I think I must be the same age as you are, because I would also have been in fifth grade when the DSM-IV came out (and, therefore, when Asperger’s became an official diagnosis here in the US).

I was still diagnosed, with PDD-NOS, earlier — at age five. My mother had asked our pediatrician about me earlier than that — like, when I was two — but because I was a firstborn he brushed off her questions as the worries of a nervous new mother.

My mother also tells me I was clearly different from birth.

Interestingly, with the whole “well, your autism must not have been very bad, if you went undiagnosed so long” thing, I sometimes get the opposite. People meet me, are wowed by the fact that I can speak, and seem aware of my surroundings, and generally do not look OMG!autistic!!, so they tend to say something like, “Well, you sure don’t look autistic now.”

I’m interested in the issues of diagnosis, counter-diagnosis (more on that in a minute), narrative, and–to borrow my friend phinnia’s phrasing–”my head is pasted on crooked yay.” Maybe that’s why your writing feels so true to me.

Anyway, I’m struck by the “When were you diagnosed?” question, because it reminds me of other “cred” questions: e.g. “When did you come out?” (among queers, especially lesbians for some reason); “Have you been hospitalized?” (among people with mental disabilities).

Counter-diagnosis: I’ve been working on this argument (this is the article I mentioned on the DS-rhet/comp list) about the possibility of narrative to act as a means of counter-diagnosis.

You give me so much to think about. On that not-terribly-coherent note, I conclude.