Did anyone not know any different?

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Often I have seen posts online written by autistic people about how they were forced to change and they felt like they were broken and needed fixing and they couldn't be themselves. I cannot relate to this because I didn't know any different as a child. Anything I was told to stop or not do and being taught to talk and stuff, I didn't know any different so I never felt abused or that I was broken and needed fixing. Could it have been the way my mom did it and the kind of therapists I had? I was in speech therapy and I went to a special preschool so was it possible it was the way these teachers did it that still made us feel normal? My mom has always said she never wanted me to feel I was broken and needed fixing so she found ways to help me so I wouldn't feel broken so I did gymnastics, pottery, swimming, and voice lessons and she also would involve my brothers too when she would be teaching me things so she made this all look normal. I never did hours of therapy either and I was never given abusive treatment, no water sprayed at me or hitting.

When I read posts like "quiet hands" I can't really relate because I saw everyone being told to stop doing this or that. It made me imagine what if everyone hand flapped or made funny sounds and were also told to stop it and sent to the hallway for being disruptive, you would think this was all normal and not know any different whenever you get told to stop and get in trouble for it too so you learn to suppress it. You would think this is what all kids do but they can control it better. I never had any stereotypical autistic stims because I never handflapped or made weird sounds so I didn't know any different when I would get told to have hair out of my mouth or quit playing with my ears or lips or stop kicking or getting in trouble for playing with paper clips so I learned to not do that at school since somehow it was a bad thing to do there.

So was anyone else here like me and also didn't know any different?

I always knew there was "something wrong with me."

My parents didn't care, though. I was disciplined the same as a "normal" kid. They didn't want me to use my "condition" as an excuse to misbehave.

But did you feel the same way as me?

I was also treated like a normal kid and disciplined the same way and she refused to see me as a disability or as a label. There were times when she would just pick her battles like letting me run the three bases in t ball after striking out because I didn't understand the rules and I thought that is what you had to do after you get done hitting the balls. If it wasn't hurting anyone, she let me do it.

I couldn't verbalize it or anything----but I did "know different" because my brother was a "normal" kid, and had friends and all that.

I didn't have many friends, and was banned from some kids' houses.

I wish I was "ignorantly blissful."

lol what I meant by not knowing any different was did you not know any different when you would be corrected or be told to stop doing things or being told how to act? Lot of people on the spectrum have claim this was all abuse and it made them feel broken and that they needed to be fixed and change who they were. I never felt this way. All kids get corrected and told how to act and get told to stop doing things so this was all normal to me. I don't see it as any different from autistic children so I am baffled how they would even know any different if other kids around them are also being told to sit still or stop this or that and also being corrected and getting into trouble for bad behavior. The only difference is they might only think other kids can just control themselves better and do better job at it while they have to try harder and then think there is something different about them.

I have been banned from my friends houses too as a child.

In that sense, I feel the same as you.

I didn’t feel that I was being abused, though the constant discipline made me hate being a kid. I thought all kids were disciplined this way.

The only solution was to become 18 years old, an adult.

All similar to my experience 45 or so years ago.

I always felt different as a young child and still do now as an adult. I was the oldest growing up so naturally would have had less looking after. I found it difficult to make friends without getting into trouble. I was very self conscious of myself and still mucked things up. I don't know how to have a relationship. I copied people from school, tv and family. I know who i am and I still imitate without realising sometimes. My life has been very tough and now at 39 iam finally getting answers and understanding more about me. My teachers at school told my mum that there was something that hadn't gelled right with me and my mum neglected me because she never got the help I needed. Her immediate family are all on spectrum so u would have thought she would have helped me. She helps them to this day. My relationship is broken with her. I got bullied for being different , I was the idiot in school although clever in other ways. I seem to lack common sense. I didn't and still don't get this planet but I can put good things into it and still learn from other people. If I got help sooner I may not have got in sloop much trouble. My younger sister is in a wheelchair so my mum had to look after her when I was younger. I definitely feel as though my home was damaging for me growing up and I got no outside help at all. I started to use alcohol from age 14 and things escalated from there.

growing up I felt at once both like "everybody else was crazy/stupid," and "I am a stranger in a strange land." my deficiencies as a human didn't come to the fore of my consciousness until adolescence.

I always knew I was the 'shyest' kid in any group situation. I didn't want to play with the other kids, and was definitely aware of being the oddball, the one who was always off in the corner, doing my own thing.