When did you find out..?

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When did you found out that you had aspergers/were on the autism spectrum? And how did you take it?
This doesn't necessarily have to be when you got the diagnosis - it can also be when you first realized you had it
(maybe you don't even have an official diagnosis yet?)

I personally got diagnosed at age 6. However I only found out when I was 15.. Coming to terms with my diagnosis, was really hard for me. It was quite a shock to be honest! Especially since I at first didn't knew exactly what autism was - besides from the stereotypical things I'd heard though the media - and never suspected I'd have it myself. It's been years now and thankfully I've gotten much more educated now, and have really started to accept myself as I am.

I'm interested in hearing your stories, so feel free to share

I was diagnosed with mild AS at the age of 7, but I didn't start thinking deeply about it until roughly a decade later. To this day, I'm still not entirely sure which of the qualities I have are thanks to my AS and which are not. I don't mind it for the most part, though. If anything, it's made my life a whole lot more interesting than if I'd been born without it.

Funny story: I was the teachers' nightmare back in elementary, and I "learned" to use my Asperger's as an excuse for my erratic (and sometimes violent) behavior.

Suspected it from the age of 55, knew for sure with dx at 58. In between time I thought I was an acid casualty, perhaps BPD or Hypochondriac. Avoided psychiatry like the plague as was the sensible thing to do for my generation.

Funnily enough, the post dx sense was remarkably like bereavement loss with strange mixed feelings and peculiar emotional wellings. I'm delighted to have been found to be aspergers, wish the f*****g world was.

I remember asking my mother if I could possibly be autistic when I was around 14 years old (I was struggling to learn but nobody seemed to notice). She was negative and adamant about it. Nearly a decade later I'm still wondering .
I won't contact a professional yet , though.

When I was in the 7th grade, I had been taking Prozac for three or four year. Apparently, its function switched causing me to be very, very depressed. I was suicidal, so I was taken to the hospital. I was put in the psychiatric ward for about a week while they slowly took me off of Prozac. I went through lots of tests, and they said I could go home. My mom took me to my appointed psychiatrist (I had to have one in order to leave the hospital), and asked for me to be tested. The psychiatrist said I was diagnosed at the hospital. I took it really well, knowing that I hadn't just been a weird kid all my life.

Greetings. I expected autism a year and a third ago roughly. My psychiatrist pointed it out a year and 3/4s ago and I denied it. Then I let it sit in my mind for a year before almost driving my thoughts through the roof about autism. Then got diagnosed 4 months ago. I'm 16 and was 16 when diagnosed. My parents didn't expect it really. I was the one who wanted to pursue it.

Hello! Thank you for posting this topic; I am also curious about it!

I had little suspicion that I had HFA because my parents insisted that my behaviors were simply me acting up. As a young adult, I saw a few psychiatrists and they generally agreed on my diagnosis. The alphabet soup I received when I was 18 was "OCD, ADHD, GAD." I felt that this was incorrect because I don't exhibit all OCD symptoms and my treatment was based around coping with OCD.

I did know something was up starting when I was 12. I paced in my room, in circles, for hours a day. This behavior is what eventually made me seek help. In college, at 18, I was destroying my knee joints because I paced for 30 miles a day. I had other sneaking suspicions (low emotional intelligence, obsession over certain topics) that something was up, but my parents were very adamant that it was a personality issue, not a diagnosable one.

I sought out another psychiatrist and explained my concern. He recommended a few tests and reevaluated my diagnosis with the other psychiatrists I'd seen. I was given the diagnosis of HFA when I was 20.

As a female, this late diagnosis is common, I believe. Often, women are put into the GAD/OCD file and aren't considered for HFA. I am glad that I sought help and now have a diagnosis that makes sense.

c: Thank you for your time! Have a fantastic rest-of-weekend!

My mother told me about it in 6th grade and I apparently "tried to be Asperger's" then and "used it as an excuse then" according to my mother. To me that is very bizarre because I knew nothing about it then and didn't even know what it meant for me except it meant I had a hard time with school work and my brain just worked different and I saw things differently and learned different. I think my mother might have used it against me then. Now that she has told me about the diagnoses, she now could assume I was doing it on purpose when in fact I just had very bad anxiety. I don't think it was bad in the 6th grade until I started middle school.

I didn't know about ASD until I was 15 when I found my medical report by my psychiatrist I saw back in 6th grade and I didn't want to believe it then. I just wanted to think I grew out of it so that label no longer applied. I didn't even understand what an ASD was. I was told AS and autism were two different things and I wasn't autistic and AS just had some symptoms of autism. That was how it was then in the 90's about AS. But I did ask when I was 14 if I was autistic and I was told I wasn't and I remember asking it again when I was 15 and told I wasn't so I asked why does it pop up then online when I looked up Asperger's and my parents said it was because it was a form of it. So I learned it was two different things and it explained to me why I had some autistic features. It was Asperger's and it didn't appear in the 6th grade when I was given the label.

