Anyone else feel angry for not getting an early diagnosis?

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Perfect. Good riddance.

Indeed.

Thanks and (((HUGS))) back
No social distancing violation or sensory overload from virtual hugging

@IsabellaLinton:
It's probably kind of stupid to say that because you had no choice in any of it but I am in awe of people like you, to have gone through that and overcome it. From what I have learned from acquaintances it takes so much strength and endurance.

Thank you for your well-wishes. I learned about my ASD during my last job, in which I was bullied a lot by my boss. I came out to him and it didn’t help at all. On the contrary, it just got worse, because he felt I was just lazy and was looking for an excuse to be “special”. The bullying just became more subtle as he was paying attention now not to discriminate against me. He’s played a big part in my burn-out. I’m glad I finally got the push I needed to get out of there.

@Ulf:
Thank you, too, for your well wishes. It is amazing what people can live through. I am glad that you have been lucky in the choices you’ve made now and your life is a lot better now.

I also find it absolutely shocking to read what some of you had to suffer by your parents, the people who were supposed to help and support you. Yes, those were very different times, but still... There is little that makes me angrier than violence against children.

I’ve often heard that people who were beaten by their parents also beat their own children. Something I have never understood. If someone knows how it feels why would they do it to anyone else?
I am so glad that you burnt that belt, @Fnord.

@everyone who wrote in here:
I feel humbled about what you guys went through. I guess I got away rather lightly. Thank you for sharing those stories.

Agreeing with ASPartOfMe about virtual hugs, I’m also giving some out to all of you.

I'd say I'm more despondent than particularly angry . It took 45 years for it to be recognised there was more going on than just mental illness . That's 45 years of substandard treatment . Any hope of achieving anything of much worth died a good few years ago . It's now about maintaining the level I'm at rather than going up a level or two.

I want to make it clear that I did not suffer anything like the vicious abuse described by Fnord and others where the parents tried to beat the undiagnosed autism out of them. Very much unlike today we were expected to fend for ourselves and figure things out by ourselves. It was not that people were expected to be perfect but you were expected to suffer from and learn from the consequences of these mistakes, this was an expected part of growing up, so was schoolyard bullying.

For guys if you hugged other guys or talked about your feelings to they thought you were a homosexual which had a huge stigma and put a target on your back. If you were different in any type of way especially if you did not talk about guy things like sports, cars, and girls all the time they thought you were a homosexual.

When you heard screaming and yelling at a neighbors house you did not call the police and report child abuse. There was no such concept. If you did that you and your family would be stigmatized. The idea was that it was their family, their children they know best, so don’t but in where you don’t belong.

The old way did leave lasting harm but all the time I was left to myself did help me figure some things out, learned what worked and what did not for me and taught that life is unfair and things do go wrong.

In conclusion which system is less harmful depends on the individual. In general 1960s style parenting harmed a lot of people and should not return. Today’s parenting styles are an a extreme overcorrection to the past and is very harmful in different ways. Bringing back some elements of the past without the extremes would be a good thing.

One good thing that might come out of this CoViD-19 crisis is a greater awareness of the desperate need for prompt and accurate testing; not just for invasive virii, but for developmental and sensory issues, in addition to learning styles.

As it stands right now, one can only hope.

In the case of autism I have serious doubts that there can be an accurate test for autism at age 2 or younger. It would not take into account the vast changes in "brain wiring" people undergo the rest of their lives. I fear people getting positive test results would be "marked" and expectations set low for them. For that to regularly occur at such an early age would be a horrible thing.

As I said earlier each person is an individual and there are some people that need an autism diagnosis that early in life and I am not saying wait until the person is an adult.

I understand that my thinking on this point goes against nearly the entirety of the professional autism community at the moment. So I guess they would label people like me a "denier". I see no evidence this is changing, the push for early autism diagnosis is metastasizing, so I can only hope.

I don't understand qhy in Western countries being affectionate to friends is seen as something weird. Why shouldn't males be friendly and hugging their friends?

My elder is the most huggy person and kisses ppl on the hand or cheek etc .. Its his reassurance to socialize instead of just sitting there.. That's what makes him comfortable

. He instinctively knows to restrain it unless the person knows him and he knows how to approach them in a gentlemanly manner so they can choose whether to embrace him or not... (so they don't get freaked out)...

but at the same time when he does do it I just explain to ppl

'he is saying hi .. He likes your dog..' Etc people can accommodate if u just explain inatead of always making the onus on the child to feel bad about everything


I hope they don't get this stigma of being looked down on always, wrong and self hating, no space to breathe, and absorb the same mentality.

Also labels suck when used to denigrate. I believe sexuality is not something to pin down and dissect at times like how butterfly collectors pin down their specimens of beautiful but DEAD specimens instead of letting them be.

Nor is being 'weak', tender or soft hearted something to make fun of.

I think a lot of my parents' insecurities about me wete unfounded as now they come to me surprised pleasantly saying XYZ person was saying how muxh they love you or XYZ person misses you etc.

