Never thought I was autistic until the diagnosis yesterday

Post Reply New Topic

Hi world,

I am a young female and I have always had problems understanding and dealing with emotions of other people as well as my own. My social awkwardness was at its worst during my teens, but now as an adult in university studying computer science, I can hang out with people and find myself assignment partners. I have never thought of myself as autistic though because the stereotypical obsessive child who keeps lining up his/her toys and throws tantrums when others try to intervene just does not apply to me.

I have recently sought out a psychologist for various issues that are preventing me from achieving my potential. And she gave me the diagnoses of attachment disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and PTSD. I can see the other 3 diagnoses coming because of my extremely pleasant home life and school life during my youth, but autism totally caught me by surprise. Before this, I just thought I had a more logical and practical personality compared to other girls my age.

Anyway, I would love to hear other people's experiences with their self-awareness level of their autism before a doctor's diagnosis. And sorry for any possible English grammatical languages, English is my second language.

I never expected to be autistic either. It was a bit of a shock to be honest. With that being said, I never researched anything about autism, but if I did, I might have related to it.

I was so clueless about my autism that I had to ask a friend what the difference was between Asperger syndrome and autism. I knew a lot about classic Kanner autism, but had little understanding of the more subtle Asperger autism. And, this was just as I was starting to study Autism Spectrum Disorder a few years ago for my own eventual diagnosis.

Since then, there have been many "a-ha" moments when I realized all my autistic behaviors, characteristics and comorbids. So, yeah, I was very slow arriving at the party. "Ohhh!"

Same here. I was abject and quite stubbornly opposed to the idea of having ASD, although I'd never even heard of this term before my assessment - all I heard was the old name Aspergers then, and perhaps I'd let myself get caught up in the generally negative current of lies and propaganda surrounding it.
Since being put on the waiting list I just wouldn't believe my parents could see something I couldn't see for so long, probably because of some longstanding resentment issues. It was bizarre to have ASD confirmed by who's now become my current clinical psychologist. There was never anything to worry about, though. She's lovely and very understanding - I hope your services are as good and that you'll continue to take the time to ask any questions about being diagnosed. It's been slightly over 4 months in for me and to be honest, I still feel like there's a lot of things yet to be figured out.

Yep it was a revelation for me also.
I knew I was different, and other people called me weird.
But none of my family ever said that something was different about me, though clearly there is.

I never saw myself as autistic either and when I did related to some of it when I read about it when I was 14, I was told I wasn't autistic by my mother so I didn't understand why I could relate to some of it and then I read that AS was a form of it and that they shared some of the same characteristics so that explained it. Then I read in my medical records written by my psychiatrist that I have an autistic spectrum disorder and I didn't want to believe it because surely my mother would have told me if that were true.

My idea of autism when I was a teenager was someone who never speaks and ignores everyone and can't tell people things and they spend all their time rocking in a corner and they never play with toys or use imagination and do pretend play. I was none of that. I was always told autism and Asperger's were two different things so it would always be confusing when I would see people on their webpages claiming to have both and I wouldn't believe that aspies were autistic and they only had a form of it, they had Asperger's not autism and they were not autistic. That was what I was taught about it.

Wow it seems like lots of people share the same experience here. Lol this is so funny, everyone around me thinks I am weird/nerdy/too-cool-for-a-girl but nobody has ever suspected that I have ASD. I guess when we are capable of functioning somewhat normally, everyone including ourselves just thinks we are shy and nerdy instead of having a social/emotional disability.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

We on the spectrum more commonly have sensory issues, and that's been helpful finding out about.

For example, I used to think people were conformist fools for putting up with something like a chirping smoke detector and not speaking up. But now I think people just aren't as bothered by it as I am! So, it helps me cut other people some slack.

PS I am comfortably self-diagnosed. I'm 54 and that's going to tend to be the norm for someone my age.

Hello,
I actually don't remember what it was like when I was first diagnosed as I was 10 when it happened. I would say from ages 10-17, I didn't want to believe AS was a form of ASD. I was annoyed when my counselor described me as autistic and would always refuse accommodations because i wanted to believe I was normal. Since I wasn't having convulsions, or random tantrums, and appeared normal to everyone else, I didn't think I fit the picture of autism. Even now there are common symptoms among the people involving sensory overload like light or object or food hypersensitivity and honestly my AS affects me more mentally and emotionally than physically.

I didn't think I had it either when I was diagnosed around 4 years ago. Even with meds and therapy, it took me about 2 or 3 years just to even say it with any confidence to people. It's cool that you're part of that group that didn't see that diagnosis coming. For a second I thought barely anyone had that experience and everybody else thought they were autistic, hoped they were autistic, and received their diagnosis.

I didn't have have a clue until I was 55 years old, then wasn't sure until the actual dx 3 years later.
and @HelloWorld " . . . weird/nerdy/too-cool-for-a-girl . . . " sounds very good, and a big hearty welcome.