Did you hypothesize about your social problems before AS?

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My self discovery happened in Catholic School. The kids were given me a much harder time than I was given in elementary school and my friends were getting mad at me and started telling me that I deserved it because of the way I treated them. But I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. I thought I was behaving and displaying a similar attitude as my peers but everyone's says I was antisocial and rude to people who were trying to befriend me. How was I to know they were befriending me when I thought they were trying to intentionally harass me (which some did)?

Well loosing all my friends in the 8th grade made me very depressed and I was too distraught to understand what I was doing wrong. I was so desperate I turned to a REALLY out of date book I had as to How to Make Friends. It didn't help me and the kids continued to harass me and making a point to tell me I deserved it for being mean. So having no real answers I was eventually pushed into believing that it really was my fault and I was just an awful person. When I had to move during that summer to a school district that would actually accept me, my self esteem was completely destroyed to such a degree that I was grateful for anyone that was willing to befriend me and I joined numerous clubs but it still didn't help.

The lack of real friends I was having and all the stress I was getting because of it lead to a major breakdown during my final semester of high school where it finally occurred to my counselor of four years that I may have Asperger's and convinced my parents to get me tested.

Now back in 8th grade when I was having that depressing I was getting help from a teen suicide hotline that referred me to this professional counselor in Indy. Well I really wanted to see him in person but that would require telling my dad what was going on. I told him and he talked to him for five minutes only for my dad to turn him down and then tell me I was never to speak to him again. I will never forgive my dad for this because I think that was a missed opportunity for someone to realize I was autistic years sooner. In fact, I'm still completely baffled as to how past teachers failed to pick up on all the signs of autism that I was obviously showing. If I had been diagnosed before high school I wouldn't have foolishly set up ridiculous and unpassable goals for myself that wound up being a massive waste of money and time and go through the four years in a more relaxed pace.

Interesting -- for at least two posters, it seemed the "turning point" was sixth grade or somewhere thereabouts, which is somewhat true for me. I wonder if those cases (Including my case) might be better explained by sub-average communication abilities and skills than aspergers, as verbal communication ability becomes increasingly important past grade school? That is, one may have socially excelled during grade school because nonverbal communication is sufficient, but the increased emphasis on verbal communication effectively means it's still required, but insufficient, past middle school?

That being said, I don't really know if it could be said that I "socially excelled" during grade school -- I just seemed to avoid bullying and teasing, for the most part, that it seems many aspies endure during grade school. Even though, there was that one popular girl in 8th grade who said I was really cool at 6th grade summer camp, so maybe I excelled?

At first look, I imagine that an emphasis in nonverbal communication in grade school and in verbal communication in middle school will made middle school the aspie-friendly environment, not the opposite.

M;y theory about the reason aspies have usually a better time in elementary school than in middle school: in elementary school, children usually spend their recess time doing things (playing games, climbing trees, fighting "wars" between classrooms, etc.), while in middle school the recess activity is essentially "social". These havbe two effects:

- for aspies, I think that is an established fact that socialization around an activity is much more easy that socialization around small talk or banter

- even for bullies, probably bullying is only a second best: probably most of them will prefer playing a good soccer match than teasing the "weirdo" of the class; in elementary school potential bullies are probably more entertained with their activities; it is when the tedium of middle school came that they begin their bullying career.

I don't know how works the recess in your countries, but in mine the recess is of 30 minutes in elementary school and of blocks of 5-10 minutes in middle and high school; perhaps this is the cause of everything?

I thought that either the entire thing was an entire setup by malevolent scientists or that I was an alien or (especially later) that it all was a result of my f***ed up vision.

As far as I know, I had no trouble learning to talk. Also, I don't quite get where you're going with this since late-talking is associated with autism. So, it seems odd to conclude it must be something other than Asperger's from the evidence of a speech delay.

Also, to clarify what I tried to say with my previous post (I was in a rush to get to work at the time), it's not only speech that seems manual and unnatural to me; almost anything I do feels like I'm on manual control. Even something so simple as eating a cookie is, for me, an exercise in analysis. I must pay attention to the minutiae of my surroundings or I miss out on parts of the big picture. I would love to know if others think the same way.

As for the increased trouble starting in middle school, it sounds like you're attempting to split apart each individual aspect of Asperger's and refute your own possible self-diagnosis based on that. The question isn't whether or not you can debunk the idea by coming up with a counter-example for each facet of AS, but rather whether you can find another explanation for your set of difficulties that adequately answers your concerns.

For me, I could never find anything that explained my mental states without having to resort to too many "but sometimes" exceptions. AS plus ADHD is a simple (relative to my explanations beforehand) answer for me that not only explains me, but also gives me a proverbial candle-in-the-dark to find a way to live.

On a lighter note, this thread derailed big-time, but I think we came back to the original topic now.

My mom spent most my childhood trying to fix me but that damaged my self esteme to the point I thought something was horribly wrong with me and no body out there could possibly be like me...then after watching temple grandin when I was in my 20's I was like holy [email protected] thinks just like me. I have autism. So I tell my mom and she tells me that she knew but she did not want me to label myself. I was diagnosed with pdd-with autistic charateristics when I was 8 years old but no one told her that pdd was on the autism spectrum. I found that out for myself. I read "Nobody nowhere" which was like looking into my own mind so much it was uncanny. Then suddenly upon a search for information about autistic adults, I found ya'll and I feel like for once in my life I belong somewhere.