When did you realise you were different from 'normal'?

[oxyn]

I have a DS who is currently waiting on a diagnosis from ASD, I am almost 100% sure he will get diagnosed. It's made me think - as ASD is often hereditary - whether I have traits (that or ADHD). I am 27, the things that make me consider I might be 'different' are...

• I was very hyperactive when I was little. Used to roll, skip, jump everywhere. Couldn't keep still. This was up until about the age of 11 when I seemed to 'grow out of it' (coinciding with secondary school). This was put down to having high intelligence.
• I always had friends at primary school, but looking back, I definitely 'dominated' play... I'd say at least 80% of the time it was 'my game'.
• Struggled more socially at secondary, but still had friends. Lots of friendships issues though.
• I really found it hard to listen to teacher's or authority at school. I knew I was clever enough to do well without listening to them / doing homework / work so I often would bunk off or not listen or be sent out. I was described by teacher's as arrogant and ignorant. I did much better at college where there was more independence.
• The same occurred with my parents - hated listening to authority and rules I felt were silly or ridiculous.
• I always said I hated being a child and couldn't wait to be an adult. Don't look back on my childhood fondly at all to be honest, I'm very happy to be an adult doing whatever I like.
• Achieved A's and A*'s in everything. I've always had the ability to be able to focus on a subject and absorb the information, then copy it down almost verbatim in a test. Frequently bunked off school, but I remember shutting myself in my bedroom and just revising for hours upon hours - it's how I did so well.
• I've always had strong interests but I never saw them as obsessions - but reflecting back - perhaps they were? As an example, one of the things I was into at one point was a popular online game. I could easily spend an entire day playing this online game. I would also research the game in my spare time. I'm still like this to some extent - if something interests me I will spend hours reading about it, googling, YouTubing, podcasting...
• I don't have many friends as an adult, but I'm not that interested in having lots of friends either.
• I've never been able to be employed, only ever self-employed. I've said from a very young age that I didn't want to work for anyone else. When I have been employed in the past, I've found it difficult to follow 'the rules' if I find them to be ridiculous or unnecessary, but I will follow it because I know I have to.
• I find it difficult to break a routine - for example - if I've decided that I am doing something in a certain order e.g. 1. Gardening, 2. Make a cup of tea, 3. Do the washing... if someone asks me to make the tea first, I have to mentally switch focus... I can do it, but I'd much rather stick to the original order I had in my mind.

Does this sound within the range of 'normal'?

Have you tried any of the screening questionnaires? These can be helpful in giving an indication of what might be going on.

I always felt a profound and fundamental disconnect from others from an early age.

Other kids my age started ostracising me when I was about 12. I didn’t understand why they hated me, I just knew that they did. Life continued and people continued to ostracise me as I got older. I’d say I was in my 30s before I understood there was something wrong with me. Prior to that I thought it was just people being nasty to me for some unknown reason.

Looking back I can see that people didn’t really like or include me before I was 12 either, I was just too young and naive to realise I was being excluded. And to a certain extent parents and teachers did make an effort to include me because I was a child, they would make their kids play with me and invite me to their parties etc, tell them it’s mean to leave someone out, we all have to play nicely together. Of course once we weren’t kids any more they didn’t do that any more and that’s when I was excluded.

I think I always knew to some extent. Consistent feedback at school was that I was extremely intelligent (not a boast!) and extremely incapable of forming healthy relationships/friendships. It was always all or nothing and I tended to become dependent on one person at a time if that makes sense.

The point at which I really realised was stumbling across the 9 symptoms of BPD in my early 20s. Suddenly everything made sense - my unhealthy attachments, drug and alcohol abuse and dangerous behaviours, feelings of emptiness and that I wasn't a real human. Literally I sobbed that day.

I am currently having emdr (amazing hard but life changing) and discovered I'm neuro divergent and I think it's ace if it works for Mr musk, Bill Gates, Steve jobs and Richard Branson it works for me

I'd say it was ADHD (son has it, all sounds familiar)

A lot of this sounds like adhd, but asd doesn't like to be alone so it could be both

It’s fairly unusual to have ADHD without also being on the spectrum (not impossible though).

There is a strong genetic link with ND conditions and it would help for more people to understand this, I think. So many people still seem to think that autistic kids fall out of the sky or something. I’m autistic and I have 2/4 diagnosed girls and also I’m autistic myself. I think I also have ADHD. My older daughter has autism, high care needs and is also thought to have Tourette’s. The younger one has dx of autism, adhd and dyspraxia.

There is also a lot of autism in our family and older family members who clearly were undiagnosed autistic.

Interestingly, having been discussing DS's ASD screening with my mum, she mentioned that when I was little it was suggested to her that I might have ADHD but she'd dismissed it as 'children are meant to be active'!

There are lots of other little things that I've started to piece together...

• A love of running round and round in circles.
• I could never do hobbies as a child or a teenager as I much preferred to do my own thing. The only hobby I sustained was an art based one which was pretty much 'do your own thing'.
• I've realised how overwhelming I find social situations. I am much better 1-1 and really struggle to find my feet in a big group. I constantly find myself monitoring my speech, body language etc. I feel like I want to break away from the group for 10 minutes to recharge (and will often sneak off to the toilet / car / away to do just that).

It's really interesting as I see a lot of my childhood traits in DS.

When I started school in Reception class and realised not everyone rocked back and forth in their chair when listening to music and when anxious about something.

I used to wring my hands when I was excited.
I found it really hard to join in a conversation with more than one person. I could only cope with talking to one person, and even then I would struggle depending on who the person was.
I couldn't cope with noisy echoy classrooms.
I struggled to make eye contact.
I couldn't cope if someone tried to hug me.

By the time I started college I was really out of my depth.
I couldn't speak in the lectures to answer questions, and would spend lunch times walking around the town on my own.
I didn't understand about fashion and got bullied for my choice of clothes.
On work placements I was pulled apart for not socially interacting.
I wasn't diagnosed until much later on, and this was 30 years ago, so no-one had a clue I was autistic. They just thought I was strange/ rude/ standoffish.
It makes me cry even now to look back on it.

I myself knew that I was autistic when I read about it in a textbook aged 17 and it fitted how I was exactly. It was almost a relief to know that I wasn't how they perceived me to be and that there was a reason why I struggled in the way I did.

I felt like I didn't fit in from secondary school onwards really. It was as an adult that it really started to bother me and I wondered why "everyone else" could do stuff but I struggled. Remember crying a lot about it because I just couldn't work it out and it didn't make sense... I discovered a description of inattentive ADHD when I was about 23 and had this huge WTF moment, it took me another 3 years to get diagnosed because of a combination of imposter syndrome, procrastination and the hoops I had to jump through/waiting lists. Then another 3 years until I got medication - long story! Currently off meds and looking for a doctor who will prescribe them again.

Are there any particular screening questionnaires you'd recommend? There are a lot and I'm nervous about getting dodgy advice...

I'm looking into ASD in relation to possibly putting my DD (14) for assessment and in the reading I've done I'm seeing a lot of myself as well as her. It's unsettling but also something of an opportunity... I don't want DD to have the same social struggles and mental health issues I had as a result of them. Would a diagnosis help? She's (as I did) masking it very well if she has ASD but it might be the exhaustion that comes with keeping that up is breaking her. Or it's not ASD and we need to understand her mental health issues from a different perspective.