Aspies diagnosed late: what were u told as a child?

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I was wondering for all the aspies diagnosed late, how did the adults treat you. Were you scolded a lot and you were misunderstood as a kid, like they just thought you were a kid with discipline problems? Did adults make excuses for the fact that you didnt fit in with the other kids? Where you a chameleon and/or hid most of your AS traits? Did you have a co-morbid condition that covered the AS or were you misdiagnosed a lot? Or did you kinda fit in with the kids to the point where adults didnt notice anything strange?

I ask this because I was wondering how aspie kids who were undiagnosed as a kid were perceived by adults.

For me, adults made excuses for my behavior for most of my childhood(shes just shy) and I had co-morbid conditions that covered the AS. Selective mutism and social anxiety. As a young adult, I've had plenty of identity struggles where I was so confused, I just didnt know who I was. If I was just a shy girl, how come I got treated so much worse then all the shy girls? I wish, adults would have actually worked with me for me to create my own identity, then just branding me with a misidentity. Then I grow up to find out, that isnt my identity. My mom told me everything what I thought about myself.

Gifted + Social Anxiety.

Highly intelligent, later gifted.

People said I was shy, nervous--I remember getting California Reference Test results with perfect scores and psychologicals saying that I could not handle pressure.

Shy, highly strung, socially awkward. Uh, cheeky and rude at points, precocious at others. Bad at making friends, arrogant, insular, cold.

Smart but lazy (unable to stay focused on someone else's agenda)
weird
standoffish
geek
shy
whiny (when unwilling to participate in overstimulating sensory events)
stubborn
rude (for being blunt and saying what I thought without sugar coating)
pessimist
dreamer
nerd
antisocial
clumsy idiot
nut
unwilling to exert the proper effort
quitter (when I was unable to perform to expectations)
loner
arrogant
too picky
loser
bookworm
clown
oddball
freak
useless
emotionally ret*d
too quiet
know-it-all
p*ssy (by bullies, when I could not process fast enough to respond in kind)
out of touch
misfit

I guess that's most of the nicer ones. In my youth, there were only two classifications - you were either ret*d (Downs Syndrome) or you were normal. I was far too articulate to be considered a ret*d, so I was a Normal, just a really crummy one by everybody else's standards. That's pretty much the way it was all my life.

The way I was treated at school was the way I was treated when I started working, except instead of having bosses who were fairly tolerant like my teachers had been, most of my bosses were more like the coaches who hated me because I had the size to play sports, but was too clumsy and uncoordinated to be of any use to their teams.

This. And based on how I actually was as a child, I'd say it was correct, and not a misdiagnosis. My aspieness never really surfaced until just a few years ago.

Last edited by SammichEater on 16 Sep 2011, 5:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I had the crap beaten beaten out me to behave properly.

It didn't work.

I'm still quite bitter about it.

I'm 20, and got my nonverbal learning disorder diagnosis at 17, but I had finished highschool by then. The people diagnosing me were saying they just didn't think it was strong enough for an AS diagnosis, but then again, I tried to act as normal as possible around them.

Anyway, I was told,

"You're weird." in many variations.
"You're so smart." (Which almost feels like an insult to me now for some reason.)

and then...
"You just don't know how to play the game." or "You need to learn to play the game."

Yay...

I'm so smart, but I'm not cuz I don't know how to play the game. Woohoo.

I called "Stupid" because I did not understand that certain topics were off-limits for discussion.

I was called "Lazy" because they said I was exceptionally intelligent, but that I did not apply myself.

I was called "Weird" because the topics I enjoyed were not the usual topics of small talk.

Yesss. That was me to a T, also.

Spoiled, selfish, weird, childish.

The adults liked me at my childhood church & in the "private" girls organization I belonged to; the teachers mostly left me alone.

The words that remain in my memory are: "smart", "frustrating" & "you have so much potential, why aren't you living up to it?", plus "weird".

I was 43 years old when I was professionally diagnosed AS.

Hmm, I'm not certain if I fit in to your question since I was diagnosed with ADD in the mid-late 80s, but other than ADD, I was reffered to as a gifted daydreamer. I didn't fit in with most of my peers. The ones I did fit in with had similar diagnoses.

