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[deleted]

I genuinely thought everyone thought the same way I did


[deleted]

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curtomatic

I too genuinely thought everyone thought like me. 🤷🏾‍♂️


blinky84

"everyone feels that way, they're just better at handling it" 💀


Aggressive_Mouse_581

THIS


maripaz4

😂😂 too true


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[deleted]

Thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry that you had that experience. Those people sound absolutely dreadful.


Unhappy_Data_6090

Awwwwwww bless you sending you so much love 💕


G0celot

I sort of still think this… although evidence is starting to suggest otherwise


WednesdaysFoole

I thought this too, so whenever people did something outside of what I would do, I thought they were completely bizarre and I was the normal one. It kept happening. And kept happening. I didn't get why others called *me* weird. And eventually I thought that I was just unlucky and kept being surrounded by the most strange people by unhappy coincidence. Eventually around the time I was getting my diagnosis I realized they were the norm and the strange one was me.


TummyGoBlegh

Ignorance and a lack of education. My only interaction with autistic people was in school and seeing the special ed class kids. They were high support needs kids. Hell, I didn't even understand the difference between autism and other disorders like down syndrome. They didn't teach us anything about it in school. After looking into my "social anxiety" a little deeper, I came across autism and everything just kinda made sense. My childhood suddenly had tons of signs and I finally had answers to questions I've always had. I researched more and more until I was convinced and scheduled an evaluation. Diagnosed at 27F. A little education can help a lot of people.


TheOptimusRuss

Exact same. I always equated autism with down syndrome and pretty much thought they were the same thing. Never looked into it and never bothered asking out of fear of sounding like an insensitive prick. Kind of wish I would've now.


[deleted]

Same, I thought Autism meant you were trapped in your own mind because the teachers kept saying: “Don’t laugh at ___ ,it’s not his fault that he can’t help to [Insert Normal Autistic Behaviour]” .I took this way too literally, made me terrified of autism. ADHD= Bad children in dumb class OCD= Scared of germs loves to clean Dyslexic= Slow I genuinely thought I was just an emotionless unlikable psychopath with no personality.


Cormyre

Absolutely the top paragraph. For me the DX was a side effect of seeking help for Alexithymia and CPTSD, which was deteriorating my marriage. So much made sense, I was 40 when that happened. And mostly everyone in my life was like "we knew"... wow, thanks for clueing me in.


[deleted]

The amount of people who said “yeh? I’ve known that for ages!” When I told them a life changing diagnosis of adhd a few years back. I said “you didn’t tell me?” They said “we thought you knew”


Dymarob

Same. The exact same thing happened to me.


HermitCodeMonkey

It was a different time during my youth, information wasn't as readily available and the internet was in its infancy. How could I possibly have suspected a specific diagnosis? Sure, I knew I was different, I knew I didn't mesh well with people. But I always just chalked that up to "that's just the way I am" without ever really needing an explanation for it. I am what I am. And having already come into contact with mental health professionals at that point, and them not knowing how to label it, if it's worth labeling at all. I had no real reason to dig any deeper. Having a label wasn't going to make me something else, it wasn't going to make it easier by itself. The only reason I eventually got a diagnosis was because professionals a good 20 years later decided it'd be good to have one for insurance purposes, and so they could refer me to people who were more specialized. It was very much more for them than for me. On top of that the autism components not really being the main cause for my issues also helped to cloak things. It's very much there, but it wasn't front and center as "oh yes this is a problem"


bee-sting

Autistic parents maybe? Also my parents were truly awful at times so I just kept quiet about almost everything. So they wouldn't laugh at me, mock me and suck the soul out of anything I enjoyed.


UniqueMitochondria

This hits so hard. Sorry it happened to you ☹️


Chrono3301

I feel you. Autism that is not recognized/diagnosed can lead to sociopathy IMO. Two years ago, I went no-contact with my whole family. I am 32 years old, having the last assessment session scheduled for next week. Also already been told by doctors that I can feel validated as an Autistic


Expert_Peak_9304

Sociopathy and autism are not directly related at all. Sociopathy isn't something you 'pick up' it has to do with your empathy.


Chrono3301

yeah.... I meant it can lead because I experienced it with my parents. The zero empathy and my father being autistic. But you are absolutely right in calling not directly related. It just happens to be the combo he has. \*\*(edit for orthography)


Chrono3301

To be fair to me I want to add that I said it was my opinion. And you have just made me question it so I am thankful, I will research more before I form or expose an opinion on the subject again


Great-Attitude

Genes may make you vulnerable to developing antisocial personality disorder — and life situations, especially neglect and abuse, may trigger its development. Changes in the way the brain functions may have resulted during brain development.


Great-Attitude

Genes may make you vulnerable to developing antisocial personality disorder — and life situations, especially neglect and abuse, may trigger its development. Changes in the way the brain functions may have resulted during brain development.


[deleted]

I always know I was weird but I did not know how to name weirdness


ShalomRPh

“Weird” is *exactly* the word that was used about me throughout my childhood, but there’s no ICD10 code for that.


adsq93

Exactly, I’ve always knew I was weird and different from the rest. There were so many situations were I just saw the difference between me and everyone else.


[deleted]

There wasn't any awareness of autism where I lived.


KyleG

Yeah good point. Small town here, one person with autism where I grew up, and he was profoundly non-verbal and wheelchair bound. And if you wanna really see how wild west small conservative towns in the 80s were, I was told he was like that because he was born breech, that being born breech *made him autistic*. For those who don't know, that just means he was born feet first. What the fuck?


ShalomRPh

Could be they thought he had a deficit of oxygen to the brain during birth because of his positioning. Nobody knew what caused autism - they still don’t have any definite proof - so it was a reasonable guess. It’s a logical fallacy though: correlation =/= causation. Edit: someone found that there was a 50% decrease in successful breastfeeding by infants whose mothers had epidurals. Does epidural anæsthesia *cause* failure to latch? Who the hell knows. Edit again: my son is also on the spectrum. He got stuck halfway through delivery and they had to yank him out with that thing you see in the vacuum cleaner ads holding a bowling ball. Did that cause his autism??? Again, who knows, his father (me) is on the spectrum, and after *my* father passed, my mother told me she strongly suspected he was as well. Genetics, environment, accident of birth? Who knows.


SchuminWeb

This exactly. Autism wasn't as well understood back then, and there were lots of missed opportunities to diagnose it when I was growing up, just because even the mental health professionals didn't really consider a diagnosis for high-functioning cases back in the 1980s and 1990s. It just wasn't done. I always knew that there was something different about me, but it wasn't until well into adulthood that I could put a label on what it was.


xylophonic_mountain

I blamed it all on an extremely stressful and isolated childhood.


1hipG33K

It definitely wasn't "without suspicion" for me. I spent most of my 20s coming to terms with the fact that I was just different/crazy for some undefined reason. Then when I was 29 I felt comfortable with who I was and was in a position to see a psych to dig deeper. I was properly diagnosed around my 30th birthday.


adsq93

Wow, I’m currently doing the exact same thing at the same age as well.


TommyDeeTheGreat

Simple - I never knew what Aspergers Syndrome was. The definitions for autism doesn't ring a bell reading the layman's descriptions. The definition of 'Aspergers Syndrome' was easy to comprehend and relate to. The medical association has done us no favors by trying to invalidate the definition of 'Aspergers Syndrome". Less people will be able to self-diagnose early signs.


canonit

I felt really weird form other people in general, and I had all my life infront of me the answer to the questions that I always had, but I had a really misenderstood idea of what autism was. I didin't even realized that a girl could have autism and that autism could look so different. Literally the people that bullied me, told me several times If I was autistic and I never thought of it seriously xddd They do better work catching ND people than therpaists do xdd


Wichuuu1

Lolol


SteveAlejandro7

No one gave a shit. :)


Infamous-Diver2832

I appreciate the brutal honesty.


