I'm 46, and just found out.

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For nearly four decades, I've been running around on this planet with a persistent knowledge that most of the people around me did not see the same world that I did. If aliens were to land in my back yard, knock on the door, and say, "Sorry, Jeff. There was a mistake. You were left behind." I would be the least surprised person in the house. I have really lived my entire life thinking I'm on the wrong planet. The name of this forum stuck a chord with me.

Last week, my grandson(19 months old) was diagnosed with autism. The specialists are still working on what kind. Like any new subject I run into, I researched it. In my research, I ran into Asperger's Syndrome.... Hmmm....never heard of it. What is it? More research.....

OMFG.

In the late 1970's the schools brought in their best and brightest to try to figure out why I was so intellectually advanced beyond my peers....and so socially/developmentally behind. They did all kinds of tests. They found out I was hypoglycemic. Some dietary changes helped reduce the frequency and severity of the childhood meltdowns. I don't think I had the communications skills at that age to explain to them what I sensed in my head. I certainly did not have the ability to explain it in terms they would understand.

I'm an Aspie.

It's a lot to take in all at once. I still have a lot of research to do.

It is very rare for me to get my mind blown at this age. I'm kind of enjoying this.

Welcome to WP! I look forward to your future posts. Do you mill wheat?

I currently work in a mill that makes specialty plastic compounds.

I spent years in a mill that worked cottonseed. I worked inside a plant full of the chemical equivalent of napalm. I had explosive solvent distilling over my head. Fun job. Sadly, that one shut down.

Hi there; your "aha" moment sounds very much like mine, which came also in my mid-forties. I'm now 52 and have only just begun to accept the possibility after all these years since I first had that initial moment. I had the same "OMFG..." sensation when I started reading about Asperger's. That massive pang of recognition of problems, issues, challenges that had been happening all my life since my earliest memories, which I had never understood -- much less anyone else understanding them -- and felt ashamed of, strove to hide, could never figure out why I'm so different, etc.

Then when I was about 45, about seven years ago, something completely stupid brought Asperger's to my attention -- some celebrity was said to have it, or had just "come out" about having it, I don't remember, but I was curious about what it was and so looked up more about it, merely out of pure curiosity about this fellow's condition.

OMFG indeed. When I read what Asperger's is and how it manifests....I was reading about my whole life history, from childhood issues onward to continuing adult difficulties.

You seem to have a very healthy approach and are interested in going on the journey. I've only now begun to feel that way, because at first, for me, there was nothing but complete horror and sadness, when I recognized myself in the traits. I was deeply, deeply upset and in denial. I felt as shocked and disturbed as if I'd just recognized that I had symptoms of herpes or a fatal physical condition. I was really upset -- even just at the mere suspicion, as of course it wasn't a "diagnosis" -- just a humongous recognition that this could very likely be "Me."

I tried to shove it aside and "put it away." I'd spent my whole life knowing I wasn't like other "normal" people, but being horribly ashamed of that, struggling terribly with it, and therefore striving very, very hard to BE like them even though it had never really worked for me and was a massive strain. Finding out there might actually be a very real reason why I am the way I am was only slightly a relief but more it was frightening, because I had so ingrained it in myself the insistence that there isn't "something wrong with me" (which is what I always really thought of myself, "There's something WRONG with you!! !"

Being on the spectrum of course isn't shameful or wrong one little bit, but my own mystery was the shameful thing. The fact that in my generation nobody even addressed the high functioning yet still none the less struggling child and young person that I was. I also suspect, now, that my parents may in fact have been approached by our doctor or my teachers, but my parents would have "shoved it under the rug". There was a lot of that in my family, about all kinds of things. And I may have been thrown under the bus with this thing, too, for the sake of "normality."

Anyway, sorry to ramble, just to illustrate that you are not alone, there's lots of us older ones out here who have only recently stumbled upon some answers in this fashion. Hope this site can help you. It's helped me in discovering that other people do the same things I do, feel some of the same ways about things, when I'd spent a lifetime thinking I was the only one.

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Welcome!

Welcome!

My aha moment came just last year. For me it has also been a great relief to now have a whole new set of tools to work with.

Welcome!

I was 49 when I was diagnosed and treated by hypno-regression therapy as an aspie after a nervous breakdown began releasing memories into my subconscious that it had suppressed for the previous 35 years of a bizarre first 15 years of my life - I retired at 65 and am 69 now, and last year I wrote and published an ebook trilogy and compendium about my autism and aspergers syndrome - and yesterday all four were in the amazon kindle top ten bestsellers in their niche - I found writing about my problems immensely liberating and recommend you do it too

I was about 45 when I made the same discovery while reading a Temple Grandin book.

I was diagnosed in my mid-40s. My wife gave me the AQ test. I later received a formal diagnosis. I also never thought I belonged on this planet. I would be more at home on Vulcan.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

True- its great to have your mind blown, and the jigsaw less skewed at this time of time. No more pretending....

Welcome to each of you!


In the late '50s, I began wondering about those things in about the fourth grade. Then in the sixth grade, I once intentionally mispelled the word "pen" on a test both as an act of defiance against all the attention I was getting for my academic accomplishments and because I knew that would almost guarantee another class in the competition would win the picnic outing and I would not have to deal with all the social frivolity.

In the late '70s, a therapist who had yet to ever even hear of Asperger Syndrome had a psych friend of his prescribe Thorazine for me while considering my meltdowns to be evidence I was "borderline psychotic", but I did not take that for long at all after someone else had warned me about its long-term effects.

I first heard about Asperger Syndrome from another Aspie in my own 50s, but she did not really tell me much since she had decided it best to never draw attention to that part of herself so few people will ever understand...and for me, my eventual discovery of WrongPlanet was a tremendous "tears and cheers homecoming" kind of experience!

There are some very fine folks here, and the remainder just have yet to actually arrive...

Enjoy!

Welcome,i too always wanted the aliens to bring me home.no child left behind,right

I'm 32 and just diagnosed in the last week. From the ages 5 - 11 I told everyone that I was born on Jupiter and had been hidden on earth as a pretend human because of a war back "home".

Hi, Off Topic!

You're in good company here. Lots of late diagnosees on this site -- some well into their senior years. I was diagnosed 9 months ago when I was pushing 48 and it's been the sleigh ride from hell since then. Like you, I was intellectually advanced over my peers all my life, but my social relations have always been a disaster. It was all there throughout my life, but being a female, the professionals didn't pick up on it, until I started belatedly putting the puzzle together myself. Until relatively recently, I shared the general perception of autism as a condition of boys who rock back and forth and act out or of genius computer geeks on the Asperger side of the spectrum, rather than that of a verbally astute professional woman with a graduate education who's great at what she does but can't seem to get through a day without offending someone unintentionally. I had to be honest with myself that the reason I always had the feeling I was on the outside looking in was because I really was on the outside looking in neurologically-speaking. Sitting down with the DSM-IV and flipping away from the misdiagnoses that had been misapplied to me and staring at the Asperger's list of criteria, everything I had experienced from childhood on started to make terrifying sense. Dozens of people on here would tell it you that way almost verbatim, so you are not alone. Welcome. You'll have lots of questions about coming to terms with the diagnosis and the repercussions. We're here to help.