Autism is a 'trend'...?!

Thank you, Debbie.

Like with most things in life, most people will not change their attitudes and behaviour unless they are forced to, by force of law, by sets of draconian laws and even better if these are made part of the criminal law and are made arrestable and criminal offences - the only way to deal with discrimination and prejudice is to develop a zero tolerance and zero patience approach and mindset (I personally believe that bullying should be made a criminal offence and in the case of childhood bullying the parents should be arrested and prosecuted under the criminal law) - for far too long, the targets of such behaviour in truth have been made to suffer and have been punished for the offences of the offender, which is always at odds with the moral law - yet there is no point in having laws unless there is a firm and real commitment to the proper enforcement of these and unless offenders are swiftly brought to justice and punished most severely, in any civilised society 

I don’t tell people I’m autistic…just my husband knows and he’s very supportive. Other people I simply don’t trust to be open or vulnerable with. You hear people saying that autistic people use ASD as an ‘excuse’ for ‘bad behaviour’. I try to interact with other people as little as possible, because I tend to misspeak and can never correct myself because people don’t accept that I used the wrong words and won’t accept any amount of explanation nor apology. If I say I have ASD, then I get the ‘just an excuse’ accusation…It’s painful because some of these people are family. I get exhausted from masking when not at home but I don’t know how to live in the outside world in a safe way without putting on a mask. It’s like a piece of armour to protect myself, but if it goes on for too long, then it leads to burnout and my tolerance level for socialisation of any kind (other than my husband who I never have to mask with) is next to zero. 

Yes, I do see a difference in younger and older members of this site. As you mentioned, just knowing why you are different changes everything. Obviously the same struggles exist but having them recognised as not being bad behaviour at an early age makes all the difference. I’m really glad most have had a better pathway. The abuse some of us received does scar us, I’m sure most of the younger members have been subjected to bullying as well.

I have noticed that the world only sees autistic children, they think we are some sort of ‘Peter Pan’ that never grows up. Where do they think we go to?

In something like a cafe, if an autistic child is wearing earphones and rocking back and forth,  people will pass by, do ‘that’ smile of sympathy to the parent and carry on. If say a man in his 50,s was to do the same they are normally treated as weird.

I watched an actress this week talking about her three neurodivergent children, her eldest has Down’s syndrome and rightly gets all the help and care package that he needs. Her other two children are also neurodivergent, she has to fight constantly to get any sort of help for either of them. She said herself that her eldest obviously looks different, her two younger children don’t, all three have needs but only one looks different.

I have, throughout my life, deliberately put myself into situations where I felt horribly uncomfortable and borderline panicked. I did this in pursuit of goals that I was set on. I always found formal examinations off-scale stressful, especially being in large halls crowded with other nervous people, but I did lots of them - they didn't get easier with repetition. Other people did not seem to find such things as difficult as I did. For most of my life I thought that other people were just stronger than me. I now know that I am autistic and I have coped with difficulties that most other people just do not suffer from, they do not exist at all for them. I am the strong person.

I read 'Catcher in the Rye' as a teenager and it spoke to me. I re-read it a couple of years ago and all I could see was that Holden was privileged rich brat, who whined a lot.

like Holden cauliflower* i hate phoneys.

*amusing Auto-correct

I don't dispute what you're saying.   Which is markedly different from  those who see autism as a superpower rather than a disability . I can identify with what you're saying  much more than with anyone who regards autism as the next stage  in human evolution.   I'm not as brave or courageous as you.  I have an immense fear of failure  and struggle with a heavy dose of imposter syndrome. As someone once said to me.

I don't know about others here but I'm more than a little avoidant.  I find it very difficult to step outside of my comfort/safety zone.

What I try to draw attention to, in relation to autism, is that the simple dichotomy between being able or unable to do certain things is only part of the problem. Autistic people who can do certain things, like holding down a job, often do so at a cost in anxiety, long-term stress, exhaustion and poor mental health that allistics would never experience.

