How Do You Know You Are Autistic?

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Ok. This is written for those who have not been assessed, but we obviously need those of us who have been assessed to give our little stories so those who are reading who are not sure may pick up on something familiar.

For me, most of my life until I was assessed and diagnosed early this year, apart from about six or seven years ago when it seriously puzzled me when I got to know a lady on the spectrum where I really puzzled what aspergers was as almost everything she said I thought was normal when she tried to explain... (She was diagnosed in the days before they realized autism and aspergers syndrome were caused by the same thing. These days it is all called "Autism").

But for most of my life, the best way to describe having an autistic mind is that somehow life seemed harder for me than it seemed for others, and also if one has to describe autism to others in how it feels to be autistic in one word, and I would describe it as "Exclusion".

I am not saying it has all been bad, as like everyone else, we all have our tallents, and in my tallents I could easily hold my own!

But yes, I have to say that a pattern throughout my life is the feeling of being lonely and excluded.

Is like being in a room filled with people and yet be lonely and not knowing why...

Anyway. Over to others to describe their experiences as I have only scratched the surface...

Uh, I didn't know until a professional picked it up. Before that, I was stereotyped as someone with Asperger's repeatedly. Good at math, shy, nerd.

A few people here and there suggested I might be. I scoffed at the idea, mainly because I didn't have a clear picture of what autism even is and the medical information seemed vague and confusing and I didn't recognize it.

Recognized stuff a bit more after reading gathered information written by people who are autistic. Not professionals writing down stuff without regards to what's going on inside. That's when I moreso recognized the traits as mirroring my own.

After diagnosis and telling people or leading up to my final diagnosis appointment, multiple people who have known me for years confessed that they thought I was already diagnosed. But of course it never came up before because of stigma and people assume it's a rude thing to talk about.

It also really f*****g doesn't help that we suck at self evaluation. We can't read social situations - so we don't know when we've caused a social issue unless people tell us. And if we are more on the mild end of the spectrum, those issues tend to be less consequential. And we've likely learned by the time we are adults to avoid the stuff that upsets people the most. But the smaller stuff is still there and people don't comment on that because they don't want to make us feel bad. Or they brush it off as quirkyness or something.

I only know a few of my social differences and it's after they've been pointed out to me that I notice them.

It's pretty clear by now that I'm autistic. After learning and researching and after the ways it's affected me at work in terms of sensory issues, etc.

My mum gave me "Running with scissors" to read, and I recognised a luckier version of me

This is an interesting thread, and I enjoyed reading all of your responses. I often feel a kind of kinship here, perhaps that too is a sign in itself. If you are reading along on Wrong Planet and thinking, whoa, I don't get these folks, then that's one thing. But if you are like me, you see things that fit in with your own experience on this Planet.

Over long periods of time, I reflected on my life and relations with people around me, and it was difficult to escape the conclusion that something was different in my brain. Nerd, last one picked for any team sport, the person that does not have any friends, and is alone a lot of the time, and gets singled out and bullied. This unpopularity continues on throughout life rather than being a short-term phase. As one gets older, you evaluate the friendships and relationships you have had, and how people do such things as drop you without any warnings, or betray you, steal from you repeatedly, lie to you, just a lot of bad behavior.

Is there a common thread linking all of these incidents together? What could that common thread be? What are the possible causes?

Then you may evaluate your immediate family and their behavior as well. Are there similarities? This is important due to the genetic linkage. In my case, I came to believe that not just me, but my entire family was high-functioning autistic, it was why we were dysfunctional for a period of time during my younger years.

My brother and I both had a great deal of difficulty in our teenage years. I am talking about frequent interventions from school, psychologists, counselors. I failed the tenth grade. My brother had troubles of reducing severity up until age 25 or so, now he is much better adjusted. In fact he is successful by many measures of the world, although to this day I feel that other people sometimes take advantage of him and his need for acceptance and friendship.

Then of course my parents divorced, and my father lived alone in isolation the rest of his years as many people with HFA do, while my mother remarried almost right away to the first man that agreed with her liberal politics and treated her nicely. They are both long since dead now.

I do believe HFA gets better with age, I think there is hope, particularly if one avoids substances of abuse such as alcohol and drugs and attempts to live a healthy lifestyle. My brother does drink but is what is called a moderate drinker. I do not drink at all today, although I used to be an alcoholic and a marijuana user as a coping mechanism to escape from this world.

I do not feel like escape is necessary any longer, instead I accept myself and all of my faults, it is called Being Human. I imagine a God that loves me and accepts me for who I am and that is very empowering, it is a better theory to work with than "flawed organic specimen of brief lifespan on small planet." I prefer my theory, and it allows me to be happy without using drugs and alcohol.