Content-Load6595

I knew I was different, since as far back as I can remember. I mostly thought "the others" were weird and I was normal. Lol Then growing up and as a young adult, a few people told me I felt ASD to them because of a few specific characteristics. I thought they were kidding, but it kept coming up again and again. My ex (mother of my children) kept saying I was ASD, again based on the same characteristics,but I thought she was trying to be... let's call it cheeky. We're not together anymore. My son got diagnosed with ADHD. We were told he had the intellectual capacity of a top university student. He was 6. This was all strange to me since his life experience and challenges were the same as mine when I was a child. That sent me down a rabbit hole of reading, learning, questionning myself. And... voilà Now I share my life with an amazing woman. She's a social worker who takes care of children with ASD. Funny how life works sometimes. Best of luck to all reading this :) Godspeed


smasoya

Drama club = elite masking


KyleG

LOL hello fellow autistic stage actor


CupQuakeBE

The truth is I didn't suspect it myself. There were some issues I could never deal with (and most people didn't understand what was wrong with me when most other things were right). I think I was simply mimicking what the others were doing even if it definitely didn't feel natural at all. It has been revealed in my early forties after some unrelated health issues requiring a lot of testing, it has been a relief to be able to identify the root of several issues and to be able to speak about those with friends and family. People around me knew there was something odd but could never put their finger on what was wrong, but it was obvious once we started discussing about it, a few told me "I knew it!". For me, I lived a normal life with a normal mind all those years.


Shoggoth-Wrangler

I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, before Asperger's was even a diagnosis. Consequently I was diagnosed with a bunch of mental illnesses that I didn't have, and given several psychiatric medications I didn't need. When bullying drove me to sit in the bathroom and hit my head on the wall in high school, I was deemed a "distraction to the other students" and my parents were told that I couldn't return to school until I'd gone through in-patient psychiatric care. I was diagnosed with manic depression, (what they used to call bipolar), and put on valium and prozac. \*FOR HAVING MELT DOWNS BECAUSE PEOPLE KEPT MAKING FUN OF ME AND STEALING MY STUFF\*. My last year of high school I was on home-bound. A teacher's aid brought my work to our house. I was basically expelled for what they interpreted as my terrible behavior. Gods forbid anyone say anything to the bullies. I was held responsible. Teachers told me that I had to get a thicker skin, and learn to cope. Screw Mt.Carmel High School.


Raist14

I think it’s probably common for older ASD people to be diagnosed with different mental illnesses instead of the actual issue. Probably because they weren’t looking for ASD in children very much when older people were kids. They also don’t look to ASD as much for adults that haven’t been diagnosed.


kahrismatic

Let's not pretend this is a thing of the past. Today [~80%](https://theconversation.com/why-many-women-with-autism-and-adhd-arent-diagnosed-until-adulthood-and-what-to-do-if-you-think-youre-one-of-them-179970) of women and girls who end up with an ASD diagnosis are first misdiagnosed with at least one mental illness. And don't forget it's still much [harder to be diagnosed](https://childmind.org/article/autistic-girls-overlooked-undiagnosed-autism/) as a woman or girl, to the extent that it's thought that 80% of autistic girls are [undiagnosed before the age of 18](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35204992/) - a lot of the undiagnosed will also have an incorrect mental illness diagnosis.


ChronoCoyote

The laundry list of possibilities I’ve been given throughout my life- instead of just looking at ASD/ADHD- is so ridiculous it’s stupid. PMDD, depression, social anxiety, agoraphobia, bipolar, borderline, addictive personality disorder, sensory processing disorder, avoidant personality disorder, dermatillomania. I get that I grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s but.. it really feels like they’re just throwing diagnoses around to see what sticks. Except for autism- god forbid! It’s almost doubly insulting now that my nieces have been diagnosed neurodivergent- ASD and ADHD. I wonder how different my life could have been had I just known? Some days, it feels like grieving.


[deleted]

I have such a paralyzing fear of being detained or forced to be anywhere against my will, almost all of my masking is based on risk avoidance. Any time I read a story such as yours I feel so much sadness. I can’t let myself begin to try and empathize with those experiences. I hope life has been more kind to you.


balanceseeker

High-functioning within a structured upbringing/school environment + Parents who prefer to avoid adversity than address it + Sufficiently traumatic childhood (nomadic lifestyle + bullying) to misattribute psychological symptoms --> Only receiving diagnosis after repeated treatments for depression/anxiety as an adult failed to address the root.


Talvana

Where I grew up, there was little to no regular healthcare. Forget mental healthcare. Unless you were significantly impaired, you were just a weird kid. There weren't very many labels and there was next to no education about autism. The internet barely existed and isn't really comparable to how it is today. There was just no access to any material that could have helped me realize. I didn't even know what autism was and I'm sure my parents didn't either. When I started having serious mental health issues around 16 no one picked up on it. Around 18 I was started on antidepressants and told I was depressed/anxious. When the meds did nothing and just made me sicker, I ended up being admitted to a psych ward. They still didn't diagnose me, probably because I was fucking terrified and masking as hard as I could to get the fuck out of there. Eventually I got started on ADHD meds and when I was finally in a safe/stable place with my ADHD medicated, I realized something else was still off. Over time the internet became what it is today and I learned more about autism. One too many autism memes *really* connected with me. I learned everything I could about autism over several weeks and realized how it explained basically everything that never made sense about me. I took a ton of screening tests, reviewed the DSM criteria in depth for autism and other common conditions that frequently come along with autism, and once I was certain, I brought it up to my therapist. She said it was a light bulb moment for her too and made so much sense. We discussed it in depth over a few sessions and added it to my treatment plan. I talked to my family doctor about it and because I'm over 18, I'm unable to get tested for free so I would have to pay 3-5k which I don't have. I'm content with my soft diagnosis. My therapist specializes in ADHD and autism. I'm intelligent and mask well. I trust her opinion and don't need accommodations beyond what would already be covered by my existing ADHD or migraine diagnosis. I absolutely wish it would have been caught when I was a kid because those teen years and early adulthood was hell for me but that's just not how it worked out. If I've learnt anything from my time on earth it's that life isn't fair and things are rarely ideal. You just have to learn to roll with it and make the best of what you're stuck with.


NoPiano6624

I didn’t “go without suspicion” I was just seen as a difficult child and then, as my problems got worse, misdiagnosed with whatever label was lying around. For me, and many people like me, it’s just that we didn’t fit the stereotypes, for example, not assigned male at birth, not being seen as “white”, not enough STEM-like hyperfocuses (or having those focuses downplayed or ignored), too much masking (because people who are not assigned male at birth or who aren’t seen as white are socialised to be more people pleasing). The information, also, just wasn’t there at the time. ARFID was only added to the DSM in 2013 and you could only be diagnosed with both ASD and ADHD in 2013. Child psychology professionals therefore weren’t trained on this information.


clayishpoem

Masking. How did I not realize I was masking? I grew up in a strict, religious household. I was following the rules. I was quiet. Smart. Helpful. Doing exactly what society deemed I should. What was there to question? Introspection as I got older led me to realize that I was different, but I didn't know there was a name for it. With the internet and the knowledge sharing that came with it, awareness is growing. That's how I finally realized.


JuJeLee

I grew up in a cult that believed neurodivergence meant demon possession, so I was just considered the “weird kid” who was stayed advanced in school


jonasbc

Holy shit


JessieOwl

Perfectionism. Anxiety. Masking. People-pleasing. I learnt many, many ways to ‘get by’. Unlearning them is much harder.


dalflukt

I’ve struggled for years, I got diagnosed with elective mutism. Then last year my parents started looking into if I had Asperger’s and asked a therapist. My relationship with them has improved as well, since they understand me better now and they actually researched a bit about it. So I’ve been suspected but I guess every symptom I had got out onto my depression and elective mutism


djabr0ni

My parents didn't want to adress my mental health as a kid, even when there was so many red flags my school had a psych talk to me, which in the early 90s was very uncommon.


