The feelings of autistic children.

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Hello, I am a father of an 8 year old daughter on the spectrum. I am trying to understand her more. I thought through your wide experience, you can kindly help me with that. How did yu feel when yu were in around my daughter's age? Did you see yourselves as being locked in a body that you cannot control ( as one autistic put it), or what?. How was your feelings when yu realize that yu are different?. Was it an encouragement to try to come closer to others. Or was it the opposite. Do yu think this feeling is the same like that of different people, or it is something unique and much harder (it's a difficult question I suppose). I am sorry I wrote long here, and I apologize for posting here rather than in the parents forum, as the parents are probably having the same lack of understanding like me. Best regards.

I think it's like when you are a little kid and you don't think of yourself as little but think of adults as big. Like it's them who are different, not me. I didn't start thinking of myself as different until I was around 10. Part of the difficulty in starting my teens was my growing awareness of my autism and what it keeps me from being able to and struggle with. I think it depends on the level of autism as well. Carly Fleischmann the one who says is like being trapped in own body, has severe autism. It's hard to understand and explain at times for both parent and kid. Knowing my parents are accepting, understanding (as best they can be) and caring has always meant a lot to me.

I'll try to help some, though you must remember everyone is different and just because your daughter and I are both diagnosed ASD females, that doesn't mean that my experience will match hers. Plus I'm 40 years older, my parents knew nothing about Asperger's and very little about Autism and I didn't know I am ASD until a couple years ago.



Ostracized.



No, I think I was at that age a little less clumsy than average for autistics. I was, however, lousy at sport of all kinds.



Confusing. I tried to analyze it every which way from Sunday and came up with dozens of theories because I knew next to nothing about autism.



Opposite: it drove me away from others and made me want to isolate myself. I still tend toward self-isolation.



I think, because Autism is very much a major difference in socialization and social skills and social relationships, that introversion and the feeling of being different and the desire to avoid other people vs. the desire to engage socially is different for autistics than it is for other (which is what I assume you mean by "different") people.



Don't worry about long posts, they are entirely acceptable and generally more interesting than short ones. Yours is by no means tl/dr for me at least.

I am sorry if my replies are not very helpful, we all experience autism differently. Especially, it is quite different being an autistic child vs. being the parent of an autistic child vs. being an adult who didn't know s/he was autistic when s/he was a child vs. being an autistic adult who's known s/he was autistic since childhood. We are all different, on or off the spectrum.

Bless.

I felt wild and free at the age of 8. I was always moving and paying. I liked running around the back yard. I was a little clumsy but not very much. There were times I felt wanted and times I felt ostracized. I tried my darnedest each day to come closer to others. Some of my peers just didn't want me around. I knew I was different. I was wondering why my bullies were accusing me of soiling myself when I didn't do that. I've learned later on that some kids on the spectrum have toileting issues and my bullies were trying to paint me with the broad brushes that they had in their hands.

It might help if you gave specifics of things your daughter does or says so that people might be able to connect with that.

Like, if your daughter reacts a certain way to foods, someone might be able to tell you how they felt in food situations. Or if she's doing something that seems strange, someone else might have some insight on whether it's a comforting action, or something she may be simply interested in, or whatever.

[I'm a NT sociology researcher who studies autistic adults. I.E. I talk to/listen to a lot of autistic adults.]

At 8 years old, I was struggling but still holding on to the last glimmer of happiness, before it faded for quite a few years.

I was being badly bullied at school. My enduring special interest was in its earliest stages. All I wanted to do was stay in the classroom where I felt safe, and use the school's only computer or write some poems, but teachers told me that I should go outside and play. So I did, and then I got slammed against the wall, or kicked, or had my belongings stolen, or tried hard to fit in and just couldn't get people to like me.

Not that I knew it at the time, but I think that age (around 7-8) was when my autism really hit. Before that, I hadn't been an outcast because of it. I was just a young child who was a bit different to her peers. But when I hit 7 or 8, different was suddenly weird. It wasn't right. People started to notice.

From then on, I withdrew more and more. I became increasingly scared, lonely and desperate. I had a terrible home life as well as a terrible life at school, which no doubt wasn't helping, but still.

At that age I still had some of that childish arrogance. I was told I was a 'child genius' around that time, and got a lot of attention for it. I was proud of that, and definitely didn't see anything wrong with talking about it in a way that could definitely have been construed as bragging. I suppose that helped me at the time. For a couple of years at that age, I may have been desperately lonely but I was the smartest person I knew, and I took comfort in that. Around 10-11, that started fading as well.

To answer your questions specifically, I didn't feel locked in a body I couldn't control. That was the age I stopped trying to get close to others - it was when I first started realising that things just weren't working.

My prevailing memories from that age, right through to early adulthood, are "What's wrong with me? Why does nobody like me?". But, I wasn't diagnosed. I suspect if I had been, there would be entirely different thoughts because I would have KNOWN what was wrong with me. I have no idea if that would have been better or worse.