It does not matter ultimately whether there is a God or not or whether the Christian theory is the technically correct one. What matters are the effects of this belief on the mind. We can choose how we view things, and some ways lead to better outcomes in the long run.

Before I was diagnosed, I had no idea. None. Others, my wife and my ex-wife, urged me to be assessed.

the first time i'd ever really seriously considered that i might be autistic was in a therapy session where i'd been speaking about never having had a single close friend in my entire life. i'd had friendly acquaintances and liked people but i never felt connected in a way that i've heard of people talking about friendships. in discussing that fact, I said "Sometimes I feel like i must be autistic". i'd looked away from the therapist as i spoke about it and looked back at her as i finished the sentence. She told me that she was wondering the same thing.

before i spoke that sentence i'd barely thought about what autism was and only knew personally of people who were profoundly and low functioning autistic. that's when i started my research, which was in 2023.

at first i assumed that i only exhibited certain autistic traits and would not be diagnosable as HFA. lately, i've been examining my history and see that i do in fact meet the criteria for diagnosis. i am trying to avoid confirmation bias in looking at my life story but i do find a lot of evidence in looking back.

i have a high enough IQ to have compensated for potential deficits. my severe adhd has added to the difficulty. my saving grace is to have married a capable neurotypical wife who has been patient with a man with some idiosyncrasies that she never really understood.

at 69, i'm not sure what value and official evaluation and diagnosis would give other than some validation that the things i saw as faults and failing was actually just a different brain structure.

I don't know, but a nice psychologist said so after I gave her money

Would be nice to have some experience or behavior which is both:
- general - (almost) all autistic people have it;
- specific - (almost) none of non-autistic people have it (including people with other conditions / disorders).

There is this feeling that something is slightly off, that I can't really connect with others etc., but it doesn't seem specific only to autism.

Aspie-Quiz score said I was very likely an Aspie, diagnostician said I had ASD, and tons of odd things about me and my past became clearer when I looked at them in the light of ASD. Nothing stood out as diagnostic on its own, probably because no single thing is diagnostic on its own, but a lot of little things mounted up until it seemed blindingly obvious.

I had no idea for a long time. Completely oblivious.

Until eventually my traits started causing so much difficulties for me and my family that I swore to change my behaviour and act like a 'normal' person and discovered... I couldn't. Just wasn't wired for it. I developed mental health difficulties trying.

I don't know if I am. I had two assessments that came back inconclusive -- neither a yes nor a no -- and one of them suggested social communication disorder, but I'm not sure if that fits. But I have traits that are autistic and difficulties that I don't know how to explain any other way.

I too found that many of my behaviours that I'd thought were willfully belligerent or awkward were not under my control at all:

Dad told me that if I'd just behave better and stop being so awkward, "the sky would be the limit" with the rewards he'd shower me with. What an incentive, but I couldn't do it.

I was doing this course, and during the lectures I'd keep getting hung up on little imperfections in what the lecturer was saying. Passing the exam would have been a big feather in my cap. So I decided to stop being so awkward, to just let the imperfections go and focus. Might as well have decided to stop breathing.

Back in the 1990s my (then) wife put pressure on me to attend her son-in-law's wedding. My gut reaction was not to go, but I thought hey, it's only a couple of hours so why not give her what she wants? So I tried. I spent the entire time in a kind of catatonic state, glaring at everybody. I couldn't have done anything else.

I'd always wondered why I was so belligerently true to my own nature, why I selfishly stood outside of society refusing to knuckle under and play the game. The answer? It's because if I don't, I just make things ten times worse for myself and for everybody else. It's not possible to voluntarily join the mainstream and be neurotypical. Not a matter of won't, but a matter of can't, or shouldn't.

I've only said this about a trillion times before, but I had no clue I was on the autism spectrum until I was diagnosed with Asperger's in 2001 when they finally decided to let the public know about it after many decades had passed. Also girls and women with ASD often don't get diagnosed at all, or get diagnosed with something that turned out to be wrong like I did. A lot of people still think only small white boys can be autistic.

Also I was always more talented when it came to arts and crafts and I was really good at reading and writing. Math, however, was a real struggle and I think I may dyscalculia. I think I was 12 or even 13 when I could finally tell time on a non-digital clock, as long as the numbers on it are big and easy to read.

I don't mind being diagnosed, in fact I'm glad. I just wish I didn't have to virtually hit rock bottom and be hospitalized before I was.

Spent years trying to put my finger on how my brain worked differently from other people, then I read a book called “a field guide to earthlings” by Ian Ford and suddenly it all made sense. It’s a very black and white book that seems to patronise NTs a lot, so some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it really clicked with me in terms of explaining the difference in my brain functioning that I have always felt deep down.

I ordered that book just now, used from ebay for about $10. I think it sounds like just the sort of thing I have been wanting to read for the last forty years.

Hope you enjoy it, it was certainly eye opening for me!