Published on 12, July, 2020
I recently joined the group 7 days ago and the first post I read was a dig at the over 60’s. These people have lived with conditions that go back years, like myself.
Imagin living the majority of your life knowing that something was wrong. but no one could tell you what it was. The younger generation are lucky that Autism is picked up more quickly these days.
We didn’t have the internet or mobile phone when were young, you were branded into two camps you were either a problem child or your simple. Back then this is how you were treated. Stupid or bad child.
What I am saying is treat these people with respect, some that is sadly lacking in some of the youth today. They carry a vast amount of knowledge and experience of autism, try asking them how they managed to survive all those years not knowing what was wrong with them, no guidance or help of any sort.
I have spent all of my life not feeling I belonged in this society or world and lots of things happened because of that. (pm me if your interested in the bad old days.
NAS94050 said:The younger generation are lucky that Autism is picked up more quickly these days
You think?
If you're a child you've got a reasonable chance of being diagnosed. Even that's not the case everywhere in the UK.
I'm 34 - not old. I didn't know what was 'wrong' with me until last year - and then I worked it out for myself. Not a single health professional picked up on it as a possibility, not one.. They simply weren't looking for it.
There were times, looking back, when it should have been obvious.
I'm still waiting for a formal diagnosis - every 3 months I get a text saying I'm still on the waiting list.
Autism is still underdiagnosed. It isn't seen as a priority in adults.
I know from friends that the school system is reluctant to push for any diagnoses of autism and other differences, as they then have to accommodate the difference, which costs them money.
My uni paid for my dyslexia testing, and the NHS sent me to a charity for autism testing.
Medicine likes to label us with conditions, mental or physical, and I think with the budget cuts in the NHS they have to decide where to spend the money. Do they spend it on someone like me, who simply wants to know, or someone who cannot interact with the world but needs a diagnosis for specialist intervention? I would say that I am lower priority than them.