Do you ever look at old photos of yourself and wonder...

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Do you ever look at old photos of yourself and wonder why you look so normal, but then watch an old video and totally notice the autism?

I was looking at old pictures, some were of me smiling, some were of me holding toys, some of me looking very interactive with ppl. Its weird though, so i asked my mother you wouldn't be able to tell i was autistic in these pictures, she goes "yea, the ones of you smiling were so rare that when we took them, the smile last literally seconds, the ones with you holding toys was right before you either rubbed the certian texture or lined them up, and the ones you look interactive is when we put u next to the kids and took pictures!" i was like wow, but when i turned on some old videos of me, the autism was clearly there. Its weird.

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Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated

These were taken when I around four years old. In the one on the right I seem to be "spaced out".

I remember a video of myself in a school play when I was 6 year old. I clearly looked autistic. The students were walking around a square path set in the school's gym/cafeteria room, and I was nodding my head up and down, unaware that I was doing it at the time(I actually remember being there).

Old photos of me usually have me looking down, expressionless, even though at the time I thought I was making a modest smile.

My walk looks constricted and 'robotic' from what I've seen. In high school, one of the students asked me if I was 'possessed'.

I've watched recorded mock job interviews of myself and now have a pretty clear idea why I haven't gotten hired.

I remember watching a video of me in France on a school trip, whilst I didn't know I had anything at the time it was fairly obvious something was different with me. At the time it actually made me quite upset.

However I have seen videos of me playing live on stage which don't look too bad. But I suppose if you are all rocking out as such nothing looks too abnormal.

the only time ive been on a video camera was at my sisters wedding last october. i walked her down the isle because she didnt want one of my moms lovers giving her away. we didnt have video cameras when i was little

Yes, all the time.

I have several albums of photos of myself when I was a baby and up until I was about 8 years old.
When I look at the photos, I look completely fine...but people with an ASD don't look any different from an NT, so thats why the you can only notice the autism by the videos.

Anyway, in the videos I can clearly see the AS traits.
There is a video of me when I was about one years old examining my own hands ...I was looking at them like they were not my own according to my mother. I did that until I was about 4 years old apparently.
Also, a video of me on my fith birthday at kindergarden. I was sitting quietly on a chair watching the pinyata spin while others were hitting it. When the lollies fell out, I ran to get the pinyata from the floor to look at it, not the lollies.

Again, another video if me when I was about two. I was trying to sing a song from my favourite tv show at the time [suzy cato] and I was rocking from side-to-side on my feet as I sang and flapped my hands...my mother thought it was just "cute" at the time like most parents would.

The answer...yes, I can see the autism in me when watching the videos.

In my senior portrait, I look normal but, in other pictures, I look terrible. I hate most pictures of myself.

Every blasted photo of me is posed. For some reason, I just don't like photographs. As for videos? Well, I think they were all 8mm. They were certainly all film. I was born just a bit before cassette tape was introduced. My first tape recorder was a reel to reel probably around 7 or so. A few years later I got a cassette. I actually got ONE 8 track! So we didn't have digital. 8-(

I know they took videos, but I was never interested. It would be interesting though. I have memories of me acting different.

I don't think there are any videos of me as a child or an adult. When I told my mom about my son being autistic, she didn't believe it because in his photos "he looked so normal!". He had sparkling smiles for the camera. I used to stop his tantrums with the camera.

I mostly hate looking at pictures of myself. I have this talent of looking stupid every time someone gets out a camera.

I've looked at old pictures of myself when I was a child and thought, "Hey, I'm smiling." I also have seen pictures of myself where I looked less than pleased about having my picture taken. I was told to smile for my senior pictures, in most of them, I wasn't smiling.

My photos go:

Toddler = autistic
Primary school = "normal"
High school = perturbed

The only thing I really noticed in pictures was the lazy left eye that was really noticeable, and the reason I wore glasses as a kid. The only videos I've seen of me were from my first Christmas when I was only a few weeks old, and I looked like any other infant.

It is beleived that individuals with ASD's have some suttle facial characteristics that supposedly in the future a computer may be able to determine an ASD'er just by looking at the face of an individual, its an interesting theory. On a parents site I frequent, many claim their kids look angelic, innocent, something about the eyes, or a big head... IDk... whatever, I guess future studies will determine this for certain.

Anyways, back to the topic. Indeed in photo's I look just like any other child.

Their is a video taken on july 4 of 1987, I was 4 years old. This video could possibly be used someday to teach people what to look for in their children to determine if they have HFA or aspringers.

In it (an hour long) I spent the entire time with the parents, never did I interact with the kids. I would wander off alone in the courner of the yard, then come back to the parents. I asked one person if I could play with the microphone on the camera, not the camera itself, but the microphone ONLY. I also wanted someones beer, not cause of the can, but cause of the cozy inside. I was very loud, rather hyper but also sounded very intelligent and even amazed some neghboors about how a 4 year old could have such a vocab.

aspringers?!?!? Is that anything like tourette's? I guess you just want to also encourage others to do the same on national TV, huh????

Note to those that don't know. I am poking fun at the idea of Jerry Springer, a tv "talk show host", who basically acts as I described. He basically just creates trouble between perverts, etc... and sits back and watches with the TV camera rolling.