When did your problems start?

Post Reply New Topic

Wow, I had exactly the same experience. Wouldn't leave the uterus so had to be pulled out with forceps and was in the ICU. Then I had a bunch of ear infections. I didn't think those could be related. I do think it could be what caused all my problems, though, like the lesion on my brain that led to seizures.

I was pulled out by forceps too but luckily I don't have seizures.

I didn't have seizures until 6th grade but that was because of the medicine I was on and the anxiety would give me seizures.

I say as a joke I didn't like change before birth so I refused to come out and experience my new world. So I did all this to myself.

When I was 15. My sister was imprisoned for murder. I had to change schools because my grades were poor, and as a consequence I lost all of my friends. I have been somewhat alienated from others ever since.

My problems didn't start with anything I have, it started with something that happened when I was 10. It was traumatic and led to me acting out. Things calmed down when I was 11, and things would have been pretty good then if that hadn't been the point where my oh so not beloved teacher decided she needed to interfere. I was forced to see a child shrink, which of course was a complete waste, I didn't want to, didn't need to and I had nothing to talk about. After wasting a year saying the same things (just less) than I did to my mom, my family finally took me out of that. Then the complete waste of life that was that organization threatened with child care services (which is anything but), and they gave me one year to see if I did well in junior high. I spent the entire year I was 13 afraid every single day and was dead afraid they'd suddenly be on the door, I was afraid when there was someone one the door, I was afraid of going home in case they were there when I got there, and I didn't dare be alone at all. I spent the next 20 years nearly exploding with anger or running to the bathroom whenever there was someone on our door. I will never forgive the adults involved in all that sh** as long as I live.
/end rant.

In elementary school my only real problem I could have needed help with was maths. I was behind the others and could have needed more help. I never got the hang of fractions.

In junior high I got more and more trouble with maths and the sciences. I needed way more help in those subjects than I got and I never got the hang of them and less and less as the years passed. In addition to not understanding it, it was also dead boring.

For me, days became very long in junior high. I had to sleep in the afternoon when I got home because I was exhausted. This was when my limit was exceeded I think. I never felt like that in elementary school. The days were short and homework was done quickly, leaving me a lot of day to spend on fun things.

Homework was harder and took longer in junior high. Because there were more specified writing assignments (and not free or pretty general guidelines), I had problems with writing some of them when they didn't interest me. I did well when I could write freely or the task what something that interested me. This was the first time my ASD made things problematic for me. I'm only interested when I'm interested. Boring subjects makes it extremely hard for me to focus on it and impossible to do very well. So while writing was okay, the assignments weren't always and that made my grade lower than it would have been otherwise.

Things didn't get any better in high school. It was the same, just worse, harder and longer days and less free time.
I burned out every time I tried.

So my ASD related problems started when I was 14-15 years old. That's not to say I didn't have symptoms before that, but it didn't cause me problems until then.
Unless you count how particular an eater I was, especially in my first 7 years, then somewhat improved the older I got.

WTF , that must of been traumatic Do you not remember any problems before this?

My biological mother was said to be "ret*d" so it was assumed I would be too before I was even born.

I was somewhat fortunate as I had interests - namely football and cricket - that were also shared by my peers. Thus it wasn't particularly difficult for me to make friends until the age of about 15.

So if you think playing sports made you fit in your old school ( I can relate to this ). Was it just because you were the new boy that made things difficult?

I guess so. I went from being the class clown at my first secondary school (possibly a response to sensory overload) to a shy and withdrawn individual at the school where I (barely) completed my A Levels. I am still kind of mad that I wasn't diagnosed until two years ago.

Who suggested you have an assessment , was it the medical profession? I'm waiting for an assessment that I personaly had to request because no one in the medical profession ever suggested it in 25 years of pyschiatric care

Rather comically - and perhaps embarrassingly - a psycho-sexual health therapist raised the question when he and I met for the first time. Coincidentally he was also a fully qualified assessor of autism and subsequently tested me for the condition.

I don't remember much from before I started school but I do remember already being aware of being different from everyone else, and disliked, in P1 (aged 5).

So you still wouldn't know if it wasn't for the therapist? It seems to me that getting a Dx in the UK is like a lottery for a adults

According to the book Back to Normal by Enrico Gnaulati, it's easier to get diagnosed with an ASD in the US because of how society is and how we try and put everyone into a square hole. That is with employment and education. In the UK it's more acceptable to be eccentric so if you have signs but you have a job and live well, it's hard to get the diagnoses. So I suppose that means someone can be autistic in the US but be "normal" in the UK.

I guess my symptoms became evident when I was 3 or 4. My kindergarten teachers noticed it first. They warned my parents I was having some "difficult behaviors". I sometimes failed to notice when they called me and even when I did and replied, I didn't turn to look at them. I preferred to play by myself than with other children most of the times and had difficulty taking turns. Also, I had terrible "temper tantrums" when it was time to put the toys away and go to p.e. or music class. I was then taken to a psychologist, and she diagnosed me with Aspergers.