did u think u were normal when younger

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I'm diagnosed with High Functioning Autism and seem to relate to a lot of you guys on wrong planet. However, up until I was about 17, I thought I was normal and did not think I had a disability. I knew I had emotional issues because I knew I got mad and upset a lot more then most people, however, I never thought of myself as a person who had a disability. It wasn't until I was 17 years old when I realized this. I was told I was on the spectrum and at that time my parents and other people I knew congratulated me about certain improvements I've made over the recent years and this was when I suddenly realized that everyone thought I had a disability. This realization that everyone thought I had a dissability gave me kind of a bitter sweet feeling. I was happy/proud that I improved somewhat on my social skills, worked on having less meltdowns, ect, however, I was actually quite upset when everyone told me how much progress I made by comparing how people viewed me as I was younger basically saying that I was definitely viewed as disabled. In fact, I was really upset. Even though I think it was good that I thought I was normal and not viewed as disabled when I was younger, the sudden realization, however, kind of caught me off guard, like my enter history of my life with people ect suddenly being exposed to the fact that they all thought I was disabled, handy cap, or not normal and I never even knew that. Have you experienced a realization like this too?

I thought I was just a normal girl with a bunch of allergies and behavior problems. I did notice that I got special treatment, but I assumed it was because of my allergies. I found out that I was considered disabled when I was about eight. I started going downhill after that. A few months ago I started suspecting that I was misdiagnosed. I guess I was a normal girl with a bunch of allergies and behavior problems after all.

I can't recall a time when I thought I was normal. There just wasn't a name for what I was when I was younger. Well, other than "weird."

I was painfully aware that I did not fit in anywhere I went and had no idea how to go about doing so. My parents also recognized that I was not a normal kid, but I clearly wasn't intellectually impaired in any way, and nobody had ever heard the word autism, so my family tried to treat me as though I were normal, but of course, it never took.

I thought I was normal growing up but couldn't understand why I was so different. I had all working body parts and didn't look different and had no birth defects. I didn't even know I had a disability until I was 15. I just saw I was treated different and was rejected by other kids and at age ten I noticed how other kids could do things and whenever I would do it, I would get in trouble and i couldn't understand why the discrimination and why I was being picked on. My parents insisted I was normal but if I was truly normal, then why do people treat me different? I didn't feel normal at all.

I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome/High Functioning Autism back when I was 6 (can't remember which, but they were considered separate back then), and even though I was aware of this, I had no idea what it really meant other than that it had something to do with my literal thought patterns, behavior, and unusual linguistic development. In my early teen years, I actually went through a denial period where I just thought I was a normal guy who was unfairly labeled, and treated as such as a result. It wasn't until I was about 16 or 17 when I was reading up on Aspergers Syndrome online one day, that I truly realized what it was. I finally came to the conclusion that the diagnosis I had received 10 years prior was correct, and that it was the culprit behind a lot of my quirks.

As far back as I can remember (back to kindergarten easily) I knew I was different. How did I know? I was treated differently and as an outcast, bullied, picked on incessantly is why. I would look in the mirror and I couldn't see anything different, but I was. When the other kids would play I was rarely invited. When I was, I was incapable of doing some of the things they did, or they invited me to be the center of ridicule because I was a weirdo/geek/nerd (take your pic). It didn't help that I didn't understand social cues, body language and such. And when I questioned their behaviour of me all they did was ridicule me more. As to WHY I was different I didn't know then and only just recently found out. But back then it was largely unknown.

I was nonverbal and "autistic" until age 5; then verbal and Asperger's afterwards, I believe. I've always had some sort of autistic spectrum disorder, even if it wasn't called that back in the 1960s.

i knew i was different, i just didn't know why.

I could not really tell as I had no concepts of being normal or being not normal,
I did not have any attachment to people as I could not make difference between people and objects, my perception and thinking was not developed enough to think in terms of being normal or being different and I was about age 15 or something when I realized first time something of people forming groups or something, and people being people and not objects, as I have observed object-people forming masses before, but could not relate this to being people, but then I forgot about it again.
Learnt most of it after diagnosis and reading about it,
and reading on here.

No, I thinked everybody were different.

everyone called me 'weird' 'crazy' and 'eccentric' so no, i never felt or thought i was normal.

did i think i have Autism... somtimes id wonder if i was ret*d and no one was telling me.

Not for long, probably not after the first grade and certainly not after the third grade.

I decided to own my weirdness in high school, but I had already decided that I preferred it to normal some time before.

I didn't get diagnosed with ASD until I was in my 40s.

Even though I was just diagnosed last week, I hadn't considered myself "normal" since I was about 9 years old.
That's when I started really getting bullied for being quiet and apparently for a tendency to say inappropriate or uncommon things.
I didn't think of myself as disabled or disordered, however; just as not part of the herd.
In high school I even entertained the thought that I was just smarter than most of my peers, but the truth was
I was only distinguished in my special interests and was actually way behind in other things that didn't pique my interest
(straight A's in French, German, English and Music; F's in math and phy ed).

I had suspected for a long time, though, that adults around me knew I was developmentally different as a kid.
Just certain things I'd catch them saying, and now--in hindsight--it all starts to make sense.

.. I did. I had absolutely no idea why I couldn't make friends easily or keep a friend once I maybe had one. Now that I have my daughter, who is dxed asd, and I compare and remember I can see why. It's obvious. I still can't make or keep friends as an adult, even other mothers obviously think I'm off.. I'm oblivious but this much I can tell. Best I can figure is that socially I'm an adult version of her and without an external point of reference I'm not going to be able to see what I'm doing "wrong". I don't really care anymore anyway as I find most women my age silly, dramatic, and materialistic anyway. I wish I had known when I was a kid. It might have saved me from a good deal of bullying.

I never had a time when I thought I was typical.

I'm perceptive enough to realise I am different and it's been that way since I was 5 years old. Though I have extreme self awareness.