What were you like as a child?

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How were you different, and were you treated differently?

my mum says I was a bit more responsible donno which way

One of the things I hear is I was an unusually quiet baby.

i was unusually quiet as a baby, too. but mom says when i grew up i would throw "random" tantrums that would last for hours and i wouldn't stop even if they did what i wanted. (now i know these were probably meltdowns). when they had my brother, they thought he was unusually hyperactive and talkative because i was so quiet, but he was just being a "normal" child.
and kids hated me at school, and i got bullied a lot. you know, the usual stuff.
on the plus side, i was reading complex arabic literature by age 8, and have read all the works of both shakespear and charles dickens by age 12

I was also a quiet baby

According to my mom, I cried a lot as a baby. My older sisters could tell that there was something "wrong" with me when I was as young as 3. I completely avoided eye contact and kept to myself most of the time. I started having panic attacks as young as age 3 and started developing OCD at age 7.

In school, I talked constantly about my interests regardless of whether or not anyone actually listened, earning me the nickname "Chatterbox". I was very well-behaved and every teacher I had adored me. They also said I was "highly intelligent", which is why even though they noticed my autistic symptoms and other mental health issues, they brushed it off as merely the "eccentric behavior that is associated with high intelligence".

I loved to read as a child, usually books above my grade level (nowhere near the levels of hyperlexia though) and built up a large vocabulary because of it. I also talked out loud to my imaginary friends whether at home or in public.

Speaking of imagination, I had (and still do have) a very active imagination, contrary to the common saying that autistic people lack one. For example, I created an elaborate sitcom using my plush animals, invented stories about the animals on my Lisa Frank folders, and of course went on epic adventures with my imaginary friends, who were all based on whatever special interests I had at a given time,

I'm told I was a quiet baby, and that I never screamed. As a child I talked endlessly about my topics of interest, but never made eye contact. I was bullied constantly and also emotionally abused by people I thought fit the definition of "friends" so I did whatever they wanted me to.

I learned to read when I was 3 and spent most of my time watching the Discovery channel or reading heavy books (especially fantasy like Tolkien or sci fi, or books on physics by Isaac Asimov). I did so well at school that they wanted to skip me ahead several grades, but my mother wouldn't let me because she thought I would have too hard a time socially (ha ha). They gave me an IQ test when I was 8 (with a high result, but my mother refuses to tell me the exact number) and I took the SAT for the first time (for fun) when I was 12. I got a better score than my mother did when she graduated from high school.

I never had any friends and never understood why. I spent most of my depressed time (a considerable portion of my lfie) crying or hiding in the closet with the light off. I had meltdowns on a regular basis, especially when forced to interact with other people. I started having insomnia when I was 5, depression not long after that, but the doctors/therapists all said I was too young for that, so they denied that it was true. I was in therapy from the time my parents divorced (sometime when I was 5-6 I think) but no one ever thought there was anything wrong with me. To this day my mother denies that I am autistic, claiming I have been "making up symptoms" since I was little "to get attention."

As an infant, I didn't cry for attention, only to be fed or changed. I was withdrawn socially as a child but always seemed to be getting in trouble at home for saying the wrong thing.

My parents say I was the perfect baby. I was never any bother. I started to speak at 6 months and used to spook passersby by asking them where they were going, whilst sitting in my high pram. Like another poster, I learned to read at 3yrs and my mum was advised to send me to a small private school at that age - my parents aren't rich, my mum cleaned houses to afford the fees. I was also very outgoing, friendly and caring, but probably seen as gullible. The kids that lived nearby would be cruel to me. I became socially withdrawn at around 7yrs, when I changed schools - I don't know if it's connected. The kids at my school were great and I don't remember being bullied at all before going to high school. The head teacher would not tolerate it anyway.

I was very alert from birth apparently.
I did not crawl, I just got up and walked one day, apparently.
I seemingly had no awareness of danger and walked through a plate glass door and had to be stopped from going back through the broken glass.
I got right up when I fell and carried on with whatever I had been doing.
I loved learning about nature and memorising things.
I got on better with teachers than the other children.
When I played, if I did, I tended to be controlling and to want it to be done my way.
I tended to say the wrong things to other kids and got disliked as a result.
My father said I tended to only want to talk about my own interests, and had no interest in those of anyone else.
I did odd things like collecting woodlice and snails in a pram and wheeling them around instead of a doll.
I talked a lot in class, and instructed others on how to do their work when I was around 7/8, which tended to get me disliked by some of the teachers.
I liked reading books on different kinds of flower and bird, and also recall reading encyclopaedias on the toilet, lol
I collected various things quite obsessively, including buttons, fossils and ornaments of horses. It was never a matter of having an interest, each one became all consuming and I would collect everything and anything related to it, and have a one track mind whenever we went anywhere, about finding something new for my collection.
Oddly, I also heard that as a teen, when someone asked me why I kept wearing the same tracksuit every week, I claimed it was because my parents didnt buy me any clothes...which shocks me as I don't like lies. I have no idea why I did that.
I would also apparently, as a very young child, go and sit at the tables of other people in cafes and start having conversations with them.

