When was the first time you heard about Asperger's Syndrome?

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The First time I heard it is when my mom talks to people about my dianoses and she also works at the Autism Society so i hear about it all the time even now It still the main subject someimes in some of her conversations

I've first found out about it, reading an article in the local paper, in 1995.

I had a friend with Aspergers who I really adore and wanted to be able to communicate better with him. I was pretty bad at starting conversations with people anyways, but we both had particular problems since we both were bad at it. I read up on it to try to find a better way to communicate, but the more I read the stories and lives of people with Aspergers, the more I realized that I had experienced these things and had complained about these things before. I ended up breaking down and stopped reading for a whole week, because I was already upset about these things that I had complained about countless times. But I knew in my heart that if I wanted to get better in life, and this is what it is, then I should read and find a way to get help!

Many of these things I had complained about were ignored by people as "over-exaggeration, thinking, etc". Even though I truly experienced them. And you know what ignoring a problem does to you. It's no good, and will hurt you in the long run.

I heard about it while I was hanging out at a child abuse survivor board, early 2000s.

I ran across Donna William's first book in about 1993. That was pre-Asperger's, but it caused me to pay attention and notice when Asperger's hit the DSM in '94. Talked (electronically) to a some autistic people back then, and a bit ever since.

A book review in the New York Times, of the book Shadow Syndromes, in 1997. I subsequently read the book, which has only one chapter on ASD. For a long time I wasn't sure if it applied to me, and I couldn't find any experts to ask, except for one, who told me I couldn't have AS because I don't speak in a particular, stilted way.

I sought out a diagnosis, and was diagnosed as being on the spectrum but not fully AS, in 2010.

When my nephew was diagnosed with it-and now since I am diagnosed with it I am very familiar with the term

When I was first diagnosed. That was 12 years ago. But I didn't start reading about it until I was almost 15.

The first time I ever heard the term was in the late 90s when Ted Danson spent an entire episode of the sitcom Becker wandering in and out of various scenes laughing hysterically because one of his nurses had mentioned the term ASS BURGERS...he just wandered through the entire show repeating the words and giggling like a child. I had no idea what it was, but it seemed particularly cruel to single out a group of people with a disorder of any kind and ridicule them repeatedly because of a name they had no control over.

It was several years later that my then wife emailed me a link to a webarticle on Asperger Syndrome with the header 'Read This, It Sounds Like You'.


Holy Crap! I felt like someone had been reading my diary. How could psychologists who had never met me know so much about me? That was creepy.

First of all GREAT topic! I heard of it while surfing GameFAQ's message board. Someone had mention "Get a Job!" and someone said they couldn't since they had social difficulties and this thing called Asperger's. Being interested in Psychology I googled this disorder and found a few articles and thought "Wow NEAT!" I was diagnosed Bipolar 2 Feb.2005 and a couple years ago my sister told my mom "Hey I found this disorder that seems like Brandy." I read the paper and scoffed at the idea. I found WP and googled articles and to this day the more I mention "I do this" others here on WP say I do that too. I later brought up AS to my psychiatrist (1 said NO 1 current said ok sure). So I'd say I'm officially diagnosed (when I went back to get a letter to return to college he mention "so you are being treated for a mood disorder and Asperger's" I said yes. I've told a few friends and my older sister (who found the disorder for me) says it's part of who I am and she understands some parts of the disorder IMO. Once an inlaw said OMG a spider bite I think it was a brown recluse! I said oh that's nothing! my sis said "Oh Brandy has just seen worse on tv that's all" and on our NY vacation she understood I think differently and don't GIVE A DAMN and the OMG 9/11 WTC stuff. Yet I can be rude and say things without thinking and yet her/mom/dad etc. still don't understand that behavior aspect.

I had a friend whose younger son was an austisic savant. I had worked with autistic kids by that time, so I was familiar with the term. However, when she told me her older son had been diagnosed with AS, I didn't know what that meant and did some research. It was not long after that, that I began to wonder if I had Asperger's too, everything I read about it sounded so familiar! Time Magazine did an article on it a few years later, and after reading that and a few more articles I found on my own, I decided to get tested.

It was 1999 and I had just found Donna William's first book in the library [another Donna Williams person here I guess!]. I read it from cover to cover in one night and was just stunned that for the first time, someone else had similar experiences to me. Up until then, I thought I was some sort of freak.

It really was a moment.

The idea that I might be on the spectrum didn't fully take hold until 2005 when I had a breakdown and one of my DXs at the time was "social anxiety". That's when I started thinking that perhaps the social anxiety is expressing something deeper.

It was mentioned very briefly in my Abnormal Psychology uni class back in 2000. (We didn't cover ASD's in much detail.)


Then, it came up again on a LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT episode: "Probability" Even then, I thought the portrayal was far too stereotypical to be realistic.

And, of course, there was BOSTON LEGAL'S Jerry Espenson, who seemed a bit more realistic. It was after his character was introduced that I began to wonder if AS might explain some of my "eccentric" behaviors too.

I first heard about it when my counselor said he was going to change my diagnose from OCD/GAD to aspergers.
My response was whatever you want to call it this year.

It's interesting (and not really surprising) that out of 14 responses so far only two said they found out from a professional who figured it out, instead of them having to figure it out themselves.

In the DSM-IV, in Borders Books, immediately after my Bipolar label fell off and fluttered to the feet of my therapist.