Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi There,
I am autistic and have an interest in the history of autism. I often wonder if autism has been around for hundreds of years but people never thought much of it back then. I think people back in the day would just look at us and think “oh he’s just quiet” or “oh she’s a bit shy but has a heart of gold” that kind of thing. I mean I never would have guessed I was autistic I really don’t feel disabled I just feel like a normal person who’s got a different mind.
is there anyone here from say the 40’s 50’s or 60’s that would like to share what being an autistic child was like back then when nobody knew what autism was? It must have been difficult feeling different but not knowing why.
My Granny's recently been diagnosed.
She was born in 1934 and she spent a lot of childhood getting in trouble for being a problem child cause her parents didn't understand.
But after mine and my sister's diagnosis she also got assessed and now she's just been diagnosed.
She feels so happy and positive about it and says she's glad to finally know.
At one point when she was little they were talking about institutionalising her to "cure" her.
So sad how close minded people were back then.
Nice to meet you by the way! I'm Violet
Very shy, anxious and does not speak in class, would have been my external description as a child. I was entirely silent (selective mutism) for the first 3 months or so of infant school. I think that my sensory difficulties with some textures and disliking having oily or greasy fingers (amongst other things) would have been put down to finickiness, I was saved, socially, by two things: I was an unusually good visual artist from a young age and I would please other kids by drawing anything they asked for, I had an enquiring mind and a retentive memory so I could talk in an informed way to any other child about virtually anything that particularly interested them (other than sport!). I was born in the early 1960s.
I was an autistic child from the late 60s and the low needs autism I have was not even a diagnosis available then, so we were just a bit odd.
While I felt different, I had no frame of reference for what other people felt so I assumed they were similar to me, but they had just been shown how the "rule book" of society worked by their parents.
You just accepted you were a person, tried to fit in as best you could and got on with it. Having meltdowns regularly would end up with you being committed to a mental asylum as they were called then, and you would be medicated to keep you out of harms way.
I think autists either deceloped good masking skills or were quickly marginalised.
As for the older generations to me, they had often come through events like the wars and had experienced a much harsher environment growing up - my grandparents were absurdly poor by our standards yet went on to have a large family with only one breadwinner and without any benefits.
For me it was almost unimaginable and I expect for people in their teens now it would be considered a fairy story.
Mental health knowledge in general is a relatively recent evolution in our culture so it would all need to be seen through that lens.