INTRO:
I hope this might became a thread in which people like me - so new to the subject of Autism or perhaps autistic to the extent that they never realised, historically, that they were autistic - sometimes ask if a behaviour of theirs might 'officially' constitute such behaviour or not.
I've created this thread because, unfortunately, I'm always pestering wiser people for insights; I always have far too many questions to be answered, and this especially upsets me because a) I'm terribly frustrated at my difficulty in understanding what is often obvious to others, and b), because I find myself bewildered by life, always. While I hope other 'newcomers' don't share these problems, it's likely that some do. They might have questions to ask the board's informed and experienced members; hopefully, those members might be kind enough to respond as they so frequently and generously do.
Once again, the limits of my imagination and of my limited social life means that I have to ask my own question in the form of yet another personal anecdote. I am sorry for doing this, in several ways, one of which is my apparent self-obsession being displayed again - look at ME, everyone! - but the truth actually is...I've always dreaded attention being on me. *Dreaded it*, as part of my anecdote might show. Sorry for the tedious, long post and intro, folks - cue the story, hopefully to be followed by your own particular questions:
My mother, who I now suspect was at least borderline-autistic herself, often told me that I was a very contented child. And this was true - I *was* content - but, since learning about Autism, I've come to question this oft-stated 'truth'. Contentment isn't quite the same as happiness, although I always considered mine to have been a very happy childhood, courtesy of my lovely parents. I was very lucky, and still think myself so.
But my mother never seemed to question why it was that I was so quiet, so content...content except when I would be gently forced to attend a children's party, even my own birthday party. I was so shy that I couldn't speak. So shy that my own parties were a horrible nightmare of attention on me. 'Look at ME, everyone!'; *please* don't...It reads like typical, benign, 'only natural' 'shy kid' behaviour, doesn't it? Well, might it actually reveal more than that?
My question, though, is 'asked' by the following story, as the previous paragraphs were necessary background stuff:
I was told by my mother - and I vaguely remember these incidents - that I would be 'so pleased by Christmas or birthday gifts that I didn't speak or even move for some hours, like I was in a trance'. My mum would laugh, pleased about this 'happiness/contentment' of mine but, again, apparently never ask herself why I was like that. In this way, I think what I'll call her passivity might be revealing, in an autistic sense perhaps?
Anyway, Mum probably didn't realise that my parents' gifts might have been anything from a cardboard box to the finest toys, from a 10p coin to a fortune, and my stunned reaction would likely have been precisely the same. I was grateful and satisfied and unquestioning regarding *anything* I was given...and that reaction now appears very strange and worrying to me, for all my happy memories. It may even be a dangerous passivity, because my ingrained thinking goes: 'My parents were kind and trustworthy towards me; therefore, adults are almost always to be trusted and believed'. These days and also in the past, if other adults do not behave towards me as my parents did it is a confusing shock to me - I really struggle to understand unkindness. I don't know how to react to it.
So, finally, my question is this: Does the behaviour shown in my 'gifts' story represent the behaviour of an undiagnosed autistic child? Thanks for any enlightenment you might proffer.
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