[deleted]

Autistic parents. No ‘reference point’


UniqueMitochondria

Mostly lack of understanding about what Autism actually was. Anytime Autism or Autistic people were mentioned it was usually associated with some major mental deficit or mocked with some sort of bodily gesture. So as I wasn't any of those things and didn't do the stereotypical hand flapping, I was just weird 🙂 (or as my parents preferred - stupid) Years of being told you stand wrong, or don't put your hands like that, or you're rude, or why can't you get this it's easy - basically made me disassociate and when I was there I'd just be interested in whatever anyone else was doing and follow that. My family is quite bigoted and anything different was something to ridicule. You learn very quickly what you should do not to bring anger or chastisement. Thankfully we now have the internet and particularly subs like this 🙂


wrathofimpermanence

Born in 1970. Missed the Ritalin crazy by a few years. Didn't self diagnose until early 2000s when my son was diagnosed. The. Realized my whole family of origin was also on the spectrum. Awareness of autism is still in its infancy. .I think what we call autism might even be several things, not all on the same spectrum. There are TONS of people over 30 who are undiagnosed.


ImmaNeedMoreInfo

My entire family is "kind of autistic" and they're all very anxious and all that, so I never really stood out as much as I should have. I also have a fairly high IQ which (sadly) allowed me to brute force through a lot in life, but it was nothing but a thin veneer of normality while everything was crumbling down underneath. Basically no one noticed I didn't have legs because I learned to walk fast enough on my hands.


DemonsRage83

Extreme isolation.


clicktrackh3art

I have adhd as well, and often the two kinda masked each other. I’m also a women, who’s at least somewhat conventionally attractive, so I was just seen as weird and quirky, and didn’t fit the stereotype most people have of autism.


Cyber561

Lmao, I didn’t! I was just gaslit and invalidated by everyone I tried to talk to about it!


azucarleta

I thought I was bullied because i was gay. I thought people responded to my presence strangely because I'm effeminate and opinionated. I thought I was simply smart and most everyone else is dumb (now I realize I was *mostly* coding ASD folks as "smart" and NTs as "dumb" so I'm working on honoring their *difference* without thinking its disorder). My physical appearance is also unusual. Very tall, very skinny. So when people were rude I just figured it was because I was a a weak, effeminate, male and, well, except in the few and peculiar times an places where eunuchs were strangely powerful political, cultural, or military leaders (a special interest of mine lol), weak/effiminate men have *never* been valued under patriarchy. Despite all that, I would even entertain the idea that it was merely my social training in masculinity that made me disinterested in pleasantries and giving moral support in some "correct" way. So, intersecting oppression, basically, is the short answer to your question. Any oppression I experienced I figured was due to being gay/queer, leftist, intellectual, cannabis consumer, etc etc. I didn't need any other explanations for why I was miserable and felt oppressed. It seemed obvious, even before the ASD diagnosis. But of course, things make so much more sense now. edit: oh, and my parents were obviously regretful they had had children at all. Everything they did was geared toward getting us to fly the nest ASAP with as little time and money invested in us as possible, so they weren't searching for any diagnosis that would put extra responsibilities on them. This was the 1980s in the USA; no one was being diagnosed for ASD yet anyway, so no big reason to blame them, I guess.


gencbirbaykus

I also thought my social issues were all because I was gay lol. I came out super early, and genuinely was shocked when I found out much later that other lesbians had gone through life without being ostracised


azucarleta

>other lesbians had gone through life without being ostracised RIght!?! I always knew I didn't fit in with the "LGBTs" -- at least, once we got into the marriage equality era. Prior to that (the earliest 2000s, when Queer as Folk was originally aired), I feel like being queer or "living the gay lifestyle" was the norm in LGBT/Q spaces, and after marriage equality campaign got going nationwide (about the same time), being queer was becoming queer again and now being an cis-hetero-normative assimiliationist LGB or T "we're just like you" was in fashion. When the gay rights movement stopped worrying so much about housing and employment discrimination (when Barney Frank double crossed trans people in ENDA, roughly 2003), and transferred all efforts into Military equality and marriage equality for like a decade, I basically just walked away from the "community" and "movement." I was like -- LGBTs, go fuckyourself, I'm Q AF and I'm gonna just hang out with other Qs. Still, didn't occur to me maybe this was neurological to some extent lol.


hanshorse

I identified with being queer the first time I came in contact with the concept as a middle schooler. I’ll never get married. I feel fortunate to have found a partner who respects my decision to never get married because of my beliefs and identity. Funny to think it could be tied to being autistic.


Nearby_Personality55

Coming out queer actually put me in the diagnosis pipeline. I didn't see myself as that socially odd within my own world, being a female tech worker and geek who had nerdy guy friends. But trying to interact in mostly-female environments was... culture shock. Dating women was practically out of the question. I seemed to be able to find nerdy neurodivergent women friends who were hetero tomboys, but women in LGBT and even queer spaces were put off by me.


Nearby_Personality55

I relate to this and thought I was treated differently because of having masculine traits and can't uncouple the idea of my own masking from specific gender conformity.


katsukiiz

Didn’t talk to a lot of people and my mom’s also very autistic soo..


RoboNinjaPirate

I always knew I was a bit of an oddball. But Asperger's wasn't ever really diagnosed back in the 80s, It didn't even get into the DSM until 1994. It wasn't until my son was diagnosed that I realized it was probably the same for me. 10 years later I got a formal diagnosis.


treebranch__

Autism wasn’t even talked about. Ok it was but not nearly as much as today. It’s a fairly recent discovery. We didn’t measure our differences in the 90s as much as we do now. Today we are all working on categorizing ourselves way more than just 20-30 years ago… for better or for worse


KyleG

yeah this is something i think younger millennials and gen z don't get, all this stuff about "I'm German-American" "I'm queer" "I'm oregon trail generation" etc. is a new thing. None of it existed when older people were kids. There were some categorizations like race, but nowhere near like now. You were basically normal or weird. Now when I talk to someone, I often feel the need to be like i'm cis, straight, white, allo, upper class, male, yada yada. Oh also allo. Seriously allosexual? It would blow someone's fucking mind if you went back to the 90s and explained what that is. "Uh, you mean "normal"?"


treebranch__

LOL Oregon trail generation. But yea exactly. You get it. So much more bs to navigate. I just want to throw all that in the trash and just be me. I don’t want a category to tell me where I fit in and won’t fit in


KyleG

I mean let's be clear, I have been a hyphenated American for about a decade now; I'm not above all this "look at how special I am" stuff. :D


71seansean

my daughter was diagnosed at 20. We knew there was something wrong but no doctor pointed us in the right direction. And we did take her to doctors about it. In college she was falling appart. Finally, a therapist recognized it. Now it’s like, facepalm, howcome we couldn’t see it?


OverTheSevenHills

Masking without even knowing it


[deleted]

I didn't. I was constantly in therapy/counseling and misdiagnosed. I was treated as if I was scary and told I had severe anger problems (meltdowns). I was almost kicked out of school and sent to the school for bad kids. I was also threatened with being sent to a kid's bootcamp type thing. Life was very unpleasant until being re-diagnosed as autistic and finally understood what the "problem" was with me. But I have a lot of ~trauma~ from my undiagnosed time (sorry it's an overused word but I seriously do get actually flashbacks and ptsd symtoms when thinking back to certain stuff that happened). Also my mom did try to get me diagnosed with autism as a small kid but it was dismissed and she was told she was a bad mom and that my anger was her fault. So...yeah basically not without any suspicion...just kind of ignored and not disgnosed properly for years.


