Not knowing you were different

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Well, for me... I remember just doing my own thing, for the most part. I didn't have a lot of friends ever, even in kindergarten. I remember the girls in my grade playing house, but all I wanted to do was play on the jungle gym. But that was OK. I had more fun that way anyhow.

I usually had one close friend growing up, but the baffling thing to me is that they would want to hang out with other people... and I was also baffled why they would just suddenly leave and forget about me. I've lost a lot of friends who just "move on" and outgrow me... and it was always seemingly without warning.

In school, I was often alone. I hated break times most of the time, and my least favorite classes were the unstructured ones where the teacher just let you do whatever. I hated lunch time, especially, as it was always a time of stress for me. While I did okay one-on-one with people, groups of people I could never get along with or keep up with. And when I did manage to get invited along to stuff, I never felt quite in sync with the rest of the group. I remember first learning in like 6th grade that people actually call each other and talk about stuff. That was like whoa. I never did that. I was also the last person to hear any gossip or school news, if I heard it at all. The girls especially were always telling secrets, but I didn't understand why.

I'll just say that I knew I was a bit strange and a bit different than the other kids, but I never knew why. I was just always that kid who didn't want to grow up, whose interests were immature for her age, who got along better with adults, and that kid who didn't like the things that other girls were supposed to. And I didn't fit in with the guys either. It was also frustrating because I didn't fit the typical "smart" girl profile either. I liked my studies, but I would also forget my materials often or leave a book in my locker or at home. And, while my grades were always OK, I never was a straight A student. People just assumed I was, because I was smart and because I was quiet.

Nowadays, I do OK if nobody else knows anyone and if I'm able to start with a clean slate. Once people start getting to know each other and making friends, I'm pretty much outta luck. I still can't really deal with more than one person at a time and groups still make me uncomfortable. But at least I can say I've improved a little. Here's hoping.

I knew, at least by 12 or 13, that I was different, but had no idea in what way I was different. I'm really not sure at what age I realized that my "differences" described what would later become known as AS. I spent my teen years thinking (incorrectly, in retrospect) that I behaved, essentially, the same as everyone else, and that the only substantial difference between me and the other guys at school was that I was gay. I got called fa***t a LOT, and didn't realize that it was just a default insult, not a comment on my sexuality. I remember thinking, "How can they know? I'm not even sure yet!" It probably wasn't until sometime in my mid 20s that I started to realize that I didn't relate to other people the same way that most do.

Others by 7th grade knew I was different - I had no idea why they acted so. By 20 or thereabouts I began to realize I was different, starting to catalogue how and figuure different from whom and try to sort why.

I think mostly I tried to disprove it when I got any evidence of being different. Usually it worked, probably because I was so hell bent on proving the point. I even went into a pub once and struck up conversation with the locals, when I didn't even know them. But it was really only to prove the point......and I was never able to do it again with new strangers, to this day. Anyway, such one-off achievements served to prop up my self-image as normal, for a while.

So I was suspicious that I might be different - I also suspected brain damage when my school performance went down. So, I didn't know I was different.

But I did gravitate towards counter-culture, and was proud of the way we progressive types did things differently from the mainstream. That started back at school, and there was a big atmosphere at the time that we were the next generation waiting to take over from the tired old conventions. So I guess I would have said I was different from that large number of people who were on their way out anyhow. And I was picking up the same message politically, the hope of seeing capitalism collapse and get replaced by a decent economic system. I'd begun to form relationships with girls, which made me feel very normal, apart from the bad times.

I was socially quite happy living among artists and dropouts after that, and pretty much all the social pain I experienced came from the mainstream, so I just blamed them...I was different from the inferior, or hoped I was, in fact I always felt bad if I caught myself acting like a Mainstreamer, it was one of my fears that I might turn out to be just like them in the end.

I was blessed with at least some kind of rewarding company like that for pretty much my whole life, so I guess I never felt different from the entire world. Even after the AS DX, I was heartened when an old friend said that he suspects every musician he's ever met has had a smattering of AS, and when I noticed a cartload of Aspie traits in 2 of my very few local friends.

So the awareness of difference was there, but never really in the sense of not belonging......I only get that as a fleeting paranoia.

I was 16 when I learned my social skills were below the age level. I was 17 when I found out I was very naive. But I have always known I was different. I didn't know why I was. But I didn't really care for it until I was ten when I decided I wanted to be normal. I didn't even know I had a disability until I was 15 and I didn't even know I had something wrong with me until I was 12. Before, I thought I had to try harder and I will be normal and if everyone treated me right, I would be normal.