Once, when I was not eating my food at a restaurant at about 5, my father said to me 'are you going to eat that or are you going to just play with it?'. Apparently, I paused for a moment then responded with 'On reflection, I think I shall just play with it'.

Another quiet baby.

I was mute for a long time and even when I did start talking I was like Sooty (I'd whisper into my mothers ear so she could talk for me) or as I got older I started to bark instead of talking - at school I was far behind other kids my age and I had to have a lot of speech therapy; I couldn't say 'R' 'W' 'Q' 'S' 'St' 'Ch' 'Th' 'Sh' and forget about reading or writing!

I couldn't go anywhere without holding onto my mother and continued to need my mother to accompany me until my mid to late teens, I didn't eat solid food until I was seven or so, I was unable to bathe myself or groom myself until my teens, I unable to use the toilet fully for some time, in my teens I took to wearing unusual clothing, and I had meltdowns constantly as a young child so there was rarely a time when I wasn't crying, I also sucked my thumb a lot and my stimming was rubbing my nose so I had a constant raw spot on my nose.

I was obsessed with farming, biology, Egyptian mummies and geology - other kids thought this was strange, my family were proud of this but told me off for all the rocks I piled into my room and for getting the same book about Egypt out of the library every week so no one else could have it. I spent a lot of my time at home playing inappropriate games (I was sexually abused, so my playing with my soft toys or dolls often included sex and/or violence) but I knew enough not to let others see me play like this so I became very guarded and secretive about everything I did. I played outside a lot too, we had a very large garden so would get lost for hours playing in the mud, thinking myself some sort of goddess. At school I had many invisible pony's to play with, as I got a bit older I attempted to play with other children but it didn't work out very well - but I wasn't bullied until my teens.

I didn't acknowledge other people much, I remember in school I was always ignored in class which I think was because I refused to acknowledge the teachers when they tried to talk to me, I was largely left to get on with stealing things from the classroom to make into whatever I was obsessed with making at the time. I used to steal a lot, never been that great with boundaries when it comes to what is mine and what is others, I also have poor impulse control so always did whatever the hell I wanted - but I was never badly behaved. The world for me as a child was like a MMORPG, other people were like other NPC's, they were things that I could choose to interact with on a very basic level, but often didn't bother - I was very much in my own world.

Lots of things started happening when I was 7 years old - when my parents got devoiced - I 'woke-up' to the rest of the world a little more and thus I started to interact with others more and started to learn, I started speaking, I started making friends or at least I started wanting to make friends and realising that I didn't know how (I was able to have a birthday party...no one came, luckily at the time I wasn't aware enough to take it to heart), this is also the age my OCD tendencies really started to kick in and also when my body dimorphic disorder started.

I didn't cry as a baby but screamed instead. My mom says she swore I was going to make everyone in the household deaf. I would scream for hours and at the drop of a hat. Everyone kept telling her that girls are so much easier than boys but my mom says that I was harder than all three of my older brothers combined.

I don't even remember playing with any of my 4 siblings; have no memories of them at all. I think I was happy, though.

I've just remembered something that freaked my parents out. I bit through a glass tumbler on a few occasions, when I was about 5 or 6.

I was quite religious as a child and very much into the Virgin Mary. At a Catholic school, this obsession was probably seen as fairly normal and encouraged. I'm quite the opposite nowadays, in that respect.

I was a "normal" baby, neither quiet nor loud. Never crawled but walked and spoke early.
I do have lots of memories from my childhood, starting when I was about 1 year old. I slept in my buggy with my butt high up in the air, and only like that. Don't ask me why. That was considered strange. When we went for a walk there were two different kinds of pavement on the sidewalk in our village (it had been broadened a few years ago, so the left side had a different pavement than the right side) and I kept sitting in my buggy, directing my parents/grandparents from one side to the other. I just yelled "ROUGH!" - "SMOOTH!" and they had to change to the desired side or I would start to cry.
We went to the beach for holiday and I threw tantrums whenever I felt sand on my feet. Remember, we were on the beach. Poor mom and dad. To make me happy again I had invented a game: I threw my little spade into the ocean as far as I could and poor grandma had to quickly run after it and bring it back because I started crying. Then I threw it away again. I could do that the whole day.

I didn't hold eye contact and I hated being hugged, kissed and most forms of body contact (although I liked being carried around by my parents when I was too lazy to walk). I was deadly afraid of my (one and only) grandfather, no one knows why. I remember being afraid but there wasn't an apparent reason. I taught myself read and write when I was around 3 or 4. I was obsessed with cars (my father is a car mechanic) and I loved the smell of gasoline, and still do. Not healthy, I know. I liked dinosaurs as well and everyone told me that I was a boy in a girl's body. In kindergarten I didn't like to play with the other kids, I just kept asking the kindergarten teacher questions. I was nicknamed "Why". I why-ed all day and I wanted to know everything. Got my fingers on a book about the human body which belonged to my mom, so I knew how babies are made when I was around 3 or 4 and I wanted to know everything about rabies and AIDS. For some months I kept asking about sex and AIDS every day and preferredly when we were out on the street so I embarrassed my parents quite a lot. I mean really embarrassed, like I remember I once asked what a blow job was when we were in the doctor's waiting room with like 20 other people.

