ok. so how did you escape it?
And - did you wind up being diagnosed with something else?
Hearing test when I was 3 years old. They discovered I was deaf in my right ear. I had many of the “symptoms” of autism: late/minimal talker, preferred solitary pursuits like puzzles, occasional vocal outbursts (due to frustration of lack of ability to communicate), not wanting to share/communicate with other children (probably because I couldn’t hear their soft delicate voices and it was too much work to try).
The real problem was since I couldn’t hear well and communicate well, I simply retreated. Once they realized the real problem, everyone around me made more of an effort to speak clearly and a bit louder. I also had some speech therapy thrown in and caught up very quickly so by the time I was in kindergarten, I was in classes with regular children and by second grade (and losing my 2 front teeth) were over, my speech was fine, too.
Do I still have issues? Sure. I still hate social situations with large crowds of people. Trying to concentrate on conversing with tons of background noise is tiring and I just prefer to avoid such situations. Lipreading only takes you so far and is mentally draining.
So....by the standard of some of these “autism spectrum” experts, I’m still “autistic” because social situations exhaust me mentally because it’s takes a lot out of me mentally to make sure I hear the conversation.