Before your DX or knowledge of autism....

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Don't you just LOVE that!?(sarc) I had the SAME problem!



Same here!

I've always known i was different. I remember being about 7 and looking around at all the other kids running around in the school yard aimlessly and wondering what the f**k i was doing there. Still, I was socially accepted for years and years, never had any close friends but plenty of people liked me as a person. It wasn't until puberty that I really gave up on people. Everyone was in such a rush to grow up, I just wanted to disassociate myself from it all.

My general attitude since then has been that people can take me as they please, their opinions don't mean much to me. I know I'm different but there's no way I'd change just to fit in. I think this must show as a lot of people take me as arrogant until they get to know me.

I had no idea what was going on when I was young. I didn't realise I was that odd. One of my mum's friends said that there was 'something that made me tick'. My mum says that she remembers me as quiet, few if any friends, used to stick with projects- doing my own thing. I remember being mystified by everyone and everything around. Looking at the family album, I'm always frowning at the camera. Had all the usual stuff at school, name-calling, but took ages to realise when I was being teased. Very scared/sensitive to noise (still am). Totally paranoid about everything. Privately obsessive about routine. Un-emotional, lacking in empathy. No interest in social activities/sports. Girls were (still are) a complete mystery. Took everything literally, hence the paranoia. I've had long enough to learn the basics of the NT world, so I get by.

I was described as "ret*d", "Brain damaged", or just "different" by many people when I was growing up.
I was always acting silly or "shutting down", I had (and still have) bad motor coordination, stereotypical
motor habits, emotional and mental "meltdowns", and many sensory issues and other co-morbidities,
(ie: tactile hypersensitivity, migraines and bowel problems). Yet I learned to read before the other
students. I excelled in taking math and science exams, but slow in everything else. I was constantly
bullied by classmates. I survived, I graduated high school, learned a trade, got a job, but I was always
the Outsider looking in. I first learned about Asperger Syndrome, and "Higher Functioning" Autism
through various science journals, through WikiPedia I found out about WrongPlanet.
After forty something years I found a home.
By the way Foreignwoman, acceptance among the "normals" and "Neuro-Typicals" is overrated.
"WrongPlanet" is the "Right Address". Welcome!

Hello,

Thank you people.

Problems with facial recognitiona and remembering others special days my entire life. I just thought I was ret*d

I have the exact opposite problem as most of ya'll, I talk too much. I spent years working as a bartender so I remade myself into a conversationalist, too bad I didn't get that i was annoying the hell out of everyone around me. I am now more quiet and introspective and purposefully think before I speak.

I still obsess over information that is timely. I read 20 different magazines watch every news channel and just basically pull in info about anything and everything especially about current events (you know, something to talk about ).

Never knew that I obsessed about it until I heard someone call me a know it all behind my back when they thought I was out of earshot. I never try to oneup people because I remember mounds of trivia, I just like talking about trivial things.

Learned a long time ago to tell anyone that messes with me or doesn't like me to stay the hell away, I do not need there negative energy. There are plenty of other people and jobs.

I now have an answer for why I have had so damn many jobs. Been self diagnosed for a couple of weeks now and it does not even bother me anymore. I have answers !

Reading this entire thread has been helpful.

gotta run,

thank you all,

crazedchef

i've always known i was weird but not so much in a bad way... more bookish. and i figured, hey; if no one's gonna be my friend... i may as well amuse myself. though, i figured no one liked me because of my awkward appearance when i was young. everyone told me daily how ugly i was... and i now know i had some hygiene issues (liked leaving conditioner in my hair so that by noon, you could cook bacon on my head). even not being miss popularity at school... i still managed to have at least one friend (who generally tended to be social rejects was well.

but i've always been a daydreamer. and have had hobbies... collecting things... studying things.. exploring the woods... by myself.
even into college i was this way. and if i hadn't started doing martial arts, with a group of people and a common social agenda... i don't know how far off alone i would have wandered. those four yrs of undergrad are about as social as ive ever been. but that's not to say i was really happy then... depression has always salted my life. things just always seemed to fight me... and i never felt i was getting anything right.

