Did you realize you were different when you were a child ?

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By age 5 it became rather apparent that I was.
During recess I chose to collect rocks instead of playing with my peers, which as time went along caused my teacher to become quite concerned with me. This triggered multiple kids to come up and question my behavior, then end up calling me 'weird'.
I also had to always carry five objects in my pocket, and if I found that I had less than five I would throw a tantrum until another object was given. Another thing would be how my interest in dinosaurs was much more intense than the rest of my classmates. While they enjoyed looking at pictures of dinosaurs and reading short sentences of information, I was going through lengthier non-fiction books or articles. In fact, I couldn't stop talking about dinosaurs and constantly wanted to learn even more about them.

It's hard to know you're different if yo don't know what it's like to be someone else. I thought I was shy and that I didn't really know how to talk to people, but I thought other people were just better at it than I was.

It didn't occur to me until just a few years ago that other people don't find being around another person unsettling, for instance.

I was never diagnosed with anything at school because I did well academically and I usually had one best friend.

Knew I was likely a little different as a child, however, felt as a child nothing could be done about it at all so did not talk about it. Also, was not encouraged to talk about it along the lines of children in a home are to be seen but not heard. It wasn't until I discovered that several FDA approved medicines (containing caffeine - 100 mg) could temporarily improve my concentration and memory a little (not a cure) that I decided to talk about it. What I have is described as ADHD Inattentive with central auditory processing disorder and mild dyspraxia (mild left-side hemiparesis weakness, not paralysis). - http://www.hemihelp.org.uk/ - http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-5/auditory.htm - Today, most persons sooner or later can secure a correct diagnosis and a description of symptoms; a few are lucky enough to find a medicine which helps a little (not a cure). My symptoms/what is behind the symptoms do not show up on EEGs, a regular CT brain scan, or a regular MRI yet the symptoms are very real and can be seen by a good observer within two minutes or less. I'm one of those persons who has slipped through the cracks so to speak but today understands some small aspects of what's likely going on neurologically (subtle glitches in neurotransmission systems - dopamine and norepinephrine). Am also aware that many people try a number of medicines without success and do not find anything in the medicine department which helps them at all. For some reason, I was lucky enough to find a med which works a little for me (not a cure).

It's amazing how all of us have different stories. I admire those who were aware of their difference, though I feel terrible for them because I can't imagine how hard it must be to have felt different at such a young age, because you have to be very intelligent to realize that you are different and why.

I like what happymusic said because I think it's basically what happened to me. I didn't realized I was different because I just thought everyone was like me until I grew up. And I didn't realized that I was already an odd girl when I was a child because I didn't feel different at the time.

(Yet, I feel betrayed by my parents, they've been told I had a delay in motor skills for example, but never paid attention to it, they've let me think I was just a "ret*d" for years -because I can't talk to people the way I talk to you right now on the Internet).

I 'knew' innately that I was different than those around me, but I was never allowed to assert it or openly define myself by it, because it was insisted that I be like everyone else, period. Like The Ugly Duckling, I was told I was a duck and forced to behave as though I were a duck, whether that came naturally to me or not.

After a while, I began to wear my differences as a badge of honor. Everyone else's definition of the world made no sense to me, so I must be the only person seeing the world as it really was, therefore everyone else must be stupid. I still think I was right.

I've always known I was "different." There were times when I'd look at the other kids and feel so much "older" than they were--I didn't care about the stuff they cared about, I always felt more like an "adult." I viewed school as a place to learn, not socialize/screw around. I think I had maybe two or three grade school teachers who appreciated that view--the others thought there was something wrong with me because I didn't act "normal" (read: like a little brat).

Anxiety created physical stomach problems, which led to a lot of absences. The kids gave me hell, and I could never pinpoint a real cause--why couldn't they just leave me alone if I didn't bother them (which I didn't).

In sixth grade, a friend and I concluded that the whole world was crazy. I still tend to agree with that.

In 8th grade, my Humanities teacher showed us a film called "The Wave." Here's a link to the film's website: http://www.thewave.tk/

Corny as it sounds (it was a low-budget TV movie), it showed me the importance of being an individual, even if being so is not "popular." This was, literally, one of my "turning points."

The older I got, the more my "differences" helped me (focus, caring about achieving, etc.). The social stuff happened or it didn't.

I realized the possibility of Asperger's last year. It explains a LOT.

I did. I liked girls from an early age, and they were scared of me. Years later, they still find me unappealing.

Worse, in the first grade, I had a Snow White lunchbox. Despite it being for little kids, I still wish I had that lunchbox. That was a COOL lunchbox.

Yes. I definitely always knew something was different about me. I can't recall if I was directly called "weird," but I sure felt it. That said, I had other reasons I was different.

Very much so as i found it diffiucult to be accepted by certain people and came across as akward although i did have some friends they were not that close to me though.

