When and how did you first notice that you were different?

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I'm not sure where to put this, so I'm going to post it here.

I'm working on a project for my grad school where I'm basically setting up the argument for my thesis and including a literature review. So I have to say what I'm trying to do and then cite scholarly journal articles that either support my idea or show that my idea is just not being considered.

I'm trying to determine when and how people on the autism spectrum first discover that they are different from other people. I've been reading articles and books for a week and there is almost nothing written about this. Plenty of scholarly articles show that the usual age that PARENTS notice that their autistic kids are different is when they're toddlers. This is whether or not they get diagnosed at that time.

But I'm less interested in that and more interested in when and how autistic people THEMSELVES notice and say to themselves, "Hey, I'm different from other people/other kids..."

If a few people could share their experiences, I might be able to adjust the way I'm researching and find something. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong age group. I don't know.

So no one feels awkward, I'll start. I'm neurotypical, so I was similar to the other kids in most ways. But I first noticed that I was white when I was four years old and playing with my best friend, who was black. I looked down at our arms as we were playing and was startled to notice that mine was not the same color as hers. I felt that I was not as pretty as she was after I noticed.

Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to help me figure this out.

I'm not really sure I know when I knew. I think maybe 4 years old, when I first went to pre-school/kindergarten. I didn't want to play with the other children. I would get angry when they tried to play with me. I spent a lot of time hiding back in the corner under the table, away from everyone and everything.

But I am not sure whether the idea that I was different solidified at that point.

The first time I remember making a comment on my difference, I was 7 years old. I told my father: "Intellectually, I'm older than my age. Physically, I'm exactly my age. Emotionally, I'm younger than my age." So I definitely knew I was different and had a fair grasp on *how* I was different by age 7.

Hope this is helpful to you.

Sparrow

There is another recent thread about this topic here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5034114 ... t=#5034114

It might help as well.

I've always known that there was something a bit off. I remember being really confused throughout my childhood. I didn't understand why my mom got upset when I didn't respond to people greeting me. I didn't understand why my teacher would yell at me for laying on the floor in gym class. I was always jerked around by the other kids (why were they my friends one day and not the next? It didn't make sense). When I did play with them, I always had control of the game. If I didn't, I would get frustrated and leave. I quickly grew sick of the other children. I learned to read in first grade and then spent the next 9 years reading so that I wouldn't have to interact with people.

Two weeks ago, a friend (my only friend) told me that she thought it was cute that I didn't engage in small talk. Up until then, I'd always thought that small talk was some kind urban legend, something people complained about that didn't actually exist, like old men who make bad golfing jokes. That was a shock. After some research, I concluded that I probably have AS. When I asked my mom what she thought, she told me that she'd always thought me to be on the Autism Spectrum but as I had seemed happy as I was, she'd never brought it up.

Long story short, I've pretty much known since pre-school. I just thought it was everyone else's problem up until recently.

My parents noticed it when I was pretty much a baby. I started to notice it (consciously) when I started high school, at about 8-10 years. Looking back I'd always been different, but that was when I really got aware of it and started to suffer from it. Since then, I often thought about it and tried to find reasons. It was a great relief when I finally read of Asperger's and noticed that it was an explanation for pretty much everything.

I think I first really realized it when I was in the third grade. Before that, I just thought I was a bad little girl and that I "did things wrong," but I didn't think before that time that I couldn't change those things. I really thought somewhere deep down I was just "being bad" and could have changed the way I was, until that time.

Aren't everyone different from eachother? I know I've always been different, from very young, but as far as I understand everyone feel this way, it's nothing special. You just work with it and try to fit in the community, as also everyone does. I did that, until I understood that I weren't able to live with anyone else (potentially, it didn't seem to be people like me in the world)at the age of 19 ("no hope in sight"). And then I had been trying, without understanding anything. There isn't anything unusual in feeling different. It is more usual for it being something positive, because you can use your difference in society as there is an extensive history of doing. Which is pretty NT as far as I can see. I have never settled/accepted my problems as something constant or defining. until recently.

Thank you all for your responses, especially DyingofPoetry for that link to the other topic, which is the same as this but phrased in an interesting way. The other topic is about "self-awareness" and I'm trying to show that one's concept of self does not rely as much on the awareness of other people. So my point is you can have self awareness without involving others. I think this counts more as a kind of "social awareness."

What I'm seeing mostly in these responses is that the realization of "difference" tends to occur when the autistic individual is in school and therefore forced to interact with/observe peers. This seems to happen anywhere from 2-3 years old to pre-adolescence. I'm feeling like the specifics of this would vary per individual, but it would be cool if I could find some kind of theme.

I'll focus on "mid-childhood" and see if there's anything there in the journals. So far there haven't been many studies looking at that age frame.

Any more responses would be appreciated.

Certainly by the age of 6 that was when the bullying started.

I'd say around 8 but it took proportions around 12-13.

When people picked on me for no apparent reason, people ostracized me for no apparent reason, when I said/did/asked something that appears natural to me in class, and people would burst into laughter instead of answering me... and I have never had any explanation as to why everyone laughed, then imagine it doesn't happen once or twice but all the time.
When I ask something or manage to talk to someone and they don't react or answer back, a bit like the movie "ghost". I always wanted to be left alone. I spend ages in toilets just to be alone.

I never felt "anormal" but I felt "normal" in a "hostile" world. Normality is arbitrary, I didn't want to think that the meanness around me was the "normality" just because it was the majority.

As for me, I am not sure that I thought "different" but separate, yeah.

It was before I was ten.

My parents kept asking and encouraging me to make more friends. I couldn't. I had a hard time talking with people, and making relevant conversations. I also thought, I think, that I was smarter than them.
We never seemed to have much in common.

Asperger's? I think so.

Anyway, I never thought "odd" or "strange" or "disabling" until I had my last job. Whereupon I was told in a formal process that "everyone loves me, but at the beginning the whole staff thought I was weird". Which hurt. Which was the statement that led to my AS test and diagnosis.

I was aware that people had differences from one another such as hair color, skin color, male/female when I was 3-4 and my parents started bathing my brother and me separately. I understood this was why I used yellow string for class puppets and one of my friends used brown string.

As for when I realized I was "different" in the social ostracized way that would be when I was 9. I had moved cities and started at a new school and in spite of my attempts at making friends I was not considered ok to be friends with or ok to have people sit next to me at lunch or play with during recess. This was when I was ostracized.

Before then I would do socially defunct things such as walk home from a friends house from a sleep over on my own with out telling anyone because I was ready to leave and I knew the way home, or walking to a friends house who just had a pool put into their backyard so I could swim with out asking permission, and having unique interests. But at the first city I had two fellow female friends who protected me and stayed with me and played with me, and this kept me from realizing that my differences made me "different". At the second city there was no one to help me be included so I was more aware of how I did not fit in, and how the games I wanted to play were different, and this caused me to appear to the other kids as "different".

This is a very interesting question about how we with Asperger's/autism first realized we were different. I cannot say for sure when on my behalf, but I can relate the best I can. I would estimate I was around 2nd to 3rd grade when I realized I was different. I am thinking back to a Cub Scout Halloween party where we were to dress up. While I didn't have an aversion to dressing up in a Halloween costume, I can remember on this specific occasion realizing I felt very awkward going into this social setting---while realizing the other boys didn't seem to feel awkward. I realized I was different.