I didn't start feeling normal until I was 15 when I started to see everyone else having problems and telling myself this or that happens to everyone. Now I think "normal" is over rated. What's normal? Everyone has things about themselves that are not "normal.' Normal just means the majority. It's normal for aspies to have an anxiety disorder, it's normal for pregnant women to have morning sickness, it's normal for people to read body language.

I first noticed that I was different at about age 7. At that age, we were supposed to keep little notebooks on what the teacher wrote on the blackboard, and I found that my notebook was almost empty, because I spent most of the time daydreaming. I found out that my handwriting was horrible because my teacher singled me out; I had to print everything, when everybody else was allowed to write in script.

At about age 11, I was suddenly shunned by everyone at home, at school, and in church. At that point, it became clear that socially, I did not fit in.

At about age 15, I had the sudden realization that people judged me on my appearance. Before that, I figured that they were making a big deal out of nothing. It was about that time that I began to realize how clueless I was about social behavior.

Skipping about 25 wasted years, when I thought that most of my problems were due to personal weakness or bad upbringing, I found out that my psychological problems could have their origin in neurological differences. I knew that was true for some extreme cases, such as schizophrenia, but it was only then that I found that it could apply to things like depression and social functioning too.

Knew I was different, but never realized How much I was off in the social skills. It is amazing how even relatively objective people (and I do believe I am reasonably objective about myself) can be deluded by their own self- bias. I really did not think it was bad enough to be literally labelled "different " at the age of 40. Just always thought I was a bit off.

I always knew that something was different about the way that I thought and perceived things, but I didn't realize just how different I really was, or make the connection between this difference and all of the social difficulties that I had, until I was in college.

When I was a kid, I was very anxious in social situations, I noticed that all of my friends seemed to outgrow me, and I had lots of sensory issues. But I thought that maybe other people were bothered by sights/noises as well and they were just better at hiding it. Plus, my parents always just told me that I needed to suck it up and deal with my discomfort, stop being selfish and lazy, stop making other people upset. They also told me that other kids were jealous of me, or I was too smart for them, and that's why I didn't have friends.

When I was in high school, I realized one day that I had (unintentionally) begun to mimic a girl in my class who was very outgoing and kind, and pretty much universally liked. That year, I got invited to several parties and social events (something that had never happened before). But I couldn't keep up the facade, and ultimately all of those people forgot about me as well. This time, my parents told me that I wasn't trying hard enough to maintain connections with other people. But I had essentially learned that the best way to get peers to enjoy my company was to act like someone who was basically my opposite.

But it really took me until I was in college, surrounded by people who were supposed to be "just like me" that I finally realized just how different I was, and connected my social difficulties to my sensory issues, etc...and then when I was about 20 I heard about AS and HFA for the first time and everything clicked.

So I guess I noticed symptoms all along but didn't have enough information to figure out what was wrong.

I can look back on my childhood now and realize how different I was from others, but at the time it really didn't occur to me. When I hit junior high school, I was bullied pretty badly but I never attributed this to being different. It actually never occurred to me to ask why; I thought it was just a part of growing up and was bad for everyone who wasn't "popular."

I remember in sixth grade the teachers taught us about peer pressure, and I remember thinking how foreign that concept was to me.

I went on to secondary school, where I spent all of my spare time at school practicing by myself (sometimes in the dark) in the empty school orchestra room. It wasn't until senior year that it even occurred to me that I could hang out with friends in the morning before classes started.

I thought I was immune to peer pressure. I also thought I was trying to be a non-conformist when actually I really didn't have to try.
I never thought anything I did was odd or different in anyway. I don't even remember what I thought about back then to be so oblivious to how different I was.
Maybe it was because I never tried to be like most people until my 20's? I only realised I was different when I tried to socilaise more and actually join in on a conversation only to find out that I couldn't.

This sums up my views too.

I used to have very little awareness of why I was different. I knew there was something bad or different about me but I had little sense of it. I had little awareness of all the odd things I did, didn't even realize I wasn't good with people even if I couldn't even have a conversation. It just didn't pass into my observation I suppose.

It seems incredibly obvious now, however, that I know more.

Heh, I just posted a similar thing in another thread. Pretty much everything you said is the same for me. I knew I was different, but I blamed it on other things. It never occurred to me that my social skills were lacking. It actually took someone getting annoyed with me and saying "you do this," "you don't do that," and "people feel like this because you..." until I even started to wonder if something was wrong with me. Because when I thought about it, they were right. But it had never occurred to me that any of those things were unusual. So I tried to change... and couldn't. I just really couldn't. It made me feel horrible and weak, because I thought it had to be something anyone could do.