but i think another thing that at least delayed my suspicions of myself... were drugs. i started experimenting with many things in highschool and continued to do so into early college (i stopped when i started the martial arts... can't really smoke ect while kickin butt every day)... once i came out of my fog, i became really introspective and that's when i started noticing "things"...

and i just kinda started noting all those things until i discovered AS by reading a magazine laying out in my lab and BAM. i knew
and i think that's gotta be how it is for a lot of ppl here... it's hard to say what it is (about yourself) when your problem is not being able to find the words to say it... and it's eerie to just sit down and read it... you just know.

edit: grammar, lol

Last edited by Sedaka on 17 Mar 2007, 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

thank you Sedaka for putting that into words i could totally understand

Hey, we can't all have hot lookin faces.
What's up? Haven't talked to you in awhile.

I knew that was weird. No idea in what way. Never went boy crazy. Liked to study, seemed smart, but one needs social skills in the classroom too - I lacked and was a poor student.

By early high school I figured I was half crazed and getting ready for the rest of it. I figured that by age 20 I would be insane and comitted, or a druggie (never did them, just seemed rational), or suicide.

Wondered what is wrong here? But so many things missed the mark by describing too litle ot too much or upon close examination were not right at all. Thought I was the only one.

Phrases like "I am on the wrog planet." Feeling like Ms. Spock. All alone

Then I found Asperger's, thanks to Dr. House. And I found that AS fit like a glove! Good Dr. House.

My nickname in grade school was actually "Spock's sister".

I was always conscious of the fact I was different from others.

I have no memory of thinking about "myself" before the age of 5en I was adopted,....I was allowed to run free,no need to analyse myself.After being adopted,I found out from my families ridicule about my sensory issues and social problems,memory problems and melt downs....that I was different and unexceptable.My mom began the process of trying to make me "normal".

I seem to have a split personality about this issue.On the one hand....I had a poor self esteem because I was different and found people didnt like it......Another side of me faught to hold on to my "self" and thought everyone else was wrong to expect me to change.I developed several "theories" to explain my difference over the years....


I was an alien,left on the planet to investigate it.

I was a male trapped in a female body by mistake.

I was being influenced by past lives.

Then I took psychology and tried to understand myself through that method(ugh).....

I had attachment disorder because I was adopted

I had gender confusion because I was adopted by a women who wanted a "girly girl" but had originally been raised as a boy in my birth family(I had no proof of this but knew all my older sibs were girls,so thought maybe my dad had wanted a boy)I even minored in Women Studies in college to try and like the female part of me...thought maybe I had bought into gender stereotypes and been brain washed into being more male,as they "ran the world".

I had depression because my birth family had rejected me and my adopted family ignored or disliked me.

I never really gave up on the idea that I was an alien and had so many "male traits" that I wanted a hormone test to see if this was what was causing this issue.



I still find it difficult to separate the different parts of myself as either being more influenced by AS or psychological or chemical causes.I guess it doesnt matter much in the long run.I have found some peace in my life after 20 years of dreaming about "not existing on this planet.....now I am just biding my time and trying to make good things out weigh bad things.

After realising I was different, I began to like myself. So if I get diagonised it'll be more like "Oh, really? That explains a lot." rather than "Ah! Now how do I fix my problem?".

My parents were going to make me see a head doctor (whatever they're called) about it when I first started getting teased (when I was 10), but now I'm 18 and I guess I've learned to live.

I love me.

Everyone should love themselves.

I was constantly told I was weird, and I just accepted that diagnosis ambivalently. Even though they were just referring to my behavior, I knew that behavior came totally naturally -- I wasn't trying to be "weird" in any way. So I figured I simply was weird, whether I liked it or not. I'm STILL weird, to be sure!