How did you come to WP?

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A major meltdown, and a loss of a job led me here. Whether or not I'm an autistic for sure, I don't know? However this place has helped me in ways I have never understood before. Before knowing about this site, I thought I was really good at figuring myself out, by dabbling in things, and making stuff up. Getting a medical opinion has pritty much always been out of my control. I do have alot of people on here to thank. I do belive my mind is wired alot like some of these cats on here.

A year or two ago, I started researching Aspergers for a few reasons. Along the way, I discovered information about AS in women and saw that it fit myself pretty well. Through my research, I also found WP but did not desire to join at that point.

This past spring, I had a major meltdown and realized that my problems were greater than I thought and that I would do well to get into some kind of community. Since I knew about WP, I joined up.

I found WP in 2006 when I was randomly googling information about Asperger's, (though I knew that I had it since 1994, when I was diagnosed and the previous websites that I knew about that had information on it were the British NAS website and Aspergian Island). Anyway, I simply lurked here for about 2 years until I registered in 2008.

I was trying to gather information about my childhood because I thought it could lead me to finally discover what is wrong with me. So I asked my mom, and she said at one point she thought I might have autism but I was never diagnosed. So I was researching Asperger's, and a week later I searched Google for Asperger's forums. I registered pretty soon after finding this site, it might have even been that same night.

I was actually pretty excited, because I was reading a lot of the posts wondering how much I would relate, and then after a while I started thinking, "These are my people!"

I think I just googled this way, or perhaps my mom suggested it. I was diagnosed when I was 4, hence I decided to stay upon realizing how helpful it can be to reflect on one's own troubles by relating to others'.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Via Tony Attwood's book. Checked it out and stayed for about 12 hours the first visit, maybe longer. Knew it was the right planet for me very quickly.

Yes, thank you. It made a tremendous positive difference to my life and self-perception at a very vulnerable and isolated time. I got tremendous validation from reading old posts that I could completely identify with. I was no longer living on a planet of one. I am immensely grateful for WP and your efforts to create and sustain it.

I don't remember to tell you the truth. In early 2010 I met a new guy in my apartment building who treated me like his only friend in this world even though he had only seen me twice over two months. At the same time he acted as if he were terrified by my presence. I thought this is odd, but then as I walked away, the thought popped into my mind that "this guy is more like me than I am myself". Since I have no friends at all, he meant a great deal to me and I struggled with explanations because I really did want to understand him better and the reasons why we were so similar. The thought of autism came to mind and I spent all of June of that year intensively studying everything I could find online about the subject. It was easy to see that he fit the mold, but then three weeks later on June 28, 2010, I realized that I was also looking at the perfect description of myself. Two months later a psychologist confirmed this. Anyhow, it was at some point during that month of study that I first encountered some reference to WP.

Some people on the spectrum mentioned it on a couple other forums I went to.

I don't remember how I found it. I started looking into Asperger's in the fall of 2008, and somewhere along the way I found a link to WP.
I think I started lurking here in October 2008.

I used to search things on Google, there were many times when threads from this site appeared for me so I decided to sign up

I was searching for articles about people who were not sure if they have aspergers or not, then i found a topic about it here and spent the whole weekend reading a lot² of posts.

attwood's book

If one does a google search for Autism Forums, Asperger Forums, ASD forums or Autism Spectrum Forums - Wrong planet will be somewhere in the top five on all of those searches.

I don't know for sure. But I am guessing that in terms of number of posters and number of posts - Wrong Planet is probably the largest autism/Asperger/autism spectrum forum on the Internet.