Personally, I have spent the majority of my life being oblivious as to what Autism and Asperger's syndrome were. For much of my life I had a single mental image for each, for Autism it was Rain Man and for Asperger's it was Jerry "Hands" Espenson from Boston Legal, making me at least 20 before I had even a misinformed view of Asperger's.
Skip forward from the mid 2000's to around 2010, with The Big Bang Theory becoming something that everybody watched and I started getting likened to Sheldon, something I'm sure many others on the spectrum have encountered. While I don't imagine many people are quite like Sheldon in real life, when people suggest that he has Asperger's / Autism, those of us who are compared to him are also brought into consideration.
As for things that aren't from TV and what lead me down the path of researching and eventually an official diagnosis, was first of all a friend who was concerned about some traits in her first born son, as she read up on the traits she managed to rule out her son as being on the spectrum, but everything she read made her think of me. Shortly after that was just a passing comment from another friend, although I would say the second one was more of a "Big Bang Diagnosis" (Is that a term, because it probably should be).
So when I found myself unemployed I pursued an official diagnosis, as job hunting and anxiety issues were become a genuine concern at that stage in my life. So I would at the age of 28 that I had an accurate idea of what the whole spectrum really was, considering I am now 31 with an official diagnosis, I find it remarkable that I spent so long with no idea at all.
Skip forward from the mid 2000's to around 2010, with The Big Bang Theory becoming something that everybody watched and I started getting likened to Sheldon, something I'm sure many others on the spectrum have encountered. While I don't imagine many people are quite like Sheldon in real life, when people suggest that he has Asperger's / Autism, those of us who are compared to him are also brought into consideration.
As for things that aren't from TV and what lead me down the path of researching and eventually an official diagnosis, was first of all a friend who was concerned about some traits in her first born son, as she read up on the traits she managed to rule out her son as being on the spectrum, but everything she read made her think of me. Shortly after that was just a passing comment from another friend, although I would say the second one was more of a "Big Bang Diagnosis" (Is that a term, because it probably should be).
So when I found myself unemployed I pursued an official diagnosis, as job hunting and anxiety issues were become a genuine concern at that stage in my life. So I would at the age of 28 that I had an accurate idea of what the whole spectrum really was, considering I am now 31 with an official diagnosis, I find it remarkable that I spent so long with no idea at all.