baby?

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I had health problems from day one as a baby, being born 5 - 6 weeks premature.
Being born coloured black (even though i am white) due to suffering the extreme birth asphyxia (oxygen starvation), with a placenta that the delivering doctor said wasn't healthy or thick enough to keep a cat alive.

Was not expected to live more than a few days or weeks at max.

Yet...
After several weeks in an incubator, and then several months in hospital. I lived, and am still alive now at the age of 47.
Had severe asthma / croup and eczema as a child again from day one, having to be covered with cold medical bandages practically head to toe.

Now, I almost do not have any eczema, sadly still have asthma. But not the end of the world.

As a baby, apparently i was very clingy to my mum. She was and is a great mum. I guess she gave me security from the scary introduction i had to the world.

Had an older brother, who i guess i played with some times but apparently also from day one, could sit on my own with little interest in playing with others for entire days practically. especially in drawing / painting / lego.

Apparently learnt to paint before i could walk. Just sit me down with a big piece of paper and some pens or paints, and i would be happier than Larry ("happier than Larry" old English saying meaning very happy and content. Unsure of its origins, picked it up from Micheal Cain films).

Apparently when i was 3 years old, got my older brother in trouble, as when visiting my gran ma's house,
i drew smiley faces on all of the flowers (daisies) on the wall paper in her corridor / bedroom.

No one suspected me as i was 3 years old and not thought capable, where my brother was 6 years old.
My older brother (who was NT and naughty) got the blame. Probably the only time that i got him the blame for something i did (although if anyone had asked me if i had done it, i would have been honest and said yes).

My brother spent his entire life getting revenge, setting me up for all sorts of crap that he did which i did not.
And as i had AS and had the usual problems associated with AS such as meltdowns etc, i got considered the problem child and usually took the blame for the crappy things my brother did.

But never mind.

From what I have pieced together from my parents, I didn't make eye contact, didn't want to be held, played far away from other children (no parallel play at age 2), didn't learn from my mistakes, clumsiness, late potty training, I apparently had a strange intonation when I cried, no awareness or fear of danger.

I was adopted but my mom says I had all the signs of a stereotypical autistic baby and didn't cry but SCREAMED. My mom swears she has hearing damage from me as a baby. I also probably had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome...my biological mother hung out in a bar all the time but the social worker took her word for it when she told them she did not drink.

As a baby and as a child?

I only appear social.

It's not the people I sought over.
It was touch. I just like to cuddle, being moved around and moving.

Even my habit of looking at people's faces is mistaken for eye contact.
I had no real comprehension over words. So 'eye contact' isn't distracting.
Because I'm not trying to think and express with words, I only look at people's face as acknowledgement, hear whatever associated patterns and connect the dots from anything nonverbal.

My sense of fear is also screwed. It still does. I grew not liking people worrying too much over me because of that.

My emotionality was only apparent when I no longer can keep up or tolerate and become volatile because of it -- namely starting at my kinder years (give or take, age 5).

I only cried too much at school and continued that way. As I grew I just tried to fight whatever it was bothering with violence.

And in time, my lack of social drive became apparent. My lack of concern of not being included, being alone, etc...
It was only covered up by being included and invited because of what I can do.

Eventually I became sick of dealing with people overtime long after diagnosis.
That's when I started turning inclusions down because I don't feel like it.

So...
I've been always been asocial, appearing and acting to be social because I can. The truth was that if socializing entertains me, it just entertains me as much as any activity that I happened to enjoy -- no real regard of overvaluing of being social and what came out from it.

But being less willingly social happened overtime, more or less to do with inability over demand.

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@kmarie57: absolutely yes. That's why I was never suspicious of autism and my mom still cannot accept my diagnosis.
I'm a cuddler