When did you know you were different?

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From age 8. Prior to that I had lots of friends. When my family moved and I began 3rd grade, I quickly realized I was "different." I spent years trying to fit in, but gave up on that in 9th grade, when I was 14 and began to enjoy being wierd. In college, I quickly met other goths, and when a local club started a goth night, met even more and made more friends. It was a pleasant little bubble that burst when I decided to go to grad school in Pittsburgh, PA. There were NO GOTHS in grad school. Plus, since my major was Elementary Ed, it was almost all women and I have always gotten along better with men. I have a great deal of trouble making female friends, so I was on the outside again. Even when they made plans openly, I was never invited and it was clear I was not welcome on things like the Bar Crawl or End of Term parties.

Out here, though, I've managed to make some friends. None as close as the ones I had in upper school and college, but nice people whom I enjoy being around. In the past few months, I've been open about my diagnosis and they've been cool. I know I'm "different" and that I'll never be able to figure out the social code or exactly how NTs relate, but I've grown to be comfortable with my difference and who I am. My therapist encourages me to think of myself as "wierd" or "eccentric" or whatever terms make me comfortable, which has helped me become more comfortable with the term AS or aspie. It's part of who I am, and while I have changes I need to make to like myself completely, I'm pretty happy with who I am. It was very hard as a child and a preteen to be so different, with the cruelty and viscious behavior it brought on, but today it's better. I like being weird; I like being different!

For me I was quite oblivious to the fact I was different, and didn't realise it before I learned about my diagnosis at age 9. I didn't really know what it meant then, but by the time I was 12 I was acutely aware of it (but thankfully not so negatively, since I found this site at the same time!).

I really started noticing it in Middle School when I started questioning why I didn't have much of any friends when most people did.

My parents noticed I was different at maybe 2 years old.

Apparently I had a demonic temperament as an infant and whenever I became temperamental I would “bash” my head against any hard surface I could find … I visited the ER quite often. I still punch my head quite hard when i'm upset. Not in bublic though ... I also didn’t respond to my parents much ether …

I realized “I” was different when my parents took me in for testing at about 3 years old. I still remember the hearing test they gave me to make sure I wasn’t deaf. Elementary school wasn’t too bad for me. Most of the Children I grew up with where quite kind to me. Even though I was teased by some and hyper sensitive “ I was called a cry baby” I got by…

And of coarse my strict routines nerved my teachers. I couldn’t read sitting in my seat so I always had to read while standing and walking circles around the room humming to my self. I also had to go to the water fountain at the same time of the day everyday. Today I’m amazed my teachers let me do that, I suppose it was because I was very well behaved. I didn’t cause trouble and none of my class mates complained. Shoot… of coarse I didn’t cause any trouble “I was as quiet as a mouse“. Also what made me realize I was different was that I had to take the WISC IQ test every 3 years from fist grade up to high school. That test took 8 hours total ,At 2 hours a day for 4 days. They started doing the test for LD placement, But the test also identified me as gifted…I loved taking that test !

The problems I face now are quite severe. I cant assimilate no matter what I do I simply can not keep friends. My weirdness is innate. I still have my routines… I time the different routes I take so I can control what time I get to different places. I can only look just a few people in the eye for more than a glance. “It freaks me out big time” its like I can see the soul in peoples pupils! And I’m also bipolar, Schizoactive… which complicates things more.

I’m tired I cant type any more…. END

i wasn't teased as a child, or perhaps i wasn't aware of it. if anything, people were too nice to me growing up, mostly they creeped me out. but this may have had to do with the fact that my mother had never been nice to me.

i was always different and as i remember it always aware of that difference. since my memory goes back to about age two, i imagine i realized it by comparing myself to my older sisters. if i'd had a normal parental unit i probably would have been diagnosed as a toddler.

by the time i started pre-school my sisters had already trained me to act more normal when around other people. at home i just did whatever i wanted and my family largely ignored me. i was an "invisible child" and at school i excelled academically and was otherwise extremely quiet and well-behaved. my teachers loved me which was probably only because i needed nothing from them, or rather i asked for nothing.