Back in the seventies, at my school, when I was around seven or eight years old, I performed lots of tests and sat through some interviews, which then saw me being further interviewed at a school for gifted autistic children. However, I think these kids were profoundly autistic and for whatever reason, other than not knowing enough about the spectrum and Aspergers, I didn't attend. I wish I had, purely for the support. It would have put me on a different trajectory. One with awareness about my own autism.

Fast forward almost fourty years, after repressing who I am and trying to fit into the world by striving to become somebody else, over compensating and even a suicide attempt, I all but became a non-person, of which the implications were a life without the frame of reference of somebody knowing about their autism.

Every now and then more enlightened types would hint at Aspergers, and a couple of mental health professionals also hinted, but it was my psychologist who only recently gave me my (unofficial) diagnosis. I SOBBED and SOBBED and SOBBED. What a relief.

I didn't. That's the beauty of the whole thing. I have a condition. A condition where people tell me I'm the best at what I do. I can fix just about anything short of a circuit board. However, I can't keep a job. Sometimes my brain goes soo haywire, I cannot figure out the simplest things. When this happens, I make mistakes, get quite weird, emotional, or just blank. Bosses go from praising me to firing me, usually within 2 or 3 years tops. Sometimes 6 or 9 months. I used to try really hard to stay anywhere for at least 3 months. Now about 1 month is enough, and I gotta go, because I know the outcome. It's not pritty. I'm self employed now. Live alone. A house to myself. This way I can keep an even keel without the use of a therapist/diagnosis, pills, or having a boss try to beat me up and fire me. Fun times. Before things get bad, I have me things to do in order to keep me "normal". Just trying not to get low is a priority. Hard work can be good therapy, but too much is no good.

First 20 years of my life people always asked me what is wrong with me. Even teachers. Like I'm supposed to know or something. Nobody cared enough to get me figured out, soo it must not be very important. I'm good at figuring things out. That is what I do, and that is good enough for me.

A diagnoses for me is an expensive luxury. I have better things to do. I would blow my money on a supercharger, fix a crown, or something useful before I ever get diagnosed for what my brain does. I already know what it does. It is my brain. If it was free, I would be more than happy to have someone tell me what my brain does. But it's not, soo I will take my brain to the grave with me. Hopefully it will not have a big gaping hole in it.

I found out at the age of 14 during summer break when I found the documents for my first assessment. I was convinced that I was Mentally Challenged until my mum told me otherwise.

I was diagnosed when I was 2. No one kept anything from me. But I really didn't start talking notice and asking questions until after I turned 12. I joined this forum shortly after I turned 13.

I was diagnosed recently.

I remember in my teenage years thinking that I sounded like I fit the description of an autistic person, but my understanding of autism was built on stereotypes. I believed that I had many of the traits of autism but wasn't 'like them'.

I didn't think about it again.

I rediscovered autism when I was searching for ways to help my toddler with her sensory issues and meltdowns. I realised that the descriptions of autism that I came across whilst searching for that help, still did perfectly match me. This time, I was able to get a better understanding of the spectrum and that not all people with autism actually look autistic at first glance.

I worried a lot. I thought my husband would take the 'news' badly, so coming out to him was difficult, but he took it very well - I was worrying unnecessarily. I had to change my mindset to see myself as autistic, but it was mostly a sense of relief that came from understanding it.

Then, I hit a wall when I realised that my mindset had changed and becoming more naturally me would make me happier after a lifetime of fighting to be NT, but the rest of the world hadn't changed and I had no excuse to suddenly relax and be myself a bit more. So, I sought the diagnosis for piece of mind and acceptance.

Receiving the diagnosis allowed me to relax more, which is wonderful - I can now accept my autism and don't care if others notice those parts of me, because I have a reason for them and it's not just 'weird behaviour'. People don't need to know any different, but it's about my own way of thinking - "they just don't realise I'm autistic" is enough to help my self-confidence.

Of course, there are negatives too. Namely that accepting the diagnosis meant accepting that I would always be like this. I spent my entire life telling myself that "I'll get better with age, or if I keep trying and get more experience doing whatever", but now I know that's not true. I reached my limit years ago and there's a reason I've not been improving - it's because I can't. If anything, I was burning out and getting worse before my diagnosis. Knowing that I'm autistic has given me the opportunity to relax, but also the knowledge that I'm never going to be like other people and it's not just a case of giving it time.

I was diagnosed when I was 55 years old. Had suspicion for the prior decade or so but did not take it seriously. Knew I was "different" as long as I can remember. The diagnosis was a great relief and improved my self esteem.