I was diagnosed as autistic when I was 4 years old. I was very intelligent, although I start to speak when I was 5 years old.

Because I was different from others, and had different interests, not everybody understood me. I didn't have many friends.

In 1993 I was diagnosed as having PDD/NOS which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder/Not Otherwise specified. In fact this is not a very clear diagnosis, because I know some autistic friends that has the same diagnosis: PDD/NOS, but speaking about behaviour, they were different than me.

Body language was difficult to read but it took a lot of effort to learn to read it. It is partly about anticipating behaviour of others. During driving lessons I learned to anticipate the behaviour of other people, that participate in traffic. I learned: when I am approaching an equal crossing and a car is coming from the left, I try to determine whether its speed is decreasing or not. If it isn't, I know that the driver might not have seen me, so I think that he won't stop. I know he is breaking the traffic law, but I must stop instead, because I want to prevent an accident.

I also learned to read face expressions. The easiest to read was anger, happiness and sadness, more difficult were disappointedness, being in love especially, when that love is directed to me. I learned these things by watching drama movies and trying to predict the behaviour of people playing in them. When someone's behaviour is unpredictable for me, I am capable to check whether it is also unpredictable for others. If I see, that other people in movies reacted astonished, I know that my astonishedness is based on reality, so I am on the right track.