Welcome to the forum Rainbowcat, I am not an Aspie but my son is and from another perspective of being a mother of a son who is an aspie. I missed every sign there was. MY son is now 32. When he was a kid I didn't know how to handle him or why he acted the way he did. He is very intelligent and I guess I didn't think anything was wrong with him because he was so smart, I figured he was just acting out and being mean. Of course I could kick myself now for missing it all. Being diagnosed really opened a lot of doors for us(and he is very borderline) but also being on this forum has helped me so much. People are nice on here and very helpful. The thing that hits me the hardest is that most people unless it hits home and you or one of your kids or brother or sister etc. has ASD you will probably never get to know that person or why they are like they are. Truly understand what it is like to be in the Autism spectrum. I have 5 kids and only 1 has ASD they all grew up together and even though they all love each other most of them do not understand him. I just got into it with my other son when I asked him to take my son for his blood work, he didn't want to and started saying why can't he take himself? other people with autism are out and have jobs, he isn't stupid, and if he is so borderline he should do better, he thinks he is more narcissistic than anything. I realized that even knowing he has ASD they really still don't understand him or try to help him in any way. A lot of times I think that NT's just cannot grasp that.