For example, I could and did present papers at conferences. In such an environment, you are presenting your work to a sometimes critical and usually large audience of fellow experts. As a result I would experience huge and almost debilitating anxiety in the run up to the event. I usually could make a reasonable job of the talk, but have to employ such tricks as using lots of visual aids, to deflect attention from myself, move around while speaking - as I tend to get the rabbit in the headlights effect if I stand still at a lectern  - and look at the audience over my glasses to make them an amorphous blur. After any such presentation I would be too psychologically and physically exhausted to be able to do anything useful immediately after, or for several days following. I would become a human jellyfish. I think that this is a bit of a disability for someone trying to pursue an academic career, and one caused by my autism. This 'performance anxiety' and feelings of having to live up to the expectations of others is precisely the reason that I never entertained the idea of going down the lecturer route. I could just about manage one conference presentation every year or two, but the prospect of giving lectures on a regular and frequent basis was not a possibility for me.

Do people think that autism didn't exist before some arbitary date? So many of us have grown knowing that we're somehow different to everyone else and being told off, abused, ignored, etc, its not a bandwagon it a recognition that we've always been here, silently suffering and just getting on as best we can.

One of the things I notice is the difference between the older and younger members of this site and their experiences of being autistic, being diagnosed and any help they recieve.

I actually said research academic, to perhaps be even more exact.

I see, thanks.

I asked if you were a research scientist.  That was before I read your post properly. Because in your post you had already said you were one.

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NAS95328 said:

Always knew I was different, just didn't know how.

Same here, but didn't start looking into it much until my early/mid 40s. First set of results I got were to do with NVLD. That then lead to links about autism.   NVLD seemed to fit better, but it's hardly recognised as a disability in the UK. It is possible to have both ASD and NVLD. It took nearly 2 decades from starting to look into things to getting the ASD(Asperger's) dx . Ironically it was my autistic uneasiness re change that played a part in that delay. I didn't get the dx till moving to be near my daughter, and seeing a new pdoc. My daughter had been trying to persuade me to move near her since her mother died.  I had, out of fear of moving, brushed aside the efforts to get me to do so.

It took a greater worry, plans to demolish the tower block I was living in, for me to finally agree to moving.

N/A

My only serious romantic relationship was with my wife. We met during my last psych admission. She was 22  years older than me, and from a very different background, but somehow the relationship worked. I was 26 when we left psych hospital together.Job wise I fell between 2 stools. I was far more brain than brawn, but not up to coping stress wise with a high powered professional  job. When it came to  factory type work I lacked the necessary aptitude  to be of the required standard to be acceptably able at such work. On top of that there was the severe social anxiety.

I, without a doubt, would have been 2e- if such a thing had been an educational term in the early 1960s to mid 1970s. However I may not have been regarded as such.

I would've been in the 3rd category.  My biggest problem was putting what I knew, and thought,on paper in a way that  came across well to the person marking it.  My school reports mentioned that I was disorganised, at public school especially.I've considered ADHD, but I'm not a particularly hyperactive person. Certainly not physically. Though I do have quite a busy mind. Sometimes way too busy. ADD fits better. 25-30 years ago  I might've considered getting an assessment for that, but at 67  it's long past the time  of it making much of a concrete difference. 

Socially I've never done well. On a score of 0-5,  with 5 being severely socially  disabled, I'd be a 3.5 to 4.

I mean, absolutely. Total trend... got diagnosed in my 40s, but just jumping on a bandwagon... FFS... Always knew I was different, just didn't know how. All makes sense now, I'm obviously faking because neurotypical experts (Aka randoms) know better than medical professionals 

Autism affects individuals differently. While I was academically able and got a job in science that suited my strengths, some of them certainly autistic, I had my first serious romantic relationship when I was 30, unusually old. Before that time I had no success in converting acquaintanceships into romance. I think that I was definitely socially disabled by my autism, but not overtly career-wise. Having said this, I was limited in my career, I think that I had the intellect to have become a university professor, but the only path to that is through a combination of research and teaching. I could do and did do well at research, I was a good experimental scientist in the lab, but I knew that I could not cope as a lecturer. The performance aspect of teaching would have been far too stressful for me and the pastoral care of students would have been entirely beyond my capabilities. Autism has had a deleterious effect on me, I have had difficulties with aspects of life and have been unable to do things that, without autism I would have been capable of. I suspect that this is disablement, probably disability.

I have heard of similar discussions about people with Down’s Syndrome but I never took part in these discussions as I was only hearing one side of the story and I never really liked the judgemental and condescending tone of such discussions, even with input from “professionals”