Published on 12, July, 2020
As an older person with Autism, I was brought up in very different times with different thinking, values, acceptance, behaviour, etc (1970's & 80's).
The World has changed so much since then - both for better and worse.There have been so many advancements - particularly in science and this has benefitted us ASD'ers immensely.
One thing that is troubling me is that I hold a lot of "principles" that in this day and age would be considered "Old Fashioned", "Traditional", maybe even "Bigotry" or worse.There are things that I struggle to understand or accept which are based on my traditional attitude. I was brought up in an era when....
I openly discuss or rant about these topics along with some others that may be considered taboo with closed friends and family who have all become somewhat numb to my outrageousness / inappropriateness.
I have however managed to "behave" in public (stayed on the right side of the law), but occasionally do mutter things with a level of cowardice.My concern is that now that I am officially autistic, the shackles of having to mask may have been broken and that has the potential of me saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
I'm marginally younger than you, 80/90's kid and only figured out recently that I'm non binary and asexual.
For years I simply couldn't get my head around the concept of non-binary and never heard of asexual. I knew I wasn't straight so assumed I must be gay had a couple of relationships so I was around the LGBTQ+ community most of the time.
Not wanting to upset others I took it upon myself to research about gender and sexuality. I read articles by people from the trans community, I listened at prides and finally things started to fit into place in my mind. Once I understood the subject more my mindset changed. These were ways to describe how I felt too, but bigotry and misinformation in my youth made me prejudiced and blinded. (Thank you Catholic school).
I wish I had advice on the released shackles. Since diagnosis I've found it increasingly difficult to play nice just for the neurotypicals. I'm hoping that will calm down when I stop being so angry that I wasn't diagnosed until now and start understanding my own needs so I can articulate myself better.
That's one thing you can let your catholic school off the hook for. It was literally illegal to "promote" anything along those lines. I had a similar experience where it took years of thinking I was straight going through a phase or gay and in denial because to even mention gay people in education would have been bad enough, let alone telling children that there are some people attracted to more than 1 gender.
Totally not letting the drunk nuns off the hook. Our sex ed was "don't have it" and homosexuals burn in hell. Even for the 90's that was bad.
Absolutely that was bad - even for the 90's.
However, it did happen (not actual burning of homosexuals), but that is what was taught and it would have left an imprint on the innocent minds of their students.