What things did you do as a child that make you think "how did my parents not know"?

[ofwarren]

I taught myself to read at 3

I watched TV upside down or through a mirror

I had an imaginary friend

I was classed as gifted at school

I used to write down the make, model and colour of every car that passed my bedroom window for hours

I used to read the phone book and the yellow pages

I had to leave the room if I was warm or it was noisy

I used to cry rather than laugh

I hated having friends round

I used to take electronics apart and put them back together

I would go mute if grown ups I didn't know spoke to me

There will be lots more I expect. I will add them when I think of them.

I would put heavy things on me on my bed such as all my teddies and my favourite was the laundry. I slept so well under the heaviness

My best friends were animals and I had a real knack with them

I went through phases of watching the same films over and over, sometimes every day for months. These included The Sound of Music and Grease.

I was a spinner. I span constantly and rolled down hills.

I played the same song over and over and over again, I wrote down all the lyrics and taught myself to play it on the keyboard.

I would become obsessed with people and made them my special interest. I would copy their clothes, their hair and the way they talked.

Most of the above, but I fell down hills. And kerbs and stairs (mostly going up) and pretty much everything.

I spoke like an adult. Missed the usual milestones because I was ahead, but they didn't realise I'd not developed those skills, hence my terrible dexterity now.

personally there wasnt much to show when i was younger - i had the fear of god put into me for any "misbehaviour" so i've learnt as i have become older i was a master "masker".

maybe my only tells were - i'd have major upset and big emotions that i mostly hid over things that would seem small too some people. I stuggled to focus and i did far to many activities and i took 14 GCSEs (went to collge at night to do extra ones) because i was interested in so much stuff and spread myself so thin., i couldnt function to get stuff in on time, i couldnt force myself to revise at all until hours before the exam then would cram same with major assignments. i'm above average intelligence but not genius so i got away with it 95% of the time.

anyway i was too scared of being beat to do anything contray to what my father deemed as accetable behavior. I think thats why I wasnt diagnosied (ADHD) until i was in my thirties and living my own way that things started to show more.

I grew up in care and had my autism beaten out of me. I was traumatised and couldn't speak at times. My autism helped me cope with the isolation and enforced solitude and the general weirdness of my life. I was in survival mode for literally years. I had no emotional requirements whatsoever I just wanted them to stop hurting me.

I would put heavy things on me on my bed such as all my teddies and my favourite was the laundry.

This rings a bell with me - I would insist on my dad putting me to bed because he was stronger than my mum and could 'tuck me in' really tightly - I would lie on my front and insist on my dad lifting up the mattress and 'tucking in' the sheets and blankets (this was before duvets) so tightly that I was pinned to the mattress. If I moved too much and they loosened I would panic.

This is a strange one - years ago I was showing a family photo album to my then boyfriend and we came upon a picture of me aged about 3 with my family in the garden. I was in tears in the background with a big plaster slapped unevenly on my knee. 'Aww, were you crying because you'd hurt your knee?' my boyfriend asked. Remembering the occasion very well I replied unthinkingly 'No, I was crying because the plaster was put on wrong' - which my boyfriend thought was completely off-the-wall - it had always seemed perfectly logical to me.

Hid behind the sofa when people visited

Had an extensive 'library' that was all catalogued and ticketed like a real library. Sat all weekend in my Library corner.

Only ate 3 foods until age 10. To be fair, I mostly made houses out of the chips.

Was painfully shy and nervous.

Started walking very late.

From about age 10, I spoke like an adult and was very sensible

Fast forward to teens, never lied and rarely got into trouble. Everyone else was lying through their teeth staying over at house parties and getting up to allsorts.

Also read the phone books.

Was fanatical about weird shit like farming. Had to know loads of facts. Kept scrap books, made lists. Was obsessive.

Used to go down the field and chat to the cows every morning

Had an imaginary horse and galloped back through the fields on it after school

Was really gullible and got bullied loads. They never stepped in.

Yep to spinning and rolling down hills when all the other kids had already moved on to boys.

Was a huge tomboy. Was possibly a way of 'being in control / rebelling'

Used to talk to myself. Still do.

Had to be pinned down when GP was called if I was poorly just so he could use stethoscope. I'd have nosebleeds as a result of the stress.

Loads more. I've got a whole book full of life experiences that I wrote out when I began the process of assessment.

Oh and I also noted car nakes, models and colours. Would not as many as possible when going on holiday. Would have a notebook full by time we got to Scotland!

Antiques. 10/11 years old and I'd spend holidays in Scotland or the isle of Wight trawling Antique shops. Spent my pocket money on old crystal necklaces. Furthermore, I spend hours now looking on ebay to buy things like this. Simply because I remember how much joy it brought me as a child. I didn't wear the necklaces, I just cleaned them obsessively.

I spy books. Loads of them. Other kids weren't interested when I showed them. I thought they were ace. They really are an ND persons dream.

Antiques has been one of my special interests over the years too. I love old things.

The plaster thing made me laugh @boardlikeamirror That's such an autistic thing to do

Oh @barrowinfurnessrailwaystation you have been through so much. I could cry for young barrow. That must have been the most traumatic experience

also from me Barrow

One Christmas as a child I sat down at my presents with a premade (by me) spreadsheet, on a clipboard, and used it to record one present at a time as I opened them and noted gift and sender.

No one batted an eyelid.

I collected an unusual thing that was not something children in general would be interested in.

