I wish I knew earlier in life

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Thought I'll get this out in the open this is a thought that sometimes runs through my brain.

I found out that I had AS when I was 12 years old in 1998 but I also know that it was known that I had it a long time before I knew about it. Throughout primary school there were times when people from the education department used to come to the school to watch me and to talk to me as well. I use to love the attention but I didn't know better then. I remember when I was about 8 years old (1994) someone from the education department came to help me with my work and she did it for 3 weeks she was a specialist in Autism I also know that the teacher I had that year was a specialist as well (I was in a mainstream school). When I was on my final year in the juniors people from education were round to watch and talk to me again. They put in a unit for people with Autism/AS for secondary school it was a mainstream school with a unit in there. The person who came to see me that who told me about the unit even though I said no first and then forced me into that school and be in that unit. I started that school in 1997 and the teachers knew I had AS and one pupil knew as well but I didn't until I was in year 8 my second year there when I got suspicious and I started reading left out reports about me. I then made the teacher or my keyworker tell me what I had I was pretty angry

I feel sometimes I don't except the fact that I have Asperger Syndrome for the reason I feel I found the wrong way I also found out about three years later (2001) that they knew that I was on the spectrum since I was about 5 years old but they covered it up. Even my mum says thats she wished she knew before then she said things might have been different.

Anyway I think I would excepted it better before I went into the unit not a year after I started they knew I had why didn't say and why didn't they tell my parents. My mum use to go to annual meeting about me and she use to ask if had anything. And they use to have sheepish expressions on their faces and go very quiete as if they knew something but didn't want to say

What I'm saying here is true. What do you think of them. I just felt I had to let it out.

They had no right to withold that information from your Mum.

I was absolutely FURIOUS when I found out that one of the teachers identified strong AS traits in my 9 year old when he was in grade 1 (he's now in grade 4). She didn't discuss it with us (his parents) or take any further action.

3 painful years later - his meltdowns, poor self-esteem, anxiety etc we finally got a diagnosis.

The school is well aware of my anger at not being told.

My 9 year old and 7 year old were both diagnosed this year. We told them about their diagnosis - they were both relieved because they already knew they were different to other kids.

They are also learning strategies in coping with anxiety and using logic to make sense of social situations.

The boys both go to SEC (Social Education Classroom) everyday for time with the Special Ed teacher - he is brilliant and they love him.

I am disgusted at the way your school handled the situation. It is insulting / condescending to you and your mother.

Helen

I didn`t find out I had Aspergers til I was 40.I had four decades of bullying and humiliation at the hands of NTs.
However things are changing in the UK and it is becoming unwise and costly to discriminate and marginalise Asperger`s people.

Well GEE, at least you even had a chance! I don't think I even knew why I went to the psychiatrist until earlier this year, but I went to one when *I* was in first grade! I was about 6. He gave me intelligence tests, story boards, etc... It sounds like it was akin to an AS test. EVERYONE, at least every adult, that knew me considered me bright, articulate, and a veritable walking encyclopedia.

Still, NO diagnosis! That was the last I heard of it.

As for meltdowns? My intelligence kind of goes out the window under extreme stress. If I continued on, it would be painfully obvious. I guess that is a meltdown. I didn't even know of such things. The average person isn't much different from me when I have a meltdown, and it seems NOBODY does better under stress, so I thought it was normal.

Steve

OMG!! ! You found out when you were 12? Are you joking? You are so lucky. How about us smucks who have lived with this throughout college and as adults who didn't know they had it? How about the 60 year old man out there that still doesn't know he has it and can't understand why others don't understand him?

This happens to me and my son all the time. People tend to downplay it-they don't want to think that they are talking to someone who literally doesn't understand them or think like them regardless of how noticeable it is. They just don't want to have a label to attach to anyone in their minds. Then, I think there is the factor that they have this idea of what autism is built up in their minds, and when we open our mouths, their whole idea of it is shattered because we aren't "Rainman", not all of us are mute, and not all of us are savants. They get this idea of what it is and isn't built up in their minds, then we talk to them and defy it, so they go into denial rather than trying to help us figure it out. That, and there is such a negative attitude towards it, parents generally just do not want to think about anything being "wrong" with their child.

With me, nobody looked into it family wise, but the school was always setting meetings with my mom, and tried to get me into the gifted programs as well. There was one teacher who suggested my mother move to a different area because she didn't think I could handle the bullying in the middle school I would be graduating to in the area we were in.

I never thought about it much-well, I never tried to figure out what was up with me until fairly recently when I realized my son does a lot of the same things, and someone mentioned AS to me as a possibility... so I looked it up, learned a bit about it, and was easily able to apply it to myself.

