Self Diagnosed People: How Did You Learn About Autism?

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How do you guys answer this thread using such short answers and yet you all get the information in. I often try to shorten my replies and they still end up being long!

I would say between 2 and 3, closer to 3.

Many Level 2s, these days, are able to function outside of institutional settings.

I originally learned about Autism by the movie Rainman and then learned a little more when either Time or Newsweek, I can't remember which, had an article about Sylvester Stallone's second son when he was diagnosed. I was first told that I was Autistic by a friend.

Raymond has an unfortunate occurrence in a shower, which was why he was institutionalized. He didn’t know he had to shut off the faucet.

I knew somebody who had flooded his apartment when he was 2 years old.

Yes, he was running a bath for Charlie and the water was too hot and Charlie got a little burn. That is why Raymond was sent away. The parents were afraid that he would continue to do things like that and hurt Charlie.

I never knew much about autism until about three years ago. When I was young, only the severe kind was known about, there was no concept of a spectrum. So even though I had a few developmental delays and loads of social and behavioral problems, I could talk and do my schoolwork and that was all anyone cared about. Naturalplastic's quote about being thought "some kind of neurotic who needed to shape up some how" perfectly describes the mindset back then.

For most of my life, all I knew about it was from the movie "Rainman" and some book I had read about kids in an institution. Later on I heard the term Aspergers but didn't know what that meant other than something to do with computer programmers in Silicon Valley. I didn't really start considering it until finding the AQ test online, and also signing up to be in an online research study of face blindness. The movie "The Accountant" came out at that time, so I went to see it with my wife, who kept saying "he acts just like you!" - then after the movie she kept saying she didn't understand why he did all of the odd things he did and I just knew why. So all of that stuff together kicked off a period of intense internet searching and book reading about AS, and what I read gave me a profound shock because here for the first time was something that fit all the problems and quirks I'd spent my entire life wondering about.

DD when very tiny she would be reflex-startled when picked up, so it crossed my mind she could be autistic,
i only knew; to say beforehand what was going to happen and to do as you say (but that goes for all parenting)
then it was more or less forgotten, she was definately more adhd and terribly strongwilled
we called her our 'hermit crab' as she would crawl backward under the carpet with the upperbody still out
maybe that's not autistic at all, idk (haven't seen these criteria anywhere)

when you get critized at pediatric controls for the kids to be ahead the curve,
what? must you sit on them till they have the accepted age?
(but but both parents were grade avanced into elementary)
but your kids must stick to the norm, how even fathom that ?

I heard Alex Plank being interviewed on the radio. I was in mid-life and had always been pretty much a social outlier, which was very frustrating but it didn't seem there was anything I could do about it. I wondered what was wrong with me. Then there was some incident where some nut had shot a couple of people at an exercise spa, and it was said he was autistic, and for a moment (this is some years ago) the sensationalistic news was blaring about a new bogeyman, the Aspie psycho-killer. And Alex, early in his advocacy, got interviewed and explained about autism and Aspergers and how these people were disinclined to be psycho-killers. I heard all the symptoms and realized, gosh, that sounds a lot like me, and also I'm not a psycho-killer. And it was an incredible relief to have a sense, for the first time in my life, that my odd path perhaps wasn't caused by personal failures of will or character (I'd been accused of this in my youth, and it got pretty ugly), but I just happened to be stamped into an unusual framework and the best thing I could do is work within that framework, which was not without its benefits as well as its detriments. So here I am.

Someone who had diagnosed themself with both a psychological and an immune disorder suspected AS. She was proved right on all three counts.