Did you identify with classical autism at first (or AS)?

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I read about autism and thought it sounded like me, except for the language delay, and the severity of symptoms, and from there read about AS and decided I maybe fit that category more closely. At the very least, I can support myself, so that's an indication of my overall/neurotypical ability to function.

Before this, I hypothesized I must either have been emotionally damaged somehow or just have a very functionally specific form of brain damage.

That reminds of when I was first diagnosed. The psychologist told my dad, when I was there, that I had trouble with nonverbal communication, but not with verbal communication. I said, "But that's opposite." Both my dad and I are good at picking up cues from tone of voice and facial expressions and other body language, though in other ways socially we are atypical, and tend to get burned out or overloaded by conversing too much.

I also did not do too much of those "little professor" monologues about a single subject, though sometimes if someone brings up a topic of interest, I will say a sentence or two in monotone, usually repeated from somewhere. I remember when 13 thinking that Asperger fits me more than classic, because I read that classic auties don't want friendships or social interaction, which wasn't true of me. However, I was described a lot as being aloof, especially in elementary school.

I also have an extensive grasp of non-literal language, whether figurative and in fiction, or as sayings in spoken language (my dad uses a lot of dated idioms, so I grew up actually knowing more than most peers). So that didn't fit, though part of my humor I'd developed early on was to pretend to take things super-literally (I think partially inspired by watching Get Smart when young). People often take me really seriously when I'm joking, because I'm so good at keeping a straight face and acting like I'm serious.

When I was a kid I remember watching a tv new show about an autistic boy. I was thinking holy crap I do things like that. My mom came into the room and yelled for me to change the channel because she didn't want to watch "some messed up thing like that" I think referring to the boy as being a thing. So I was terrified she would recognize I had the same behaviors, some of which I did though not as extreme.

Now it makes me wonder if my parents were ever told that I might be autistic as my mom was obviously rattled by the very topic being on tv. I was non-verbal except around my parents until I was 7 years old. My kindergarten and 1st grade teachers couldn't even get me to talk. And even around my parents my words were few and far between; never lengthy sentences and when I did speak it seemed like others could not understand me. Yet I tested with an IQ of 165, so I wasn't stupid.

Its weird I remember being screamed at by the high school psychologist for not looking him in the eye. He said I was a liar because I wouldn't look at people. Obviously this was before Aspergers was a diagnosis. Its kinda ironic I eventually end up getting diagnosed at age 35 with Aspergers, ADD and Cognitive Developmental Disorder. I hadn't heard about Aspergers till I was 34 though I knew what ADD was and highly suspected I had that.

i took a 100-level intro to psychology course during the summer after my 10th grade year. i really identified with the description of autism, but i knew that autistics were severely disabled, like rainman or something, and i wasn't, so i put it out of my mind.

I remember my mom smart mouthing some lady at Scouts about her boy that had development problems, something about 'why do you keep bringing the dummy to the Boy Scouts" and the lady kept saying her son was special, and not to talk like that in front of him. One day the lady was so frustrated at my mothers' heinous breach of manners s"he turned and pointed dead at me and said that "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
I always wondered back to that day why she said that.

I never went back to Scouts again, either. Matter of fact, she gave up on the PTA and Scouts and started into diet clubs where she went to the meetings without children.

my mother was no prize, believe me.