I am in my 50's. Autism/Asperger Syndrome were not known as such when I was growing up. People had problems on the spectrum, but their conditions were called other things, like emotional/psychiatric problems. I was taken to far too many psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists to count. These people had no understanding of what was really wrong at that time, so they were no use in helping me. They were all of the belief that somehow I could be "fixed" and made "normal" if they only kept at it and kept trying stuff. At least some of them were also of the belief that I wasn't really doing my part to try to get "fixed." There are some things that can't be fixed, no matter how hard you try, or what you try. On my own, over the course of decades, I eventually came up with coping mechanisms, but these haven't "fixed" anything, they just help me cope better. Because of the parade of visits I endured as a child, I now detest all psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists. I have no faith in these professions, at least for helping me. I also don't trust any of the meds they prescribe. The ones I was forced to take as a child didn't help and had unpleasant side effects. My research on the web shows that all of the other psych meds also have unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effects, and few of them seem to have a real track record of actually helping anyone, unless you choose to believe only the hype put out by the drug dealing manufacturers of these poisons. I choose to do without the meds. I did have to go to a therapist again a few years ago for a while, but that was required, so I could qualify for much needed medical benefits. Thanks to qualifying for those benefits, I found out I had cancer, and was successfully treated for it. I am now 5 & 1/2 years past my cancer surgery, without any recurrence. This is considered "cured." I was definitely very depressed at the time, but an improvement in my living circumstances helped me get past that. The therapist had nothing to do with it. I couldn't stand her. She absolutely did not have any empathy for me, and probably not for any other patients. I had to pretend that we were getting along okay, until a while after I qualified for medical assistance. At that point she decided that I was "improved" enough to not need therapy any more.

I have only unpleasant memories of my childhood. I was labelled with so many things that I know now are part of having Asperger Syndrome, when so many symptoms are present.

-Shy
-Socially Awkward
-Cry Baby
-Withdrawn
-High strung
-Emotional/Emotionally ret*d
-Not good at staying focused, unless I was interested in the topic.
-Anti-social
-Nut
-Freak
-Weird
-Loner
-Picky
-Misfit
-Slow, because it often takes me a while to get things, that others pick up right away.

There were many other labels I had to put up with, as well, but I prefer not to dwell on my childhood and early adulthood. It is just too depressing for me. I can't go back in time to give my younger self a much needed hug, or to explain to that younger self that my problems are caused by Asperger Syndrome.--That I am not just some kind of freaky emotional ret*d. Finding out about Asperger Syndrome has helped me cope better, because now I know what is really wrong with me. My research on the subject has also helped with coping mechanisms, too. Some of the best ones are:

-Good food
-Exercise
-Music
-Living Alone (at least in my case)
-Keeping oneself distracted with things of interest, so I don't dwell too much on things that make me depressed.

Unfortunately, I'm not too good at eating a proper diet, and because of health problems, I am not able to do much exercising, but I have managed to avoid other vices, like drugs, booze, smoking, gambling, wild parties, etc. Besides, who is a hermit going to have wild parties with?

Good luck to all in your journey, as you march to a different drummer.

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

I grew up with my mom. Now I see that she also is autistic. So she didn't really see any problems that I had. She still doesn't. But the school told her when I was in 2nd grade that they thought I was mildly ret*d because I was so introverted at school. But at home I was more like a wild monkey. Mom was too busy in her own autistic world to respond, plus she worked (scientist) and was busy with that. We moved a lot which I think was a blessing as I was always a new kid at school so things didn't build up toward bullying. In high school I was sexually abused for six months by a teacher from which I developed PTSD and anxiety. The truth about this abuse lay dormant in me for 35 years, but I suffered a lot. So some of the AS symptoms were overshadowed by the PTSD symptoms. I managed to stagger through life feeling different, having constant anxiety, unable to maintain friendships, and hating myself a lot. Two years ago I faced the sexual abuse and a year ago I discovered how I fit AS diagnosis. Now I am recovering from the PTSD and understand many things about myself and what happened to me.

I am 25 and was diagnosed at 17. Here is a short list of everything I had been called.

ADHD
Gifted
Learning disabled
Eccentric
ret*d
Annoying
Bratty
Childish
Spoiled
Obnoxious
Uncaring
Mean
Dangerous

To name a few