What made you first wonder if you could be Autistic?

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After I was in hospital for depression, I was seeing a psychologist to kind of vent about my problems. In one session, she had on the side table a copy of the DSM-IV-TR. It was opened up to the section about autism. I read some of the criteria and felt that it described me a bit.

My psychologist said that she'd like to send me to a colleague of hers that specialised in autism spectrum disorders. I replied that I'd never heard of autism (I had been very isolated, working long hours and living on my own without the internet), could I have that as well as depression? She said it could be the reason I was depressed.

So I went along to see this autism psychologist who asked me if I was prepared to go through the diagnostic process of being evaluated for autism. I said ok. She was lovely and I did my best to answer her questions honestly. Sure enough, autism. All my research on what autism actually was and how it affected me came later.

I was reading about autism when I was 14 and I realized some of it sounded like me and it would explain why I had always been the way I was, why I was so rigid with play and didn't understand other kids had their own ideas and why I liked things the same and why change always made me feel uncomfortable and why I found rules confusing. I asked my mom if I was autistic and she said no. Then when I was looking up Asperger's, autism results kept popping up so I asked again if I'm autistic and they said no. So I asked why does autism pop up when I look up Asperger's and they said it was a form of it. When I saw the AS criteria and the autistic disorder criteria, they both looked the same but were both a little different because autistic disorder had the lack of imaginative play part and lack of spoken language. Then it made sense why I had signs of autism but wasn't autistic, AS was a form of it so it made sense and it didn't just appear in 6th grade when I was diagnosed.

A friend said she thought I had Aspergers about 16 years before I went for a diagnosis - at the time I didn't agree as I had a very stereotyped idea of what people with Aspergers were like and it wasn't like me. Bascially, neat, orderly, scientifically-minded and pedantic; whereas I was a shambling mass of chaos, artistic, and of a more laissez-faire attitude.

When it eventually clicked, I was volunteering as a receptionist at a mental health community centre. The idea was that this would help get my social anxiety under control by repeated exposure. But after several months I realised I was just not getting any better at all at the interpersonal skills required, even though I felt more bored than anxious. Something else had to be going on. I think it had slowly trickled in that my earlier impressions about autism were inaccurate, so I could seriously consider it.

A friend’s girlfriend responded to my thoughts on something by saying “that’s because you’re autistic.”

I laughingly told a fellow teacher who had known me well for 13 years “M thinks I’m autistic.” She laughed too and said “Duh!” Then she looked at me funny and said “you didn’t know that?”

Reflected that maybe that was why I could never spot the autistic kids in my classes - they seemed fine, they were just the kids I liked and could talk to easily. Read some books on autism in girls trying to better understand how to help one of those students - pages of my life.

Still not diagnosed. Not sure what I would do with a diagnosis besides pay for it and have to write it on forms.

I recall my one ex asking me if I was on the spectrum and I basically laughed that off. I had some seriously ignorant ideas in my head about what autism was. Years later I ended up in the office of a therapist who asked if I had ever been evaluated for autism. She was certain that was what was going on with me and she got the dx ball rolling for me. My ex had a total 'told ya so' moment.

I was really slow to realise.
Even after I had to take 6 months off work due to burn-out... and even after I was having trouble with parenting and had come to the realisation that there was some hard-wired problem in my brain, I still didn't get the picture. I just had a complete misconception of what autism was. Never saw myself in Sheldon Cooper, at all.

Then a few years ago I was watching an episode of "24 hours in Emergency" and there was a woman who'd been kicked by a horse, and the way she was reacting to people was just like me, and I thought to myself "how strange - she's acting just like I would"... and then they said she had Aspergers.

So I looked up Aspergers online and found a table of specifically female ASD traits - and I found myself ticking every one. Was in shock for a few days after!

I will be 45 in two weeks and live in the UK but I was brought up in rural Poland. Surprisingly enough there was a girl in my primary school diagnosed with Asperger's but she had no friends and never spoke with other kids on break while I did.

Then, in my early 30s I read an article about a woman diagnosed with Asperger's and I had similar traits but that woman was only wearing black or grey clothes and I thought I love colours so it's not that.

And then my current partner who I met on dating website said he's waiting for Asperger's diagnosis so I started reading about it and finally found an article stating that women present differently and are often undiagnosed. I received my diagnosis six months later.

Now it's called autism but to be honest I prefered the term Asperger's. Some people use the word 'autism' instead of 'learning disability' and it thrn gets very confusing.

I had a boyfriend whose nephew had autism. I didn't quite know what that was, at the time. I asked him to describe what some of the symptoms were and when he said things like he has trouble understanding fiction, I thought, "He sounds completely normal. That's exactly like me!" I, then, connected with an autism specialist, and after all of the testing, I came back "positive." I was very happy and it gave me a huge sense of relief.

finally somebody mentions fiction.

I never suspected it. When I was 10, I had trouble with a lot of things and a psychologist decided I had it. That was that.

When I was 4 years old, and still didn't say a word, it was pretty well decided that there was "something wrong with me."

I was dragged from psychologist to psychologist. The conclusion was that I had autism, that I was a "vegetable," and should be institutionalized.

I never felt different from the other kids until I actually got a diagnosis.

When I first started school at 4 years old I had trouble settling in because I was frightened of the school so I acted up. I didn't feel different from the other kids though, I just did it because I didn't like the school and was spooked. At nursery I was fine. The nursery was noisy and actually had more kids in one room, all noisy and chaotic and you done even more social activities there and I got on fine. In fact I got on so well (socially and emotionally) that my parents and the teacher thought I was ready to start school (if parents and teachers don't feel a child is ready to start school they extend the nursery period a few more months until they are nearly 5). I wasn't 4 and a half yet but they felt I was ready. Apparently not.

That was the only reason I got diagnosed with Asperger's. I was observed, assessed and everything else. I'd rather all that didn't happen. I didn't want a label that no other child at school had.

shrink said i was schizoid when i was little, said western state was the place for me [state mental institution] but my parents' insurance would not cover it. so they were forced to mainstream me.

I was lucky in that my parents were able to afford to send me to "special schools." Then, when they stopped being able to afford it, they sent me to the "normal" public schools, where I didn't do well.

I always knew that I was different. But I didn't know what Autism was. I was eventually told that I was Autistic by a friend.

When I was 4 and couldn't speak. I was diagnosed with Autism at that time. Autism itself is not something you "wonder" about, it's something you either have or you don't. Second Autism is a disorder not a personality trait. I think the science folks screwed up when they changed the DSM to lump all autism disorders into the same category. The functioning levels makes no sense and now we have a bunch of people questioning whether they are on the spectrum or not. You can have traits of autism that are so close that people would question or tell you that you are autistic but, that doesn't mean you HAVE autism.

My mother is an example. She has many traits that are similar to autism, I questioned it, her therapist did, and even she did, the reason why she says she is not is because even though she has those traits they were not significant enough to warrant getting the diagnoses and as I said Autism is a disorder not a personality trait. Also, other people determine whether you have Autism not you. You can wish it, want it, feel like you have it, it doesn't matter because it is not up to YOU to determine that, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists(to a degree), and therapists decide whether it is appropriate to warrant giving you the "Autism" label or not. Self-assessments have proven to be one of the worse ways to determine a disability which is why anytime you type in "Do I have autism?" in Google or read books, many times they tell you that the information can help but, see a professional to assess whether you have it or not. Even in those "online tests" that people refer to a lot on here they even tell you that this test is in no way a determining factor of autism and that you should seek a professional to properly be assessed.