Were you always 'different' ?

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Pretty much yes. But I didn't really care either. It just would have been nice to go to school and actually be able to learn things and not have to worry about being bullied by another child or belittled by the teacher. But the whole "friend making" thing wasn't really something I was interested in. When I was younger and starting preschool, I told my mother I didn't want friends and I meant it, but she didn't believe me. I didn't really make friends unless it was facilitate by a teacher because after we changed grades and got new teachers, the teacher who was facilitating the friendship was no longer our teacher. To this day, I am amazed at how people can be friends for more than a year or two. The only people I consider actual friends are people I've met over the internet...who share my special interests and were considered weird as kids too.

Sort of yes. As early as I can remember I was singled out, but because being singled out was my only experience I thought that was normal. Even after I got my diagnosis as a kid the label just named the universal default of my existence. I didn't become aware that my experiences weren't a norm until my final years of highschool ~18yrs old, which was around when I started functionally blending in.

Now that I'm actually asking questions about my past I find out some hilarious things. Like one of my friends from grade school hated my guts for almost a whole school year, because I was weirder than her and she was afraid I would steal her weird girl limelight. So I have definitely been distinctly different my whole life.

I was often solitary, too. I preferred teachers or just one other friend to playing in groups or having many friends, and would sometimes just like to spend days reading or playing games on my own in our backyard. Other children didn't make much sense to me.

I think I was probably different even before I was born, but I looked like a normal, social little girl until I started kindergarten at age four. Even at my most sociable, it was obvious I was very different. I always remember having some intensely focused interests. My first (and most abiding to this day) is animals, particularly cats. My favorite book was a German story about a Siamese cat. Today, that is still one of my favorite breeds of cat.

I was probably aware of being different around fourth grade. I was a good student and could read well above grade level, but I couldn't do some things normal kids could do and got laughed at for it. I felt stupid and embarrassed because I didn't learn to tie my shoes until fourth grade.

I have to realize I probably will never have everything normal people my age have. I am only now starting to get back to the degree of functioning I had before I did something that almost took anything I had away forever.

I remember the first day in school, I was there looking at other children talking and laughing and my mind was like "wut?".

Anyway that feeling just grew stronger and stronger with time, and at my 12s I was a complete alien and got severely bullied for 2 years and after that I started focusing a lot of energy on building a "mask", which only helped me getting rid of bullying (I learned to pretend I'm that guy in the very corner of the room that just doesn't care about anything, instead of being the weak nerdy guy I was before), but it did nothing in terms of having more friends and partners.

Yup, ditto. One friend in Elementary School, but not until grade 6, who moved away. I knew i was different as early as kindergarten, but I don't recall it particularly bothering me until 1st grade, when I began to realize other kids were making friends and I wasn't.

At that point, I became a Class Clown, acting out in bizarre, silly ways for attention. By the end of that year, I had figured out that making the other kids laugh wasn't necessarily making them like me, so it was from grade 2 on, that the loneliness began to set in. Still, I had only minimal interest in socializing and had plenty of obsessive personal interests to keep me busy, so I managed without friends pretty well.

Last edited by will@rd on 23 Jun 2017, 5:49 pm, edited 3 times in total.

From my earliest experiences in pre-school and Sunday school, I was always withdrawn from the group, sitting in the corner, refusing to participate, overwhelmed by it all, and not wanting to be there.

Not wanting to play with the other kids, but just staring fixated at whoever was on the swing set, watching it go back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, until recess was over.

But in those days that wasn't autism, that was just 'shy'. I was obedient and didn't cause trouble, that's all anyone cared about.

I was socially developmentally delayed by age 2 to 3. I was always drawn to simple sensory play, and did not notice that everyone else was progressing to more advanced forms of play and socialization.

But, my relatives and peers have always been kind and inclusive, so I did not notice that this made me abnormal until I was diagnosed with autism at age 30. As SaveFerris said, "Either I had poor insight or was just blissfully unaware that I'm different," or, very likely, both.

I always felt like the extent to which I was different was my terrible, shameful secret. Accidentally revealing it would be like dying for the loneliness it would bring. This was because by the time I was in school I had learned not to stim in the same ways I did at home. I was certain that if people outside my family ever found out about the way I made noises, repeated nonsense words and phrases and songs, played dress-up constantly so that I could have silk and satin against my skin and walked funny all the time I would be truly the worst person in their eyes. I guarded my secret as if it were my very life.

I didn't do that as a child. However as an adult I sometimes get the urge to speak gibberish out loud to myself.

I had a "shameful" secret like this; mine was disposable nappies. I've never really known why, but I was fascinated by the sides of them; the shape they made while being worn by infants. The way they looked square but yet formed a round hole for the leg to go through. That plus the stickers to tape them were my obsessions. I used to wish my mum would have a baby so I could watch them in their nappy all day long. I even went so far as to steal one such disposable nappy from a family friend once so I could put it on my doll. Only then did the obsession cool off.

Whoa, I've never admitted that to anybody, ever, until now.

I was once playing with this baby in the playground ... we were crawling through this play drainpipe, and I'm so glad no-one saw me pull his pants down so I could look at his disposable nappy. Thinking back now, that could have got me in some trouble, even though I was only in primary school at the time.

The important thing, I think, is I knew at the time these were not interests shared by other children, and so I kept them to myself. But not having anyone to talk to about them and feeling they were shameful secrets that made me feel like a bit of a deviant contributed to my feelings of social alienation over the years.

In my earliest memories, I didn't see myself as different. But perhaps my parents did.

By age 5 I realized that something was 'off' about me compared to my classmates. I guess it's because of Kindergarten. I was always the unpopular kid throughout elementary, middle, and high school. For the most part, I only had 1 friend, and he too was 'different'. We met around this time. Both of us were quite often bullied in elementary school. He and I parted ways after 5th grade because we attended different middle schools (we are still in touch to this day though). I was transferred to one which supposedly had sufficient special Ed support. But it wasn't great at all. I got bullied badly there, not as bad as elementary school but still quite bad. High school was a little better, but I didn't fit in. Classmates would often shun me and call me an 'effing creep'. I needed to have my teachers intervene, telling my classmates I had Asperger's and explaining what it is. My freshman year of college had the same experience (minus the 'effing creep' comments). I felt terrible. Sophomore year was better. That was when I was part of an Autistic campus club. I learned lots of social skills when I was a member. Life was easier. I left the club because it eventually became too demanding. Junior year was great. With the TED Talk I discovered, I was able to effectively raise awareness of Asperger's. I felt welcome. Hopefully, my senior year would continue to be as welcoming.

Yes. I have memories from a young age of not feeling "right". I wondered why I was distant and felt like I had to force out emotions that others expected of me. I had trouble expressing sadness when loved ones died and trouble fitting in with the other kids in school. Even as a teenage my grandmother painted a painting of me called "Standing Out in the Crowd"

yes, since a very early age i realised that i was very different. everyone else noticed too, obvious things like meltdowns and inability to socialise were the most obvious.

I still do, too. My family are very tolerant, but even my ten y/o son, who is also on the spectrum, can't resist telling me I'm strange sometimes.

I'm on the different side even among many aspie schoolmates.