From around age 3 on I started to have horrible nightmares. It was all blood and gore and no one (including me myself) has the slightest idea where I got that from. I definitely never got to watch some stuff children shouldn't watch, like horror movies and so on. My parents were very loving and I had never happen anything bad to me, so it had to come all from my own imagination. Mostly I dreamed of people torturing and murdering me, things like ripping out eyes and disemboweling me and everything. I told my mother a few times and because she started to cry I never dared to tell again because I didn't want to make her sad. Unfortunately that led to me never telling anything bad to my parents again which meant that I didn't tell when I was beaten up at school and such and worse. Not that I was an unhappy child or anything, I just didn't talk about some things which no one noticed because I generally talked a lot.

School meant infinite boredom and bullying kids, just that I mostly didn't notice that I was actually bullied. As soon as I noticed I became very violent but it happened only 2 times during primary school. One time I discolated the arm of a boy who had beaten me and then took my shoes, jacket, pullover and schoolbag away and threw it into a river. It was winter and it was snowing and I don't feel the least bit sorry for him.
Because school was so boring I started to make up stories and to write. And read under my desk. I did that during my whole school time. I never in my life studied at home, I never did homework except for primary school when I did it like 50% of the time. Teachers got mad and wrote to my parents but nothing helped. I just didn't want.
After I finished school and started to go to university they found out I'm "intellectually gifted" which means I could just have skipped some years, but well. Too late now and I passed my final exam anyway.

When I was a teenager I was never interested in the typical girls stuff, which was bad as I was in an all-girls class until I was 15. I was more of a nerd until I was 13, then I became a tomboy again like when I was in primary school. I got the nickname "Daydreamer" because I never paid attention in class and whenever a teacher asked me something I just replied "Huh?". This resulted in whenever a teacher called my name the whole class started to laugh and chorused "HUUUUUUH?" before I had said anything.
I became so very invisible that 6 weeks after the beginning of a new school year our new teacher wanted to throw me out of the room because he had spotted me and didn't believe I was actually part of the class, as he claimed to have never seen me. I discovered that this might be an advantage and from around age 12 I invented some very creative hiding tactics for school which finally resulted in me being absent around 70% of the time without anyone noticing it. I was very good at mimicking people and I became a good actress. I faked a broken arm at a sports festival for not having to take part, I regulearly "fainted" when I didn't like to take part in things, or became "sick" or had "fever" (manipulating thermometers is just so easy, really) or I fake cried because various imaginary grandmothers, pets or uncles had died and so on. I was very creative at cheating also and because I was so stupid to do people every favour they asked me I actually wrote exams for other people and stuff.
I also started stealing a lot when I was around 11 or 12. Not for an actual reason but only because I realized I could and no one would notice. I stole my lunch for 7 years every day and no one ever found out. Except for some classmates whom I told it and as I said, I was willing to be nice to everyone so I did steal lunch for them as well when they asked me to do so. I also stole jewelry, clothes, make-up and stuff, sometimes for me, sometimes for others and I made fake-IDs and fake bus tickets which saved me a few hundred dollars. I went partying with friends from when I was around 14 and did drink a lot. It happened not that often, like every 2-3 weeks. I wasn't interested in boys at all and I think the others mainly took me with them because they liked that I allowed them to style me and give me some of their clothes to wear so I "finally looked like a real woman not like a little boy", as they said. My parents never had any idea of this. I liked going to clubs because I like those blinking colored lights and the loud music.
When I was around 19 I told my parents some of it and they actually didn't believe me.

I had severe sensory issues and didn't like to play because of them. Once I learned to read proficiently (by the time I was four), I didn't see the point in playing at all. I honestly thought most people were boring and didn't have much of a drive to socialize until middle school, when I failed at it miserably. I remember when I was ten, one of the boys I had grown up with described me as "childlike." Not "childish," "childlike." He wasn't the most normal kid either
I was homeschooled from the beginning because I was so quiet my mom was afraid the teachers would think there was something wrong with me emotionally. I ended up being severely dyscalculic, so it was a good thing - I was able to stay far above grade level with my other subjects while struggling with basic addition and subtraction.
I was obsessed with mythology, including Christian theology, which was handy since we were active at church. Because of my extensive knowledge of Scripture, my drive to follow rules, and my social naivety, I was considered very spiritual. I think it would be funny to go back to that church and tell them I'm now an agnostic because I don't consider the Bible to be reliable data anymore.