When did you realise your life was going to be different?

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I always knew I was different to everyone else but It wasn't until I was 17 I realised my life was going to be crap. I had been at college for a year and been getting £30 a week off my mum so I was getting the same money as everyone else who was on EMA, I had had some minor success with girls but as its the males duty to pay for dates and that I knew I had to get a job thinking I was ready for this I ended up working at Mcdonalds... For a day, It was far too stressful dealing with all the new people and some gay guy kept flirting with me. I Quit and my mother decided to stop giving me the £30 a week, meaning I was the alienated not just socially but economically. It was in the months after this I realised that I had no chance of a normal life.

How about you? How old were you when you realised your life was going to be different to everyone else's? What events led you to that?

There are two main moments where I realised my life was going to be different.

The first being when I was seven and watching the other kids skip off with their mums while mine was absent.

The second was when I tried to converse with my other classmates but was rejected for not being 'cool' enough.


They say different is good. I don't know how true a statement that is.

When I began my high school years.

I realized that something was “off” when I was quite young. Yet, I always figured that I would “outgrow” this difference (of fitting in, of having normal relationships, etc.).

In elementary school, I figured that this was simply a “phase” and things would change after I entered middle school.
In middle school, I figured the same expecting that things would change after I entered high school.
In high school, I figured the same expecting that things would change following graduation.

This pattern continued for many years in my adult life. I went through bouts of depression unable to understand why I never achieved “normalcy”. I struggled to understand why I was so different. Why did I have so few friends? Why hadn't I developed new friendships?

It wasn’t until after I learned about Asperger’s and then was officially diagnosed that I fully grasped reality. Nowadays, I have just accepted who I am and my “lot” in life. I fully understand that most NTs would consider my life “crap” (as I have few human relationships). But, that’s OK. It’s just not who I am.

Fired from job

Data entry clerk

Age 24

Just finished degree

Minimum wage

Menial labor

Useless BS

I never minded it to begin with. Never had hopes and dreams of a 'normal' life ever. And this was it for as long as I could remember, way before diagnosis...

Most girls back then would have these dreams -- the usual grow up pretty, have a boyfriend, have a job, go to college, get married, have kids...
Never had those same dreams. Somehow realized it in a way that I already long accepted the whole thing before knowing why.

While I acknowledged my life will be different, I just don't find it odd or grim. Not even now.

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For me it's more like knowing things are basically going be the same my entire life.

I don’t remember thinking any other way.

I was probably different from the time I was born, but I began to realize it around fourth grade. I got good grades in school, but I remember being embarrassed because I didn't learn to tie my shoelaces until I was in fourth grade. At that time, I was reading at an eighth grade level and my academic skills were generally strong.

The question was NOT When Did You Realize You were Different from Others?

It's When Did You Realize Life Was Going to Be Different?

Although I always felt off and different as a kid, and teenager, I still thought adult life would be comparable to anyone else's. When it wasn't, I started to learn about Asperger's.

I can't say there was one instance. More like a series of things. I think the passage of time and not achieving milestones adds to it. I would say, honestly, while I was lagging in my 20s, it wasn't until my 30s that I started coming around to the realization. Especially seeing I'm still basically in the same boat I was in my early 20s when most my age are living those full-adult lives: the house, the kids, the stable job, the ability to afford nice things and not scrape by.

I know it's not a race, competition, etc. But as a kid I didn't realize my ADULT life would be this way, where everyone else now seems to be living the adult life I assumed I'd have.

So I'd say it's a gradual realization sometime in my 30s, though I first became aware of Asperger's when I was about 24, thanks to an Internet search. So, I'm guessing mid-20s is when I started to question why I was so much different than my peers and not "making it" naturally.

I struggled the most as a kid, so for me it was apparent from early on.

As a small child I went to a very strict Catholic school, you know, the kind with uniforms and nuns, and students standing in lines silently. Other kids could just memorize things. They'd just read them, accept them, and spit them out again. I've never been that kind of learner. I had to ask questions. I had to understand in order to recall anything. I also could never understand what a stupid "conduct grade" was anyway. It seemed to me like teachers could just use that column to senselessly punish students who weren't their favorites. I remember that I got an A in English (my favorite subject) one year, but it was brought down to a B because I had a C in conduct. In the justification column, the teacher wrote "Forgot her pen twice and sneezed loudly in class."

That was when I realized that I was different. I was trying so hard, but there was nothing I could do to make myself "perfectly acceptable" as they liked to say at that school. I realized it wasn't about doing assignments. It was a popularity contest, all of it. It was the kind of contest I was set up to not win.

It's more me deciding to live differently. When I was a young teen, I was so desperate to differentiate that I was fussy about shoe lace patterns but I've been clearly unique since. I was about four when I comprehended that mother had gone from military enthusiast to peacenik because of the A-bomb, so I saw that my generation had to be the first to avoid major wars. This gave me license to ignore a lot of the classic old books which had shaped the previous generations. Listening to Pete Seeger's "Little Boxes" clarified my desire to not emulate my father, the executive.

My "graduation" was set up by my father. Nobody would answer my basic questions, so I had no interest in school, but got high scores on other knowledge tests. Dad got me a summer job on a production line and a boarding house nearby, hoping to make school look good, but he'd said that he would not support me through a repeat of gr. 12. I got my marks in the mail, and some time later, his friend in the company came by. All he wanted to know was if I would keep working there, for his schedule. He was gone again in a flash. Mother only asked, and learned that it had not been my decision on her deathbed. I do not recommend this ceremony as a transition to adulthood.

When I was 21. Until then I thought I was going to be successful and have an average life, sure I had differences but I was very positive about them, maybe even proud of them. (I had a very positive upbringing, parents who thought I was some type of genius.) The thing is I was putting way too much pressure on myself, ignoring the red flags. Then I kind of 'regressed'. I couldn't be in public at all without panic attacks, had meltdowns everyday -couldn't stand any sound at all, rituals became way too important. I was paralyzed in my head I couldn't succeed in anything including small, daily tasks like changing my clothes. My OCD got much worse and I started to hallucinate. And since then I can't function well enough to survive in the society alone although I'm much better today. I know that it won't get much better than this so I'm starting to accept my reality.

I always knew that my life was going to be "different"--from around age 5.

I did take it for granted that I would finish college, despite my "differences." (though I didn't finish college until age 45).

I don't know why I never really doubted it. There were many reasons TO doubt it.....