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When did you realize that you're different for the 1st time?

epath13

the Fool.The Magician.The...
V.I.P Member
I think I was somewhere between 2 and 2,5.basically that's when I had my 1st opportunity to communicate with other kids.I remember looking at them and wishing to play together but I couldn't understand their rules of communication. Later for the next 7 years I kept telling myself, that's just because I keep meeting the wrong people. Only at age of 9, when processing issues became more obvious as well, I had to admit that I wasn't like others. At that point I thought that there's something wrong with my brain and I was on a mission to figure out what it was.

What about you guys?
 
When I was five or six. That's when I realized that stimming (didn't know what it was called at the time) wasn't normal which made me stop performing more embarrassing stims in front of people.

By the time I was 14 I fully realized that something was very much wrong with my brain and started getting very depressed as a result of it. I hated the feeling of "differentness". I no longer experience depression as a result of this as I've figured out what's "wrong" with me.
 
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I remember looking at them and wishing to play together but I couldn't understand their rules of communication.

I like how you put that.

I first realized that I was different when I was young. I can't pin-point an exact age but I suppose that I always knew that I was different. I was involved in a car crash in my early teens and had to see a lot of doctors and medical people as a result. At one point I remember sitting there and wanting to tell my doctor that something was wrong with me - that I felt completely different to everyone else. Then I thought that it would be stupid to say that because I couldn't describe the "symptoms" or tell him what exactly the problem was, and thus he wouldn't be able to help me or "prescribe" anything for it (does that make sense to anyone?). I knew I was different but didn't know how. I knew there was something wrong with me but didn't know what. Later that year I was referred to a psychologist for assessment as I missed a lot of school after the car crash despite there being nothing physically wrong with me. It was that psychologist who eventually diagnosed me with Aspergers Syndrome.
 
For me it wasn't long after I started primary school. I was 4 at the time, and on the first few days I was baffled as to how the other kids in my class had been able to make friends so quickly. I wanted to join in with their games and make friends but I didn't have a clue as to how to go about it. My obsession at the time was rabbits, and I eventually managed to win a few people over with my drawings of rabbits, but I was never really close to any of them as such.

I moved to another school when I was 6, and when I was 8 I was referred for assessment (now I know that's why I was seeing those doctors and educational psychologists and all). That's when I began to think there was something "wrong" with me. Eventually I got diagnosed with AS at the age of 9.

There was a time when I was 13 and I really resented my diagnosis. I hated the fact that I was "different"; I really wanted to fit in and be "normal" like everyone else. But now that I understand and have accepted my differences I'm actually glad I got diagnosed at a young age. I've read about people, on this site and others, who have gone their whole lives knowing they were "different" but hadn't found a reason why; I feel fortunate in knowing why I am the way I am.
 
My kindergarten teacher told my mom I was different. She put it in positive terms. All through grade school it was, "She is the smartest kid, she just doesn't apply herself, etc." My 2nd grade teacher was cruel. I would be in a daydream and she would walk up and down the aisles and walk up behind me and peck my head with her long finger nails. She would lock me in the supply closet when I misbehaved.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 12. She used me as a shoulder to cry on. She was wrecked. She called me a peacemaker and "not the typical teen" because I had a gift for listening. I remember thinking that it was not that I have a gift for listening, but I don't know what to say. I never told her that I didn't want to be her comfort, that I thought she was putting a burden on me. I just bore the burden.

All growing up I heard that "not the typical teen" from her. All the time in Jr. High and High school I was bullied and teased. I thought it was because we were poor and my clothes came from the thrift store and were t-shirts and jeans, while theirs all came from the mall and had designer labels. I never knew honestly that I was different until my son was diagnosed with it. There was always some reason that I found as to why I didn't want to socialize, why I was awkward, etc. It was an epiphany for me when I heard the word Aspergers for the first time and the light was on and "aha! so that's why"
 
I knew I was different for a long time--I was interested in "bookish" things like the space program and military aviation, when the kids in my school, at least in junior high, were into rock music, dancing, etc. By the time high school rolled around, if I didn't know something was different about me then, I certainly learned it quickly. Again, my interests (space, military aviation, and by now current events/politics) were wayoutside the "norm" for people my age. I grew up hearing "he's...special" a lot, but to me, "special" meant "different," and for a long time, I refused to accept it. Finally, I just determined that something was different about the way my head was wired (which I already knew it was.)


When I received my diagnosis in '09, everything suddenly made sense to me--my obsessions with certain things (and people) suddenly had a reason, rather than just having been the random ravings of a disturbed mind. A classmate of mine, who has a son who received the same diagnosis that I did, of PDD-NOS, said that when her son received his diagnosis, she thought of me. When I asked her why, she said it was because of the way I behaved in school...being "overstimulated," as she very kindly put it...then she said, "I didn't get it then, but I do now." That made me want to cry, because I always felt like nobody understood what I had dealt with as a kid.
 
