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Therapy

Catlover

Ok, I started talking therapy for a number of issues. I didn’t expect an autism specialist lol, but I didn’t expect to hear this in the first 10 minutes:

Oh, but you sound very able.

You must have it really mild.

Me: there’s no such thing as mild autism, you either have autism or you don’t.

oh, so you don’t have it then.

Me: Yes! I am autistic, I have a diagnosis. I’m pointing out that you cannot get a diagnosis if you don’t meet all the criteria and if it doesn’t affect how you live your life each day.

I can’t be bothered to outline the rest. But putting that aside, it was good to air some things I’ve otherwise never spoken about.

Parents

  • Since my own (later in life) diagnosis at age 52, I’ve experienced at first hand, including from family, how many people, perhaps motivated by prejudice and discriminatory attitudes “point blank” refuse to understand the condition and who believe and maintain that the only way to effectively manage this condition is by means of ultra-strict Millitary style discipline in every aspect of our lives right down to the smallest detail, including by means of a live-in carer, as in thier view people with this condition must never be permitted to live alone, that travelling long distances unchaperoned is inappropriate, as such people firmly believe and maintain that lack of “proper” discipline in childhood is the root cause of our condition - some of my extended family members are ex-Millitary and they refuse to see it in any other terms 

  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK

    That sounds very controlling and somewhat concerning. Are you being subjected to such ultra strict 'discipline'?

    I wonder if the kind of attitude and prejudice you describe is more prevalent in Ireland than in the UK. Here the idea of a live in carer or a chaperone is a long way from the actual reality of available support for most autistic adults. I live alone and would certainly not need or want a live in carer. I would love to have a chaperone to help me navigate a stressful long distance journey, but such services do not exist.

    Sadly there are many people who refuse to accept or understand autism. Many more seem to believe that autism is something that only affects children and the only people requiring support are the parents of the autistic children. Autistic adults are in the main just left to get on with it without support.

  • in reply to Autonomistic

    What I was even more shocked to discover was that there is someone I work with, a black teenager from a partial Muslim background, who “clocked” my Autism before I’d told anyone else of my diagnosis and she revealed that she’d had an older brother with the condition and that her mother worked in the area of mental health, but her total refusal to understand the condition even in the workplace environment was a real shocker - she then started to openly brag about how she took great pleasure from “taunting” her older brother and regularly pushing him into meltdown and of how openly talking about how people with autism don’t know the difference between bullying and discipline 

  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    IrishInManchesterUK said:
    don’t know the difference between bullying and discipline

    It's clear it's the other way around in this case.

    my younger sisters used to 'taunt' me when we were very little, but they stopped sometime around when I 8y.o, they realised it's wrong on their own, nobody was teaching us anything except 'you must believe in god, and obey what religion demands'.

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