'When did you first realise that you were 'different'?'

I was different in many ways before I even started school.

I felt almost no desire to play or communicate with other children.  And when I tried I failed completely.

I just played alone with coloured wodden bricks.

When I was older my mother told me that visitors often commented that I was very odd as an infant.  I never spoke with anyone or took an interest in people.  I just played in silence ignoring everyone.

I was different in many ways before I even started school.

I felt almost no desire to play or communicate with other children.  And when I tried I failed completely.

I just played alone with coloured wodden bricks.

When I was older my mother told me that visitors often commented that I was very odd as an infant.  I never spoke with anyone or took an interest in people.  I just played in silence ignoring everyone.

My very earliest memories are all of objects and places, never events or people. I can vividly remember things like the patterns on my childhood bedroom curtains, the exact construction of the toy cars in the sand-pit at nursery school, small architectural details of buildings on the journey to visit relatives, etc. I can't recall what any of my close family looked like back then, any group games I used to play, how I got on with my younger brother, etc. My biographical memory in general is like that; very objective and factual and not at all like "reliving" anything, if I understand what people mean by "reliving a memory" (I'm not sure that I do.)

Having to be present when guests were in the house was always a chore; if I could sneak off back to my room, my books, my drawing, the latest Lego creation that they were distracting me from, I always did. I had a few relatives who could engage me by having interesting things to teach me about history or science, or taught me practical skills, which was fortunate (I have a strong hunch that autism runs on one side of my family; I wonder now if they took me aside because they too found such gatherings onerous?)