How Did You Discover Autism?
ThisTimelessMoment
Deinonychus
Joined: 15 Apr 2021
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 324
Location: South Africa
During our first hard lockdown last year I was watching way too much YouTube. The algorithm began to feed me autism related stuff. I was watching stuff about psychology.
The first thing I watched was by Asperger's From The Inside and it resonated. Over about six months I watched a lot more and became more convinced. Then I came here and I knew.
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Ever onwards and upwards!
Pretty much.
I got into psychiatric care for what seemed like depression, then that stuff turned leftfield and the docs were wondering whether a) I was developing schizophrenia, b) had autism, or c) had atypical depressions. They put an assessment on the table and I took it, "passed", and proceeded with treatment from there. I was 25 at the time.
Then, oddly enough, the schizophrenia plot once again resurfaced due to me developing a heady mix of wild delusions, megalomania, hallucinations and paranoia. But I left the country before being reassessed, and the docs in my new country said that a) you can't have schizophrenia because you can work, and b) we don't really believe in Aspergers over here, and even if you have it kind of doesn't matter from a psychiatric point of view as there are no drugs for it.
When I was a child I saw an episode of Quincy M.E. This must have been in the early 1980's or something. Anyway it was an episode about a boy with autism. His autism was quite severe if I remember rightly and much more severe than mine but something resonated with me when I saw it.
Bare in mind I was a young child myself when I saw this and I wasn't in a position to talk to anyone about this so I just got on with my life.
I didn't get diagnosed until about 25 years later.
So that was my first experience of relating autism to myself.
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We have existence
Oh I didn't have a clue for most of my life.
There came a point in my forties when AS was causing me so much trouble in my life - difficulty with work, difficulty with parenting, difficulty with relationships etc etc that I just needed to know what was wrong. By then I'd worked out there was some kind of hard-wired difference in my brain that I could not overcome, however much I tried. But I still didn't connect my difficulties with autism.
Then I was watching "24 hours in Emergency" on TV and there was a woman there who I could see instantly had the same difficulties as I do. I'm not even sure how I could tell, I was just absolutely certain that she had the same thing I did.
Then they said she had Aspergers...
My parents first noticed something off about me when my brother got diagnosed due to issues in school and they realized I had all the same issues and behaviours, down to lining toys up, rocking, etc.
I too am a rocker and toy-liner-upper Well, not so much lining up toys anymore, but I still rock (in private).
But no one ever took me to go get assessed so I had no idea about autism until I was about 27 after watching this video.
I was crying so much by the end of it. Not because of being upset that I was potentially autistic, but I guess it was more like a kind of relief? It was like I finally understood all the problems I'd ever had and why I found some things so much harder than everyone else. I could at least stop blaming myself for somehow being "broken".
Dear_one
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Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
I sensed something was "off" in my family and started going to meetings of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, a 12-step group that evolved from groups affected by the behaviour of alcoholics. I was about 40 then, and had sampled a lot of groups and therapies by age 56 when my mother started dying quickly. My NT sister was still distressed by mother never having said "I love you" (to anyone) and so I did another search on her symptoms. When I saw a list for AS, I knew that it explained both her life and mine. I was rather disappointed that so many people had missed so many clues.
Dear_one
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I'm generally poor at organization, but I laid a floor from hardwood shorts that were all sorted by colour to avoid a brick-like look. I put a dark spot under the dining table, and had red, yellow, and white areas blending together. I think I'm more prone to making lists than average, and I know that I make less scrap when I cut wood by planning more.
I learned that my son had a diagnosis of Aspergers about 5 years ago and started researching.
I knew nothing of Aspergers/Autism before that, but the more I researched the more traits that fit me I found, in particular when I was a child and teenager.
I've learned to cope/mask quite well over the years, so it was a maybe 50/50 chance of me actually getting a diagnosis when I was assessed in January this year.
I believe that if the current knowlege of autism had been there in the 70ies and if I had been assessed as a child I'd had been diagnosed as having Autism level 2, but the diagnosis I got was Autism level 1.