If I had been in a more non accepting environment I'm sure I'd realize sooner. My parents compared me with my bro who was nothing of an ordinary child, but since he was the 1st, they didn't know.

Teachers focused a lot on strengths and thought I was good at stuff, although when I sucked they found it a great mystery, they blamed everything, such as nerves, when in fact it was just something I had a big issue with. So again that was not found out.

In first class I remember I thought I read well and I always wanted to read out loud and I wanted to be picked to do that. I thought I was the best! Sure I read better than all thems, but when my teacher said I needed to read with more variation and feeling, I was surprised and hurt. I think I basically read like a screen reader. Still, no one made a big thing out of it.

I had my own style of pretend play, in 1st grade I played alone and sort of played out a lot of drama in my head. After that when I read books I pretend played from what I read. This was actually appreciated by my peers whom I played with. So yet again, no indication.

Lots of this. If I had grown up today and gone to day care and all that, I'm sure people would have thought I was different and I would have thought so too. But back then as long as you could do the basic things, you were considered normal. And that is why I didn't think I was different. Teen years... well... everyone turned into a monster and I didn't. It's how I felt.

Yes, absolutely - Since I was 4.

I can't ever remember feeling normal but I never felt there was anything bad about it I was just sick of being singled out and made to feel bad. I always felt my parents favored my older brothers over me and even though it probably wasn't meant that way. I felt my parents and brother (espicaly one in paticullar) made the extra effort to make me feel like a freak. I felt like my parents' expirment for years. I didn't want to make friends and wanted to know what all the hubabaloo about friendship was. I was content to be alone but my parents, teachers and phycogists insisted I needed friends. If I needed them so much why was it so hard to make them and why didn't the f*****g teachers and shirks help me? I never felt there was anything wrong with being diffrent but my parents always told me it was okay to be diffrent. They made me feel like a freak a lot but they told me it was okay to be diffrent at the same time.

Last edited by PunkyKat on 06 Aug 2010, 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

+1

VERY good question! Answer: they mostly pay lip service to stuff like that without actually doing anything constructive or helpful.



Ahh...the paradoxes of existence.

Does that mean they at least tried to be supportive sometimes?

Btw: there isn't anything wrong with being different, and you're not a freak.

I knew from the time when I first started school that I wasn't like the other children. I just wasn't really one of them. I didn't know how to play with other children or how to interact with them, and to me they seemed very confusing and strange and I was quite scared of them. Before starting school I hadn't had a lot of contact with other children so I wasn't really used to them, but when I had had opportunities to play with other children near to my own age I hadn't wanted to, or I was very fussy about who I would play with. I was also selectively mute at school for about the first 2 years I was there. About he only time I spoke was when I read to the teacher. So that set me apart from the other children as well and they showed through their behaviour towards me that they thought I was strange and that most of them didn't like me. At playtimes I would stand alone in the playground until somebody approached me, I didn't know how to approach somebody else and I would have been too scared to try. At playtimes I was very much at the mercy of bullies who used to pick on me possibly because they knew they could do whatever they liked to me and I wouldn't do anything about it. Some of the other girls tried to look after me almost as if they were my mum or my big sister, but I was never treated as an equal by any of them. I never initiated or actively participated in any play with them and when they played 'mothers and fathers' I was always the baby, and as such I always got 'told off' and hit.
My parents and teachers thought (or perhaps hoped) that I was just very shy and that I would somehow grow out of it. My mother was concerned enough to mention to a doctor, in front of me, that I 'didn't like mixing'. As I got older (about 8-10 years old) I reached a stage where I really wanted to have friends and I did start to talk more and try to join in. But I didn't know how to do it in a way that didn't just annoy the other children and make them think I was 'mad'. It was at this age, I think, that some social skills guidance would have been helpful. At this time I felt very strongly that I wasn't normal and that there was something seriously wrong with me; a feeling that persisted throughout my life. And I knew that my peers saw me in a similar way too. Some of them tried in their way to be 'kind' to me because of this. I can remember one girl, in telling some boys to leave me alone, saying to them "How would you like to be like that?"
When my attempts at joining in were not very successful, and mostly resulted in my just annoying my classmates making them not want to have anything to do with me, I became silent and very withdrawn again. In secondary school (as a teenager) I was very isolated. I used to spend break times and lunchtimes in the library because it felt like the safest place to be, and often I used to go for a whole day hardly saying a word to anyone. This got me picked on for being unsociable and not even trying to talk to or make friends with anyone.

Great point

I ALWAYS KNEW that I was different (and I thought that it was MOSTLY to do with being 'top of the class')

I had NO IDEA that others saw me as WEIRD (despite being 'top of the class' )


This is perhaps the essence of the Autistic blindspot (regardless of 'position in the class' )

Last edited by Blindspot149 on 07 Aug 2010, 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.