Another newbie aspie

Hi - I think I am aspergery.  Certainly I'm on the autistic scale.  I am 80 years old.  When, from memory, I survey my mother's side of my family, I see lots of people who have autistic traints, including a cousin who could easily qualify as an idiot savant, except he's not an idiot.  He was brilliant at computers when most people had never heard of such things.  His wife pounced on him at university when she realised what a catch - and what a nice bloke - he was and has protected him ever since, and they have had (clever) kids of course.

Throughout my life I have sought out girflfriends who could compensate for my social difficulties.  These romances didn't usually turn out well.  Now I look back over my life I feel I know where I went wrong.  Unfortunately there are no retrospective cures.

What pleases me today are signs that people are being correctly diagnosed and are being offered the support they need.  Or am I wrong about that?

Certainly I'd never heard autism or aspergers until I was about 30.  The first time I came across the word autism in print was in the 1960s, in reference to a book called Dibs in Search of Self.  Was Dibs autistic?  Who knows?

The book bored me but my wife was fascinated by it and - many years later - actually found herself responsible for looking after an autistic boy at a hospital school.

The kids in the school had a variety of disorders but the pupil whose company she enjoyed most was the autistic boy.

There's a warning from comments about the Dibs book.  Should lay people have the audacity to diagnose autism in themselves or in other people?

Being simple minded, I think anyone whose shy, lacks social skills and cannot understand other people, or understand animals, is on the autistic scale.

Hi - I think I am aspergery.  Certainly I'm on the autistic scale.  I am 80 years old.  When, from memory, I survey my mother's side of my family, I see lots of people who have autistic traints, including a cousin who could easily qualify as an idiot savant, except he's not an idiot.  He was brilliant at computers when most people had never heard of such things.  His wife pounced on him at university when she realised what a catch - and what a nice bloke - he was and has protected him ever since, and they have had (clever) kids of course.

Throughout my life I have sought out girflfriends who could compensate for my social difficulties.  These romances didn't usually turn out well.  Now I look back over my life I feel I know where I went wrong.  Unfortunately there are no retrospective cures.

What pleases me today are signs that people are being correctly diagnosed and are being offered the support they need.  Or am I wrong about that?

Certainly I'd never heard autism or aspergers until I was about 30.  The first time I came across the word autism in print was in the 1960s, in reference to a book called Dibs in Search of Self.  Was Dibs autistic?  Who knows?

The book bored me but my wife was fascinated by it and - many years later - actually found herself responsible for looking after an autistic boy at a hospital school.

The kids in the school had a variety of disorders but the pupil whose company she enjoyed most was the autistic boy.

There's a warning from comments about the Dibs book.  Should lay people have the audacity to diagnose autism in themselves or in other people?

Being simple minded, I think anyone whose shy, lacks social skills and cannot understand other people, or understand animals, is on the autistic scale.