I'm just realizing I'm probably an Aspie. I guess it's kind of late at 42 but it explains alot.

I was always different. I was the girl hanging out with boys talking Star Wars at recess. I was the punk with the weird clothes and haircut who liked weird music. I was the 'art fag' who took every art class twice and hung out in the art center on free periods. By the time I finally graduated art school, I had only just begun to realize that people don't think in pictures - their minds don't illustrate a story for them when they read. I thought it was because of my creativity - and I felt sad for other people because I had a 'gift'. I cycled through friends like laundry at times and never understood why I didn't make those 'life long friends' everyone always talked about. By the time I hit 30, I sort of gave up trying.

I did make some friends online. I met a friend who had AS and I ended up being her advocate in group discussions because I knew where she was coming from. I never understood why other people didn't understand what she was trying to say or how she meant it. In discussing her issues, I never applied them to myself. I don't have bad handwriting. I thought I could read other people's emotions. It was only when I started reading further into it for my daughter that I realized, all this time I've been struggling is probably because I have Asperger's too.

I've learned how to mimic social skills over decades of very literal research and experimentation. I vaguely know what people expect in the normal course of a social situation. Most people think I'm stand-offish or arrogant when they first meet me because I'm hanging back and shutting up until I can get a feel for people, their expectations and how they operate. When I finally do open up people are shocked I'm not what they expected. I think most therapists would consider this 'successful' self intervention. I simply call it exhausting. Rarely is all the effort I put into meeting people worth the outcome. Do they have any idea how hard it is to watch body language and follow a conversation and is it just small talk or serious conversation, and how much detail do they want and don't forget to look at least at their chin and at least SMILE if everyone else is laughing even if you don't get it or simply think they aren't funny... and this is just a friendly conversation in line at the grocery store. Do they have any idea how hard that is in a professional setting?! Do they have any idea how much time is wasted on thinking up prescripted responses to any situation and the sheer volume of anxiety all of it causes?

I'm just now coming to terms with the idea that it's not just me. It's not just a 'personality quirk' but, at the same time, it is. There is actually a reason my life has been so chaotic. Scary and a huge relief at the same time.

From as early as about 5 years old I knew I was different from the rest, as I progressed through school it became more and more obvious, I had no idea what it was about me or why but I knew I was different. I always knew I thought differently and could see many thing other kids couldn’t. There were some kids I used to play with but they soon abandoned me once they could see I was different, so I had no real friends which didn’t bother me that much in one way as I liked being alone, but at the same time I felt very alone and this reinforced to me that I was right about feeling different. I never really liked it when other kids did speak to me as I didn’t really want to talk to them and this made me quite uncomfortable.

When I reached high school it became even worse of course. I had two friends who weren’t really friends after all after they finished using me to help them with their science projects and so on, they then abandoned me pretty much as well. Every day at high school was hell, it was all about surviving the day and getting home ASAP.

College wasn’t really that bad, I’m pretty sure a lot of the others in my electronics course had AS as well, but at that point I still didn’t really know about AS any way, but I didn’t really have that much trouble in that course apart from feeling more and more different and socially isolated in my other classes.

My parents never believed in therapists and did all they could to make sure I never saw one, even when the school was suggesting I should, this could have been my chance here to have had a different outcome. I was always told to basically get on with it and just put your best foot forward and work harder. My parents scorned me for not talking to other kids and not having friends, and made me feel worse again for issues truly out of my control. Still to this day I am still looked down on by the family as lesser than my older sisters who have achieved so much. All of the things I managed somehow to achieved considering my AS and life experiences isn’t given any praise or recognition. I think they were somehow angry with me for not being what they wanted, and I think they still are even now.

As I became aware of AS and started reading more it became a real revelation for me-a whole set of answers to just about everything with a real sense of validation. All those years I pretended to be something I never could be while I was the way I was for a very good reason, that wasn’t my fault or anything I had any real control over, yet I copped the punishment for it. With my formal diagnosis came an even greater sense of validation and revelation for me.

The one thing of late that has helped me the most out of everything has been talking to some really great people I CAN RELATE to here on wrong planet.

When I was 13 I became very aware that I thought differently to the people around me. In some ways I felt immensely more mature than people my own age, and thought that that was why I didn't act like them. Coincidently or not it was at the same time that I was first experiencing depression. It was the chicken and egg thing though- I couldn't keep up with the people around me socially, I was overwhelmed by the changes involved in high school, I didn't dress like or talk like everyone else....

From then on my closest friends in school were a couple of my teachers and it made me feel even more like I really was different. I mean, who else does that?