What was your childhood like? I'm having VERY serious doubts about whether I am autistic

The professionals can get stuff wrong, but you might need to consider you might just be experiencing a bit of 'imposter syndrome', before concluding you aren't autistic.

An awful childhood isn't obligatory for autistic kids. In the right environment we can thrive and be happy like any other kid.

Parts of my school days were pretty hvorrible for all sorts of autistic reasons, but parts were good too. My teachers loved me, I was studious and the lid of the sensory pressure bottle didn't normally fizz into meltdown until I was home.

I had friends. The bullies were hell, but there were the arty, drama, academic types too - they were accepting. 

My childhood was good.

School was a bit of a nightmare. I tried fitting in

But couldn't!

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't be like the other kids.

I was happier on my own.

I liked to be close with my mum, I trusted her and felt a strong connection that I don't get with anyone else.

As a child books were my friends. I did so much reading.

As I got older I turned to music as well.

I loved playing with my dolls

I had a happy childhood^^

I think you are taking quite a `binary' view of it. Which in itself is an autistic trait ;) I am by no means qualified to judge, and I don't know you personally, but it sounds like there are a lot of reasons you might be autistic. Not everyone who is autistic shows obvious signs of it from an early age - if they did, there wouldn't be so many people getting a diagnosis later in life. From what I remember, I was socially integrated until I was 7. I got on well with other children and went on `playdates'. but this was because the parents organised the playdates at that age. My social `differences' shall we say, were probably only noticeable after that age when the social expectations get more complicated. I think this is a similar story with many people. Some autistic people don't like `imaginative play', others are very creative/imaginative. It also depends what is meant by `imaginative', so I don't think that's a very good question on the assessment.

Sorry for the ramble. I think, it would be a good idea for you to go ahead with the assessment, because I understand exactly how it feels to be "vacillating between being certain I'm autistic and then thinking I'm a fraud and stupid to have thought it." - it can be quite distressing and obsessive. You would eventually get some peace of mind by having a professional confirm (one way or the other).

My childhood was lonely I wanted friends, and would spend hours trying to get friends, but it didn’t work, because I didn’t get how friendships worked. I would stare at people who were crying, I didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t share my sweets, why should I, and I never could tell when I was boring people. My play was repetitive and lacked imagination. I would dress all of my barbie dolls up to go to a wedding, but I did not act out the wedding, make the dolls carry out pretend actions, or create a story to accompany my play. Pretend play with others involved getting dressed up in costumes of my choosing, but there was no acting. I took great delight in repeating complex words, and talking at people at length about my topics of interest, I never understood why they found this weird.I would frequently annoy people and have no clue why, people laughed or rolled their eyes when I didn’t realise they were joking, and sneered when I took their words literally. I could go on, but I may bore you. That was all at primary school.

That's interesting man !  Can you show us the non-Hebrew interpretation by Bing AI?  I'm not inclined to dabble with the AI yet - I don't think I can do it (or myself) justice.  A few weeks ago, I went to book a table at one of my favourite pubs......it was an AI on the phone.....so naturally, I got a booking for Mr No No.  

Disambiguation - When "it" had inappropriately asked for my name, I had said No - twice!

Thank you! I think there is comfort when we find core similarities with others, particularly if we've felt alone for much of our lives.

There is a bit of a story to the picture, which is that I was messing around on Bing AI creating pictures and asked it to draw someone with my name. I then asked it to draw someone with my Hebrew name and it came up with this Gandalf-esque creation!

You are a wise man, writing wise words.  We have established between ourselves on a previous occasion that we are quite different from each other in some ways.....but your writing above reminds me of some of our profound and core similarities of lived experience.  I take comfort when this happens, so thank you.

I love your new picture.

I do occasionally, but they're so different to other people's that I don't like to call them meltdowns. I just get overloaded and stressed out and have a kind of panic attack. I don't lose control, shout, hit myself etc.

my childhood was filled with a LOT of meltdowns but I had friends and hobbies . I was bullied in School, but I had friends because they enjoyed spending time with me. So I relate to the "having friends" part. My childhood was happy-ish ( ignoring the bullying) until 7th grade when I developed depression. Now I take antidepressants ( sertraline) and have anxiety. I still have meltdowns and shutdowns. I'm jealous of you. You don't have meltdowns? I wish I didn't have them either.

OOps it looks like MODS has deleted it!

Keep plugging away at it. I try in my own humble way (see my recent thread)

Also, how were you emotionally as a child? You don't say, just that you "looked" happy. I think I struggled a lot, but with my emotions (which I was not really aware of due to alexithymia). Struggling doesn't have to mean failing school, having no friends and having frequent meltdowns.

I was also a relatively "normal" child. Academically strong, imaginative, no obvious meltdowns, no obvious sensory issues that anyone picked up on. I had a couple of friends. This was part of the reason my autism was missed at my first assessment. Some of us learn to mask at a VERY young age, particularly if we're intelligent and able to watch and learn from the behaviour of those around us.

