Living with Autism in the 80's

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Hi,
I was thinking about something the other day regarding having Autism during the 80's when we were all very young. It had to do with two factors that you see below.

1. You did not read certain cues very well and thought you could do anything (Example: At one daycare that I attended, I happened to take out several plastic chairs that were stacked up when I was not supposed to take them out in the first place)

2. People at certain institutions and learning centers such as teachers did not know what was going on and thought you were misbehaving because back then, Autism was of little information

This was during my toddler-pre-school years.


Did anyone else have the same struggles?

I didn't have too much trouble with behavior issues when I was younger, other than constant talking to everyone. I had a lot of individualized attention though because I was always in my own level for reading/ math etc at least until about fourth grade. The few times I did get in trouble I got good at covering my tracks, because I'd be in big trouble at home otherwise.

They didn't know what to make of me back then. Parents could tell something was wrong with me. Took me to a few doctors. At first they thought I was mildly mentally ret*d. Gave me IQ tests which ruled that out. I didn't have the words to explain why I'd throw a fit when they'd try to drag me into a bright, noisy store. Or why I'd just shut down and stop talking, not respond even when someone was speaking directly to me, whenever I was somewhere unfamiliar. They couldn't figure it out, so they decided I was being willfully difficult.

I didn't know what I was doing wrong, just that adults were always mad at me and (once I started school) other kids didn't like me. So, eventually, I just started avoiding interacting with anyone, including my family as much as I could. This made it easier for everyone to ignore the problem. Say to me, or to each other, "oh, he's just being antisocial" and not have to put any more thought into it. No one had any idea how badly I wanted to be part of the group. But I just went along with it because it was easier that way, I'd hide in my room and read my books or, once I was old enough to leave the house on my own, wander around town all day.

They'd ask me where I went, or what I was doing. And I'd try to tell them that I didn't really go anywhere or do anything. Just wandered around. But they didn't believe me, they thought I must have been doing something, and they'd keep pushing to find out what I was up to. So I'd lie, and pretend I was with friends. And they'd catch me in the lies and get mad and punish me for them.

They put me into various activities, scouts and sports and stuff, so I'd be around other kids more. But I wasn't any good at that kind of stuff, and the other kids were mean to me because of it, so I'd try to get out of it. And they'd call me lazy, and tell me I was a quitter, and make me keep going.

And then something bad happened at school that I'm not gonna go into. But it made me really scared of the other kids all the time. And from then on, instead of just putting up with it when they'd mess with me, I started getting violent to make sure it didn't happen again. I got into fight after fight after fight. And they made me see more doctors. And they still didn't know what was going on. But I started to realize there was something really wrong with me, 'cause they don't make you go to that kind of doctor unless you're crazy or something.

That scared me. I didn't want anyone to know there was something wrong with me like that. So I started learning how to act normal. It helped that the doctors could tell me what I was doing wrong, even if they didn't know why I was doing it. But I learned how to blend in, how to make people think I was normal if they didn't pay too much attention. And, eventually, I even started making friends, though I could never keep them for very long.

Again for me, it was not reading social cues very well at two daycares that I attended when I was younger. I was often labeled at the "naughty girl," who got sent to the corner a lot. I also seemed to be reprimanded for not listening. Then there were other examples.

For instance, I remember getting in trouble during group time at 3 and having to sit in my favorite spot. This was while everyone else was asked to "Get up and stand by the door." I kept thinking, "Yay, I can get up. When it is my turn?" However, I soon discovered that every other child but me could get up because they were good children. Meanwhile, I had to keep sitting there and keeping quiet and I remember feeling left out.

Then another time, in a different daycare setting, I also got in trouble a lot there as well. This was while I remember wanting a day go by where things would go well and people would not be mad at me. So anyway, I went to see my favorite teacher and spent the day in her group. As the day wore on, I was playing with others children when all of a sudden one them who normally I played with started crying. The next thing I know, I am being accused of pulling his hair for not reason and then sent into the girl's bathroom to stand in the corner as punishment. I, however, did not cry nor really feel that I did it. So I started getting up and sang children's songs in a bathroom that a friend of my mother had taught me. The teachers kept going into the bathroom and telling me to stand up or sit down and think about what I did as I was in trouble.


On a third factor, I remember a time at that daycare that we were cutting and pasting pictures out but I did not know what it was for. I just cut out whatever picture I could find. However I lost my pictures and then asked for the paste. So one of the kids was being a smart mouth and goes "You're not getting any paste." I fought back. "Yes I am." " No, you're not." I then said to the teacher that I want some paste. She looked disgusted and said, "Well, where is your picture?" So, the arguing continued until I broke down. So, the key here is that I did not read several cues while not paying attention to my surroundings.

