First memory of being autistic

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In kindergarten they had 6th grade girls take charge of the kindergarten kids in the playground in the AM before class began. They would have us play games like jump rope and ring around the rosie. I never played those type of games before, as i had always played with my twin brother and his friends games like baseball. So i would always get all tangled up in the jump rope and when all the children were holding hands and going round in a circle some how i managed to turn myself around facing out instead of in like everybody else. The girl in charge she was only in the 6th grade but to me she in kindergarten she seemed like an adult, was a horrible bully and would scream and yell at me for messed up one of her games. Then she would act totally disgusted and order me to stand by the fence while the other kids played. That is when i started to hate school and would always be late to class so as i wouldn't have to participate in the playground games.

Up until age 10 or 11 other people simply didn't warrant observation or comparison in any serious way, so if my interests were weird then I just didn't involve other people. I wasn't the typical "little professor" because I didn't interact with people enough to want to tell them things. (Although my official DX is AS, "borderline HFA" is probably a more accurate description of my childhood.)

From 10 to 14 I thought I was "normal" and the people around me were cruel or confused. When I was 14 a classmate suggested that I was probably schizoid, and that was the first time I ever realized that *I* was the one that was different, but even then I really didn't know what those differences were. All I really knew at that point was that people liked to cluster into social groups and I wasn't included.

Eventually I developed a very close friendship with another guy in my school. We understood each other completely and it felt very "normal", so I figured maybe I was "OK but different". My friend was diagnosed after the end of high school. He told me, but neither of us understood what it was (this was pre-internet, so finding out would have been difficult) and therefore neither of us realized what his DX implied about me.

When I finally got my DX I called him and told him, and he reminded me that he had the same DX more than a decade ago....

I mostly remember trying to answer people's questions and not being able to say what I needed to say. Or getting really confused about what the teachers were saying to me. There was this one occasion when I got sent on an errand by a teacher. I had to go to another classroom with a message and I'd misunderstood what I'd been asked to get. I think it was to do with taking words too literally..luckily the other teacher worked out what I meant, but I still went back worried that I'd got it wrong. I was mystified that other people could interpret "hidden" messages from each other in this way.

I remember this one test that we took, a maths test. I knew that I'd found it quite easy, but was astounded when the teacher announced that I was the only person to get every single question right...

I remember spinning round in circles in the garden til I went dizzy, then letting myself fall to the ground, lying on the grass watching the sky spin, as the world slowed down and finally came to a stop. Then I'd do it again and again. I wish life was still that simple...

I remember being terrified of fireworks. And escalators. And lifts..! When we went in a lift in the shopping centre I would panic like hell and try to lift my feet off the floor in vain...

When I did speak in public I had a habit of embarrassing my parents. Asked my parents once "does smoking damage your brain?" (while we were stood behind someone smoking!)

I was astounded (and terrified) the day my first tooth fell out.
Noone had told me it would happen so I wasn't prepared for it at all. I panicked and rinsed it down the sink. My parents thought this was hilarious.

Remember my mum trying desperately to get me to eat her food, couldn't stand the texture of overcooked vegetables though. I have a vivid memory of being sent to my room and spitting the food out onto the pillow

I remember having a party for my fifth birthday and my mum telling me off for bossing the other kids around. I had to be in control.

My previous post was when I first figured out I was different. That's not my first memory of doing or experiencing something in an autistic way, of course. It's just that prior to that time I didn't know I was different.

In retrospect, my first memories of autistic effects are pretty much my first memories, period. I was a head-banger, spinner and "runner". The latter term refers to the fact that I had no separation anxiety and often didn't respond to my name, so if the door was open I'd wander away and everyone would have to search for me. Once when I was about 3 years old they found me playing with the gravel at the side of a busy highway. I remember my mother used to make me wear a leash when we went out in public. My favorite playground activity was to wind up the swing and then look up as the sky and trees went around in circles.

My parents told me that they used to buy me toys and I'd play with them for about 5 minutes and then toss them away and play with the boxes instead. The only toy I got really interested in (that I remember) was a spinning musical spaceship they got me when I was 2 1/2. I'd play with it all day long, pushing the handle to make it go around and around....

Not knowing what country I was in, until my first Grade 1 Assembly, when everybody was singning "Oh, Canada!" I was exposed to the Union Jack, while watching a skit, called "Monsterpiece Theatre", which was done by the Sesamee Street Gang, for almost three years before I knew what a Canadian Flag looked like, when I was in Grade 1. The bizare thing about all of this, is that I've lived in Canada, my whole life. And that Pre-School trip to Victoria has added to my Un-Canadian ways, which I'm very proud of, by the way. Especially, when I look at my Routemasters and Union Jacks Gallore, when I'm in my Bedroom, sipping on my Mid-Afternoon Tea.

bizarre - i have a twin brother too and i always used to play with him to the exclusion of all others when i was very young, too.

Resurrection of an old memory topic

This is one old thread pgd.

First memory? I cannot remember NOT being autistic!