If it wasn't ASD in your case, what else would it be?

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I mean, what if it suddenly turned out that you don't have ASD so you need to deal with the thought that you have something entirely else from now on. What else could you suspect it to be in your case? In my case, it would be the schizoid personality disorder (I got diagnosed with it at 20 in 2004, anyway - back then, practically no one in Poland heard about Aspergers) and dyspraxia.

ADHD, anxiety and depression. I am diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety disorder anyway.

When I was young I thought my social anxiety and problems with social interactions was the downside of being highly intelligent. In my case I would probably go back to that theory.

Me too I was a gifted child - I could read at 2,5, as a five year old I read books for teenagers and at the age of seven - those for adults. I spelled everything 100% flawlessly, I had adult interestes (I never knew any other 7 year old who would be interested for example in sexology) and a fully adult way (to this extent it is possible in case of a toddler, of course) of thinking and behaving ever since at 3, I started to understand something from the world surrounding me.

I would probably assume the combination of my weird circumstances growing up (isolated as a religious fundamentalist homeschooler), shyness, introversion, and the other diagnoses that I have - ADHD (inattentive type), PTSD, CPTSD, and generalized anxiety, especially social anxiety would explain it.

If I wasn't diagnosed with anything then I would have probably thought I just had social anxiety in the classroom and ADHD at home, because that basically summed me up. Although I was fearful of sudden loud noises but not loudness in general.
I would have also thought I had mild learning difficulties as well, being so I often struggled with keeping up with the classwork and understanding the topic. Also I was often on the special ed table with the slow readers and the inattentive underachievers. But I fitted in there, because I was an inattentive underachiever too.

Put me in the high IQ camp. I would've thought that was the difference.

Now I know high IQ was one difference and Autism was another.

I suspect Autism was the more important difference, however.

A language learning or processing disorder, an unknown mood disorder likely rooted from hormones, an adjustment disorder due 'lack of practice' because of spending too much time and energy 'coping with crap', short term memory issues due to chronic rhintis and blood sugar, possible schizoid features or traits, and everything else is just human complex that can be outworked.


In fact, this is more or less how I approach myself instead of just looking all of it as just "autism", let alone proclaim "being autistic".


Anxiety (paranoia, agoraphobia) and depression (actually hormonal, and situational) likely be put into a medical history if that's diagnosable.
I won't be surprised if it were treatable with birth control pills had I had given some as a teenager.

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Nonverbal learning disorder It is described as something pretty similar to Asperger syndrome or ASD without intellectual development disorder and without serious functional language issues and I have "obsession" that I have merely nonverbal learning disorder, not pervasive developmental disorder and autism spectrum disorder. I would think that non-autistic nonverbal learning disorder is not similar to Asperger syndrome and it should not have social atypicality, but it would present with dyscalculia, dysgraphia and impairment in reading maps and charts in elementary school, so the person with NLD and without AS would be not "weird", but would have serious problems in learning because of problems with arithmetics, writing and reading of nonverbal information and there would be significant, early problems with mathemathics and with subjects in which maps are used, like geography and history. I would think that many people with autism have more or less NLD symptoms, but social-behavioral atypicality differentiates autistic people with NLD traits than people with NLD who do not have a pervasive developmental disorder.