Were you in denial at first?

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No, I am fine with it as it explains a lot.

PN I was put forward for an Aspergers diagnosis a few years ago and recently but did not attend. I don't feel its is Asperger's, its autism, just autism...there are differences even though both are on the same spectrum.

Also it has changed in recent years.

When i was younger I was more socially oblivious, I tried to socialise even though I was shy as well and got mocked all over the place by most people but a few. I was bullied all the way through school, could not maintain friendships, the other children thought i was weird even though I thought I was being friendly, I tried to join in but did it badly and couldn't understand why they were being nasty to me. The other children would put me up to doing things socially and I, not knowing I was doing anything wrong, would do it. Then they would mock me for it or I'd get told off.

I even asked my mother at the age of about 13 or 14 why they were being nasty to me I did not understand and still don't fully.

I was labelled as a lesbian because I cuddled the other girls a lot so I stopped doing it, as a young tot I would just walk up to people and kiss them, I was often happy playing a on my own alot but I sometimes wanted to join in with the others only to be mocked by them, i had a tic and got bullied for that....

I went to a different school almost every year either because my parents moved or I was being bullied. My mum had to go to the school repeatedly about it.

I don't know how to socialise in certain situations and if i do the wrong thing I end up getting screamed at or accused of things I have not done or did not intend.

Sometimes, people will say you know what you've done, but I have no idea...so I end up confused.

I would yap at people but usually it was because something had excited me, or i had lots of questions about something or I was ruminating on a particular subject. I would change the subject if they told me to or shut up if they told me to.

The result was I pulled back socially, not because I was worried about being weird, i am not bothered by weird, each to their own and all that, but it was the constantly being told off when I didn't really understand what I had done so wrong.

Fast forward...

And I am more aspergers which feels different to my original autism. Something is not the same but I am still a social idiot.

I have more social awareness than before but I still don't have the social skills to go with it.

I don't think that I was ever in denial.

Not once I got my diagnosis. However, before I was diagnosed, I remember the social workers at school telling me about how I was bad at reading social cues and had a hard time seeing things from other’s perspective, etc.. I remember denying this, insisting that my social skills were fine because I was capable of making friends and such.

However, once I actually found out about my diagnosis (my mom didn’t tell me until about a year after I got it), I was not in denial at all. After researching the characteristics of Asperger’s, I was like “yeah, this is the unflattering truth about me all right”.

Does amateur diagnosis count? If so yes.

15 years before I got my official diagnosis my boss said I was a little bit autistic. I thought he was trying to bully me but I was confused because I was thinking this is the weirdest way somebody tried to bully me.

When I was officially diagnosed no doubt. That the clinician who had over 20 years experience with autism said “I have no problem diagnosing you with Aspergers” sealed the deal.

Somewhere between 1997 and 1998 a store manager who was a brilliant man said he was having difficulty trying to work me out. He specialized in understanding how people think so he could understand people as part of his retail management, and he was the type of person who many retail stores would go out of their way to try and employ because of his skills and knowledge, and he was always in work. If he was not in our store, he would be trouble shooting at another store.
I started work in that store which was a brand new store in 1996. It was there where I had the funny koment with the fax machine that I have told in the past which some of you have read about.
Now after many months of him trying to work me out and failing, where he said I was the only one in the store and that he had come across who he could jot work out how I think.
I was a bit puzzled by this. I was puzzled why he wanted to work out how I think, and it is one of those things that even I did not know how I thought! So how could I tell him how I thought?

Then one day he came up to me with a big smile on his face and said "I have worked it out. You are autistic. Am I right?"
I said "No", because back then I did not know anything much about what autism was. But looking back to those days I now realize how brilliant that man was and I learned so much from him. His name is Pat. I don't even know if he is still alive or where he is today.

Now I have had a moment before this when I was in primary school at the age of 7 where a teacher had me see a man to check up on me as I did not speak when in her class. It is not that I did not speak. It is more that she rarely ever heard me speak as one does not speak much when one is in class in school. The man asked me questions and I did not reply, and one of the teachers who taught me when I was 4 (As my current teacher had to go back to check on the class) said "If I don't answer him, I will be sent to a "Special school", and I knew that was a good few miles away, so I spoke, and I saw straight through his questions even at that age, and I lied to stay in the school near home because to have to go to a school several miles away terrified me. I did not like the one I was in (Nothing wrong with the school itself. It was more that I should have been home schooled) but at least it was near where I lived. Looking back, I see how I could see patterns and outcomes back in those days and how advanced and intelligent I was for my age back then though one would not tell if one looked at my schoolwork or watched me, but I was able to outsmart a psycologist because I knew the possible outcomes to every question he asked me and I "Chose" how to answer to have the outcome that I preferred to take place. I was good at that and could outsmart other kids, though I hardly spoke and was ultra shy and at times bullied. My first few years in school I stood still at playtimes and just watched everyone and had to learn how to play. Yes, I played with my younger brother and older cousins at home, but in school with children my own age I had to learn how to act and react.