An unbelievable self autistic revelation and epiphany.

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i always knew i was different even from my earliest memories at about 2 yrs old. i always knew something seperated me in reality from everyone around me.

no one knew then why i was the way i was...the extremely hyperactive and obnoxious kid...the weird kid on the block...the kid that was unmercifully teased in grade school....the kid voted the most likely to be nothing, lol

the kid who blurted out a lot of nonsense...the kid who was the worst at sports and very uncoordinated..the very angry kid who couldnt understand why he was so damn different and yet so wanted to be a part of it but just couldnt figure out how to...sigh, they didnt have a name for aspergers back then.


fortunately pubery helped and i eased into a fairly good natured yet very odd and eccentric young adult...by the time i was 30 yrs old, ADHD as a diagnosis came out...i chalked up my entire youth as just being ADHD and i moved on feeling secure in that understanding and never looked back....lol, boy was i to be suprised


fast forward to my 42nd yr and when my son was born, lol....the kid sure was different....he was fussy as hell and had a horrible temper, just like me......by the time he was 18 months he reminded me so much of me when i was that young.....eerily so

by the time he was 20 months i knew the toe walking, rocking, lack of pointing was a problem....i knew i had to do something to find out

well, that fateful sunday day i punched in google,"childhood autism".... i read a few articles and finally came across a good one with all the symptoms..........by the 5th symptom i was balling like my son(lol)...i could not believe what i was seeing....i never knew what autism really was, i just thought it was a kid sitting there totally quiet and lost

i was just so stunned i just diagnosed my son an autistic...i remeber crossing both arms on my desk and sobbing uncontrolably.....i then picked up my head with a very wide stare and getting very serious again, tears still streaming down my face

without even thinking i punched in "adult autism" on the screen......the 1st thing to catch my eye was an article,"the story of a 30 yr old asperger"....i read his story and i thought i was reading my own life story.............by the time i was done with it i just figured out me entire frikin 43 yrs of existence in a half an hour

the revelation and epiphany of that moment crushed me so hard emotionally.........i just started sobbing uncontrolably as someone would with a nervous breakdown....i was so choked up ..it was one of the most frightening, yet so introspective days of my life

on one hand i was so relieved that i finally could put a label on why i was so friked up when i was a kid

on the other hand i fealt so stupid that i couldnt figure out i was an autistic and had to have a son knock me on my azz to figure it out, lol

2 adult nuerolgists specializing in adult autism diagnosed me months later after some tests and revelations about my past

does anyone else had their arse kicked like me in discovering who they really are?

thanks for listening

The only arse kicking I got was when I related so much to dyslexia, then later I found out about AS then ADHD. It got less surprising each time but put me at ease.
I now look back at myself when I was so sure I had dyslexia and how hard on myself I had been. Pfft, my problems were far worse than dyslexia.

I relate to all that you have experienced. I've just recently been diagnosed so I'm in the middle of getting used to the whole thing. You are right abt finally understanding your self and your life. It's good to have your child diagnosed at such a young age. I like being aspie, I don't envy NT's. I just wish I understood them better and that I felt understood as well. It is especially difficult with my NT husband.

Best of luck with all that is ahead for you and your child.

I remember when I was first diagnosed with AS when I was 15. After I got over the initial shock, as it was the icing on the cake after a horrible year, I did research and I found that it all made sense, and I finally found out what made me so different. Now, I've accepted it and it's just a part of me. no more no less.

How's your son doing?

I've been recently diagnosed with AS at the age of 51. Several years ago, when I learned about AS, it explained so much about my life that I thought I might have it, but did nothing about it until last December. When I received the results of the evaluation, it wasn't a shock. It was more like "well, I thought so." So I didn't cry or anything, because by this point, I have experienced enough real trauma that finding out I'm autistic is just confirmation of what I've lived through and why. It is neither a weight added to nor taken off my shoulders. It is, admittedly, pretty strange to say "I am autistic" to myself. I still don't know what to make of it.