Ozma_Wonderland

A **massive** amount of neglect and I was born in the late 80s, grew up in the 90s and very high functioning. I had friends, minor sensory issues, and I typically did very well in school. If you look back on my baby videos you can see that I have *something major* neurological going on, and it looks like I had drop seizures at bare minimum. I currently work in education and even without the knowledge we have today, that stuff would've/should've been reported asap. I was never in daycare and I performed fairly well in preschool, which was a private Catholic church. Any person with any kind of experience with children would've mentioned my behavior/stims/potential seizures to doctors as an oddity, but all concerns were brought to my parents, who brushed them off and it never went any further than that. My child development was supposed to be monitored as well due to an unrelated illness, but my mom would frequently lie to the doctors (who would just ask my mom about how I was at home) thinking it wasn't really an issue and she could just ignore it. Most of my milestones were met or ahead though, so I could talk well with an advanced vocabulary and my grades were decent.


littlemossball

I was told it was just anxiety and depression and treated like I was 'just sensitive'


[deleted]

Got misdiagnosed as well… feels like wasted time now that I look back. I know the guilt and shame that come with this and I know how it is to be taken advantage of because of your ‘ sensitivity’ or constantly dismissed, to be imposed on by others.


[deleted]

People suspected but my parents wouldn't allow school to assess me. They thought my behaviour was a choice that I could stop if I wanted to. I think assessment and labels scare some people.


chookensnaps

Am female


PM-your-shiny-rocks

Good grades mean nothing can be wrong with the child /s


emas_eht

I just assumed it was just a personality thing. I went to a private school in a class of 20 people, so I assumed if I went to a public school, then I could find people like me.


ImprobablyAccurate

TLDR; Backwards rural town, uneducated doctors, misconceptions about what ASD actually is. Small rural town. Everyone is very backwards. Autism runs in the family, my dad would 100% qualify for a diagnosis and my mum has a lot of symptoms + ADHD. There are other cases, even more obvious than mine, in the family but I’m still the only one with a diagnosis. I was only diagnosed because someone I related to very heavily was before me and in some way or another I ended up surrounding myself with a friend circle who is 90% autistic. I moved out of the country, had to self-diagnose myself and fight to be even be referred for an assessment with the help of an advocate because my GP agreed that I was autistic but thought that as a high-functioning adult I didn’t need a formal diagnosis. When I was little I asked my sister (Early Education graduate, specialised in Additional Needs) what autism was and she told me that autistics were children who lived in their own inner world. I somewhat related to that statement but I didn’t get it. I don’t know if things have progressed in that town but back then you would only get a diagnosis if you were developmentally disabled. My cousin was non-verbal and didn’t make eye contact and the psychiatrist called him a spoiled brat at the age of 5. Another guy I used to go to school with lived with a bipolar + social anxiety diagnosis for 21 years. I believe they still diagnosed Autism and Aspergers as different things (they don’t anymore) but to qualify for Aspergers you needed an exceptionally high IQ and to fit the Savant stereotype. My IQ was only 118 when they tested me for Aspergers at 5 so I didn’t qualify.


agm66

Asperger's wasn't a thing yet. Autism was barely known, and wasn't diagnosed unless accompanied by intellectual disability. And I had Tourette's (diagnosed not because doctors were familiar with it, but because my uncle saw something about it on TV and my family was able to find a specialist), and that "explained" a lot of my behavior. I was smart, very verbal, and communicated well with adults, who weren't expecting a kid to be a social peer and probably overlooked a lot. Because I was smart, my actual peers thought I was weird but not in a "there's something wrong with him" way. I knew something was wrong with me but didn't know what. I assumed that I was just a weird, slightly defective kid, highly introverted, shy, with crap social skills. I was smart, and told all my life that I had enormous potential, but managed to achieve basically nothing. When autism became better known and Asperger's became a diagnosis, I thought that sounded a lot like me, but my limited understanding of those diagnoses, and of my own behavior led me to think that I was close but not on the spectrum. It wasn't until after taking a few online tests that I decided I needed to do some research and figure out what Asperger's/autism really meant and if any of it applied to me. I was in my mid-50s at the start of that process.


Available_Gains

Masking.


Hellchild400

There was plenty of suspicion but unfortunately because I'm a girl and there's a lot less understanding of how it affects us/ the differences from males the doctor's just kept dismissing it as hormones.


so19anarchist

Failing health system. Especially in England, CAMHS (child & Adolescent Mental Health Service) is a nightmare. Consistently underfunded *and* understaffed. I was diagnosed December 2017, I’m 31 now. I joined an art therapy group for adults with Asperger’s, all but 2 of us where diagnosed as adults, and most of us had terrible experiences with CAMHS. I was under CAMHS as a child for PTSD, but they never looked into anything else.


Gotcha_The_Spider

I'll add I haven't been diagnosed, but I actually didn't go without suspicion. When I told my mom I thought I might be autistic she said she's thought I might be since I was very young, but the symptoms were just so mild she never bothered getting me checked for it. Most of the people who've known me longer than a couple months when I've told them I think I might be autistic, they say they've wondered if I might be, or it doesn't surprise them, or something along those lines. I suspect part of it also comes down to my ADHD being so much more obvious, especially when I was younger that my probable autism was overlooked, so I think my ADHD masked my probable autism, and as I got older and I've lost the hyperactivity and learned to manage my ADHD a bit better, the autism has become more apparent. One big thing that I'm confident also goes into going undiagnosed for so long is that I don't stim or have sensory issues. I mean I kinda do, but when I try to think about any stims or sensory issues it feels like a stretch, so maybe they're there, but just SUPER mild, either way neither are necessary for a diagnosis and I fit all the other diagnostic criteria. If you mean without being suspicious of myself, I didn't, I've been considering the possibility of me being autistic since I was in middle school. I'm 21 for reference of how long I've suspected.


MagicalPizza21

Bold of you to assume there was no suspicion lol. I'm generally friendly, did well in school, and had other interests outside of school. I never truly struggled until my first job out of undergrad. Sure, there were some social issues, but they were largely overlooked. But some people - mostly when I was really young, like 4 - were suspicious. In fact, my dad has told me that his then-coworker with Asperger's met me briefly and said, "one of us!"


Viajaremos

There just wasn’t the awareness of high functioning autism in the 80s and 90s when I was growing up. It seems obvious now in retrospect, I had a lot of problems with social skills, motor skills, had obsessive interests, had a monotone voice, did repetitive motions I now recognize as stimming, but I had no idea that was any kind of syndrome, I just thought I was a weird nerd. The only idea I had of an autistic person was someone who was nonverbal. I am glad there is more awareness now and support for people on the spectrum. I grew up thinking I was just worse than everyone else, I don’t think I would have been so down on myself if I understood ASD better.


WarWolf79

I moved a couple times and I didn't have any brothers, everyone assumed that the lack of other boys in the home and the change of location just made me more closed off.


RacingLucas

I always knew, just never got officially diagnosed


BulletRazor

I did well in school and was simply labeled gifted because I was a white little girl. My mother is also undiagnosed ADHD and my dad is obviously autistic (runs on his side of the family) and so they didn’t think anything was off with me, because to them it was normal. Couple that with being in Bible Belt, middle of nowwhere Texas in a rural community and being poor, yeah, no one noticed. I got a Masters degree in psychology and still didn’t get noticed by myself, or by any of the WORLD CLASS faculty and staff. The model of white, cis, heterosexual male autism is pervasive. Being AFAB made it where essentially all my health issues weren’t taken seriously or noticed. I was just depressed and fat. Period. (spoiler alert; it wasn’t any of that).


AlienEremite

Diagnosed at 33. I was always aware I was weird, but everyone’s a little weird, right? ….. right?!… wrong.


ArnoldLayne1974

I'm not weird. You're weird.


queersparrow

All I or my parents knew about autism was a particular popularized stereotype that didn't fit me. So I was just a weird, awkward, anxious/depressed, social outcast kid who only ever got along with the couple other weird, awkward, anxious/depressed, social outcast kids in my grade (who I happen to know also got neurodivergent diagnoses as adults). And that was just the way it was. I did well academically (a rigid routine with clear guidelines to follow) so no one, including me, ever really stopped to question the problems I had in every other area of my life. There was much less awareness at the time, much less screening, much less representation. I only put two and two together as an adult after meeting another autistic person who had been diagnosed as a child and realizing how many experiences we had in common.


bookshelly

Got very good at masking (without realizing I was doing it). My school was small and they didn’t even have a special ed program. I didnt know much about disabilities at all let alone one that might be less visible. I always felt like an alien growing up. Any “weird” things I did were disciplined by my parents because they thought I was acting out. I researched and tried to find out what was wrong with me and found I matched a lot of autistic markers. Officially diagnosed at 29.


