Autism a childhood disorder?

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Ok, what really bothers me now and these days is how they focus sooo much on autism in children, I had an appt to see the drc at my college to try for the 3rd time to get back into classes. The lady looked at me, and doubted i was autistic because in her words "I'm not non-verbal, I'm actually talking to a person, I actually seem interested in stuff besides my own little world, and I'm not handflapping or rocking !" Wow, I was non-verbal growing up, and thankfully I learned how to verbally express myself, and yes I'm interested in more then just my own little world, i want to do sign to teach other non-verbal autistics, and I aint handflapping because i aint happy, and rocking no, i was handtwisting and doing other weird things.

Its like most people see an autistic child off of tv, then assume their like that into adulthood! One of the ladies said, "you seem verrrry high functioning, and the reason why is because I'm out in the world, and not freaking out due to all the sensory and people, and I'm not headbanging?". No I am freaking out(Just because I'm not throwing myself on the ground like I did as a child or headbanging at the moment doesn't mean I'm not freaking out !) I meltdown just about every night I go do big things like that, and afterwards like now, my brain feels like its melting inside. Then the other lady goes "your not acting like rainman?" WHAT? huh, no I'm not rainman, I'm adrienne, when you meet another autistic touretteing adrienne, you let me know haha! I just get sooo mad going out into the world, and hearing this over and over .

My question is does anybody else have a similiar experience or at least agree with me on how they only forcus on autism as a childhood disorder, and don't show much awareness on what autistic adults are like

OH totally. Yeah, so I'm not throwing myself into the wall, but that doesn't mean that I don't WANT to . . .

That's like how they treat suicidal folks too (I've been in that situation too), and it seemed that just because I wasn't being caught overdosing meant that I wasn't serious.

Yea exactly! Its what u say too, the more serious the more they care, the less serious, it aint a problem. I know kids who are mildly autistic but have extreme self help skills, but nobody acknowledges them because their "Mild" .

i seem to be saying this a lot recently (and used to be guilty of this)... but people wouldn't recognize an autistic person talkin to them unless it were dennis hoffman.

I agree with you. I experience the same thing. Lifetime had a good movie called "Miracle Run" that featured two autistics from childhood to high school. By the end of the movie when they were in high school, they were very high functioning and seemed mostly normal to the point where someone didn't realize they were any different. I saw it over a year ago and am waiting for them to show it again so I can tape it. Miracle Run is the best movie there is about autism.

Miracle Run - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419967/plotsummary

Good news! Miracle Run is scheduled to be shown on Lifetime Movie Network on Friday 2/08 at 8:00 pm eastern time.

Last edited by zendell on 29 Jan 2008, 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

it's true that whenever autistic/aspie people are featured in the media they are always, always children. I am fed up of reading articles about how to parent my 'autistic child'.

I have stopped reading said articles because they always focus on how hard it is for the parents, which makes me feel really guilty, I think this was messing me up for a while.

When my daughter became an adult, there was no longer nice, accomadating medical facilities. She was thrown out into the cold world of the confusing, impersonal Medicaid system. The supports out there are no longer in place to help her or my HFA son further their education. They finished growing and now they're invisible because they didn't get cured.

The system wants the uncured adults to be invisible.

I know exactaly what you mean, I went to my GP to discuss the posibility of me having AS and the first thing he said was 'That's for children'. He couldn't understand how I managed to seem perfectly normal when going for other things - I was only ever going with eczema so knew what I had to do/say, no indepth discussions, easy. He made the rest of the time extremely uncomfortable so I struggled to get what I was trying to say. Got so anxtious about that second appointment he told me to make that I'm still waiting...

Last edited by Mark198423 on 29 Jan 2008, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thankfully it's not your GP that will diagnose you. You just have to put across that's something's troubling you, and even if it's not autism you need help. Then you see a mental health nurse and repeat the same things. Then you get to see a psychologist who will hopefully know enough about autism to realise that autistic people don't either get cured or drop dead aged 18.

Thanks for the info. Were you diagnosed as an adult youself? At what age? - If you don't mind me asking! I'm interested to hear recent experiences of adults in the UK.

look at my signature! eleven days ago! I'm 21.

Unfortunatly, the stereotypes are still very strong and its easier for people to "empathize" with children more than adults. The Rainmain analogy is really bad because less than 10% of the Autistic community are Autistic Savant, of which he is a steotype of, and even they are not all the same. I'm not even sure how he became the steotype for aspies as it explicitly said in the film Autistic Savant Syndrome previously called Idiot Savant, the guy incharge of the home told Raymond's brother, but somehow it became to overarching view of all autistics (instead of one savant autistic person), and then became attributed to Asperger's Syndrome. {If anyone read "Evidence of Harm" one of its many errors was saying that AS is portrayed by Rainman. This is an author supposidly presenting facts about what I like to call the Mercury Conspiracy, and in the introduction, before he even gets into his book, he presents inaccurate information on Autism in general, among other things.} People think they're aware/informed about things like Autism when they don't really know anything. They just think of a pop-culture stereotype has to be everyone on the spectrom must be like. Its hard for me to understand, NTs can see that they are diverse, but can't always see that Autistic people have alot of diversity as well. I can't even guess how people assume a nurological disorder just vanishes when someone becomes an adult or not realise that we can learn to adjust better with time not remain excactly like when we were little kids.

Not sure if I'm looking in the right place but I can't see anything after October 07!

I watched the movie Rainman and I think they said he was high functioning. For those who watched the movie, how would you describe him? High, mid, or low functioning?

Mid-functioning.

She meant where it said:

officially dxed with aspergers as of 18.01.08!! !

The european order is DD.MM.YY, so that means officially dxed with aspergers as of January 18th 2008!