Tell me your story of when you were diagnosed with autism.

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When I was a little kid, I didn't know how to tie my shoe, I couldn't ride a bike without training wheels, and I had a hard time making friends. I was afraid to use toilets that had drains that looked different. When I was in second grade, I had a severe crush on my teacher and I had an obsession with fish. I had 6 aquariums at the time. I would always threaten my teacher to try to get her attention and I got sent home from school many times. After I came back from winter break that year, I noticed that she had an engagement ring on her finger and I got really mad. I'd always threaten to beat up her boyfriend because I was jealous. I always rocked back and forth in my chair and I liked to jump up and down and hit the floor. I had to have tennis balls under the legs of the chair I sed to sit in at school. My parents used to always verbally abuse me and call me ret*d, so I would always bully other kids who have special needs to make myself feel normal. A psycologist diagnosed me that year. I am currently not like that anymore. I just graduated high school and I'm going to a job training program for special needs people soon. I spend alot of time listening to hard rock and heavy metal music. My favorite bands are Hollywood Undead, Korn, Falling in Reverse, Nightwish, Powerman 5000, Die Antwoord, Old Linkin Park, Metallica, Deuce, Ghost, Hellyeah, Twiztid, Motionless in White, Iced Earth, and Limp Bizkit. Anyone else here have a similar childhood story?

This isn't my story, though it is a compelling account of late-discovery Asperger's Syndrome, and I was much older when I went through the two-stage process of self-discovery and then diagnosis. The feelings of confusion and bewilderment
it describes resonate greatly with me:

http://web.archive.org/web/201506100856 ... /tale.html

The story for me begins way way back in 1983. During that spring and summer I was enrolled in a daycare program and it was the first time in my life that I was exposed to other kids. Even way back then I was aware of how much different I was from the others kids. Most of my memories of the time involved me by myself. I didn't know how to play with toys like the other kids and I almost never wanted anything to do with the other kids. Among other things, I was known for having massive meltdowns when I got upset about something and according to parents, these could be as often as several times a day. I had to see a therapist and Mom kept a journal of things to try and pinpoint what was setting me off. One such event that I remember was a routine change that resulted in me crawling under a table in the cafeteria where I recall screaming and screaming about what had a happened.

Two years later when I started school within a month of the school year starting I was referred to school counselors where I had to have weekly sessions for the next seven years. I couldn't keep focus in class, I had difficulties interacting with peers, and I spent all my free time drawing pictures of rail switches.

Things came to head for me after first grade when my parents put me into a new daycare with older kids. The providers didn't know how to deal with me and I started to self injure during meltdowns. This resulted in my parents being investigated for child abuse and all this carried over into second grade. I recall one morning early in the year where I found myself starring at another classmate who was the model of decorum. I can remember thinking "why couldn't I be like julie, perfectly behaved". At the end of that year I was given a evaluation by the school district where I was labeled as being emotionally and behaviorally disturbed and recommended for special education. My parents didn't want to do that since special education back in the late 80's was much different than it is now and they saw that it would not have helped me at all.

In the next two years I had two more evaluations and was finally given an ADHD diagnosis and after seventh grade my parents pretty much gave up on trying to understand me or getting me help. Fast forward to 2004, my life was feeling more and more empty with each passing day. I was making progress in my life, but at a much slower pace than other people my age. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. On the first of june that year I happened upon a newspaper article that mentioned aspergers and that it was a part of autism, but say what it was. I had to go and look it up on the internet and when I did, the first thing I read was barb kirbys description of aspergers and as I read, it suddenly hit me that this was describing me.

It took me about a month to accept that I was on the spectrum, and another year to figure to fully come to terms with it. At that point in the summer of 2005 I went back for another evaluation and I finally had my diagnosis.

I was told that I might have Aspergers by a woman who work with special needs kids

She knew me since 7th grade and she told me when I was in SOPHOMORE YEAR. That completely pisses me off why you take that long to tell me this? but I wasn't officially diagnosis until 17 by two women who works for the school and guess what they did? NOTHING they did nothing, they didn't told the principal or none of my teachers. They didn't put me in the classes that I should of been in. I didn't excepted to be babied but I excepted at least something to make things easier for me or to show they cared