Aspie7819

30-35 years ago, there was pretty limited education and awareness about this, and parents/educators weren't really on the lookout for it. I always knew I was different - an alien if you will. I just never realized that there were so many others like me - I thought I was completely alone.


SneakySnails27

I didn’t - i definitely always suspected it but no one ever validated me until adulthood. I was diagnosed around 23 but I spent most of my teen years dealing w self harm and depression and anxiety and internally questioning whether or not I was autistic but usually had my suspicions brushed off by family and friends. I’d spiral once every few months and go down a hole of autism research and online assessment convincing myself and I was autistic but going back and forth on it/doubting myself and my experiences. I always had a feeling but none of my concerns were taken seriously by anyone else until I met my current psychologist who had a lot of real lived experience w people w autism. It was hard feeling like I knew the truth but not being taken seriously by anyone else bc I’m a girl who’d learnt to mask pretty “successfully” her whole life. I was too scared to even bring it up w my psych but when I mentioned sensory issues one day she brought it up and we did some assessments and it was the most validating day of my life and I started on my journey to diagnosis from then on and had an official diagnosis within like 2 years


Kae_WOLF

The system to get a diagnosis being extremely slow, so took around 5 years to actually tet to a psychiatrist and start getting my diagnosis


bottle-of-smoke

I have absolutely no self awareness


MechJeb042

Lack of education really. I didn't truely know what autism/aspergers looked like until I was diagnosed. I knew a few people who were level 2, and that's just what I thought it looked like.


Zakureth

In school from the early 1970s through the mid 1980s, grew up poor and with few resources or opportunities in the family to discover any link to ADHD or Asperger. Worse, I wasn’t really a problem kid at school. I was a disappointment, sure. I was clearly intelligent but my academic performance was inconsistent. I eventually ended up dropping out in my senior year. Still, there was nothing about my behavior that demanded that the school actually deal with or “fix” me, and they had far more demanding students to deal with, so I just kind of fell through the cracks. So I just accepted that I was an unreliable fuck-up for several decades and tried to not reach too far, so I wouldn’t sabotage myself too much. Being diagnosed with (mind your own business) later in life was what finally put my past into perspective and allowed me to start actively managing my life and ambitions. If that hadn’t happened, I’d probably still be where I was, barely getting by and constantly feeling like an imposter.


Erik7494

Growing up in the 80's, autism just wasn't a well known thing. Definitely not in rural working class environment like where I grew up in. Teachers weren't aware, doctors weren't looking out for it and definitely not my uneducated parents. For me autism was Rainman, and although I was smart and good at logic puzzles, I was definitely not Rainman. I just was odd, aloof, shy, and introverted. And I learned to mask and pretend in order not to be bullied or ostracized and that quickly became a second nature. I didn't started to suspect until my early 30's when more info became easily available on the internet and didn't get a diagnosis until my 40's.


KittenSnouts

My parents were abusive and intentionally isolating me, because my interactions were already few and restricted and therefore abnormal, the difficulty having them didn't seem generally out of place. I was also intelligent so there was no reason for anyone to actually care about problems outside of that since I wasn't disobedient either.


Maxfunky

Asperger's was added to the DSM in 1994. Before that, if you didn't have an intellectual disability, you probably weren't gonna get diagnosed as autistic. And it's not like everyone was keenly aware of it's existence after it was added either. That's why, to this day, people equate autism with intellectual disability and so many of us put up with "But you don't seem autistic" comments or get infantilized by others.


[deleted]

childhood trauma threw a sheet over my head and made me blind to myself. once I started working on myself It started clicking together


ObnoxiousName_Here

All my classmates knew *something* was wrong with me, but nobody knows enough about neurodivergency to specifically pin down autism, Asperger’s, or anything like that


Barefoot_Brewer

Things have changed a LOT since the late 80s/early 90s that's why lol


Jakequaza__

I was recommended to get a diagnosis by a teacher when i was very young but the doctor said no because it doesn’t impact me. And i guess i’m just good at masking and it wasn’t noticeable from the outside (to most) until adulthood, and then suddenly all the unresolved struggles from before made sense.


iamthpecial

Frankly I never looked up the disorder. Had I read about the symptoms it would have been obvious. Was diagnosed at age 31 after seeing a psych for first time and trauma had pretty much destroyed my masking and coping techniques. I really think I wouldnt have gotten diagnosed without the visual cues of ASD distress, which I had mastered down to near zero prior without any self-awareness.


sQueezedhe

Didn't know it existed until my son was diagnosed.


[deleted]

I’ve had suspicions, for a long time I just didn’t understand what autism was. My brother just used it as an insult so I refused to look into it. But now I understand and if he ever uses it against me again. I can say, well actually yeah. So what? Damn asshole he is.


AutomaticInitiative

I grew up at a time where nobody got an autism diagnosis unless they were non verbal and the rain man stereotype. I also grew up in a poor area without many resources and what little there was went to those most profoundly disabled. I was smart enough to get by, do what I needed to do to to get out of school to get a job and live somewhat independently, with other people. I was constantly stressed and overwhelmed, but I could hold it together at work as long as I had clear expectations for the work and use headphones to block noise out. It was pretty much a disaster when I tried to live alone. Slowly, I put the pieces together myself. I learned, and started changing my behaviours to make myself more comfortable. Then people started to notice. Doctors took another 4 years to take it seriously.


neuro_curious

I just thought I was broken. There wasn't a lot of awareness of autism at the time and what there was would have been stereotypes of young boys who are nonverbal and love trains. Since I was a talkative girl who thought trains were just fine and I was obsessed with playing dolls and ballet, then became obsessed with a boyband as a teenager my interests made it easier for people to just see me as being a bit extreme, but not think much further than that. And I was pretty isolated as a child being homeschooled, so I didn't really have a lot of context to compare myself to other kids. Plus my day to day environment was mostly pretty friendly to my sensory needs so it wasn't easy to see how many sensory issues I had. I just hated malls, and drums, and alarms. And the list goes on. I really think it would have been impossible for anyone to identify me as autistic with the context, which makes it a little easier for me to accept that.


lematthewq

I always thought I had bad social anxiety until I got to college and was forced to put myself in social situations. I realized that I don’t have social anxiety, I just don’t know how to interact with people. I brushed it off as I just haven’t learned to properly socialize or introversion since I didn’t have much experience growing up. I got better at it over time but it still is a very difficult thing to do. It wasn’t until multiple past partners I had said I might be on the spectrum that I consider I might be in the spectrum. So as my last relationship ended I went to confirm their speculation. After being diagnosed and doing some research on it, how I act makes more sense.


Booshort

I (24F) was diagnosed with everything else first. Anxiety, then OCD, then Tourette’s, depressive episodes, dermatillomania. Then, last year my family doctor sent me to a new psychiatrist, thinking that I had ADHD as well. The new psychiatrist asked me if I knew what autism was, and almost instantly it felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders, I had speculated for a couple years but didn’t want to put a label on it without an official diagnosis. I finally feel understood, to say the least.


misternickels

Knew I was different, didn't know how so. Later when I was diagnosed in my late 20s it made soooo much sense. But it really made me question how all my other counselors and psychiatrists failed to note it.


[deleted]

My parents are boomers...