I don't think I can pinpoint an age, I must have been fairly young. I always felt different I just thought I was weird and my parents always insisted I was fine particularly my mum, whenever I was doing something unusual (like not talking in school, or refusing to wear any socks,or only eating certain foods etc) she was always fine about it and never told me off. The not talking in school thing was probably one of the more obvious things to me that something was different about me. I can't even explain it I wanted to talk and every morning (once I'd been at school a few years so probably age 6 upwards) I would psych myself up and keep repeating in my head to just talk normally like everyone else but as soon as I got to school I became mute.

I think the differences were always noticeable but my parents chose to ignore them, even at my nursery school when I was 3 the staff knew things had to be just so or I would 'kick off'(have a meltdown). I HAD to paint as soon as I arrived and if any other kid was painting when I arrived they quickly moved that child on to something else so I could paint. I had a particular trike I liked to ride on and one time when another kid was sitting on it I went right up to him pushed him off and said it was my trike and nobody else was allowed on it (my earliest memory) and the staff kept that trike hidden from then on and only brought it out for me because again they knew I would 'kick off' if anyone else touched it.
 
I can place the exact moment or anything, but I do know I was quite young when i realized it in some way. By about age seven I was questioning why I didn't have friends when it seemed everyone else did. At that age I did want one of course, but I simply didn't know where to start. I did the same things the other children did in social situations, but it was "off" somehow and I knew it. It was at about that point in my life that I came to understand and except that though I had no name for it, no words to really explain it properly, I was not quite the same as others. I remember it was about about that same time that I asked my mother, in my typically calm and blunt way, why it was I was not like my classmates. She said the rest of society was weird and I was actually the normal one, lol. (We've long since talked about this, and she finally does realize that I'd been completely serious and was right after all.)
 
My kindergarten teacher told my mom I was different. She put it in positive terms. All through grade school it was, "She is the smartest kid, she just doesn't apply herself, etc." My 2nd grade teacher was cruel. I would be in a daydream and she would walk up and down the aisles and walk up behind me and peck my head with her long finger nails. She would lock me in the supply closet when I misbehaved.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 12. She used me as a shoulder to cry on. She was wrecked. She called me a peacemaker and "not the typical teen" because I had a gift for listening. I remember thinking that it was not that I have a gift for listening, but I don't know what to say. I never told her that I didn't want to be her comfort, that I thought she was putting a burden on me. I just bore the burden.

All growing up I heard that "not the typical teen" from her. All the time in Jr. High and High school I was bullied and teased. I thought it was because we were poor and my clothes came from the thrift store and were t-shirts and jeans, while theirs all came from the mall and had designer labels. I never knew honestly that I was different until my son was diagnosed with it. There was always some reason that I found as to why I didn't want to socialize, why I was awkward, etc. It was an epiphany for me when I heard the word Aspergers for the first time and the light was on and "aha! so that's why"

people can be so mean!
i think i was about five or six when i just knew i wasnt like other kids. i just knew it. other kids talked and laughed while a song was playing while i was lost in the song, fascinated by it. other kids thought animals were ok while i was in seventh heaven. other kids knew what to say as if they had a script in their heads and they needed something called "friends". i didnt always understand what they said. other kids seemed... i dont even know how to explain it, but it felt like i was watching robots that were programed to talk and act a certain way. life didnt seem real.
i think the first sign i was an aspie was when, according to my mother, my father came home after six days and he didnt shave. my mother said i didnt recognize him and treated him like a stranger. i dont remember. but i do remember not talking to anyone but my brother in kindergarten and nodding and pointing when being asked a question. i just couldnt bring myself to talk.
other kids didnt get rage attacks. sure, they got angry, but not like that. other kids didnt feel chronic anger and depression without even knowing why. they didnt over react to every little thing like i did. they liked chocolate and candies which i cant stand because my sense of taste is too developed. other kids werent terrified of noise and didnt suffer from anxiety all the time. other kids had better motor skills.
other kids' parents didnt say they talk like they swallowed an encyclopedia.
other kids didnt walk on a tube covering a hole in the ground in the schoolyard, back and forth a million times, or paced in the backyard flipping their fingers. other kids played with each other.
it's very confusing and disturbing, especially for a little kid, to know you're different from others but not know the answer to the one millioin question: what is it?
 
I was thinking about this for awhile and I remember when I was in Kindergarten (mind at the time they had Autism but not Asperger's as a diagnosis for people and it wasn't really a spectrum kind of thing at that point) I was never the trouble maker in fact I was so strangely quiet that often they would forget about me. I remember once while I was just staring at my fingers and playing with them some kids came over and started to call me "weeeeird" in that little kid way. I knew then that something was wrong with me but I thought it was my visual impairment. I'd been made fun of all the time for that even by the neighborhood kids so I didn't understand what weird meant at the time I just in that little kid way knew something was off. I would get upset or scared by other people's tones of voice and still do. Because I often think they are upset with me and can't understand why. I had one teacher in elementary school when I was in third grade that always told my parents that I would learn when I was ready and that I would do great things. He told them I was different. But like I said there wasn't a term for that back then so I was just a different learner and kids take that to all sorts of cruel things.

