Do you remember your early childhood?

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Here's what I remember from MY early childhood:

Staring up at ceiling vents and ceiling fans.
Me and my sister getting into fights.

Sadly, yes.

I have a good memory.

When I was very little, I have vivid memories of the tune "Walking in the Air" from "The Snowman" playing in the background. I remember looking down at a parquet floor and seeing a fascinating looking white beanbag. This must have been in PE, but I can only remember hearing a human sounding buzz (that must have been the other kids shouting and talking, but I don't remember interacting with them or their faces at all).

I remember fiddling with the beanbag and discovering the zip. I remember my delight as all of the fine white beads fell glistening onto the floor. As I inspected the beads, I remember a giant shadow loom over me and an angry female voice telling me that I was "naughty". I was very frightened. To this day, I honestly don't remember what I was supposed to have done with the beanbag- perhaps I was meant to pass it to another person. I was criticised for not "joining in", but I honestly felt that I had been joining in by inspecting the beanbag so diligently and was genuinely upset and confused as to what I should have done.

Oh well. I guess some bean-bags are much more interesting than some people I used to know, but I still don't see why I wasn't praised for my impressive investigative skills at such a young age. This still makes me feel angry. Maybe I was one of those kids who "acted out" but wasn't aware of it?

I used to look up at ceiling fans a lot when I was little sitting in restaurants- I especially liked the woven ones. I've seen some adults look up too. I don't know why this has to be pathologised.

When I was very young (probably only about 5 yrs old) about 10 kids were invited on spec to my Birthday Party without my knowing.

I remember being very upset and overwhelmed at all the noise and crowding invading my personal home space. Some of the kids scowling at me in disapproval.

To put it mildly, it was hell.

The kids had to be taken home and many never went round my house again.

After that, my Birthday parties were strictly low key family affairs. The maximum number of very familiar people I could cope with and keep track of in my house is four. That's still true today: that's my upper limit. If there's any more than four I either "clam up", "zone out" or become very distressed.

I've always felt different. I remember never being quite the same or fitting in with the other kids. I remember getting picked at a lot because I was weird. I played by myself a lot and inventing games and things that kept my brain busy. I was always reading. I know I was reading before I was 2. It seems like I've always known I was weird. I don't really remember ever having that aha over the head with a lightbulb "you're weird" moment, but it was there.

I fit right in with all the other kids when I was little because I basically grew up at daycare. The other kids all really liked me because I was nice, I made up great pretend games, and I had all the best toys (Littlest Pet Shop and Lisa Frank were all the rage back then.).

Me, my early memories are bitter sweet. Some great ones and some bad ones involving people. On the play ground I always seem to find the other misfits at school. The others who did not fit in like my self. At the same time I was consistentie made fun of from day one of Kindergarten all the way up to Jr high when I dropped out at 16. I had so close friends and others that were more dissent. The only thing that saved me was 4-H.

I always felt different then everyone else during my childhood so it didn't really come as a suprise to me when my parents told me I was autistic

I don't think I noticed my difference until I was about 14. I remember as a young child I liked to spend time alone reading and focusing on specifics but I had a lot of friends and got involved in sports and games etc. It was at secondary school it all went down hill and I began to dislike being with people.

I always felt different from everybody else. I was always an outsider. I think the time I really started to accept that I was different from everybody else was around grade 3. It didn't really bother me to be a loner until I was in grade 7 or 8 and then it felt kind of embarrassing. I didn't mind being alone per se but I also didn't like sitting at a table alone while everybody else sat together or always being the one who didn't have a group to work with.

I remember flashes back to before I was two. My mother didn't want to believe me at once, but when I described the nature, that we were in a camping wagon and that my grandfather was walking me trough a long path in the woods to have me visit some very old people, she figured out what I was remembering. She laughed and said the path was less than a hundred meters long, and the very old people (relatives of my grandpa) were around fifty. I also remember the physically huge Christmas present I got when I was a bit over two. And I remember running off to the neighbors to get pizza at around the same age. And the babysitter I had before we moved away when I was three. I also remember a huge storm when I was around two, it caused the big windows in our house to bulge/vibrate. Lastly, I remember my first air flight when I was three - I was convinced the plane was running like a train, but on top of those bridges with a "bow" on top instead of on the rail track, due to the turbulence.

But anyhow, that was before anyone really starts being social or manifest specific social problems. The first I remember of being social, was not being it, without any complicated feelings. I played on my own in kindergarten, except that a girl insisted on playing with me from time to time, which I didn't mind. In first grade at school, I used to search for blueberries in the woods around the playground. When they asked me (somewhat concerned, after a few months) if I wasn't going to play with the other kids, I told them this was my free time, with which I thought I could do as I wished. Other than that, I remember having major meltdowns/tantrums when kids I played with (often after being told to do so by my parents) didn't do as I expected. The bullying started sometime during the first two years of school, and the withdrawal became a defense mechanism instead of my preference.

The interesting thing about those pre-social memories is that they're somewhat unreal, they feel as if I'm an avatar in a virtual world somehow. That could of course be due to very young children having different perception, and by nature wondering about this weird world they suddenly find themselves in. But I still can't help but feel that I'm sort of an alien in those memories, as if I've wound up in the wrong place. I remember being five years old, looking into the mirror and philosophizing over whether the world exists at all, or if I was in some sort of dream or simulation. I also thought a lot about whether it's possible for absolutely nothing, including my own mind, to exist at all (that's usually headache time for me still ). I have the impression that that's not normal for a five years old. A lot of adults don't grasp philosophical skepticism, so I'm led to believe the reason I did, at that age, was due to being a misfit.

I remember being ALONE when I was younger, but I didn't feel LONELY.

I remember pre-school and elementary like it was yesterday. I was picked on in the later years but nothing too out of the ordinary. I tended to play by myself but not because I was excluded or bullied (that came later) but because I simply could not relate to other kids and had no idea how to join in. My mind was also light years ahead of the other children to put it mildly.

My early childhood (up until about age 10) was not marked by me noting I was too different from the other kids, although I liked to do my own things. In early adolescence, I noticed I was different although it didn't affect me much. It was during my adolescence through college years that I knew I was different and wondered why (often felt awkward though I didn't wish to be the so-called "norm").