Finally, (This has nothing to do with Daycare) I remember having the ability to make friends and play with them but they were not the nicest.

I went to the apartment's park one time since one of my friend's mother had sent me out there since their child was out there together with a whole group who I played with. When I got there, I found out that they chose to gang up against me because there was a boy there who hated my guts and just enjoyed being mean in general as well. He was the leader of the pack that afternoon and seemed to get everyone to pick on me physically. This included everything from dumping sand down my dress along with a live earth worm, to pinching me, to knocking me over in the grass and hitting me, kicking me in the face, and pulling my hair. When they did that to me, I was shocked because I thought most of those people were my friends.

I remember being very confused and lonely in preschool and Kindergarten, and getting in trouble for things I didn't do. I remember being afraid to go to the bathroom at school...the sound of toilets flushing frightened me. One time, a kid bit himself on the arm and told the teacher I did it, and I couldn't defend myself against the accusation. I also remember the teacher telling my mom I couldn't identify letters, and my mom telling them that I was already reading her entire books at home so that couldn't be true. The teacher was marking me wrong because our phonics book had pictures of objects and we were supposed to identify what letter they started with. I couldn't tell what the pictures were. I didn't develop my special interests until 3rd grade...so until then I don't think anybody noticed me because I was so quiet. I did have a couple friends in 1st and 2nd grade. Then I started talking non-stop about JFK and was tested for gifted. I didn't get in because there was a huge gap between my verbal and performance IQ (which should have been a red flag, if anybody had known about HFA in 1987). They retested me for gifted in 8th grade, and though the PIQ/VIQ gap was still there (AS was still not in the DSM) they let me in because in middle school I was bullied and started to refuse to go to school, so they needed some way to get me on an IEP, so I could get the support I needed. Being able to go to the gifted room was my only saving grace in high school.

I never went to day care, I don't think it existed yet in the cow town I grew up in. As a kid in elementary school, however, I was labeled "the artist" because of my fondness of cartoons and drawing them and was often praised for it and for also being good at reading and writing for my age, and was usually well behaved and got good grades, my only real weakness being math and maybe phys. ed. But back then I had odd or unusual fears and anxieties that people thought may have been just part of me being "gifted". I remember the teacher sometimes playing some sort of game with us that scared me so badly I started bawling and I had to be put in the hall to calm down. I don't remember much about the games, something where a witch chases the other kids and if she touches them they freeze and turn to stone and end up getting eaten by her or something. One time the person playing the witch wore a creepy Halloween mask. Anyway I hated it, just being reminded of my own mortality or something because the players who got frozen would "die" or whatever. I wasn't good at most games that involved physical coordination or teamwork or a complex set of rules. The school I went to also taught religion and some of the Bible stories scared me as well. I used to wonder if people who died before the resurrection of Christ had no souls even if they were "good" people and felt bad for the animals who died in Noah's flood because they didn't make it aboard the Ark. But I was a young adult by the time I officially questioned religion. Anyway, other strange fears I had were the sight of dead insects. Entmo-necro-phobia, I don't know. And having to use the toilet in a public bathroom. I had no problem using the bathroom at home, a familiar house or even school but anywhere else and I would rather pee in the bushes. I'm not sure but I think it came from this one time as a little kid I had to go to the bathroom at a grocery store and the bathroom was in some dark creepy place and it terrified me. I was a real crybaby back then, every year close to Christmas crying was the one thing I had to force myself to do less of if I wanted to see anything under the tree...

It is amazing how we have come a long way despite all the hurtles of the past based on the little information people had about us back then.

At the one daycare I attended, they started pushing knowledge at the age of three. For instance, I had to know:
1. The 50 states of the US
2. Different type of shapes that you learn about in geometry which were not known until 6th grade.
3. The types of dinosaurs.

The one that they were really keen on was number 1 according to my mother. When they found out that I did not know them, they were mad at us. Again, I seemed to go into timeout a lot while I was at that pre-school and I had no idea why most of the time and maybe that was why.

I was also really hyper and had gone to a few different babysitters when I was not at daycare and a few of them had low tolerance and hot tempers along with the whole, "What part of Children are to be seen and not heard do you not understand," attitude that came with a classic smack/

I always felt like they were always mad at me too.

I don't have a lot of memories from childhood due to trauma, but there are a couple of things regarding AS that I'll never forget:

One of the earliest is going to kindergarten and being the first child to count to 100. I also already knew how to write many things. My dad said I went to Montessori school before kindergarten but I don't have any memory of anything prior to kindergarten.