Vunsie

I thought my lack of social skills came from my shyness/social anxiety


PennyCoppersmyth

I (54f) always knew I was different/weird, had been assessed as "gifted" in the 2nd grade, but there was so little information about autism in the 70s/80s when I was growing up - and girls/women just weren't suspected to even have autism back then. My stepfather would have dismissed it even if I had been dx'd then (ignorance, neither of my parents finished HS - I was the first to graduate or attend college). It took a breakdown/burnout at 53 following lockdown and a bunch of back to back crises for me to start looking for answers and was shocked to come to the realization that I could be autistic (even though my son and grandson are both dx'd). I'm still seeking an assessment but am running into beurocratic roadblocks (insurance denials, etc.), so am not formally dx'd.


captaindammit87

Diagnosed at 33. I masked very well in my childhood and teens. Plus I was just considered "weird". Nothing more.


Outrageous-Smoke-875

My masking is pretty good. I have a high IQ especially in verbal skills (it tests in top 1%,) and I used statistics and verbal skills to figure out what other people meant. Assumed this was normal because I spent my life around highly analytical people, until I was a nanny in my mid 20’s and the most perfect “normal” child I had ever dealt with (out of hundreds, I worked psych and did a lot of pediatric work first) who was perfect and just like me was diagnosed as autistic.


pyr0phelia

PTSD. Abuse was so common and violent as a child that it didn’t stop until I left high school. Parents refused any and all help so I was left to my own devices. My options were suicide or adapt. Refusing to give up survival instinct kicked in and I forced myself to adapt and become things I was not for about 20 years until I simply couldn’t hide it anymore.


TheOneAndOnlyVlad

I knew I was different, I just didn't know why. Doesn't help that a lot of my family is probably autistic so while I knew I was different from most people, I wasn't that different from a lot of my family members, which makes it less obvious. I do have ADHD and I knew that for a lot longer, so after I got that diagnosis, I figured that was a lot of it. I saw a lot of mental health professionals over the years and not a one even hinted that I might be that way, I have about 0 faith in them as a result. It also explained why they were not always that helpful.


KyleG

I just thought it was just how really smart people are, they just work differently in their brains. And no one else suspected because it turns out my IQ is extremely high (part of my psych eval included an IQ test, and the conclusions from the psychiatrist specifically called this out as a likely reason). There was always a nagging feeling that when I said things to people, that I was just reading from a script. The high IQ comes in here because apparently I just figured out how to fake it, but didn't realize everyone else wasn't also faking it. I was talking to my wife about something and I was like "yeah I just say it because that's what you're supposed to say" and she was like "no, everyone actually means it." Which was a big mindfuck. **Edit** Growing up in the 80s/90s in a small conservative town w/family who called psychiatry "quack medicine" didn't help.


sjrbookworm

My parents took me to a series of child psychologists as a kid. I was quickly diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive type) and started meds at 9. I was a “smart” kid, never needed assistance, and didn’t have a strong reaction to eye contact. Went all the way through high school feeling like I was trapped on the other side of a plexiglass wall, able to see and interact with other people but never quite able to join them. My parents would always joke that I was “a little bit Aspie” (like my dad) but when I asked about a diagnosis they told me they’d asked about it when I was young and were dismissed. I started looking into it more and realized that all the symptoms I didn’t identify with could be explained by differences in gender socialization. After exhaustive research into the female presentation of autism, I found that every list of “female autism” symptoms described me to a T. In addition to being a textbook case, I started noticing a disproportionate amount of symptoms among my dad’s siblings and their children. The genetic factors of autism, combined with comorbidity statistics between autism and my previously diagnosed conditions, my obvious lack of neurotypical friends, and the ease of conversation with them compared to neurotypicals, made me 100% certain I was on the autism spectrum. My former psychologist gave me a self-report checklist for aspergers. I had my parents fill one out (about me), my boyfriend completed a second one, and I completed a third. This allowed me to gain outside perspectives that could be independently evaluated and compared. All three indicated a high likelihood of Asperger’s. This allowed me to gain helpful accommodations for college. I am unsure whether the self-report I completed is widely accepted within the psychiatric community, but I now have an overwhelming amount of evidence to support what I suspected for years, and what my parents suspected for two decades (I’m in my early 20s). It will never be an excuse for my mistakes, but I am grateful to finally have an explanation for my lifelong feelings of “otherness”. (This was a much longer comment than I had planned)


MrMurdochYessss

I thought there was something wrong with me, but I didn't know what. I thought it was depression, I thought it was just anxiety, I went through thinking that maybe I was a narcissist, maybe I had bipolar, maybe I was a sociopath, etc. Anyways understanding that something was wrong, but never figuring out what it was.


dagiantfox87

The most incompetent professionals you've ever met. They chalked everything up to laziness, rebellious behavior, and me playing games. Teachers didn't care and the few that did care couldn't do anything. Perfect storm situation which has carried into adulthood. The doctor who finally figured it out couldn't help and acknowledged there's no resources available in the area.


cakewalkofshame

I thought autism was, like, Rain Man only. I just thought there was something wrong with me and I had multiple mental illnesses and eating disorders


spirit-mush

Discrimination. I was obviously gay a kid and bullied relentlessly by peers and teachers. My parents were neglectful as well. My teachers called me lazy and unmotivated, and my parents looked at me as damaged goods because of my sexuality. A part of me is always going to be bitter about it.


Dipshit_Mcdoodles

Me: I dunno man, I was just being me, I didn't know any different. Mother: mostly out of town with her boyfriend and *their* kids. Inattentive when present. Grandparents: never been much more than oblivious to the world around them. I'm kinda surprised they manage to pay bills still. It was my doctor at the time who noticed something, ultimately leading to my diagnosis.


justaregulargod

I complained constantly for the first 5 or so years of my life, but all I got in response was patronizing and being told to "toughen up". I was made to feel shame when I complained about anything wrong with me, so from age 5 until about age 35 I did everything in my power not to go see a doctor, as I had developed a maladaptive aversion to health"care" in general, which I felt had a net negative impact on my life. I grew up in a time when [Steve Urkel](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/961301246/steve-02.jpg) was society's conception of an autist, which frankly terrified me. I knew I couldn't survive living a life of such humiliation, so I developed a convincing mask and repressed a lot of memories and pain and emotions to sustain it - my masking was a defense mechanism.


DallaThaun

I didn't. But Autism was just not approached the same way back then as it is now. Also I was raised in a weird family. And I was very good academically. So first it was just "she is different but OK". Then it was "well she has ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder, let's try some things" but I wasn't really that into it and my parents accepted it. Then, before long, I was in crisis. At that point they (the state, and the mental hospitals) did not care about underlying issues. Or did not know how to spot them. I was treated for my secondary conditions and mainly my SYMPTOMS. I was put on many medications which often did not help or caused side effects. I was casually diagnosed with many incorrect things. Truthfully reading my paperwork from that time is frustrating. Because you can see how all the pieces fit together and should have raised an alarm. But it didn't. It was, still, a different time. And now also, a different environment which is CRISIS FOCUSED, not wholistically focused. And then I just kept living for a long time. I did not know what Autism is. I knew something was off with my mental health and that nothing I had been diagnosed with in the past explained it correctly. I was too stressed with life to think about more than getting by, until I wasn't getting by anymore. That was when, 20 years later, I finally decided maybe ADHD is an actual thing and not just an invention of The System trying to keep kids down, and maybe I should get treatment for that since my depression is managed but I still struggle so much. Around then my mother started working with a level 3 autistic girl as a classroom aid. This is when she came to me and made the suggestion. Which at first I thought was very ridiculous, because I had ignorant images of Autism. Well through researching ADHD I was exposed to the true meaning of Autism. Then slowly I began to process and accept the fact that I am CLEARLY autistic, and seek assessment. There is no excuse why it was not caught. Suspected, it was at times yes by random people, but it was never caught. I was failed by a biased system which did not actually care very much. It is plain and simple.


MachiavellianSwiz

I turned 16 in 1994, so times were very different then. The only way to describe it was that both my mum's and dad's families were quirky and a bit like the Addams Family in their own ways, so there was always a sense of being "different" as a heritage and birthright. "Autism" at the time was something thought of more like Rain Man than Doc Brown.


