Realizing people from you past probably had AS?

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Were you diagnosed, or figured out late in life that you had AS.. And then realized that you've known other people in your past that maybe, or probably had AS too?

If so, did you think they were weird(at the time), see yourself in them.. or both?

Do family members count?

I can see myself in a couple of family members who I now recognise as Aspies. I was aware of their "uniqueness" long before I realised that it was AS, and also saw something of myself in them or at least liked them and felt comfortable with them.

There was one person I knew outside my family who had several Aspie-like qualities and I wonder now if he is on the spectrum. Haven't seen him in years, though.

my dad and a close friend from school. i thought they were both insensitive and had absolutely no insight into my own problem at all.

A former Japanese language teacher of mine might have been an aspie. She was very shy and lived all by herself in a dorm room at the school, seldom having any visitors. She would hold a book or sheet of paper in front of her face when speaking to the class. Other times she would speak while turned toward the white board in front of the classroom. Her English was much better than my other Japanese instructors (all of them Japanese) and I never noticed her making grammatical errors. She was very supportive of me and encouraged me to be optimistic and not stress out about my studies.

She passed away a few months ago (shortly after I left the school) and I still haven't quite gotten over the shock. I'm very glad that I was able to be her student.

This boy from my school and he was in my class when I was nine and he rode my bus when he was ten. I would say he was severe. He was always alone, never seemed to understand anything, even if you explain it to him, he didn't like to be touched so he screamed when you would, he always talked about his backpack and never answered your questions and he would ignore what you say to him when you try and talk to him, he didn't respect other peoples property. Plus he didn't watch other kids to figure things out. I don't remember seeing any rituals he had. It was just with socialness and at least he didn't yap about his obsessions and I never knew what they were because he didn't talk to anyone. I suspect Nintendo may have been his interest since his backpack was shaped like a Gameboy and he would talk about it sometimes. Plus sensory issues and I think he took things literal because I can remember him telling our music teacher he is telling his mother when he gets home that he took the flute from him and she told him he can play it because he needs to practice it. The teacher took it from him because he kept playing it when we weren't supposed to and the teacher warned him to stop, he didn't so he took it from him and he threw a fit. Plus he had an aid with him in class and she help him with his school work. Lot of kids didn't like him despite being told by the aid he doesn't understand. I always knew he had something wrong with him and I didn't know why he was the way he was and it was like you talk to him but it was talking to a brick wall because he still didn't seem to get the information you told him because he still didn't understand. It be awful to see kids tease him and he screams and our bus driver be yelling at him instead of the kids to leave him alone. but at least he wasn't badly bullied in school because he was always alone and I didn't see kids picking on him. But on our bus he got picked on and for me that was so wonderful because the left me alone and I was normal for once than being singled out. But his little sister would try and defend him but the bullies would ignore him and I knew if I stood up for him, I be the one getting made fun of too and getting flack so I always ignored it and had to listen to it. I remember in 6th grade, a girl in my class told me her bus driver yelled "shut up? at him on the bus when they got to school and after everyone was off the bus. Who knows what happened because bus drivers were always yelling at him as if he was the bad guy. I think it was most likely he had AS or social communication disorder under the new DSM. I did not see him do any stimming or get upset with change when he was in my class or when he rode my bus.

When I sort of had some friends a few years ago after knowing them for a while and then going through a tough period I shared my social anxiety with a few of them and in doing so found out that many of them also had some degree of social anxiety. I know it's not exactly the same.

I do now believe that at least a handful of my online friends (who I didn't meet through AS means, just special interests) may be aspies too (although I don't think they are aware of it, but I could be wrong.). One has incredibly obsessive interests which are mainly what he talks about. Another seems to have even more difficulty than me in addressing people online when not related to an interest. In fact when I recently made a couple of funny comments to him and a friend of his (who I didn't know) he had the friend reply to me like he was worried to or something.

I also definitely see autistic traits in many members of my family but none seem full blown aspie to me (aside from, possibly my dad, but he's not open to that and has learned to deal with people when necessary.)

There is also a girl that I went to school with (we weren't friends and didn't share many classes) but when I did see her she was often easily upset, trying very hard to fit into any group and incredibly awkard. I recently saw her working at a department store. It looked like she was just starting there and that a coworker was showing her how to do things. She still seemed very awkward and uneasy.

The only friend i have left shows definite signs of AS., infact its written all over him. Ive told him that im in the process of recieving diagnoses and he just laughed as he has a stereotypical view of AS as somebody like Rainman, ive hinted he might have it by pointing out all the traits i have which i share with him but of course he doesnt get hints lol. After i know for sure wether i have AS im just going to come out and say it and suggest he looks into it

I think one of my teachers in high school was an Aspie. He was an English teacher and everyone thought he was an eccentric. He did a lot of hand flapping and humming. This was back in the mid 1970's, before the Aspergers diagnosis and the ADA.

He had been there for many years (my older siblings had him for a teacher), but his classes started getting rowdy and he lost control of them. Eventually, he was replaced mid-semester. It was a heart-breaking thing to see. I heard the school district transferred him to another school where he started fresh and he did just fine.

More recently, there was this woman in my Social Anxiety Disorder group. I didn't start learning about Aspergers until after she left the group, but I would lay money on it that she was an Aspie. She was eccentric, peculiar, had wide ranging special interests. Her favorite animals were bats. A real strange woman, and I had the biggest crush you could possibly imagine on her, not in spite of strangeness, but because of it. I found her incredibly sexy.

Never would have worked though. She's a lesbian. Story of my life, really...