Perspective from an Old Timer

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I am a baby boomer autistic who grew up undiagnosed and free range.

The figure it out on your own mentality of my youth helped some autisics succeed who would fail in todays era. Other autistics who would succeed with todays supports floundered or failed and ended up institutionalized. If you failed your classes you had to take the grade over. If you flunked again they thre you out. My public school did that to me after 2nd grade. The was no legal right to an education or much of a concept of special schools. If the school threw you out you were most likely institutilized with the other “mental cripples”, locked away in the attic or discarded. I was got lucky
, a private school took me in and the smaller classes helped. I believed the school accepted me because my parents were teachers. If I was not accepted there I would not be alive or in any shape to post here. So despite the definite advantages of free range some of which defiantly helped me going, completely back to the way it was in 1963 is not the answer.

But what happens today(SMH)

I was very fortunate in adult life to meet three different mentors and encouragers - the first turned up in my mid twenties, the second and third in my thirties. These people made the biggest contribution to my life prospects simply by the quality of their characters and useful advice. They respected my confidences absolutely, they believed in my talents and they taught me much that I otherwise would not have known for many more decades or perhaps never.

They saw my greatest strengths more clearly than I did at the time. I was lucky in that.

What the senior group and the millenials have in common is the relative absence of mentors and encouragers. However this lack worked in different ways: basically the senior group in their youth were simply told, and expected, "to stop complaining and get on with it". So we did.

The millenials seem to be treated more sympathetically - "poor you, that must be tough, it's not fair, x is to blame, the system is to blame, the politicians are to blame, your relatives are to blame, poor you, how can your make progress when it's all so unfair, how you suffer..." - there is a huge amount of encouraged blaming now, which reinforces feelings of helplessness and for sure there is much that is wrong in the way our cultures are manipulated. As there was when the seniors here were in their younger years. But there is a catch, it seems to me, in the way that millenials express and receive what seems to be paralysing sympathy, and I can't help think that their outcomes might be different if they too were guided by mentors and encouragers who could lead by example without ulterior motives.

We have all suffered. We have suffered as AS people, we have suffered life tragedies unconnected to AS. We have that in common, although political and economic and attitudes have changed a lot.

Human cruelty to minorities has not really changed much, which is why we need to learn a lot of skills and knowledge about self protection, self advocacy, and self care. Otherwise the danger is drifting into a state of hopeless dependency, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, at any age or stage.

...I guess I was seen as " having problems/ emotionally disturbed " from an early age, I got sent to special schools, wasn't"t too popular .
Sometimes I have.wished there was the level of knowledge there was now when I was younger, that people would have been nicer to me then . I really did physically cry just now .
Some people may not quite understand the role of good luck iin having the right background around you - Socially, economically, personally.
Some people didn't have large supporting families around them - What I was getting at was that I had no I
extended family near me whatsoever, for me, just my nuclear father - mother-brother - My mother"s family was far away and there may have been some issues with her some family members, in the past - I'll never know - and about her so having left the area and " gone North ".
AsPart and KK here, my rough age and region of the country peers, recall alright childhoods - but narrowly escaping being institutionalized . How many others did that happen too, and minus their luck?
I'll get to what I was about to say about what happened that had me going along on visits later.

_________________
Renal kidney failure, congestive heart failure, COPD. Can't really get up from a floor position unhelped anymore:-(.
One of the walking wounded ~ SMASHED DOWN by life and age, now prevented from even expressing myself! SOB.
" Oh, no! First you have to PROVE you deserve to go away to college! " ~ My mother, 1978 (the heyday of Andy Gibb and Player). I would still like to go.
My life destroyed by Thorazine and Mellaril - and rape - and the Psychiatric/Industrial Complex. SOB:-(! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

I was diagnosed with autism at age 3. I was called a “vegetable.” Institutionalization was considered—but my mother “saw something in my eyes.”

I guess I was lucky I was put in a special school instead of a public school at a young age. I wasn’t really treated all that “nice.” I was seen, but not heard. No extended family; both my parents were only children; hence, no uncles, aunts, first or second cousins. I had a 3rd cousin I didn’t know of until my 30s.

I was raised like a “normal” child. No “excuses.” Didn’t want to go to college; I wanted to get out of my mother’s place. I didn’t care how. It wasn’t a nurturing environment I grew up in—but it wasn’t abusive for the most part. Parents divorced. We lived mean for a while in my mother’s secretarial salary.