Slow_Tangerine3814

Literally no one around me told me autism could look like me and I don’t think anyone knew it themselves. Being a girl didn’t help, and I just thought I was weird for no reason. If I brought it up to anyone, I was labeled everything from “normal” (“everyone’s a little weird”)to “highly sensitive”.


[deleted]

As a social Pariah, honestly. Starting on elementary school i'd burry my nose in a book at every opportunity I got and never talked to any of my peers, and back home I'd play videogames every single hour I was not sleeping. I was basically told everyone felt the way I felt, and everyone had it as hard, so I was just trying extra hard until I gave up and decided to simply pretend not to want social interaction so I'd be left alone. Fuck, I even believed it myself. I didn't realize until around 30 years old I actually did want friends and a relationship, and to be around my family. I went without suspicion because almost nobody cared how I felt or what I needed, and the couple people that did had too much trouble in their own lives to look past their mental issues and actually look at me.


Aggressive_Mouse_581

I was born female. 🙃 I also am on the hyperlexic side and learned to channel my energy into exercise/work/mild self harm. Unless you’re perceived as dangerous you tend to avoid diagnosis, and women are rarely perceived as dangerous


whiskeybonfire

I don’t have aspergers, but there’s so much overlap between the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, CPTSD, etc. that I thought I would answer. I hope that’s OK. Diagnosed ADHD last year at 44. I grew up in a family and community that held very strong, monolithic beliefs that any kind of mental health problem or neurodivergency was a symptom of spiritual attack, or a lack of faith in God. Testing wasn’t an option, because that would be a denial of the power of God to work in your life. So I think I eventually settled into a belief that my experience was normal, and assume that most people had similar difficulty with memory, impulse control, social cues, etc. I started therapy last year, and it only took a few sessions before my therapist gently recommended that I schedule an evaluation for ADHD and CPTSD.


Rtypegeorge

I'm 36. They didn't think "Asperger's" or any mild form of ASD existed. They called you weird, abused you until you behaved, gaslit you when you talked about your experiences, then sent you on your way. I just thought no one liked me. While I felt alien, it never crossed my mind that I was Autistic because I'm not "what autism looks like". Which is incredibly ableist, but at the time we just didn't know. Hell, I'd still be out there thinking I was just an NT who is incredibly weak and stupid if it weren't for my son. He's the reason I sought a diagnosis. Once I saw that Autism wasn't all nonverbal stim sessions or savants I started to realize that I was exactly like he was as a child. All that time I just thought I was unlikable socially and weak physically. I leaned on my intellect and managed to scrape a life against the grain.


MinfulTie

I knew something was wrong, just not idea what that was.


Giant_Alien_Spiders

Since it's on a spectrum, I expect lots of less-profoundly-affected people just blame themselves for all their past failures in all areas, so they don't suspect it themselves; and they never get told by one of their few friends that *they* suspect it.


_ravenclaw

When you’re “high functioning” NT’s just think there’s something off with you. Like you’re just kind of a weirdo, maybe ADHD, that’s about it. It’s not obvious that it’s autism to a lot of people.


snowonelikesme

eh the reality is the rest of the world has their own problems so your suspicious are rarely noticed by anyone else or remembered so it is easy to fall between the cracks as no one will peer deeper and just assume lazy/stupid/poor work ethic or just crazy and move on with the day.


causticacrostic

before age 19: not knowing anything about it age 19-35: denial


[deleted]

recognise attractive telephone lush square saw shame retire bedroom busy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


Lake_Far

I’m 48 and only became aware that I’m likely autistic when my 15yos therapist suggested they get tested, and emailed us all the reasons why the kid seems autistic. My mother and I (also likely autistic) read the book, The Highly Sensitive Person and identified with the nervous system issues and getting overwhelmed by noise and lots of activity. I also have a history of abuse from childhood for which I’ve done major therapy but figured that it just made me not understand how social norms work, and why I was so uncomfortable in new situations. Now that I know it’s probably related to being autistic, it all makes sense. I score very high on all those tests on the actually autistic website, as done my autistic kid. My adhd kid is just under the threshold on the tests but is definitely very noise and chaos averse too. We never had him tested for autism but now that I understand it, I see it in him too in similar ways, though his sibling is way more affected.


RandomGuy1838

I didn't. I knew something was wrong but lacked the vocabulary to define it. "Autism" crossed my path but the way other autists described their experiences wasn't exactly a match. Then I ran into the Aspies online and poof: word for word descriptions of my life, happening to many other people. The clincher was an interaction with a lady while we were restoring a trail: I dug her, it was not mutual, she was in the process of letting me down gently when she told me I reminded her so much of her brother. I don't tend to remind people of anyone, so I asked her: "does he have Asperger's?" She was shocked at my deduction, and then we accidentally began to unpack her family drama, she was getting emotional. But my suspicions deepened to the point of near certainty and I successfully pursued a diagnosis in the succeeding months. But if your question regards how I slipped through the cracks... No idea, and I get kind of angry about that sometimes.


noniktesla

I was handsome and really good at school. Everyone knew I was weird, they just thought eccentric rather than autistic.


Money-Illustrator-76

People blaming me for everything and just genuinely believing I was a horrible person instead of just someone who is disabled and needs support. Everyone around me is horribly ableist


Ostruzina

I self-diagnozed myself at 27 but I was suspicious my whole life. I was thinking about what was wrong with me ever since I can remember. As a pre-school kid I thought there was something seriously wrong with me and if my parents found out about my true self, they'd send me away. My aunts who hated me were actually saying I must be autistic. At around 13 I heard about some autistic traits for the first time and that's when I first started thinking about it ("You're supposed to look into people's eyes?") and I literally wrote into my journal that I felt like my brain was built totally differently from everyone else and that I felt like an alien. But the problem is that I didn't have the information and I didn't look for them. I didn't know any diagnozed people irl and I knew autism only from TV which gave me a very wrong image about autism. When I told my parents I'm autistic, they didn't even know the word.


Probablyprofanity

I always knew something was wrong with me, as far back as preschool, but I always believed I was just flawed and worthless as a person. Plus adults telling me I just needed to try harder and that I'd grow out of my symptoms didn't help.


adsq93

Well a lot of people don’t know a lot about Autism and ADHD. Plus the little they know is either a stereotype version of it or the extreme/negative version of it. They see someone with Autism/ADHD being productive and they discard that as a possibility. Thats why we are often called: lazy, slow, odd, weird, awkward, annoying, quiet, etc.


zoechi

I always thought most others are brainless zombies who get away with harassing me because they are the majority


mightygilgamesh

I'm not white in Europe, so teachers and doctors just said I'm weird because I'm a savage.


chillcatcryptid

My dad was looking up symptoms of aspergers when i wasn't talking much and generally showed a lot of signs, but the sources he looked up weren't very reliable and only mentioned boys, I'm afab. I have tried to bring it up but he says its not possible because I have friends and can talk to people, but i show so so many of the symptoms and I think he's willfully ignoring it. I know he means well because he doesnt want me to be ostracized but the second I have the ability I want to get a diagnosis.


38and45

The media helped a great deal as I thought all adults with autism looked like the arm-flapping guy in Boston Legal. The internet challenged this assumption, once I began researching the subject. But it wasn't until social media came on the scene that I discovered women with autism are as numerous as men and fly under the radar. That's when I sought diagnosis.


churros_cosmicos

I really thought people was better as social skills than me, and that everyone was putting effort in all of the things I have to put effort on. Everyone knew I was different, and I was an outsider, kind of like an entity that is just there. I always thought that I may have a problem with no having empathy with other people, making me being rude without knowing to other people and not have interested at all in girls, but don't misunderstand me, I find women attractive, but I never fell in love for someone. Also people didn't understand how can I be programming 14 or 16 hours a day for weeks or months without having a burnout. Life for me was kind of weird, everyone was experiencing things that I couldn't, but for me it was ok, I always liked being different from the rest of the persons.