Didn't play imaginatively.
Struggled with friends.
Very introverted.
Loved my own company.
No social filter.
And lots of other very obvious stuff.

Not diagnosed until recently heading for 40.

I went through a phase of being obsessed with Terry Wogan and used to talk about him constantly.

I used to stare at myself in a mirror for hours.

I used to sit on the ground in the garden and watch the ants for hours

Looking back now, I think I used to bore anyone I spoke to do death 😂

If anyone unfamiliar spoke to me I would panic and become mute and when I was very young I would cry.

If anyone came to the house, including extended family, I was terrified and used to hide away. I remember once a friend of my sister's came over and I wasn't expecting it. I was in the living room and couldn't get away so I hid under a table, I was a teenager at the time. My sister's friend saw me and said Hi and I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I remember being really angry with her for a long time for not just ignoring me!

There's probably more but I've blanked out much of my childhood. 🙄

I collected an unusual thing that was not something children in general would be interested in.

This thread is bringing back so much! I used to collect used bus tickets as a child. I had a red kagoul with a pocket, where I kept them all. When I was at secondary school and caught the school bus we had cards which the bus driver would hole punch, 14 journeys per card, and I collected those too. They changed the design of them after a couple of years from oblong to square and I was initially pissed off but then decided it would make my collection more 'interesting'.

I still find it quite hard to throw away train tickets and general purse-filling ephemera - I tend to change my purse when it gets too full and just put the old one away full of train tickets and so on. I have dreadful hoarding tendencies, inherited from my parents, but I do manage to declutter proper 'things' such as clothes, ornaments etc. - it's the ephemera I struggle with, random bits of paper from 30 years ago and so on.

I used to try to breathe very lightly so that people couldn’t hear me (and they wouldn’t notice me)

My eldest was like you with bus tickets @boardlikeamirror
He never took a Teddy to bed, he took a bus ticket 🤣
He's autistic of course

Oh, that's so lovely @ofwarren - it must be good to grow up with a parent who understands you.

I was always in trouble for being 'cheeky' at home. It didn't help that (looking back) for some reason I had quite a 'cheeky'-looking face, but I never meant to be rude. It was the era when corporal punishment was the norm so I would often get a smack I wasn't expecting. For example, I asked my grandma how old she was - didn't realise that was 'rude' - soon learned though . My lovely grandma didn't mind but my dad was furious.

@BoardLikeAMirror
It is much easier even though he didn't get diagnosed till 13.
I never saw anything weird or wrong in his behaviours because I was like that too. I had never really heard of aspergers growing up, my only reference for autism was my older brother who is severely autistic.

My son did something similar with asking someone's age too. We were on a tram in Llandudno up the Great Orme and he asked the woman behind us if she was very old, she replied that she was 80 and his response was "does that mean your nearly dead?"... 😬

I had no friends. It went unnoticed because at primary school I would hang around on the edge of a group of girls who kindly tolerated me. I was aware they all hung out together at evenings and weekends and I wasn’t invited, but I didn’t realise that meant they weren’t really my friends.

By secondary school they weren’t willing to let me hover next to them any more because my presence affected their street cred, so I just had no friends and I sat on my own every break and lunch time. Teachers seemed to think I was choosing to be on my own and I wanted to be alone, they would tell me off for not mixing, while my mum just ignored the whole situation and did nothing even though I cried every day. It makes me so sad to look back, I’d like to think if I was a parent or teacher I’d try to help a child in that situation.

I had a lot of nosebleeds too. Never ever considered it was from stress! Makes sense though.

Introverted
Severe social anxiety
Bullied
Only ever had one friend who was usually also some kind of misfit
Academically able and very focused. I loved learning but lost interest in the practical application of it
Could read books and music before I went to school
Read dictionaries, encyclopaedias and atlases for fun (still do!)

My mum thought I was 'a strange child' and preferred my sociable, charming, sporty brother. My dad was my best friend because he was like me in many ways. He died when I was 29 and I've missed him every day since.

@Paradisaeidae

I had a lot of nosebleeds too. Never ever considered it was from stress! Makes sense though.

Interesting! I was queen of nosebleeds as a child - at one point it was even discussed cauterising the blood vessels in my nose. I actually quite enjoyed my nosebleeds - I found them fascinating 😂. They gradually stopped happening during my teens. I always assumed I must just have weak blood vessels. Looking back, they tended to happen most often in school, so it's possible there was a stress factor - like you, it had never occurred to me to seek a deeper cause than the physical one.

I was also highly intelligent but incapable of organising myself to revise or complete homework until the last minute.
I would only eat ice cream for breakfast.
TMI but I would always fold my knickers up my bum because I couldn’t stand the feel of my bum cheeks rubbing together.
I would only wear dungarees until I was at least 13.
My mum would say I’d said something rude but I didn’t understand what was rude about it.
I bit my lips and the inside of my mouth.
I could only handle having one friend at a time but when they got too close, I’d fall out with them and make friends with someone else.
I walked on my toes.
I cried a lot.
I developed an eating disorder around 15.
I hated it when people looked at me.
I had to hold my breath and count to 10 when I passed people on the street (although I don’t think anyone noticed I did that).
I had a range of obsessions and would gather facts, posters, merchandise etc about those things eg when I was obsessed with Friends the TV show, I memorised all 50 states and their capitals and became obsessed with baseball too.
I invented my own secret language.

I’m sure there’s more, I think everyone read the phone book though, it was a way to pass the time pre internet 😂.