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Having Children

Catlover

This is specifically for females, but males can answer too if they wish….

If you were diagnosed as a child, did you still want and have children when you grew up? Or did you choose not to have any?

And for those with children, who were diagnosed in middle age, do you think you would have still wanted children if you were diagnosed earlier?

Parents

  • Yes.  I wasn't diagnosed at the time but I would always have chosen to have have children and I'd do it again if I wasn't too old.  The main difficulties in my and my family's lives have, I think, stemmed from not knowing that we're autistic and not from actually being autistic.  After all, if a lot of information about your very identity is withheld from you, you become more likely to make poor or unsuitable choices and spending decades masking in a doomed effort to be a good neurotypical are likely to affect you mental health.  

    Unhappily, we didn't realise this until yet another generation in our famly went through serious breakdowns (possibly linked to repeated or catastrophic burnouts) and even then, services treated us for a heap of mental health issues that were really secondary diagnoses.  They didn't seem trained to identify autism and only discharged us after several years of trying and failing to treat with meds and CBT, briefly mentioning the possibility of "Asperger's" at that point.  Only then did I take time to reflect and the penny dropped.

    And yes, I would LOVE to have grandchildren.  I'm not at all sure that this will ever happen though, due to the enormity of the issues caused by non identifcation.  It's all going to take some considerable time.  :(     

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  • Yes.  I wasn't diagnosed at the time but I would always have chosen to have have children and I'd do it again if I wasn't too old.  The main difficulties in my and my family's lives have, I think, stemmed from not knowing that we're autistic and not from actually being autistic.  After all, if a lot of information about your very identity is withheld from you, you become more likely to make poor or unsuitable choices and spending decades masking in a doomed effort to be a good neurotypical are likely to affect you mental health.  

    Unhappily, we didn't realise this until yet another generation in our famly went through serious breakdowns (possibly linked to repeated or catastrophic burnouts) and even then, services treated us for a heap of mental health issues that were really secondary diagnoses.  They didn't seem trained to identify autism and only discharged us after several years of trying and failing to treat with meds and CBT, briefly mentioning the possibility of "Asperger's" at that point.  Only then did I take time to reflect and the penny dropped.

    And yes, I would LOVE to have grandchildren.  I'm not at all sure that this will ever happen though, due to the enormity of the issues caused by non identifcation.  It's all going to take some considerable time.  :(     

Children
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