How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Post Reply New Topic

I was diagnosed in 7th grade when I was 12. At first they thought I had ADD/ADHD until I got the proper diagnosis.

Seven. I had received no other diagnoses prior to my AS diagnosis, and I had never been suspected to have any other condition.

33.

Asperger's wasn't even officially recognized until I was a senior in high school. I had never heard of it until last year when someone posted one of those online test things.

If I had known about this when I was young, well, my family would probably still not understand but I'd have some peace of mind. No one even recognized I was suffering from major depression until I met my husband and he suggested it to me when I was 19. I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him.

21.

It is truly AMAZING my parents didn't suspect anything before then, considering what a little weirdo I was.
And my mother was a certified SPECIAL ED teacher, but it's only recently education on Aspergers and HFA has happened-
the kids she knew as Autistics sat in the corner and drooled on themselves.
I wasn't cognitively-impaired, so my ineptitude everywhere else had to be something else, I guess.

Oh, I was on Prozac by 9, have been on every sort of cocktail for depression that you can imagine,
which was a misdiagnosis, one shrink thought I was bipolar....
I most definitely have anxiety, but nowhere near debilitating.

I'm not sure an earlier diagnosis would have been helpful at all-
the label's nice, but it's dealing with the "symptoms" that is the point.
I do know that having an official diagnosis in-hand is the only way parents can wrestle schools into providing personal help for their kids
(and sometimes not even then, gawd, the horror stories in the Parenting Section ).
I highly doubt, being from a very small town, my school would have offered anything-
I never seemed to be paying attention in class, yet always knew the answer when called on,
and they thought about having me skip a grade, but I'm very glad they didn't.
Ability to do busy work is really the only important question in a lot of cases.


Aaaaaand I'm rambling cause I'm (unintentionally) high on cough medicine.

AS @ 21, would've loved to have known earlier, though it didn't exsist till 1994. Before they said I had ADD and then that got ruled out and was just developmentally delayed.

I was diagnosed when I was 11, and only because the teachers at my school felt something was wrong. My parents didn't know anything about AS and my mom thought autism was only for the really severely impaired kids on the extreme end of the spectrum.

Before that, I went through a round of "What the hell is wrong with this kid?" starting in fifth grade where I was diagnosed with depression, ADD and anxiety disorder NOS before AS came into the picture. Only the last two labels have stuck. Once they gave me the diagnosis, it was like unlocking the puzzle. I instantly identified with having AS and accepted it right away.

I was diagnosed when I was 18, roughly a year ago. I hadn't heard of Asperger's until I was diagnosed, so it came out of nowhere basically.

I was diagnosed a little over a month ago at the age of 26.

My son was just diagnosed a few months ago at 34, and I just discovered the traits in myself at 59. I would have loved to have this information long ago, and my son too. Would have been easier on me as a child, and as a mother. I'm just now being able to forgive myself for my parenting, and myself for all the things I wished I could change, but never seemed to be able to.

i was 14 but it took a year to accept it. i still think its ridiculous that just because im socially awkward it should be considered a disorder.

I was 7 but it took me right up until I was about 18 or 19 to accept it.

Diagnosed June 28, 2011 and I was 25 at the time (now 26). My family always knew something was different about me but the doctors at the time said I'd grow out of it and that we didn't need to do anything about it. Which has made doing stuff about it now harder since doctor wonder why I wasn't diagnosed as a kid. >.<

I'm in my mid 30s and currently undergoing diagnostic process but its not fast enough for me. I'm impatient.

I've been wrongly diagnosed with different severe mental health conditions over the past decade or so because the psychiatrists (and I quote), "don't know what else to call it"

I now think I'm stuck with these wrong labels for life and many times a day wonder if I'm not just a fraud for trying to find out about ASD, even although it can easily be accountable for ALL the issues I've had growing up and being ill.

I was diagnosed 2 years ago at 20. I think someone asked my mum when I was a child if I might Autism, but I dont think Aspergers was as well known about then so no one thought anything of it. They just thought I was shy and a bit weird I guess!

I was 26.