Pre-Diagnosis types: Do people you grew up with ..?

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This is to all the people who were not diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome until LATE (like, adulthood). Do you ever tell people you grew up with/went to school with all those years ago what was wrong with you? And if so, what is their opinion? Did they suddenly go "Ohhhhh so that's what was wrong?" and become more more understanding? Or not?

The only people I still have contact with who knew me growing up (including into my twenties) are family. I have not told them and am not sure why I cannot be open about it. We're just not very close. So, no one who knew me growing up knows.

I tried to tell an old school chum I was estranged from...but she never responded about it...I mainly mentioned the ADD, which is what gives me the most grief.
The biggest problem I had when I was her friend was that I was frantically trying to catch up after spending most of my childhood down a dark tunnel...and I was a chronic storyteller....(one of those irregular ASish traits that gets mentioned on WP from time to time)...I had very little tact...and I was just trying to be a "Normal" teenager...backfired horribly...

People that I don't tell often think I have autism/As which is odd because I always try quite hard to do what normal people do, but apparently my eccentricities are really obvious. I have a friend in Manchester, who teaches autistic kids to use trampolines and she thought so straight away, and she has quite a lot of experience with autistic kids so I suppose she just matched me up with the characteristics of the kids she helps.

I was actually quite excited to finally have some validation for years of feeling alienated, so in typical Aspie fashion, I obsessively studied AS and as I encountered people from my past (thanks to my daughter setting up a FaceBook page for me), I shared my newfound self-knowledge with almost all of them in far too much detail (probably boring them to near-suicide).

Old friends seemed mildly surprised - they knew I was different, but never thought of it as DISORDER different. On the other hand, they didn't discount the idea as being outrageous, either. The fact that I was going on and on about having a brain dysfunction probably went far to convince them that I must indeed have a dysfunctional brain.

Family, on the other hand, who had known me close-up and personal for many years didn't seem so shocked. Their reaction was more like "Aah, that explains a lot".

I've known that I was autistic most of my life, but I never told anyone. Now that I have come out about it, I found that most medical and instructional professional that know me have already guessed it.

My Dad knew, but didn't tell me, most of my life. When I told my brother, it turned out that my Dad had told him before me, because his response was, "yeah, I know."

However, having talked to him since, he's said that he meant he knew I'd been diagnosed, but he didn't agree with it. He thinks that I'm just a bit of a weird person looking for an explanation as to why I don't fit in. He says I'm too intelligent and high functioning to be aspie, and that I'm just clutching at straws, because I've wasted my education and intellect. He thinks that what happened was I went to university, spent four years around odd balls, and didn't get into the real world. After university I had a child, and spent the last decade plus looking after my family. He thinks that now my son is growing up I've realised that I've wasted most of my life, and I'm scared to face up to the fact that it's my fault.

I think after that response, I'm not going to tell anyone ever again. I know he's not right, but it's the utter contempt for my experience that gets me. This is a guy I grew up with. He remembers what my childhood was like, how unhappy I was. He remembers all the jokes about me being Spock or a robot, all the times I didn't get what the other kids were on about, and got beaten up as a result. He knows all that... and he says it didn't happen for a reason, or only because I "chose" to be odd.

This has really depressed me.

I'm sorry your wife feels that way. It wouldn't bother me what my brother thought, if he were just some random stranger. What gets me though is that we went through the same childhood, he saw all the same signs that I did. He's got an IQ over 130, he's a scientist, he's rational... I respect his opinion.

Then he goes and says something like that, and I find myself feeling outcast and stupid again.

To be honest, I think my brother is a bit ashamed that there's something "wrong" with his sister. He was always ashamed of me when we were growing up... very fond of me in private, but the first person to jeer at me in a group. He'd say to me later it was my fault, because I was such a "weirdo", or "nerd", or whatever else. That I should pull myself together and snap out of it.

I suppose he's transferred the connotations of "weirdo" and "nerd" to aspie, and sees aspie as something I choose to do to annoy him.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it does make me sad, because I feel like the people I love most despise me. My Dad hid it from me, as though I had leprosy, my brother sees it as a cop out excuse.

My son's not ashamed of me, which I suppose is unusual in a thirteen year old boy. But I must admit, I look at my social history, and consider how few friends I have... nobody from uni, or school, or even five years ago... And I think, is there any point carrying on trying to fit in with anyone. At thirty eight I have an appalling track record, why don't I just give up (once my son's old enough) and go live in seclusion some place where nobody will come near me ever again.

Probably my family's reaction to my diagnoses has been the most depressing experience I've had with them. Which is saying something...

Only my immediate family know. My parents thought ASish behaviour was normal behaviour, so they reacted very little when they found out about AS. My brother was sympathetic and helpful. I think my brother thinks I am pretty weird but Ive always seen it as us being from different worlds. A sort of conflict, him being so socially oriented and me so detached from the social signals.

I think though that while he thought I was weird I had equal opinions about his weird behaviour, growing up I thought he seemed obsessed with external success and its toys, the approval of others... he was so defensive of his reputation. So for every opinion he had about me I also had one about him.

Ive had negative reactions before, when I told acquaintances. It was very upsetting at the time. This is why I have not told people outside my immediate family, (unless they themselves have AS). I had one AS woman once tell me that she didnt think I had it. Just because I am not typical in my presentation.

I think most high functioning autistics will get a dismissive response attributing this to more weirdness. I don't plan on telling anyone unless I'm called out on it.

mgram, I feel like most of things I have aspired to have taken me much more time and effort to achieve or you could say I don't perform on par with my peers outside my "areas". I agree with you that the way you have used your time was not wasted. In retrospect I now see that my life, choices, and experience is inescapably colored by the way my mind is. My new awareness will help me to take some new paths in the future but I also know I can't change some of my shortcomings.

Telling people who have known you is a means of getting some external validation. But I don't think most people want to share in our self discovery because at that moment they feel like we are asking for a value judgement instead of a recognition. I still struggle with my issues daily but I now know my difficulties are not a reason for keeping a poor self image. Neither is the opinion of someone who has seen me at my worst.

I was diagnosed at 31, but I have no contact with the people I grew up with, it’s been years since I saw any of them.
My family however was not surprised that I was disorder kind of different.