Calling All Senior Aspies!!

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1959 here, suspected in my 20s I might have something related to autism, but didn't hear a description of Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism until my mid 40s (eureka!), not officially DXd until 49.

Of course, coming up in the 60s and 70s, nobody had any idea what AS was, but they sure recognized an oddball when they saw one. My parents recognized my social deficits early on, but thought they could cure them by forcing me into social situations. Needless to say, it didn't fix me, but it certainly highlighted the fact that there was something lacking and fundamentally unacceptable about me.

Back to WP after a hiatus.

Will@rd: were you, or are you now, a deejay?

I was diagnosed a year ago at age 61…my brother is self-diagnosed, or I should say diagnosed by me and his friends…and I keep wondering about our dad! I think he may have had it too. He was not happy, had dyslexia, seemed narcissistic, sometimes would just not answer you…would talk on and on…I keep recognizing my own behavior in him, in retrospect. The thing is, he had very good eye contact. Not that I would really know because I hated looking into his eyes. But he would really stare in a challenging way, I think…and I realize that could be an Aspie trait as well.

Welcome to Wrong Planet. It's good to have another one of us

I see you've met my father ... those were pretty much his stated philosophies.

Yup, a little more than 30 years, starting in 1975. On-air (mostly middays and afternoons) and Copy Writer/Production Director. Retired now.



Eye contact can be learned, though personally, I find it excruciatingly uncomfortable at best, but it was especially important to my Dad's and Grandfather's generations. They saw it as a big measure of a man's honesty that he be able to look you in the eye. My parents drilled me on it incessantly as a boy - that and giving a firm handshake, instead of a "dead fish" as my Dad called a soft, limp hand.

What I learned to do was stare at a person's forehead, or look just over their shoulder. I still have to glance away from time to time, or I completely lose track of the conversation.

More likely a few of the same kind of psychological clone. "Common sense" was one of their favorite buzzwords, meaning following their same patterns of thought, reaching their same conclusions, and ridiculing anything else as unnatural and trouble-making. Admittedly, they weren't pastors like your father, but some of them might have wanted to be. Much like your resulting dislike of religion, I don't have much use for red-necked, right-wing conservativism. Too much of that looks too much like a bunch of bullies.

hi, alicekathleen.

i'm 58 and have had enough life experience for several lives.

Hey Willard, what's with the new username? Did you have a problem logging into your old account like some other people? If so, it's probably a good idea to let the mods know that you're not using a sock account.

hi, I might not be a senior, yet, nor an aspie, maybe
rather being always on the wrong island, by the time I get there, everybody's gone,
as if there were secret agreements i didn't know about
and when asking what happened, you get that look:' shut up we're in the middle of something important!'

My father was not a pastor, and I am not an atheist.

Another 1957 baby. Thrown out of my public elementary school after 2nd grade because the teachers could not reach me. Private school and play therapy next two years. No diagnosis is remembered. When the money ran out back to public school and bullying intensely the next 3 or 4 years. Eased the next few years but got intense the first 2 years of college. For two straight days a car drove right at at me and swerved away at the last second. When I complained it was made quite clear I was crazy and I would be thrown out if my complaints continued. For the last two years of college and through the 1980's near 180 degree turnaround. Got along with my dormmates and work colleagues and raises every 6 months. As far as I was concerned I was mature and the nightmare young years were history. Besides my attitude was "real men" don't see shrinks. Of course looking back there were obvious signs. Then began a steady but slow career decline. In the late 1990's my boss told me I might be mildly autistic and that I did not make eye contact and people would think that was rude. I thought he was bullying me and he was the one with quirks. He did help me with eye contact. But I went along with it because he was the one signing my paycheck. By 2005 my career was effectively over. Around that time I noticed similarities between me and the Temperance Bones character on TV. I read she has Aspergers traits and the traits were like mine. But at the time it never got past the mild curiosity stage of reading a few articles. My sister who works with special needs kids including autistics figured it out and she and my brother staged an intervention which consisted visiting a financial adviser who told me not only was I in danger going broke myself but taking my family down with me.

That ended up with the diagnoses on the date you see in my signature below. The reactions relief, it all makes sense now, common to many middle age and senior who recognize they are autistic followed.

In got myself into vocational rehab and got to the point of getting a couple of interviews when I suffered a stroke on Super Bowl weekend this year. It left my Autistic mind intact but left me with arm and leg weakness on my dominant side so it is back to square one and way to much change for my liking

SOTS rock!

Okay. I can see how your father and the "pastors and preachers" mentioned above are different people. Your comment about hating religion doesn't make you an atheist, either. All I said was that I have a dislike for right-wing conservativism that possibly echoes your stated dislike of religion. I apologize if that sounded like I was calling you something that you don't consider true about yourself. I had no intention of upsetting you.

Born in 1957. Mom may have been bipolar. She grew up being mentally, physically, verbally and emotionally abused, since her father was the town drunk. Dad was not much better. His father was supposedly the town Don Juan. He had severe abandonment issues growing up. Both beloved the only sure form of child discipline was spare the rod, spoil the child. Mom was the one that meted out the discipline the most. She would hit you with whatever she had in her hand at the time, when you set her off. It didn't matter if it was a curtain rod, a wire coat hanger, a marble rolling pin, a 2x4 that had nails in it, a belt, or her open Palm of her hand or her fist. Dad's favorite mode of discipline was the brass belt buckle that was on the end of his work belt, or his foot up your arse. Both parents believed Louis B. Mayer's dictum, "Those who see a psychiatrist ought to have their head examined." Both parents are now deceased, Dad since 1986, Mom since 2011.

The only reason I got diagnosed was my youngest brother and his wife saw the signs when I went through a psychiatric drug-induced presentation of bipolar disorder, as a result of a reaction to a drug cocktail of Viibryd and Buspar, Novolin-R, Lantus and a constellation of different statins. Besides, they have a son and a daughter that are non-verbal and low-functioning. They also has a son that is OCD, but only when he contracts a streph infection (it's called PANDAS, but is not recognized, as far as I can tell, in the DSM or ICD, although there is research into a similar disorder called PANS). In addition, Dad's youngest brother has an aspie grandson, so there's strong evidence that it's on Dad's side of the family. I may have my next to the youngest brother on the spectrum, but, like mom and dad, he feels that mental health is nothing but pseudo-scientific bullsh!t. He, and #2 brother feel that my youngest brothers kids are nothing more than mental ret*ds, and should be locked up in a group home, and be forgotten, since they are nothing more than an embarrassment. Any wonder I no longer talk to the middle brothers, since Mom's death?

No, it's no wonder at all. Sometimes you have to shake those ties off and move on, and I'm glad that you have.