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Late diagnosis and childhood memories

Catlover

To those who were diagnosed post 40, thinking back, what are some ‘autistic’ things you can now recall you used to do?

I had a flashback just now, of when I was about 5 at break in school. I used to enjoy observing the grass, and all the different types of plants that grew there. I especially liked clover, and would always try to find one with 4 leaves Rolling eyes I liked the tiny insects as well. Also, I would always imitate sounds (still do, but not quite as often). 

Parents

  • I used to collect all kinds of things, even really mundane things like leaflets. I had piles of them in a cupboard from anywhere that I ever went and I used to categorise them and organise them. When going on holiday, I used to want to go to places where I could obtain more leaflets.

    Instead of playing games I used to fill up notebooks with well-organised lists of stats and categorised information about the game.

    I preferred to be alone and do everything alone. Often my mum would have to tell other boys who knocked on the door asking if I was coming out to play that I was ill. I wasn't ill, I was just in my room and said I couldn't see anyone.

    One day I told my mum that I really like trees, and then I bought every book I could find on trees, spent ages categorising them, drawing pictures of the leaf types, and asking to be taken to places where there were trees.

    When I write this out, it's baffling how I was never diagnosed with autism. But I think in the 80s and 90s, it wasn't known about much and my parents were probably just happy that I was a quiet child who didn't get into trouble. And teachers also didn't notice someone who never spoke, they were more concerned with the noisy and naughty kids disrupting the lesson.

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  • I used to collect all kinds of things, even really mundane things like leaflets. I had piles of them in a cupboard from anywhere that I ever went and I used to categorise them and organise them. When going on holiday, I used to want to go to places where I could obtain more leaflets.

    Instead of playing games I used to fill up notebooks with well-organised lists of stats and categorised information about the game.

    I preferred to be alone and do everything alone. Often my mum would have to tell other boys who knocked on the door asking if I was coming out to play that I was ill. I wasn't ill, I was just in my room and said I couldn't see anyone.

    One day I told my mum that I really like trees, and then I bought every book I could find on trees, spent ages categorising them, drawing pictures of the leaf types, and asking to be taken to places where there were trees.

    When I write this out, it's baffling how I was never diagnosed with autism. But I think in the 80s and 90s, it wasn't known about much and my parents were probably just happy that I was a quiet child who didn't get into trouble. And teachers also didn't notice someone who never spoke, they were more concerned with the noisy and naughty kids disrupting the lesson.

Children
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