How I am is the only way I know how to be, so it's not like all-of-a-sudden I have to conform to some image or change anything about myself. It doesn't present any great difficulty to me now. I've managed to get a life where I used to have none, I am married, I have a career, I'm doing better than anyone else in my family. There's just all this stuff about people that I've never understood, and now I know why. I read a great quote in someone's signature on this board: "I don't suffer from Asperger's Syndrome. I suffer from other people." That's exactly it. If not for people who have thought I was broken and needed to punish me for it, or try to fix me so I was more like them, I would not have had anywhere near the trouble I've had.

So I have some understanding of how you feel about your discovery. I have no children, though, that's a part of life about which I know nothing, but I do wish the best for you and your son. You have the information you will need to be able to help him through his life, and that's a good thing. It will undoubtedly be a mighty challenge to come to grips with it. Please try not to let it defeat you.

Aye, the same reaction. Tears of relief. I spent so much of my life trying to figure out why I was different despite really wanting to fit in. I even studied Psychology in college, searching desperately for an answer. It hit pretty hard and then I had so much mental re-sorting to do in order to figure out how to really move forward with my life. Reading your story makes me tear-up a little even now.

Although my long, 40 year quest for self-understanding was finally over, my strong desire to help others still remained. I found that I could really relate to people here and that I had stumbled across a place where I could give useful advice that helped people deal with problems they faced -- primarily because I had figured out how to deal with these things before knowing what I was. So I stuck around here, trying to throw in life experience where I could to help. Since I have only a small number of very close friends and my family is emotionally distant, I tend to think of the people on this board as my extended family. I am constantly amazed by how similar all we are and how often my own experiences mirror those here. Although perhaps this similarity is a bit inflated in my mind by the fact we are so different from the NT norm.

My childhood was very much different form most people with Asperger's syndrome.
I never felt different and I was never bullied, but I had a disinterest or indifference towards other people.
It is really interesting how so many people on this forum have been bullied but were still interested in having friends and fitting in, and I never really cared.
That may have been the thing that cause me not to be bullied.

I didnt so much cry when i found out as i was more likely shocked that i solved a "personality quirk" that we thought "showed up in the family" from time to time. My mother has had mentioned my autistic tendencies for 28 years, and it was in Nov 2008 that i decided to look up "autism" in general and found out about Asperger's Syndrome. Well, lo and behold, the reason behind the quirk was answered (AS dx by one, PDD-NOS by another) . . . my mother shed tears of understanding (like some veil had been lifted i guess) and i had a sigh of relief that there was finally an answer. Not to mention finding the answer led to the start of getting some of the help i needed (course given the state of the economy, it didnt make things much easier, but easier to cope with i guess).

For me, it was finally finding out what was wrong with me meant I wasn't mad...I'd been told by my mum (thanks mum!) all my life I wasn't 'right in the head' which frankly haunted me until I got the diagnosis...

I didn't cry, I felt such relief, reading about Aspergers was like reading about me!!

Sometimes I do struggle with it a bit, on the down days the realisation that knowing what it is doesn't change anything as far as my abilities to interract with others, and I think the one negative now is that I will instantly defer to the opinions of others because I pre-assume I must be wrong or I don't know any better than they do.....which isn't true, I have to remind myself that whether I'm AS or not there are still going to be a**holes in this world!

I understand myself now, but, I still have no friends, absolutely no social contact, no job, and that makes me feel a bit useless as I know I can work, I WANT to work but I don't know what I can do, combined with a terrible work history and no further qualifications, I'm kinda stuck atm (and they just kicked me off benefits so now I have to appeal, which is likely sending me back into the original state of depression I was in at the start of all of this journey which lead to diagnosis.)

This board has also helped me out, you're all lovely people, I'd love to meet any of you! A load of strangers who I seem to have so much in common with (never thought that would happen!!)