/Mats
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"Autism discovered me."
I was diagnosed with it in the 1960s, when I was a preschooler. This was when the "only" autism was severe, non-verbal autism. I was non-verbal at the time of diagnosis. I became verbal the summer of 1966, age 5 1/2.
I knew another autistic kid very well growing up. He was much more severe than I was.
I first saw "autism" in a public service commercial about autism. I thought they were talking about an "artistic" child at first. This was when I was about 9 years old. I didn't consider myself "autistic" then. I thought the other kid whom I mentioned was. I was verbal and (in retrospect) Aspergian at this time. I thought of myself as someone who "used to be ret*d, and was cured of my retardation through brain surgery."
I went to special schools, and was considered "brain damaged."
After a major mental breakdown resulting with completely wrong diagnosis of schizophrenia - luckily, debunked with joined effort of me and another doc - I gave psychotherapy yet another chance.
I had difficulty talking about recent things (totally couldn't name what was going on) so I talked about what I felt comfortable enough - childhood and dreams. My lifelong struggle with "something wrong with me" that I was scared of, trying to hide and totally not understanding - among other things.
At some moment, the therapist told me it all fits a pattern of Asperger's Syndrome. At first, it made me totally confused... mainly because of a mistranslation in the only article I had read about the syndrome before that encountered
Then I read more... and more... and more... and things started to make more and more sense. Some things about me started making sense for the first time in my life.
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Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.
<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
When the psychologists told me i had this thing called "Asperger's Syndrome." I didn't take it well. I mean i was very pissed off.
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AQ: 27 Diagnosis:High functioning (just on the cusp of normal.) IQ:131 (somewhat inflated result but ego-flattering) DNA:XY Location: UK. Eyes: Blue. Hair: Brown. Height:6'1 Celebrity I most resemble: Tom hardy. Favorite Band: The Doors. Personality: uhhm ....(what can i say...we asd people are strange)
I always knew I was different than other kids growing up. My interests were very strange (poisons, explosives, radioactive materials, etc.), yet I was allowed to pursue them to my heart’s content. Not many 10 year olds know how to make poisonous plant extracts without directions, but I did. While I was quite advanced in my chosen studies (science, math, history), I was immature in social situations in junior high. Boy, I paid the price.
When I was growing up, only classical autism was known about in my school. I knew a few of them because I was rejected and bullied by the other students for being so different, just like they were. I kept mostly to myself through most of high school and a majority of college. It was not until I was in my 30s did I really attempt to try to socialize with others in my area (which was a net failure). I found out I can be happy alone if I have my research to work on in my head.
Around 2014, I came across an article on Asperger syndrome that matched quite well with how I felt over my life. I finally had a name to possibly explain why I was different. Taking online tests kept pointing in the same direction towards autism. I have no need for a formal diagnosis, as it could cost me dearly in my career (and financially).
Well it started with a diagnosis of ADHD back in the 90's when that was all the rage. -then in middle school I was watching a documentary about a family and I saw a kid I could relate to. She covered her ears whenever she heard loud sounds, and couldn't handle tags in clothing. When the mom in the documentary explained that she was autistic I was like... oh?
AnonymousAnonymous
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Joined: 23 Nov 2006
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Location: Portland, Oregon
I was diagnosed with AS when I was 13.
I had no idea what my specialist was talking about because I thought
my specialist said "Alzheimer's" or "Asparagus."
Also, I had other issues I was coping with at the time of diagnosis.
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Silly NTs, I have Aspergers, and having Aspergers is gr-r-reat!
Thanks Weirdmetronome
The "Tony Atwood - Girls Aspergers" video was great for me. I just finished my 3rd viewing! And I can now understand how so many of the confusing descriptions I've gotten of "me" came about. They were correct. I just never got it. A couple of more viewings and I may get comfortable with it all in some "practical" sense of things??! ! It's strange meeting myself as a strenger.
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