Now I struggle with people downplaying it all of the time-I guess denying it to an extent so that they can still assume I am "normal" and won't have to think about the fact that there is a bit of a difference in things with me.

Assessment time for my son is coming up... last year in class he was in trouble every single day for doing things like spitting on his desk or yelling randomly when he didn't want to participate in an activity he was uncomfortable with. The school counselor told me that my son was merely trying to manipulate the class so that he could have the control. Whatever, lol. That was the stupidest reason I've ever heard... then the counselor noticed the tone of my voice and told me I needed to sound meaner when talking to my child, and pretty much that he needed harsher punishments. My son missed almost EVERY SINGLE recess through kindergarten and was threatened to be kicked out of daycare a few times which he thoroughly enjoyed being at. Nobody would look into it at all when I tried to bring it to their attention whatsoever.

Now, luckily, he is at a new daycare and one of the workers notices a lot of traits in both my son and daughter, and she said she could write up something for me if I would like to take it in as additional comments to the assessment at the autism center. His teacher, however, mentioned several times that he is lost in his own thoughts in class... but I asked that she write up something for me (as we all know the kiddos never act the same when in the doctor's office, or the doc doesn't notice simply because they don't have other children to compare to, or there is less stimulation, etc.) 3 weeks ago... she still has not responded in any way, shape or form.

The main problem I have I had it then when I was 12 I have it now at 21 I find people assume me alot and it gets annoying at times. When I was at school coming into GCSE level the teachers decided that I should do an alternative they put in that alternate programme before they asked me what I wanted to do I fought back and lost the battle the real reason which I know now is that it would have put more stress on those teachers in the Autistic unit I was in and because of the stress the teachers would have to of gone through I had to play nice and agree to that programme after a I had a few arguments with them. Even to this day I am still angry with the teachers and that was 7 years ago that happened.

I'm angry about that too if it makes ya feel any better. Such a typical response to not ask the student what they want, or care when the student voices it, but to make it easier on everyone else. Who cares what we want right? It's whatever is most comfortable to everyone else.

I dont think it would have made a difference when I was diagnosed, my life would have been just as miserable either way.

The reason why I said I wish I knew earlier is because I have some notes dating back to when I was about 4 years old that was when they first diagnosed me.

They didn't just hide the fact from me but they hid the fact from my parents as well.

One day, the day after I got out of school, when I fourteen, I was looking through some papers that my parents had hidden away from me. I've found some papers from the day that my first assesment was typed out, and I've thought that I was Mentally ret*d. I've also thought that I was in the Special Ed unit in Elementary School, as a punishment for not reaching my milestones at the proper time. I wish that I was told when I was starting Grade One.

I know these days they are much better at diagnosing AS quite early, but I'd have loved to have known at 12 years old. My entire life would have been different and much less painful.
I agree that it is awful if somebody knew and didn't tell you, but better the age of 12 than 46.

I was told I had these traits when I was 12 or 13. I was highly offended, thinking it meant they thought I was mentally ret*d, and my mother reacted in much the same way. We left the woman's office and never went back. My mother was convinced I had depression (my avoidance of everything, my being lonely, etc.) and she kept bouncing me to random therapists and mental health professionals never getting an answer that matched hers. They all said, "This girl is not depressed. Not clinically. It's something else." My mother convinced herself, and me, that all mental health professionals were inept and that there was no science or logic to their practice.

Subsequently, I didn't realize until very recently (after getting married and having an AS child) that the first therapist we saw was right all those years ago. When I researched all of this for my daughter, I realized, wow...if my mother would have been a parent and actually listened to what the PROFESSIONAL was saying, I might have avoided a lot of suffering in my life.

HIndsight is always 20/20. What I'm saying is, while I understand your irritation, 12 isn't too bad for identifying AS. My husband went early 40 years without knowing. I think many of us went a long time.

well sounds like you had the opposite problem than me son, they knew "something" was wrong with me by the time i was in elementry school. they just didnt know what exactly the problem was so they misdiagnosed me throught my entire schooling career

I'm fifty and i wish I'd known earlier in life or it was known about me. It was a bit strange to go from being quiet, reserved but intelligent(tests proved it 0) at school to an adult who is nervous and depressed, nervous particularly. In school everything is geared to the welfare of the child but if you seek your own welfare afterwards you are seen as selfish and very little business or ideas help given. But it would have been impossible as I went to school in the 60s and it was not recognised till the 90s. And as a Learning difficulty or Mental illness its not much better. At least I had 10 years checkable employment(parttime and poorly paid as"nearly normal@. From then on it was mainly unemployment. I had a boyfriend once with hyperactivityy and started geeting suspicious I was like him but slow. And at least i know now. i guess with benefits I'm better off. i might get a chance to travel or help others.