When did you first hear about Asperger's Syndrome?

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(As some of you may know), I heard about Asperger's from my parents after they read a magazine article in 1996 or 1997.

I think it was around 1999-2000. I saw a short current affairs profile piece on a woman (Wendy Lawson) who had written an autobiography...she had been dx'ed as schizophrenic as a teenager but the dx was now some newly recognised type of autism. I could relate stronlgly to a lot of her statements and perceptions.

I shrugged off the idea of autism cos that's well, that's not possible, but I rang a disabiltiy advice line and briefly explained some of my problems and experiences and they suggested autism (I was still a bit disbelieving) and told me to contact the local autism association.

I first found out about Asperger's about a year ago. I was doing a history assignment. I was trying to discover whether or not Joan of Arc may have suffered from Schizophrenia. Because of her age, I was checking out juvenile psychiatry sites, to see if anything else might fit her better. I came across Asperger's and looked at the diagnostic criteria to see what it was. I checked out three different checklists because I believe in cross-referencing, especially on the Internet, and I discovered I fit about 80-90% of the criteria.

I was was back in june when I was getting new tires put on my vehicle. I was reading the local newspaper from the day before. When I got to the youth section, I came across a picture of four local teens with a caption below that mentioned aspergers syndrome. My curiosity was peaked so I went home and hoped on the good old internet and began to look up webpages.

As I read, it started to make sense to me that this was what I had. Then for about three days I went thru a denial period where I was like "I don't have this....". And so I started to observe myself and my mannerisims during the day, and by then end of June, I had gotten over my inital denial and started to look for an outlet in which to communicate with others, and I found this place.

I was one of the first to be diagnosed...

1991... age of six...

Around the middle of 2000 I found out about Asperger's in a newspaper article. From there I did a substantial amount of research about it in my local library. I discovered that I had a lot of signs of Asperger's and found that I probably had 85-90% of the criteria. My mum made an appointment with a child psychiatrist and the diagnosis was eventually confirmed in September 2000.

I can't exactly recall the exact year or the exact article that I saw it in, it's been about 10 yrs though when I first heard the name mentioned, I didn't really read much about it though back then. I only really got in depth reading about it when my oldest son was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.

I first heard about it circa 1997. It was suggested that I might have it by an adolescent psychologist, but that was as far as went cause she didn't really know much about it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I didn't pursue it at the time. I guess it was because I was only 15, didn't have internet access, and wasn't all that resourceful. Also, I wasn't told about any of the criteria - just a suggestion of some thing called Asperger's and that's it, so I really knew nothing about it. My real discovery of it came in early summer of 2003 when I accidently came across an internet article called "Was Einstein Autistic?" That lead me to the Oasis site, and that was when I realized what my problem had been all these years. It was quite a revelation.

I found out in August of 2003, just before I started college. My mom was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist's office and was reading an article about it in Newsweek. As soon as she came home she told me about it and said it sounded just like me. I always thought I had autistic traits b/c of my excessive daydreaming, but I had no idea any milder forms existed. This sounds similar to how a lot of you found out, but hopefully in the future more and more people will be aware of it.

I first heard about AS in May of this year when someone on a Gifted/Talented listserv posted a link to the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical: http://isnt.autistics.org/ and mentioned (without explanation) that their gifted son had something called Asperger's Syndrome.

I read the site. I read a couple of other websites about AS. I just sat there in shock for awhile. I took a couple of online "tests." Suddenly my life made sense. Over the next two or three months I more or less went through the familiar stages of grief -- shock/denial, anger, depression, acceptance.

would've been around 1996, summer of, when there was an article in the Times Educational Supplement. i was teaching someone we thought might have it, so went on a training course with Rita Jordan. been fascinated ever since.

and then, earlier this year........

V

Well, I became more interested in autism (Kanner's type) during my sophmore year of high school, which was in 1998. It actually wasn't my choice, but I was in a group of three people, and we had to do a research paper together. They (for reasons uknown to me) chose to do it on autism. While reading about the difficulties faced by many autistics, as well as interviewing parents of autistic children online, I found that there were many similiarities between myself and them. However, it was quite obvious to me that I am not classically autistic.

It wasn't until about two years ago (2002) that I first read about Asperger's Syndrome. I have been trying to figure out what's "wrong" with me since late Jr. High school, and I went through reading about schizophrenia, bipolar, chronic depression and a few other things more briefly, to finally just forgetting about it for awhile. I don't recall what brought my interest back, but one day I was doing a search for some of the social difficulties I have, and I came across a page written by an autistic man. All it was was a long list of the things that characterized his autism, explaining who he was to the world. I could identify with more of those characteristics than I really wanted to admit. I reread the page several times, and there was mention of Asperger's Syndrome.

Since I was just beginning to become obsessed with the character Ayanami Rei (from an anime series called Evangelion), I was reading a lot about her on the internet at that time, too. I also noticed she seemed to share many of the autistic-like traits that were on the man's list, and that I see in myself. So I did a search for her, and for autism together, and found a few pages mentioning that people (including her voice actress) thought she might be autistic. Since I see so much of myself in that character, I began to do more research on autism and Asperger's. Like others, I became depressed, when I realized that this is probably me. It was probably one of the darkest times during my life. Now, however, I am doing better. I am still full of doubt, though, and constantly swing between two extremes, believing I definitely have Asperger's, and believing that I am completely decieving myself. But anyway, here I am.

My Social Worker mentioned it to me when I was in her office, back in 1999.
She gave me photo-coppied chapter to read out of a book on Autism. Once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. Those pages described me to a T.

I first heard about it in psychology class.. I didn't think it could be me cause it sounded like a serious mental illness.. it wasn't until a couple of years ago when I came across an internet article by someone with aspergers that it clicked into place.

It happened to me about five years ago. I was diagnosed at age 4 in 1995. I didn't find out about it until I was in 1st or 2nd grade when I saw my mother looking it up on the internet. She wouldn't tell me what it was, so I snooped around her library/art studio and saw bookcases full of something called Asperger's Syndrome. I read part of one of the books which was simply titled Asperger's Syndrome. It all came clear. I felt betrayed that my parents had kept this from me for so long. But I had a talk with them and it all straightened out.

Anyway, it's thanks to my AS that I haven't gotten any friends. They think I'm too smart for my own good. Ah! But as Michael Ende said in "The Neverending Story," , thats another story and shall be told another time.

Yours truly,

Christopher Grills

I basically figured it out when my parents rented "Rain Man". I noticed: "Gee, that guy seemed to be a lot like the way I used to be when I was still at the height of my powers. However, I'm not autistic -- I know enough about autism that I'm too high-functioning to be autistic"!

So I go downstairs into the basement and looked at the article on autism in the Britannica. There it was.