How did you know you have Asperger/Autism?

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What caracteristics make you an Asperger/Autism? How did you know you have Asperger/Autism?

I did not know before I joined this site. I was trying to find out an issues I have had since I was a child. I have since found out they are called shutdowns. Just before this I asked my doctor if I had aspergers syndrome following a vague "Hunch" where I saw a possible connection with my experiences of shutdowns with meltdowns, but I could not work it out (I hardly knew a thing). Doctor put me on the assessment list. I joined this site to try to find out what was happening to me. It came as a big surprize to find that aspects that I assumed to be my unusually unique character were autistic traits! I never knew!
I have not been assessed yet so I can't say for sure that I am on the spectrum, but some on this site are so sure that I was told that if I am found not to be on the spectrum, for me to go for a second oppinion.
I do seem to have struggled through life. Other people seem to float on top of life where I have found that I have had to plough through. (I always thought that somehow I needed to put in lots more effort to do things that others seemed to do without thinking about it).

But anyway. How did I first know I might possibly be on the spectrum? Probably because I kept having people tell me they thought I was on the spectrum, or ask me if I was autistic. This has happened many times over my life. I did not know what autism was because my concept of it was that it was a very severe dissability as on TV one tends to be shown the most severe cases. So I did not think it was possible foe me to be on the spectrum because I am not severly dissabled to that extent. My body works. My mind works. I did not know much about it. The wierd thing is that somehow, and I don't know how, I somehow always semed to be able to identify with those who were severly dissabled through autism, but I did not know why. I saw others (I now know to be NT's) make fun of them, but I could not do that. Somehow their making fun of them was hitting a nerve with me as well and I was not happy about it. I have a great sense of humour and I can easily laugh at myself when I do funny or silly things, but I could not devalue their dignity.

But to sum up, I still waiting to be assessed, but I know I have traits.

My mum told me.

At first I thought she said 'Alzheimer's'.

I got really upset cos I thought I was way too young to get that and a guy on TV had just died of it.

I'd never heard of Asperger's.

... An official diagnosis.

Nevermind trying to enumerate all my traits.
Most of my traits are in a form of ranges, yet all equally autistic.

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I had never heard of Asperger's or autism before my diagnosis, so I had no clue until my mom told me that I had it. What tipped my parents off was watching an episode of Dateline or some similar show that featured Asperger's syndrome and seeing a lot of similarities with me, I'm guessing probably just the well-known stuff like obsessive interests and communication issues. But there isn't really one thing for anyone that you can point at and say "See, this means you have autism." It's a combination of factors, and is as individual for each person as each person is from each other. It really isn't a clear-cut thing in many cases. I would say probably a key thing is a sense of "other"ness, because regardless of specifics, an autistic brain is fundamentally different from a non-autistic brain, but then again, I have this feeling even among others on the autism spectrum, and there are also other things that make one feel fundamentally different from the average person.

The characteristics can be quite varied. No one tries to list them all. Let us know what traits you are thinking about and we can discuss them.

In high school and college I was interested in psychology. I seem to remember learning about autism by the time I was in high school. But this was the 1970s and autism still meant Kanner autism so I certainly didn't relate to it, although I think I might have had an inkling of having some connection to it. In college I was reading a psychology book in the library and read about Asperger's. Have never doubted I am ASD since. I remember traits like eye contact problems, spinning object fascination, and there were certainly others that fit me like a glove. I didn't even think about talking to a doctor about and still haven't. From what I read now, it seems I was lucky to find anything written about AS back then. And I have no idea what would have happened if I talked to a doctor about it back then. Probably nothing but a waste of my time and money.

From psychologists and psychiatrists.

I was diagnosed with AS when I was 13.

At first, I had no idea what my specialist was talking about because I had other matters
I was dealing with at the time of my diagnosis.

Three years later, I found this great online community called Wrong Planet and the rest is history.

After 15 years of trying to recover from life in a dysfunctional family, I finally read a description of Asperger's and it all made sense.

I didn't, and I would have been happier if I never knew. But the school just had to force my parents to force me to go through with all the diagnostic process to get a diagnosis, even though it was so much stress for a little 8-year-old to handle.

The only thing that made me feel a bit socially out of place was when I was about 6 I sometimes would chat to the other kids but they wouldn't respond because they weren't listening. But fortunately it didn't happen all the time - until I got older.

But I remember one time when I was about 7 the teacher let the class have a chat for 5 minutes before the bell, and we were all sitting on the floor in a circle at the time. But the kids either side of me turned their backs to me and chatted with the kids the other side, so I just sat there waiting for the 5 minutes to be over - which seemed like forever. I suppose I might have been able to talk to others if I were sitting with my best friends, and I really wanted to. I was not a reserved child, I was just made to be reserved.

-lack theory of mind
-intense interests
-hyper focus
-robotic speaking patterns
-sensory issues
-social anxiety
-anxiety in general
-over analytical thinking
-stimming / repetitive actions
-lack eye contact

I was formally diagnosed with autism in my late twenties, but speculated I was autistic when I was 12.

A few years ago I was being bullied at a job. I thought the problem was with me--bullies are good at doing that. I thought I was an introvert and then came across a description of autism and the pieces fell into place. I was diagnosed this year.

I didn't understand a Japanese song and looked up the singer. I found an English site with all of his interviews translated. And after being enlightened what his new video was about I saw another interview on that list and its title made me curious. It was an older one and he talked about his family and childhood. Everything was so similar to mine and when he mentioned he was diagnosed with HFA later and everything started to make sense I stopped with "wait, is he talking about the similar traits?".

I googled up Asperger's immediately as someone mentioned it's a lighter form of autism and I visited so many therapists, nobody said I might be autistic. Google was generous to offer the female profile. Those lists were less about symptoms and more about different life paths that women who weren't diagnosed early might go through. It was a total match with mine, so I started to research the topic.

I will always be very grateful to this singer

^^ Anyone with a brief biography of me and a checklist of mental conditions should have had no trouble spotting me as an aspie, but none did. People seem to get very stuck, trying to fit more people into a few categories they have understood. Diagnosticians also get into huge difficulty over combinations of conditions - if you are not "classic" like the first distinct case described, therapy will be poorly aimed.