I was bullied. I felt isolated. I had to make do. Nobody “cared” about me except this hippie sort of teacher with a green Volkswagen. I am grateful for him. I was almost expelled from school for my hyper behavior. That was a “regular” school.

I did have a fortunate childhood, but not without conflict. The rifts and strains that started in my early childhood persist today.

I don't know that it does me any good to think about it now.

I have to say I am much more fortunate by a long way from most people here.

I was labeled as "hyperactive" as a child, but I don't believe I was classically hyperactive. I was a high-energy child, but I also loved to read and did well in school.

I was bullied, but I did have some friends. I believe that many of my problems making friends came from my own stupidity. I didn't cultivate friendships very much and spent most of my time with academics. I wish I had lived a more well-rounded life.

I wish I had discovered interests that were not strictly academic and I wish I had learned to drive at the normal age. Those things would have accelerated my development.

I would agree it serves little purpose to rehash your past unless you use your past in an instructive manner.

Even though I am in my mid-40s, I can still relate to what Jimmy M said at the start of this thread. I grew up in a much different era in a very rural area that most younger generations cannot relate to. I can remember selling coins by the side of the road (much like a lemonade stand) when I was in third grade or so. The stand was co-owned by a friend (Joe) and was located at his house near the main road in town. We split the profit 50/50 between us. Kinda seems stupid to do a coin stand, until you realize that some days we would pull in $100+ of sales in a few hours from coins that we paid very little for (like less than $2). It was a simpler time back then.

I was encouraged to go exploring outside on our wooded acreage instead of watching TV. To be honest, there was not much good on until later in the evenings anyways (we could only get 8 channels on our set). We did not own a computer at the time. My grade school did not get a computer for students to use until I was in 4th grade. I learned to be inventive by taking things apart that I found and to try to create new things with the parts. Granted, there were a few times that my parents had to stop me or I would likely not have survived (I was building my own version of a death star using old microwave generators and a satellite dish for one of those). Ahh, good times...

When we moved out of state, my life spiraled downwards from bullying that I experienced. I have written about it before on here and I really do not want to relive those moments today, so I will not go into detail. It greatly influenced how I "see" myself and others, I have become dehumanized if that makes sense. Whenever I create something, I automatically think how can this item be used in the wrong manner thanks to my dark side (likely created from the bullying effects). I then weigh the positives vs. the negatives before deciding on whether or not the item should be released to others or kept to myself. Unfortunately, I have a continuously growing storage space of things in my head that I am forced to keep to myself. Some of those ideas I actually have to code using certain songs as a means to "forget them" until if I should ever need to use them (in defense, not offense). The hardest thing I learned to do is to purposely try to forget something.

I agree that one should always work with their strengths to improve themselves. The strengths that I always had involved thinking creatively, absorbing facts and being able to link various things together in science. From that starting point, I was able to obtain my PhD and go on to a teaching career at the college/university level. While I will not become rich in my profession, it does give me personal satisfaction that I do change the world ever so slightly for the overall good when I teach a new crop of students. I will likely be paying on my student loans until I die (who wants to retire?), but I do not regret making the choice to become what I now am. While there are many things that I miss out (relationships, marriage, kids, etc.) from having a ND life, I can still make a difference in others along the way by what I chose to do with my life.

Now..... that is really interesting! You sound very resourceful.

We were lucky to get access to typewriters even in high school—and I grew up in the biggest city in the USA. In junior high, our report cards were filled out in pen.

We had about 8 channels, too. Some people could manipulate the TV dial, and get a few more UHF channels. There were very few remotes until the mid 70s. We had to get up to change the channel.

I was bullied. The teachers just thought of it as a “rite of passage” and “boys will be boys.”

...I said I"d speak more about what had me doing even more tagging along as another person was theraputically attended to. Well, here goes.

_________________
Renal kidney failure, congestive heart failure, COPD. Can't really get up from a floor position unhelped anymore:-(.
One of the walking wounded ~ SMASHED DOWN by life and age, now prevented from even expressing myself! SOB.
" Oh, no! First you have to PROVE you deserve to go away to college! " ~ My mother, 1978 (the heyday of Andy Gibb and Player). I would still like to go.
My life destroyed by Thorazine and Mellaril - and rape - and the Psychiatric/Industrial Complex. SOB:-(! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!