But I didn't fully grasp what that meant until I was in high school. When I realized I had no friends and didn't understand anyone. I didn't understand conversations and didn't find the usual stuff fun or interesting. It wasn't until much later that Autism spectrum and Asperger's became more well known then I got my degree in Social work and I knew I was different and it had a name and I was ok with that.
 
I was always aware that I was different from my peers. In fact, one of my earliest memories is marching around the church hall with my playgroup class singing, "If you're happy and you know it", but inside I was thinking, "I'm not happy. This is stupid."
 
Hard for me to even talk about it. It was horrendous. I recall in those days the teachers would come to your house with the rest of the children to say "Hi"" before school started. At first it was all smiles and then finally I entered the real world. I recall one female teacher yelling at me as I couldn't follow a lesson and I was thinking, "Oh my God!" Then the very first time, I definitely recall we were in a group and all the kids had to form pairs. Well, somehow nobody would pair with me, I was like on my own and thinking what's up with me? Why don't I fit?
I recall one female teacher who was a real *****. She had me stand at the back of the class holding two books out in each hand as a punishment. I saw her later on in years and she was flirting with me so weird, I guess.
I did make a few friends. I did also go out to play with friends like other kids. Sometimes, though, I would get picked on and was always the very last one to get chosen for a team.
I was considered slow. What happened was the classroom system didn't work for me as I learn and think visually not orally.
After school I got into weights and bodybuilding. I wanted to assert myself and it worked. In fact, quite a few bodybuilders such as Lou Ferrigno got into weights to compensate for difficult childhoods.
Maybe the feeling of being different got more subtle and stronger into adulthood. I think what hurts the most is when a group of friends exclude me and go off to do something without asking me if I want to tag along. Now I never do that. If I see someone being left out I go over and make sure they're made to feel welcome.
 
I was always different, but I don't think I totally realized it until about 3rd grade, which is the grade where I switched from a private to a public school. At the time, one thing I would always do was write people's names down on paper. I'd do it over and over and over, until my desk was completely covered in paper with the names of my classmates on it. Kids were always asking why I did that, and I didn't really have an answer for them; it just felt good.

I also had an extremely messy desk during elementary school. No matter how hard I tried, my desk would become unbelievably messy and disorganized. My 3rd grade teacher would sometimes come over and flip my desk down so everything would spill out of it and force me to put it back in neatly (Which was ironic, because this teacher had the messiest desk I'd ever seen). I couldn't see how other kids kept their desks so clean.

The term most commonly used to describe me was "smart aleck." I didn't try to be one; I simply had (and still have) a very literal mind.
 
I dont know when it was that I first felt different. I think it was probably in preschool. I went to a Waldorf preschool which was very different from normal preschools. I never played with the kids my age, but instead I would enjoy playing with the teacher's dog or cat or just playing on my own. In kindergarden I was bullied by the kids so I just would play on my own. I remember thinking the other kids were stupid because they acted so immature. I would love to play with my invisible friends. I liked them because I could understand them unlike actual people my age. In 1st grade I hated my teacher. I dont think she was actually mean, but I just didnt like her eyes. I would call them meatball eyes. She would make me mad and set me off. I also was really bored because they were learning the alphabet and I was already reading books. My mom took me out halfway through the year. I was homeschooled through the rest of 1st grade and second grade. Then 3rd grade I went back to school. In 4th grade I had a really mean teacher. She picked on me and I spent more time in punishment then anything else. She always made me mad so I would yell at her alot. Especially when she was being unfair to me or other kids. One day she hit a nerve by saying "I know you cant help it cause you're special needs". I had always thought my mom was hiding from me that I was special needs and this was my "proof". Well it turned out my mom had never mentioned or really thought I was special needs just "different in a good way". She took me out halfway through after an incident where the teacher was yelling at me because a girl through a ball and hit me in the head. I was homeschooled until 6th grade.