The second one was in first grade when we were learning D'Neilian handwriting. Do kids learn that nowadays? I've found a lot of younger people can't even read cursive! Anyways, I finished the entire workbook in one night and the next day my teacher yelled at me for working ahead. It traumatized me for some reason.

And of course I was teased throughout all my school years and only ever had one friend at a time. I isolated myself and was only concerned about my obsessions and avoiding my abusive family. My obsessions probably saved my life, actually.

The only pre-school problems I remember once I got over my initial shock that there were even that many kids on the planet (I was around nobody but my mom and grandmother until age 3), were not being able to be still and/or sleep during naptime and my fondness for drawing. I drew on everything every chance I got.

During naptime I was put on a cot outside in the hallway and while I was alone out there I found a piece of chalk on the floor and drew all over my cot. I still remember how that cot smelled. It was aluminum and dark blue canvas with white stitching.

I also got in an argument with the teacher because I colored someone's hair orange in a picture because that's what "red" hair looked like in real life. And I always took off my shoes and wouldn't put them back on to go outside.

Mindsigh,
You and I have some things in common. I too was placed outside but it was in my our apartment unit that I was living in at ages 3-5. Whenever my parents thought I was misbehaving, they put me outside and closed the door. This was in a hallway inside as well. As for the door, they figured that I was too short to open the door and so I stayed outside. I also remember wandering those halls a lot whenever I got into trouble.

I also was restless during naptime at Montessori School and remember some teacher's aid getting impatient with me and picking me up and throwing me back on my cot three times for not laying right.]

.

Meanwhile:
I remember Star Wars laying on our TVs a lot and how I was learning to remember the names of all the characters such at Yoda and Princess Leia. Yet, I remember being just mortified by C-3PO but curious as to when Vader would take off his helmet and show his face.

Very young? Well, I was in some form of school from 1971-1989. It could have been a lot worse because I had great parents, but of course at school there were issues and it wasn't easy. How awful some people who post here had it!

I was very attentive and the annoying know-it-all in class. I do recall having a lot of issues at various day cares though. I remember being alienated and treated like I was going out of my way to be naughty and attention-seeking when I had a meltdown. I remember being bullied and ostracized by the other children and the adults generally felt no pity and did not come to my rescue. I remember the other kids locking me out of a playhouse once and when I complained to the babysitter she brushed me off as being a liar.

I was born in 1974, twenty years before Asperger's existed as a diagnoses, and I had no end of problems growing up. From Kindergarten through elementary, middle, and high school! In college I was a mess! I was finally diagnosed at 38 years old!! ! Thankfully that diagnosis changed my life. I have since written a book about my experiences throughout this time and it became available on Amazon just this past week--talk about a life changer!

My memoir, Twirling Naked in the Streets and No-One Noticed; Growing up with Undiagnosed Autism is available now on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Twirling-Streets- ... ling+naked

You can also read much of it on my blog at www.aspiewriter.wordpress.com, where I began by blogging these stories. Since I began writing I have found that soooo many others have had similar experiences.

[quote="Scubasgirl"]I was very attentive and the annoying know-it-all in class. I do recall having a lot of issues at various day cares though. I remember being alienated and treated like I was going out of my way to be naughty and attention-seeking when I had a meltdown. I remember being bullied and ostracized by the other children and the adults generally felt no pity and did not come to my rescue. I remember the other kids locking me out of a playhouse once and when I complained to the babysitter she brushed me off as being a liar.[/qoute]

I had similar problems with certain situations too. I was not locked out of a playhouse but I remember several of them went inside a favorite playhouse at one of the babysitters that I attended. They blocked the door so I would not go in and kept shouting "No, no, no." Then I would back away and I would hear them laughing. However, I thought it meant that I could laugh with them when I walked away. So I walked back and they again said, "No, no, no, no."

This was because I soiled myself.

Actually, those kids were not mean to me all the time, it was the babysitter and her daughters who were very nasty.

Then when it came to crying at that Montessori School, that is one good thing they pay attention to was my separation anxiety. They often sat with me while I cried.
In fact, I ended up being the brightest kid in their class who learned faster than the other students or so I was told. I also made friends with a few staff members too. Yet, I barley played with anyone my age but I often played with three staff members who did not punish me often.

Other things I remember is riding in another babysitters car and hearing "I have the time of my life" on the radio and loving that song as it was so nice. (By the way, that sitter and her husband were abusive to me too and I found that riding in her car made me feel good).