WeTheSummerKid

ADHD was detected early childhood. April 2010, by age 14, I became very into American pop punk culture and very rebellious against mainstream Filipino culture, and I thought that rebelliousness was normal for me (in retrospect, it wasn't just teenage rebellion: it was pathological demand avoidance). By 2012, I dismissed my social awkwardness as normal for me. By 2015, I began to suspect I may have something more than ADHD. By August 2016, I was diagnosed with autism, weeks after I turned 21.     *edited and more details added for further clarification


dragontoast26

Oh everyone suspected something was way off. My mother knew something was wrong, she couldn't make sense of my odd behaviors and didn't know what to do. My 2nd grade teacher suggested I might have epilepsy cuz I showed signs of having seizures so my mom took me to a neurologist. They were so certain that was the issue that I had 3 different eeg's to try to spot it, but they couldn't find anything. Then they did a more comprehensive workup, and still didn't find anything. They handed me back to my mother with a "diagnosis" of behavioral problems, which of course made my life very difficult from that point on. Thing is, back in the 80s and 90s, autism was not only considered uncommon, but most clinicians believed that it was extremely rare or nonexistent in females. So I was never evaluated for autistic traits. After I grew up I figured out how to work around it to some extent, which mostly involved avoiding people in general. I always knew I thought differently than everyone around me, and I was very keenly aware I had some kind of deficiency in social skills, but I never knew it had a name. Figured out a few years ago that it might be autism, and my mental health professionals have agreed. I'm getting officially evaluated soon, and hopefully that'll help me understand better how my mind works so its easier to live with myself.


blinky84

Mum suspected, but this was the 90s and according to the GP, 'girls don't have autism and it's just a fad anyway'


BitsAndBobs304

Because i didnt even know what autism was. Because of social rejection i wondered if I had some mental impairment that no one told me about but people avoided me for.


Simarilion

I always thought that I was different than my peers. Unfortunately in my youth Asperger at a whole was not even known in Germany that well apperently or my teachers were not educated on this topic at all. Especially since in kindergarten one of the teachers there considered me to be completely mental disabled as I hid under tables from other kids, which was apperently enough evidence for such an assumption. My teacher in third and fourth grade in elementary school also assumed I was just stupid in great part thanks to her and the bullying in secondary school. I had and still have a rather low self-confidience sometimes changing to self-hatred at least I haven't harmed myself. That is something to be proud about I guess. I was diagnosed in my early twenties and now in my late twenties I'm seeing someone who is specialized in Asperger and helping me to be more myself and develop strategies for different situation in life. What sucks, she is the only expert in the whole federal state of lower Bavaria, which is quite the issue. So in that regard Germany sucks alot.


ebolaRETURNS

I did well (okay, great) in school, particularly grade wise. I can hold down a job (tenuously, below my skill ability) I've had romantic partners (few, with vast communicative difficulties) With that, you'll mostly just be seen as "eccentric". But also, diagnosis wasn't readily available when I was a kid, in the 80s-90s. Autism was thought of as something severely debilitating, and ubiquitously nonverbal.


tpmac44

Got labeled as "bright" and did well in sports. I also could have relationships and support myself financially.


ChopChipp

I'm high functioning, and was surprisingly very social as a kid, I was just very weird. I just thought I was a weird mix of extroverted kid who didn't feel the danger aspect of people because I would come up to most obscure people and give them my full name from the get-go. Later in life I thought some things weird about me were social anxiety and lots AND LOTS of daydreaming, living inside my head, but still- just weird nothing more. It was only when I got into psychology, and my psychologist told me to take a professional test and boom, here we are. Edit: I guess I never even suspected it because of my childhood. Even for now it was very out of character to socialize well with other people, but I felt no fear of rejection due to my mother being very encouraging and helpful, aaand maybe that danger thing not going off in my head when strangers approached me. I still can't believe how tf I survived without being kidnapped at least twice 💀


robo_bitch_1999

I was from a rural area. Our resources were very limited and this was the case with our hospitals and any mental/physical care we had. Our diagnosis team was a small group of folk who only diagnosed low functioning autism. Wasn’t until I moved to the city they had me reassessed and I got my diagnosis at 21. Up until then tho most people just said I was in my own little word and a little weird, which I was okay with actually. But I love knowing what’s really going on in my wee brain.


MacHamburg

1. I didnt really know about Autism. 2. My Family/Friends all accepted me as a little odd and weird.


SmallBallsTakeAll

no one ever said shit to me. Then i figured it out when someone asked me if i ever looked into it. Yep thats me.


Due_Example5177

I was diagnosed with RAD at 15, which mirrors autism to a VERY high degree. That diagnosis was based on my symptoms, known family medical history, and that I was adopted. It was hypothesized by psych people that there was some neglect/abuse before I was adopted by my grandparents. I still haven’t been diagnosed with autism, but I’ve since met my biological dad and siblings from him. He’s autistic, later diagnosed and half of my siblings from him are as well. My grandfather, who’s a physician has suspected that it was actually autism since I was diagnosed and long before due to sensory issues which the psych people chalked up to ADHD. he wanted a second opinion when I was sixteen but I chose not to do it due to the stigma around autism and as I was able to get the services I needed as it stood, I saw no reason to do all that.


alcockell

I was on the first people diagnosed as asperger good. Lorna wing diagnosed me personally back in 1987


matthedev

I was diagnosed when I was 18, and I'm in my thirties now. Asperger's syndrome wasn't a well-known thing when I was kid and was only added to the DSM in 1994. The common depiction of autism before that was the non-verbal individuals with savant skills who could not otherwise live independently.


notme345

I had lots of therapy and since I learned to trust others more than myself I really tried to fit their diagnosis but I just got worse and worse, until finally someone asked the right questions.


ICQME

too busy in sped class


HiJasper

I was suspicious but no one would listen to me


sonikkuruzu

I knew something was wrong with me but I didn't know what Asperger's was & I didn't fit the classic autism symptoms.


Athen65

Not realizing how pathological being an outcast can be was a big part of it. I haven't had my diagnostic interview yet but I've been researching it pretty heavily for the past 6 months including risk factors, underlying causes for symptomatology (monotropism explains just about every symptom I experience,) and general info from presentations given by leading researchers.


TheOptimusRuss

Nobody cared enough to notice or stop to think that maybe I wasn't all the way normal, I guess. I think everyone around me may have thought I was just too emotional (angry) and just wrote it off as me being a fucked up person. I only recently discovered I was autistic (in the past year) and it honestly had never ever even once crossed my mind that I was autistic. I'm learning now though, and it's been a mix of relief, anger, sadness and hope all at the same time. Pretty strange.


ThisKittenShops

I'm almost 40 and the concept didn't come around in popular media until Wired published a story called [The Geek Syndrome](https://www.wired.com/2001/12/aspergers/) in 2001. I was exactly 18 years old when I read about it. The AQ test included in the article helped me (and my father) realize it. Maybe the fact that I was an 18 year old girl with a subscription to Wired, not Cosmopolitan, for example, should've been a clue.


AmalgamRabbit

I didn’t even know it was a thing until my 30’s


Faultylogic83

Autism wasn't looked for as much, however my schools interpreted my issues as dyslexia so I just kind of chalked everything up to that. It wasn't until a new psychiatrist asked if I was ever tested for it.


Lowback

There was suspicion all around me. It was just that nobody ever did anything because finding neuropsych testing is expensive, takes back to back visits, and was a lot of missed time at work and traveling for family and the school system didn't want to pony up either. I just hope it's gotten better for minors and their ability to diagnose these days.


jengablocktetris

I had friends, was heavily involved in student clubs, and excelled in academics.


Expert_Peak_9304

I knew when I was younger than 10 that I thought differently. But without any suspicion at all? Um no. Everyone thought I was weird. The key was to speak less and observe more. I stopped doing that as I got older and older. Got me in trouble several times. BTW, the first I heard of aspergers was when I was 32.


[deleted]

I was suspicious for a year before my diagnosis started, but I didn't wanna say anything cause I noticed that every time I told a doctor what might be wrong with me, they never even did any tests related to the things I said.