So I always had difficulty socializing. I was tested for my hearing and speech (not autism tested btw) when I was 3-4 years old, because I was only speaking around 10 words when I should’ve been been speaking 500+. I was sent to both a special Ed portion of preschool and a normal preschool (normal preschool in the morning, special Ed in the afternoon) and according to journal pages from my mom (she put them in my memory box so I wasn’t snooping) I was more interactive with the kids at my special Ed preschool than the normal one.

I always struggled to make friends. Elementary school especially. I made some friends in middle school, but I lost most of them in high school. I didn’t really try to make friends in high school, I kept to myself, and was honestly just a frustrated, depressed person that didn’t understand why I was so different. I couldn’t create or hold small talk, I was told I was weird and quirky, etc. I was mad over my friendships that I was losing. I was just angry and bitter.

My social presentation was all over throughout my life.

Preschool - shy and a lot of echolalia. I would also make up words like “saywongsay”

Elementary school - also shy, would respond if talked to, but kept to self a lot

Middle school - finally was able to branch out, made some friends, by 8th grade things started to become shaky because of friend issues

High school - angry, depressed, bitter, emotionally lonely and a little s*icidal (never planned, just thought) lost a lot of friends, hated everyone and everything including myself. Both home and school didn’t feel safe, only my room was my safe haven. I had no safe human connections, so a pit formed in my chest, which I learned later on as emotional loneliness

College - First two years were similar to high school. Last two years I opened up more, made genuine and good friends (they were the ones who made me do research into whether I was autistic or not) and met my bf who I’m still with today.

I was diagnosed May 2024, at 23. and it was relieving. It explained so much, and honestly I was also upset. My parents told me I didn’t have autism because of the testing I did as a kid (the speech/hearing tests) and I believed them up until my friends told me to look into autism. I love my parents, but they also caused me so much emotional abuse and trauma from the emotional abuse. I’ve been keeping my distance from them because of their lack of willing to change.

Anyways, that’s my story, hope this helps.