So ariels' song, you were fully verbal at that age? And fell into loneliness. How did yu deal with that till now?

I don't know about Ariel'sSong, hopefully she comes back to the thread, but here's my answer:

Not just fully verbal, at 7-8 years old but hyperlexic. Still am. The books I'm reading right now, the Bitterbynde Trilogy, are the first in a long time that challenged my vocabulary. There are a lot of Medieval terms in it, in the descriptions of armor, weaponry, clothing, architecture etc. Which reminds me, I'm going to google "houppelande" today!

When I was 8 I got along with my teacher better than with my classmates.

I deal with loneliness by convincing myself that I'm happier alone. I don't have to worry about offending other people's sense of unwritten social rules. I am an introvert, which helps. If I were an extravert, likely I'd have tried harder to learn all those unspoken rules so I could get along with peers better. As I am, I just shrug my shoulders and let them all be shallow and silly. I'm perfectly capable of entertaining myself and don't need a gaggle of giggling girls keeping me company to make me happy.

Autistics who describe themselves as being locked in a body they can't control are likely to have co-morbid dyspraxia. That's a disorder where you can't... well...control your body. Not all autistics feel this way.

We really are a large group. You're going to have to give some details to find adults who used to be similar to her.

At 8, I was bright, but my teachers didn't understand. I was hiding under desks a lot because I was overwhelmed and was embarrassed that I cried so much. I was primarily concerned with bullying and with how much the other kids didn't like me. I didn't understand why. (Still don't, to be honest. Other than the crying. I must have had snot everywhere.) I really wanted to be in the high reading group, but I wasn't allowed because I was a very poor writer/speller and I saw this as a grave mis-justice.

8 was went I first received special education services. I felt terrified because they took me out of the classroom. I advanced rapidly in math with personal instruction and lost my dyscalcula diagnosis in under a year. Turns out I had never focused in on a math lesson, and had therefore never been instructed in math before.

I felt pretty normal when I was a kid, except for being bullied pretty badly. I had a very active imagination and I used that as a coping mechanism, so I can see where some people would think I was in my own little world and unaware of things. The truth is quite the opposite. When I learned that I was different (after Mom told me about my diagnosis), I remember being upset, but later I realized that it doesn't really change who I am, it's just a word that I can use to describe myself. I never understood why kids were mean to me and I still don't. To me, because I've been autistic for as long as I can remember, it's normal. The only time I lose control of my body is during meltdowns.

I can only speak for myself. By age 8, countless children have called me wierd, but I didn't care. I knew I was different, but I couldn't pinpoint what exactly was different. So I embraced the "weird" status. My autism was diagnosed at age 14.

While I did not feel trapped inside my own body, I was extremely clumsy. I often tripped and dropped stuff. Once, we made clay projects in art class, and my teacher did not let me carry my own project to my dad's car for fear that I might drop it. She also said (during a parent-teacher conference) that she's never had a student who fell as much as I did. My parents also constantly told me to stop bouncing my feet and other things that, when I look back, were probably stims.

At age 8, it seemed that no matter what I did, my parents would yell at me, so I started trying to detatch myself from all feelings. I also sort of felt that I must not let them see me as "weak". So I tried to not show any pain or affection. But I am human, and there were limits to how much I could control those things.

Sorry, I missed this reply when you posted it.

I was fully verbal. Lyra used the term 'hyperlexic' and that probably described me, too. I had a very extensive vocabulary for someone my age, and no trouble using it. As an adult I seem to have more verbal issues - I feel like a lot of my thoughts get stuck and I can't get words out, so I keep things 'basic' for ease and probably sound a bit dumbed down - but as a child that age, I think I was still talking with ease and using my wide vocabulary whilst reading books aimed at those much older.

I didn't deal with the loneliness well during my childhood/teenage years. Honestly, I attempted suicide twice and the rest of the time was spent upset. Not a nice existence. I coped by using my computer constantly - it was my escape and has been my special interest ever since.

When I was 18 and due to go to university, I saw it as a fresh start and desperately tried to connect to people. I knew something had to change, and at that point I was still undiagnosed and thought that if I just tried harder, something would 'click'.

When I got to university I threw myself into every event and social opportunity possible. Mostly that failed and I was laughed at, ignored and bullied, but I was lucky that I managed to become friends with one person that actually wanted me around. Years later, he became my husband.

Having just one person that wanted to be with me did make a huge difference my confidence, though it took a long time to believe that was real and that it wasn't all some big joke on me or that he would get bored.

I kept up the 'throwing myself into everything' thing after university. That's still how I get by now, when I need to be social. Throw myself in, pretend I know what I'm doing, accept that it's going to be a disaster but hope that I click with one person. And I do have a few friends, now. It's a low success rate, but it's enough - I'm not aiming for popular!