Its an odd thing, or perhaps it is better to say 'I'm an odd thing'. Growing up I'd always known that I was different, not just very smart, but in the way I saw things, what I thought was funny, my very wide and varied interests/obsessions, the way I missed things no one else did. The 'experts', after less than an hour of testing, thought 'maybe' I had ADD. I could have told them that, my whole family was 'Hyper' and had issues with focus and impulse control. I was 18, had an IQ that was "hard to pin down" but at least 130ish, and still had no real answers to explain why I felt like a 'Stranger in a strange land'. And despite being so 'intelligent' I wasn't 'smart' enough to graduate from high school.
I was officially diagnosed with ADD when I was 35, my IQ placed in the top half percentile. However the whole picture didn't get clearer until I was diagnosed with Aspergers a few years later. Whole picture? OK maybe just the frame =8-]
My side of the conversation with the Doctor went something like this; "Aspergers?...That's Autism Spectrum...I don't present the same behaviours, I'm nothing like 'Rainman', I don't sit and rock for hours or scream when touched. I've never had any issues with speech and language other than spelling, but that's my ADD...How is it Aspergers?"
Seems that most studies I knew of, focused on young children, many with other impairments. The few adult studies involved those who were effectively non-functional without daily assistance.
I seems my intelligence is what kept me from being the guy with the shopping cart full of crazy.