You mention having "a friend" -- I think the singular is telling. Most children would have several friends. Some autistic children do find a friend or a couple of friends, often other neurodivergent children. Other times, a neurotypical child will befriend the autistic child and "teach" them how to function in neurotypical society, what Tony Attwood calls a "mentor friend." This was my main friend in primary and secondary school; the other friends I made were largely made through him. When we began to drift in different directions in our mid-teens, I became quite lost and that was what led to my first burnout.

Also, even if you're not autistic, thinking you were autistic and then finding out you're not doesn't make you a "fraud" unless you've been trying to use your autistic identity to get money somehow, which I doubt.

I showed zero signs of autism as a child. I was hugely into imaginative play (in all honestly I wish I could still do it now), I had friends and sleepovers etc. I was bullied quite a bit as well, but unfortunately that's quite common  for a lot of children. When my parents filled out their part of the assessment questions it came back distinctly that I showed no traits of autism as a child.

That doesn't stop me from being autistic. I am autistic now, I was autistic then. 

Trust the process. No autistic child's life is going to fit exactly into a specific mould. 

Yea - well, I certainly have sustained some damage along the way AND unintentionally caused damage to those around me due to my own ignorance of what was driving my own thoughts and actions.

However my friend - neither of us are dead yet AND hope springs eternal.....so personally, I am trying to harness my new knowledge to do better with my remaining time on the planet - both for me, and for those around me.

Number said:

I have glided through most of them without incident.....because I simply found ways and means to deal with them.

That phrase resonated with me. I came from a disfunctional family. My dad had his own issues. I had no mentoring, apart from my visual perceptions of a father figure which had to be a distortion of what a true father figure should be. For the majority of my upbringing the onus rested with me. Mom had her hands full dealing with her marriage. Through my auti--- although not yet known---perceptions I too found 'work arounds' in dealing with my own 'situational realities' as I progressed toward adulthood. As an adult I wasn't conscious of all the levels of masks I had developed  as defence mechanisms that somehow got me through. I felt different from my perceived interactions never understanding why. 

After my late auti diagnosis it all fell into place for me, but the damage had already been done through my ill conceived perceptions of NT "normality"

It is quite common even today for autistic children not to be identified as autistic until after they hit the huge transition to secondary school. Even more so if they are the quiet types, who keep their head down and avoid drawing attention to themselves. It's always the loudest and mostly badly behaved who are noticed most by teachers.

You may find it helpful to read this discussion on school reports. The themes of quiet and conscientious come up a lot. My teachers even described me as conscientious when I had stopped attending their lessons. I was obviously so quiet they didn't even notice if I was there or not!

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/29137/school-reports---how-were-yours

Paper said:

Now I'm doubting it all, I feel like such a fraud. I was thinking of not even continuing with the assessment

You are certainly not a fraud for continuing with the assessment process.

Hello Paper,

Autonomistic said:

If your environment during your early childhood did not place excessive demands or stress upon you then your autistic traits may not have been apparent.

.......or, if you had the freedom and means to craft your life at a young age to accommodate your autism at that stage of life, then you will have little to report.  Some of my "situational realities" and "transitions" between them have been (when viewed from a NT perspective) very stressful and challenging.....but I have glided through most of them without incident.....because I simply found ways and means to deal with them.

It is only relatively recently that I have been able to "see" that autism HAS AND DOES underpin and necessitate most of my thoughts and behaviours.  It is so enlightening & useful.

We are all different - some are rock, some are scissors...and some are you.

Many of the traditional markers of autism APPEAR to be lacking for many people, but that should not deter you from your chosen path of trying to establish what type of "thing" you are - in my opinion.

Keep going = my advice.

Best regards

Number.

'Symptoms present in childhood' would include adolescence, so if you were fine as a child and struggled as a teenager then that wouldn't exclude an autism diagnosis. It's not unusual for autistic people to get on okay at primary school and then have difficulty with the transition to a big, noisy secondary school with more homework and more complicated social norms.

I think it's also worth considering whether your idea of what autism looks like takes the full spectrum into account. We don't all have meltdowns- some people have shutdowns. We can and do make friends, especially when people are understanding of our differences or communicate the same way we do, it's just harder for us in a lot of social situations. And plenty of us are imaginative- my diagnostic report actually complimented me on my imagination when doing a story-telling task. So none of those things would mean that you're definitely not autistic.

When your autism got missed in childhood/adolescence it's really easy to doubt yourself- but I think if so much of the autistic experience resonates with you, it probably is what's going on. You know yourself better than anybody else does, after all.

The change from primary to secondary school was certainly very difficult for me, that's when my problems became apparent. The demands of primary school were much lower, as you say - being in the same classroom with the same teacher, sitting in the same seat every day, doing the same things every day. And socialising wasn't important. I was always quiet but that was seen as a good thing by teachers.