What did you think it was before aspergers

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When I was elementary school age, I knew I was different, but I couldn't really pinpoint how. By the time I reached mid-adolescence I thought it was just shyness, then severe introversion. I went through a patch around 16-17 when I was convinced it was high sensitivity, and only realised after I discovered AS that I was really kidding myself about the whole "feeling other peoples' emotions" thing, and that my only HSP traits were the physical sensitivity ones and strong internal emotions. AS makes a million times more sense than that. My mentor, who I told of my suspected AS a few months ago, still thinks it's just high sensitivity. Recently though he blatantly brought up how bad I am at picking up on subtle social hints, so maybe he's finally starting to see it too. My mom would throw out things like OCD and me just being weird (she actually called me weird to my face once or twice when I was being particularly stubborn about something) but it was her ultimately who brought AS to my attention after a psychologist friend of hers brought up the possibility.

When I was young, I overheard my mom telling someone my teacher thought I had ADD. I vaguely knew what it was and this was before the internet, and I didn't give it much thought until years later.

In 2007 I went through a psych eval in the air force after a breakdown. The psychiatrist said I showed signs of schizoid PD and avoidant PD. She also mentioned AS, but mainly talked about the personality disorders. I wasn't really in the mental state to research the PDs, so I didn't really give any of this any thought until someone mentioned that they thought I may have AS. She told me about the traits of AS, and it was as if she was listing things that I'd felt all my life and had never told anyone about.

It was then I started to really look at myself and figure out why my brain works like it does.