I just watched an old home movie...

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... and it's kinda messing with my head a bit.
My mother has never liked me have a label and when I told her that my therapist and I were talking about Asperger's she dismissed this as ridiculous.
A couple of weeks ago she went to a training about working with kids with disabilities and ASDs were prominently featured. After this, she let me know that between the ages of 1 and 3 I would only eat Spaghetti - o's with Meatballs. Since I was such a picky eater and was terribly underweight, my doctor was fine with this.
This new information got me pretty curious about my childhood and I spirited away a home video of my life between ages 5 and 7... Wow!
It started with my preschool graduation: I spent the whole time playing by myself or with my sister. When my teacher handed out the certificates with positive qualities about each kid, the others looked up at her, smiled and ran back to their parents to show it off. When mine was read (featuring my independence and individuality), I stood there with a blank look and playing with my fingers before wandering off to nowhere. I'm also seen pressing my eyes into my knees (something i did a lot).
On my first day of kindergarten, I'm repeating my room number and balling up my sweatshirt repeatedly while looking wildly around the playground.
On my 6th birthday, I'm seen with a group of my classmates and my obliviousness is so apparent! I have several meltdowns over losing a game and I practically yell at a kid while poking him in the face (not an argument, just making conversation). I even pet a woman's sweater at one point and rub my forehead against a smooth wooden chair back. I remember doing this because of how calming it felt!
The reason this is messing with my head is that I've always felt my AS symptoms were relatively mild and that video (which was much longer than I've conveyed) is basically proof that I was clearly more symptomatic than I remember... Which leads me to another point: AS didn't exist when you I was that young (89-91), but I don't remember being evaluated for anything when I was younger.
I don't want this video to start defining my life, but I keep wondering what aspects of my life would be different if this was caught early on?
Has anyone else gone through something like this?

Strangely enough I did recently. A couple of weeks before my sister moved we watched a video of out birthday parties. the one that stood out was my 7th birthday everyone was joking around laughing and having a good time. My parents would try to interact with me and make me laugh but all I would do is stare at them. My mother is the same as yours she refused to discuss my childhood and me possibly having aspergers. All I have is this online community to talk to.

autism also didnt exist when i was young.

i dont need home movies to look at my past because of excellent longterm memory (dispite the constant head smashing). it was very obvious that i was autistic.

the doctors thought it was ADD (whatever that is) and put me on a horrible drug.

I'm Sorry that they did that to you all I've been on is depression and anxiety medications. I cant remember not being depressed.

The contrast is something that gets me too... my sister's preschool graduation is on there too and she is seen having a nice, reciprocal conversation with a kid her age (something I don't do at any point in the 2 hour video)... The closest I get is talking at an incredibly loud volume while literally shoving something I like in someone's face!

You've got me curious about my own childhood videos.

Mum had a noisy video recorder, the type that plays back on a spool projector. I know she's mentioned having it transfered to DvD. I'll have to arange a date and go watch that.

Thanks.
I'm finding it fascinating to discover myself this way. Theres' a lot more to me than I ever expected

I know the signs where there for both of us. My mother had a tendency of just ignoring stuff that she didn't want to deal with I know that it was a defense mechanism but I don't think they understand how detrimental it was to us. I only realized that I was "different" after I graduated from college.

No videos exist of me as a child. We never had a camcorder in our house until I was 18. That would have been interesting to see. The only hard evidence I have left from my childhood are my first and second grade report cards.

[quote-"GregCav"]You've got me curious about my own childhood videos.

Mum had a noisy video recorder, the type that plays back on a spool projector. I know she's mentioned having it transfered to DvD. I'll have to arange a date and go watch that.

Thanks.
I'm finding it fascinating to discover myself this way. Theres' a lot more to me than I ever expected[/quote]

I guess this is a nice way of thinking about it... It's nice to look back on it with a little bit of hindsight and understand why I had a lot of the problems that I now find so glaringly obvious...

I remember having a video of myself when I was 4. I was at my aunt's Fourth of July party. In that video, I noticed I didn't talked much at all. I also remembered enjoying spinning in circles (I had a Sparkler in one hand). Another thing I remembered was the fact that I liked playing my aunt's piano. It was probably my first time playing one and I liked how the keys felt and sounded. My brother would sneak up on me while I was playing it, though.

I remember showing home movies to a therapist. I'm ancient enough (ha) that those were silent films and still, the therapist said I was "playing normally" and "showed trust" with others. But the therapist commented, to my surprise, how differently a child in the family was behaving.

I don't recall exactly what was said, probably because I was so surprised to hear it from an objective outsider. I had long tried to say something within my family but was always ignored on the topic. It was written off as 'sibling rivalry' and a criticism which it was not. It was love and concern.

I think things would've been better for that person if they had been helped much much sooner in life.

I have an old VHS tape containing footage from family holidays. I have not watched it in years and have been putting off converting it to DVD for the impending diagnostic assesment. Should get around to it but I can picture it being uncomfortable viewing since I have very patchy memory from that time but, from what memories remain and also what I have been told, I was pretty textbook aspie.

That was actually my excuse for snagging the movies (I told my brother and sister I was getting a jump on a DVD conversion for Christmas... which I'm doing, but with other motives)...
Watching the video was kind of hard because I was pretty embarrassed by a lot of my behavior, but I broke down and watched a later video last night (I'm cataloging what's on each) and, even though I'm still pretty aspie-ish, I do actually appear to have gotten better at some social skills... I still talk weirdly and in a very one-way manner (and without eye contact), but I remember a lot of rote manner training during early elementary school and that part was better...
It was really fun, though, to see my Nana and my old dog (both of whom passed away over a decade ago...)!

NEtikiman, I was also underweight and a picky eater who loved spaghetti
There are some videos of me, but I remember my childhood and my autism was very obvious for everyone then, but even though the diagnosis existed no one in my environment (school etc) was aware of it. I'm not that idiosyncratic for my family, and when I lined up dinosaurs according to if they were herbivores or carnivores or talked a lot about something they were impressed and bemused (and annoyed), not worried. They didn't know then that the social problems were for the same reason.
As soon as they did learn about Asperger's it was instant recognition and I had my evaluation shortly after that.
What makes me a little upset is that I was in therapy on and off from when I was 11, and when I had my evaluation a child-psychiatrist and child-psychologist testified (when the diagnostic team called around for statements) that they had suspected that for a long time. Good thing we all know now.