The influence of nurture - a poll

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Hi, I'm curious as to the extent of the influence of childhood quality on the quality of life of adults with AS. So I'll be grateful to all who vote... And for any comments as well, of course.

My childhood was absolute crap, but I've managed to get to a happy place in life, now that I understand myself better ^_^

in my case i fall on the side of crap childhood and crap adulthood as a result. this is not related to autism though. all of my NT siblings could say the same. it's what comes of having a sociopath for a mother; lots of scars even when you're all grown up.

i was the least scathed by my childhood because i was autistic. my mother couldn't get as much of a reaction out of me so she sort of lost interest in torturing me. my poor NT sisters took the brunt of things.

I was abused all through childhood and adolescence and was suicidal as an adult.

Childhood was suck. Bad bad things. But, even though there's times when it eats at me, can't say I'm completely over it, I'm not terribly unhappy on the whole.

I reached a point, in my mid twenties, where I realized that didn't have to be my life anymore. It still happened, and it still had (has) it's effects. But I realized I wasn't helpless anymore, that my safety and my happiness were no longer dependent on the whims of unreliable others, and that I could build whatever sort of life I wanted.

Things haven't all gone according to plan. But I like where I'm at right now.

Sorry, I had a "none of the above" option but forgot to click to enter it.

I put OK childhood, difficult adulthood but I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I didn't want to click difficult childhood because I feel as if people will presume my family were abusive, which is absolutely not the case.

More specifics:
Childhood from 0 - 5 yrs was lovely.
Childhood from 5 - 12 yrs - difficult with some bullying, but well looked after at home
Childhood from 12-16 yrs - very difficult and abusive (not by family members)
Adulthood from 18-21 - reasonably difficult, with depression etc
Adulthood from 22 - present day - not easy, but generally fine.

I dunno how to vote. My home life as a child was so minimal. I basically raised myself. I gained little from my parents that wasn't common sense of some sort. They were never able to affect me much because they didn't really try and I could see how backwards and illogical a lot of their life has always been. I see now that they have always had a lot of denial about themselves and what they have made of their lives. But on the whole, I only started to be really bothered by it as I approached and came into adulthood, when I realized that I was totally unprepared to deal with the world or my own brain. So, while I could skate past active suffering as a child, it was only because I could put it in the background and had no perspective to understand that I was living as much of a half life as my parents with inactive parents in an increasingly filthy home. It may have been worse, had I gone to school in less culturally mild schools. You had to have a severe and regular hygiene problem to not have any friends. Genuinely the only people I went to school with who were just regularly alone were people who smelled like they never showered or learned about deodorant. I had to make a point of having some downtime to myself during the day sometimes, and people would still come try to talk to me fairly regularly.

However, between parents who could barely be called present and the terrible schooling the state of florida provides, I was not at all prepared for college or the working world. There are no opportunities for young people in florida. I needed a job badly, but I couldn't get a job that I could reasonably work while going to school. I lost my scholarship because I couldn't keep up with the reading load of an english major while under the stress I was. (Though I probably couldn't have kept up with 150 pages of Faulkner, 30 pages of Derrida, and 60 pages of Joyce in a 2 day span under the best of conditions.) My parents, meanwhile, continued to treat everything I did like bad behavior, even my successes as an adult.

Though, I guess the fact that they let me get to the real world with no sense of self and no life skills combined with the fact that their lack of approval of even my successes while growing up (they only ever cared about how my failures reflected on them) was a major part of the beginnings of my depression do put together an environment of abuse through neglect? Though my struggles as an adult are also heavily related to other factors, as I wasn't as warped by my childhood as I could have been. I was stuck in an economy in which I could get no jobs for years. Being a 23 year old male with only one job on my resume as a special needs teacher's assistant makes it very difficult to find employment now. I have impressed so many people with my experience there who still had no interest in hiring me because I lacked the retail experience necessary to get retail experience.

My childhood sucked, but being an adult (so far) has been slightly better. The people I've met is probably why it's been enhanced. Oh, and because of stuff being resolved finally.

I don't know that I necessarily had an abusive childhood...but it certainly was not something I enjoyed, and I feel the negative experiences of childhood have made things more difficult then they might have been otherwise. I mean it certainly had an effect, but yeah most of it was bullying at school and just a lot of family drama. I didn't really have abusive parents...or family or anything though.

I had a pretty sucky childhood, and while things aren't perfect now, I'm happy most of the time. So I'd say bad childhood - good adulthood.

Good childhood since my interests always kept me busy but also very lonely.
Awesome high school years! Had more friends then I ever had since.
Good adulthood ( It can be fun as long as you are still a child at heart!)

My childhood is an interesting study. I was not abused at home and in fact had a very good family life. However, the abuse usually came at the hands of other children who picked on me mercilessly. This did vary though. When I was in a small, Christian school run by my church that had very small class sizes (5 students or less) I did very well. However, the problem was that this was the minority of the time and I did terrible with large class size environments. My grades followed a similar pattern as well.

In adulthood, I was bullied up until my early 30's. By that time I had figured out most of why that was and came up with a plan to change my situation. I was able to mitigate most of what caused me to be the subject of extreme derision and then left the work environment I was in to start fresh elsewhere. Now I do fine, no one messes with me and I am generally respected. This doesn't mean I am socially popular (although I do have a group of people who like talking to me at work because of my kindness and intelligence) but rather that I can make minor mistakes now without the whole world jumping on my back.

My parents were verbally abusive towards me in some ways and I've decided to live on my own in order to forget the memories. I've been doing very well since I've moved out on my own, 6 years ago.

As an Aspie, I can look back now and understand how hard it was for my adopted parents to love and/or like the child that didn't like being touched ( aka hugged, held, etc ). But, I used to look forward to the beatings, sometimes, because of the loss of consciousness. Really got tired of hearing, "God, I wish we'd never adopted you."

Wish someone had let me in on the secret that I was Autistic or Special or Something. Never could figure out why the world, or I, was so weird. Now in my mid-50's, I'm finally getting my act and head together, well somewhat.

I had a neglectful and abusive childhood. I was very depressed in early adolescence and attempted suicide, and self-harmed a lot.

But, in the last two years a lot has changed. I don't know if I'm happy, I'm not really sure what happy is. Sometimes I know I'm upset, but most of the time I'm okay, or at least numb.

I'm doing well in school though, I've been accepted by a good university, and the future looks bright. So, good? Neutral currently I think.