I coined the term "Interpersonal synchronization" to describe the process of efficiently transmitting emotional states and I realized its role in socialization; it turns out that this 'interpersonal synchronization' is strongly related to regulation of facial expressions and tonality, which is much of the problem with autism/aspergers and I remember specifically experimenting with different conversational approaches and facial expression rules in high school, almost always with negative results. I also knew my 'natural' language usage was excessively formalized compared to similarly intelligent peers, which is described by the pendantic quality in the wikipedia page on aspergers. I also was aware I was relatively "insensitive" to the underlying emotional layers of communication and to the social norms, and this insensitivity was largely involuntary. Aspergers is just a name that describes all of these differences I've noticed, though whether I actually I have it or not is uncertain. Actually reading all of the posts on here and assuming these noticed attributes of mine are really aspergian, it feels like I'm either more "aspergerian" than the majority here or a distinctly different flavor of aspergers, which honestly seems absurd because I don't have the sensory sensitivities or hallmark "melt downs". So, possibly, it's a different mental disorder altogether or a leaning towards a different spectrum, such as possibly schizo* and not necessarily a disorder. It could be as simple as a "language disorder". *shrugs*

I saw a presentation on Autism, and the presenter said her daughter studied yearbooks. I could tell you every class every person in my grade had ever been in, and on what page numbers.

I then saw The Social Network, about Mark Zuckerburg, the Facebook guy. I saw similarities with the way he was portrayed.

I talked to my dad, who said he had thought I had Asperger's for many years, but thought I'd be angry if he had put another label on me. My aunt had sent him an email too.

I googled numerous tests, found different websites, read different blogs, and watched different youtube videos. I then had an appointment set up with a specialist. Within thirty minutes of talking to me, she was sure I was an Aspie, and suggested I not waste $600 getting testing when she knew what the results would be, and save us both some time.

You rarely meet doctors like that.

A person (even though she wasn't really supposed to) from a disablities place suggested I might have AS and as I had no idea what that was I went to the library and got a just about every book that looked 'worth reading' on the topic and started reading them. Though I wouldn't recomend it as it's not the best book on AS the first one I read was 'American Normal'. I picked it because it looked like the type of books I usually read that have odd titles and interesting pictures of the cover. (I since bought a copy even though it's not the best book on the subject). I could have got 'Thankiing in Pictures' but didn't because I'd read a summary online and felt I'd already read the book at that time. Was twenty five years old at the time and am twenty six now. (was diagonsed last summer).

When I first started reading I was a little unsure as the inside jacket cover of that first book I read states: "Often brilliant at math and able to preform savant-like feats of memory and calculation, ..." which is very much not me as I hate math and have never been good at it. I have gotten a little better after studying the times tables in order to pass a test for work.

And now know much more multiplication than I did before which is a little strange. After 26 years of struggling with math I can now after some months of working on the same few bit of multiplying can do more math with less work going into it.

Before I knew my fives and zeros and ones and twos and tens and elevens a up to 11 x 12. Now I know the 6s, 7s, 8s and 9s some what and knowing that makes the others much easier to figure out now. It's a little scary to do math now. Before it was harder and I had to kind of guess blindly at answers but now I know the answers - kinda half memorized I guess and when I was doing some problems a while back it occurred to me that maybe that's how most people are they just know the answers like that and don't have to do all the work I always had to do (and usually still got the wrong answer anyway). It's a uncomfortable feeling though it is good that I'm better at math now. I'm been bad at it so long it's strange to not be as bad at it anymore. It's like I almost can't remember not knowing the answers since I know them now and can't not know them (though I do get mixed up sometimes but that's different than not knowing).

Back on topic - I don't remember what about the book 'American Normal' made me go 'Aha' not even after flipping through it just now as the only good part is the middle where it talks about Hans Asperger and his studies and I"m sure there are better books that talk about that. I have yet to read the top AS books(Tony Attwood how did I not remember that sooner?) mentioned here but I would like to (I should make a note to go to the library again and make a list of books to get. And remember to bring my cloth bag for the books). I tend to check out 10 or more books at a time when I go to the library though usually they cover a few different topics unless I'm only focusing on one that day and haven't gotten distracted by the other books some how. My last trip was AS books, female detective stories(one book lots of stories) and strange messed up 'modernized fairy tales'. I like modernize fairy tales even some versions are really dark and strange.

Of course half the time I pick up a book read it and put it back while looking for books or read part of a book find I don't like it that much and don't have to find out later at home.

I've been an avid reader since I can remember and got high school and collage level scores on comprehension tests in late elementary school (they were doing star test for certain books or something on computers. I have many 'awards' from that 'encourage kids to read and pay attention to what they read' program the school was doing).

I thinks my skills at reading and understanding what I read, made up for my poor math, P.E. and other skills through school at least as far as grades and stuff went. I wasn't a bad student in general, got mostly As even in math once they kept me at a level I could do. (Never took algebra or geometry or much geography which is a shame as it could have been useful unlike the piano lessons I took for a few years which didn't stick though that was by choice and not forced on me).

So someone said I might have AS so I went to the library and read about it and it sounded like the books were talking about me - though some things didn't fit me but enough did that I pushed for a diagnoses and got on here even though I'd ran across this forum some years before but didn't look much because back then I still thought I was normal or mostly normal. And yes I know there is no such things as 'normal' the way TV and everything says there is.

And now I'll shut up for a while. I doubt too many people will read all this anyway. I don't always read long posts myself.

A friend of my daughter's was diagnosed with AS, so I read about it just to know what it was. It was describing me so much, that I told someone I knew (and who had been working with people with AS), that maybe I had it, too. She said, that she had thought for a long time that I had it, but had not said anything about it until I asked.

It was sometime in late 2010 when I suspected it. Never officially diagnosed, but i did take an online test. I have the results around here somewhere...

Your Aspie score: 135 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 104 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits

Maybe I am lightly Aspergers. I don't know for sure, but I do know I have many typical Aspie traits.

My mom told me she thought I had a form of autism called Aspergers shortly after I graduated high-school. I looked it up a bit & it seemed to fit but I didn't pay a lot of mind to it. I had a mental breakdown when I was 20 & the 1st psych I saw suspected I had AS & refereed me for testing. AS was ruled out in favor of Schizoid Personality Disorder & lots of another things because I communicate too well verbally & am too intelligent to have anything on the autism spectrum. Every psych & specialist I seen sense has told me the same thing/ I was having problems on some forums shortly before last summer & I started thinking about Aspergers & I joined WP. AS seems to fit me