Hi, I've been on this site for a while but haven't introduced myself because I didn't know the protocol and don't like talking about myself, but after reading other introductions I feel more comfortable with it.
I am 63 and grew up in the 50's. My parents and brothers where always telling me there was something wrong with me. My mother told me I was "sick in the head", my brothers said things like "the way you are" and my father told me I only like animals and not people. As a child I was frightened of loud noises and liked to stay alone in my room. My mother didn't like that and complained that I didn't have the "gift of gab" like her and that I would never hug her. When I was a teenager I acted out whenever someone hurt my feelings, and then they treated me as if I was crazy, my brothers still do. My parents thought I should grow up and be dating so they forced me into situations where I was taken advantage of because I was very naive and then they got mad when they found out what was happening. They threatened to take me to a psychologist but didn't because my mother didn't want people to think she was a bad mother.
In school I didn't know how to make friends and I got bad grades. Kids called me "outer space" and "lookie" because I sometimes stared at people. In high school they told me that on an aptitude test I got a real high score in abstract reasoning but really low scores in everything else and that I had a high IQ and should have been getting good grades.
They brought in a psychologist to my school to talk to me and find out what was wrong with me. He had a stack of cards with inkblots on them and wanted me to tell him what I saw in the inkblots. I just kept telling him that all I saw was an inkblot because I was afraid of how he might interpret my answers. He got mad and walked out. I was disappointed because I thought he was going to talk to me. I probably would have told him that I was failing because I didn't like to memorize things. The principal was mad because I wouldn't cooperate.
I eventually quit school. I moved away from home and worked at low paying jobs and had a daughter, but I was never married. When I was in my 30's I took some data processing classes at a junior college. I got lucky and found a job as a nighttime computer system operator and programmer. I did that for almost 30 years. I had a professional job and salary but they never knew that I didn't even graduate from high school.
For all of my adult life I always knew that I was kind of autistic and every time I read something about an autistic person I identified with them. I knew they were like me. I didn't know what Aspergers' syndrome was. When I found out that my grandson had Aspergers I looked it up and read a lot about it. I was surprised to find out about symptoms that I didn't even know where part of being autistic. Not liking eye contact, I thought that was shyness. Intense narrow interests, I thought I was just kind of nerdy. Stimming, I didn't know something like constant finger flapping or humming was part of autism. These things were always so much a part of me that I didn't realize they were not normal.
So there is more to autism then being isolated and different and locked in ones own mind and not being able to relate to other people. Now I know that it is a brain that is wired differently and there is a reason why I always knew intuitively that I was autistic.
Sorry this post is so long, but I've had a long and strange life. Some of the things I've mentioned here I have never told anyone, but I feel safe and anonymous here and would like to meet other people who have had similar experiences. The older I get, the more isolated I feel because my life experiences have been so different.
10 Jun 2012, 5:32 pm