They used to think people were looking down on my social awkwardness or misreading sullenness and negative things into me .. They pushed those insecurities onto me by yelling at me etc mainly my mom .. I am grateful for much of their trainibg and hints...

but at the same time... Ppl can be much more forgiving understanding and loving than my parents and I used to think.

I'm of the generation that didn't get an early diagnosis. ..plus I had the type of awful home life described above.

Yes, it does make me angry, but there's nothing to be done but move on.

I was relatively more fortunate than Fnord and you . My 1st school in Bangkok(c1962) flagged up difficulties that had my parents taking me to be assessed for what was then the 'S' word at Gt Ormond street . The result was negative , and the matter wasn't pursued further . The difficulties I had were still there of course .

My parents argued a lot , and it was not an infrequent occurrence for it to be made quite clear they were arguing because of me . My mother used to regularly describe me as an awkward baby/toddler/child etc .

I think both knew I was poorly co-ordinated and not the most 'normal' of children , but there was no attempt to investigate things a little further . Not even after I went to Felsted , and was subjected to high levels of verbal bullying by the other boys .

Academically there was a decline from about the age of 9.5 onwards , but it didn't ring alarm bells for them . They were quite blase about it .

When does indifference metamorphose into neglect? I wouldn't like to say, in that I'm not sure .

At times, although it's hard to be really angry when you also understand that it wasn't just a failure by my parents, but instead of them and every single mental health related professional I saw as a child. I feel that Dr. Judi probably should have brought it up after she did my IQ test and noticed (and told me) about how big the split between the two scores was. That was likely the closest we ever got to looking into it before I was an adult.

That said, it makes me wonder how my life would have been different. I find when interacting with peers of mine that were diagnosed earlier that they often have much more mechanical social skills than I do. Mine are certainly rough, but they seem more spontaneous, like what I'm used to seeing when interacting with NTs. A lot of the time when I encounter peers who were diagnosed earlier they seem like they're reading off of a script somewhere.

I certainly appreciate that I wasn't part of the Sp.Ed classes, it was hard enough fitting in as an obvious weirdo, but the stigma of being weird is an order of magnitude smaller than the stigma of being ret*d unfortunately.

Further, I do believe knowing that absolutely no one would have my back or help me did play a role in making me very stubborn and willing to accept both failure as well as the need to pick myself back up and try it again. The mistakes I've made in life are part of what makes me who I am, it's hard to conceive of wanting to change it without knowing who I'd end up as.

I also see it as a failure TO my parents that only 1 of their kids is Neurotypical everyone else has severe OCD, ASD, ADHD severe form, bipolar (suspected - a certain type) and everyone said stuff about us and teachers voiced concerns about me every single parent teacher meeting and yet give them no options.. No explanation or guidance .. And just leaves the burden on parents essentially give the message 'this is just a bad kid.' About good kids who need help and whose parents need help

Now they have early intervention programs n soooo many programs fr parents to teach them as well I attended 2 of these as well as all kinds of specialists etc
How can parents handle it without the explanations and guidance and yet being blamed by others fr spoiling kids or just having innately flawed kids and no hope?

Eg teachers cd have referred me to school psychologist at the minimum and didn't

I feel baffled at how some Aspies go unnoticed all through childhood, while I was noticed, assessed and diagnosed before I was 9 years old. I can understand Aspies that grew up pre-1990s not getting recognised, but the OP is 24 so must have went to school in the late 90s and 2000s, a time where autism was more known about and Asperger's was heard of.
Aspies with no diagnosis of anything (even any misdiagnosises) must have been rather well-behaved children at home, and had a few friends in school and also coped well in school. My behaviour at home was so bad that my mum considered sending me away to a home, but she loved me so much that she reconsidered.

Right now since I have not been 'certified' by a neurological test, I'd say if my self diagnosis is correct, I am frustrated that prior psychologist visits did not step back and see the complete picture of my ADD, Depression/Anxiety, OCD as a result of something bigger.

I always told them I never felt a part of anything, a 'ghost', a black sheep in the family. To this day I am envious of 'normal people'. I was in special ed from elementary school through high school. To further complicate fitting in, I am gay, and also have had major intestinal issues for over 25 years resulting in 3 surgeries. So all 3 issues could be a topic for that question for me, would getting an early diagnosis may have made my life better or different?

Now my life is a bit of a mess and the current pandemic is further complicating it. It is all speculation on how my life would be if I was diagnosed early and as logical as I am, I won't dwell on it. I know at this point of my life I am evolving to something else for the next 25 years of my life that won't resemble my past life and maybe if this was done sooner I would not have been able to manage it? Who knows?

So, at this point I am more frustrated.

Even if we were diagnosed at an early age, Autism Speaks does NOT make our lives any better!

I don't get why some folks tend to believe what AS says, and encouraging them to ACTUALLY abuse their autistic children. There are other autism sources from other programs other than AS, people!