Where to begin?

As most women with asperger's syndrome, I was diagnosed late. After 31 years of struggling socially and feeling different, I finally came to know I was not crazy.
As a kid, I was odd to my parents; as a toddler (and I remember it), I was "maniac", I would tuck my blanket under my mattress in my crib then would meticulously organize my stuff animals at the end of my bed inside the crib. Yeah, I wondered all these years, how I could remember so clearly memories as I was a toddler. I can even recall being on my high chair and being fully submerged into my cardboard book as I watched my parents (to be sincere I felt I was observing them). How strange and insane? Today, I finally comprehend it is normal for me.
In kindergarden and elementary school, I recall feeling at odd with my peers. It progressively became worst as I aged. My first year in elementary school, I clearly remember how I felt chastised by my peers as one kid told a joke and I stared without laughing. They all turned and said: "what is wrong with you? why don't you laugh?". I didn't know I had to laugh, it wasn't funny to me. Over the years, I accepted that I analyzed the jokes and don't get them. I told myself as an adult, I must not have a sense of humor. Until I was diagnosed as being "gifted" (high IQ) hence it was common for me to not get jokes. Okay, it made perfect sense. "Being gifted" was my answer to why I was and felt so different. Throughout elementary school, I had no friends, I recall sitting on a bench in the school yard and observing my peers as in my head I wondered so many questions. I suffered a great deal back then, I longed for friends though I dreaded interacting with them, I didn't understand their behaviors. I constantly felt judged and made fun of. So I withdrew. I became a tomboy, it was so much easier. The few activities I did in the school yard involved: playing marbles (you didn't have to talk, you had to be strategic), playing "le jeu de paume" played with a soft ball, taking turns to hit it against the wall (similar to racket ball but without a racket) (again, I did not have to talk). In class, I was bored unless the topic seemed interesting to me: history (some periods were fascinating) and math (algebra was so easy for me, I really enjoyed doing math problem plus not to sound cocky but I would always be done in a few minutes well before anyone else, so I could just read quietly for quite a while and be left alone).
I was good at math, numbers made sense to me. I had a speech impediment, I swallowed syllables. I talked fast. It was so frustrating to have to express myself, even with my own family.
Today, it almost feels as if only my dogs understand me. I still struggle on a daily basis to communicate with people, I feel often drained talking to anyone. It is still very frustrating, which is in part why I don't have "friends". I find even more insulting the fact that the ones closed to me: my parents, my siblings and my husband don't get me. It is almost as if I wish they could swap places with me and feel my struggles. Perhaps then, would they stop being so hard on me.
Today, I know that my obsession of numbers is normal for me. I do "ken ken" and "sudoku" to soothe me down. I am an avid reader, growing up books were my friends. I think in images hence reading became my escape. After elementary school, as I entered our "college and then high school", my refuge was the library. I would read a book every day, I am not exaggerating, I was insomniac. I recall nights my dad would come home past midnight and he would find me up still reading. I was so absorbed by the wonders of words, how together words created a new world in my head. While I was not particularly bright in elementary school except for math or when a subject was interesting. I was lazy, hated doing homework and especially could not memorize by heart those stupid grammar rules to recite. I mean why did I need to recite them word for word, they made absolutely no sense as why it would be important to learn them. I was bored. Anyhow, to my parents' surprise as I entered "college and high school" I became first of my class in pretty much any subject. To their surprise because they never saw me do homework. All I can say is I started to feel stimulated then, I would actually listen though I still read underneath the table, and if it was interesting I wanted to learn, I absorbed the information as it finally made sense. The times I had to actually sit and "study" was with chemistry as I had to understand what the formulas meant. I cannot still to this day just memorize anything if it does make no sense. So I would sit and make sense of these chemistry formulas, I soon discovered that like math, but instead of numbers, it was a sort of equation that had concrete results. So if 1 + 2 = 3 and then 3 - 1 = 2 , as a + b = c and c - a = b, same would apply to these chemistry formulas. Though I actually could picture in my head what was happening (the process of a reaction). I suppose while I could keep going about how it felt for me growing up, this is a brief introduction to how we struggle as kids with asperger's syndrome.