When I went back to school thats when it REALLY hit me that I was different. The kids were all talking about sports and pop music and the girls were wearing makeup and everything. i totally couldnt relate to them and every time I tried to talk I would mix up my words and say something stupid. In 7th grade I switched schools and had the worst bullying experience ever. Everyone got so angry at me because all I would ever talk about was horses and my first horse that I had just gotten (Allegro). They wanted me to talk about something else but I couldnt think of anything else I wanted to talk about. They would trip me, call me names, and draw mean pictures of me and my horse. That's one thing i could not tollerate is people insulting my horse. I would get in fights with the kids about it but the teachers didnt really do anything about it. I was glad when I got to leave and switch schools again. I spent the other half of 7th and 8th grade at another school. Unfortunately, in january of 7th grade I started having seizures. The school kicked me out saying I was a "distraction". They let me back for 8th grade but I dont remember much of it because I was seizing most of the day. At that time, almost the whole school knew if there was an ambulance outside that I was having a seizure. They kicked me out again halfway through 8th grade and I have been homeschooled ever since. Just a little while ago I got the diagnosis of aspergers and it was awesome! I never loved a diagnosis so much. It explained why I was different.
 
In elementary school, kids learned that I was sensitive to pain, so they would poke me whenever they could. It never stopped. I tried telling teachers, but they thought I was being a "drama queen." Wherever I would go, at least two people would be poking me. It was terrible.

The worst bullying problem I ever had was the summer between 4th and 5th grade. My mom took me to a sports camp (I am actually a better athlete than most Aspies) and I learned that there was no limit to kids' cruelty. While other kids were doing things, I just wanted to lie on the couch and read, but I could never do that. Kids would come up and hit me with pillows, and take the book and throw it on the ground. I couldn't ask a counselor for help, because they were bullying me as well. I made the mistake of telling a personal story to someone, and it spread like wildfire around the camp. Every day, I would come home crying, but my mom thought I was exaggerating. I would break down crying at the camp quite often, and you can imagine how the kids and counselors reacted to that. It was hell like I'd never experienced.
 
They bullied you because you weren't "integrating" I was bullied quite badly. One day I got beat up. However, funnily enough, to be fair I did have friends and sometimes did go out with other kids. One of those kids got in touch with me not so long ago and we laughed at some of my antics. So, I'm not going to paint a picture of an out-and-out reject. It waxed and waned.
When you're not accepted by a whole group ,it means you grow up more independently minded. You are less socialised but, at the same time, more prepared to approach an issue very differently as peer pressure isn't so important as it is to most.
These days I still see the same scenario where people appear to have fun but it seems a bit shallow. I don't see any deep conversation. Many friendships also seem kind of false. Just seems that way.
 
I was in elementary school, probably around third or fourth grade. So like nine, probably. I was on the playground at school and there was a group of girls i wanted to play with, i wanted to make friends with them but i didn't know how. I didn't now what i was supposed to do or say or how to play with them. The rare times i tried, i would just freak them out trying too hard. So i took to just following them around, at a distance, not interacting with them just watching them. Eventually the teachers got mad at me for it and told me to stop. Around that time is when i realized i'm not like the other kids, i dont know how to make friends with them or play or what to say to make them be my friend and let me play with them.
 
I think I always knew, from as far back as I could remember. However I also recognize that my differences became more pronounced proportionately with socialization requirements which continued to evolve around me.

As time went on, socialization became more complex. Between four and seven years old, whatever differences there were between myself and Neurotypicals seemed insignificant to me. After that, things went badly more often than not.
 
Hmm... I guess it was sometime when I was a very little kid, maybe about three years old, in the church nursery. There was no incident, I just felt different and separate from the other kids somehow. I loved playing in the nursery though. I was upset when the day came that people told me I was too old for it.
 
My kindergarten teacher told my mom I was different. She put it in positive terms. All through grade school it was, "She is the smartest kid, she just doesn't apply herself, etc." My 2nd grade teacher was cruel. I would be in a daydream and she would walk up and down the aisles and walk up behind me and peck my head with her long finger nails. She would lock me in the supply closet when I misbehaved.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 12. She used me as a shoulder to cry on. She was wrecked. She called me a peacemaker and "not the typical teen" because I had a gift for listening. I remember thinking that it was not that I have a gift for listening, but I don't know what to say. I never told her that I didn't want to be her comfort, that I thought she was putting a burden on me. I just bore the burden.

All growing up I heard that "not the typical teen" from her. All the time in Jr. High and High school I was bullied and teased. I thought it was because we were poor and my clothes came from the thrift store and were t-shirts and jeans, while theirs all came from the mall and had designer labels. I never knew honestly that I was different until my son was diagnosed with it. There was always some reason that I found as to why I didn't want to socialize, why I was awkward, etc. It was an epiphany for me when I heard the word Aspergers for the first time and the light was on and "aha! so that's why"


Earthsteward,

Your kindergarten teacher sounds like many of my teachers! (If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "He's a smart boy, he just doesn't apply himself," yada yada...I would be so rich that it wouldn't even be funny!

Never had a teacher like your second grade teacher, though...and something tells me I should be glad I didn't.

Like I said in a previous post, unlike you, I always thought I was different from other kids because of my interests, etc. But like you, the light came on when I got my diagnosis. I was like, Okay. Now I get it! :)
 

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