Autism in old age

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When I started posting in WP more than a year ago I had in mind the need to focus on some problems which are peculiar of autism in old age.
I try to resume them here.
If official estimates (NHS UK) are 1 % of the population of children in the spectrum (0.75 in the Us) we still don’t know how the figures may be accurate. Do they include children population in the slums? Are they calculated on the basis of some extrapolation? Not that there must be a major incidence of autism in the slums. But certainly poor people elude attention more than those belonging to the wealthy areas of the population. If this is true for two years old toddlers what about old people? When they grew up there was no talk of autism and even less of the so called minor forms in the spectrum. People in the spectrum were categorized as borderline psychotics, senile demented, neurotic and other. Many high functioning were never considered in any statistic, They spent their life devoting themselves to some form of specialism, taught algebra, sometime even at universities, or found employment in informatics and accounting or auditing. Personally I have known many of these people (including myself). Most have had a hell of a life, with no social relations and support when needed. You must take into account that during their employment they probably found some support in job mates, even principals and secretaries. A role was a protection. But after retirement? Two perspectives certainly; an horrendous loneliness and a tremendous effort to solve practical problems, finding a house in case of eviction, find some assistance in case of sickness.
And organize one's own life, considering that to buy a vacuum cleaner, or managing a relationship with a wage earner for cleaning the flat, or calling a plumber, or solving some administrative bureaucratic problem may be true ordeals for some belonging to the spectrum, may be something beyond our forces. Someone may have (I have) an insuperable aversion to use the phone. To book an appointment with a dentist I must go personally to his secretary. And sometimes you may have physical disabilities, coming with old age, that make difficult to move in the streets. If these problems exceed a certain threshold there is only one way out: the nursing care, with all the aweful degradation implied which are perhaps more difficult to endure for autistic persons. You must remember that probably an autie will never be visited (willy-nilly) by a relative or a friend and will find difficult to socialize in the institution.

These are important issues that you raise.

I just started seeing a therapist. I told her of this growing class of people who only realized late in life that they have probably always had this condition. She inquired about psysiological changes in later life due directly to AS. I told her I knew of none. We're writing the book on this one. We will be the only generation that, as a class, only became aware that we had this condition late in life.

I don't have answers to the questions you raise. If I'm not mistaken, you really are the "old man" around here, senior among seniors. Leadership is thrust upon you whether you like it or not. These are important issues that all of us in this class need to be thinking about. I anticipate living to be 100, burying all of the few people I call friends. My (ex)wife's son has a son who calls me "Grand Dad." Maybe he'll be there for me in half a century. Maybe not.

I hope you'll be with us a long time, virtually and in-the-flesh. You're trail-blazing for the rest of us in this class. The book we write will eventually have only historical value. Until then, what you have to teach us, through sharing your story, is going to be of great practical value to those of us following close behind.

bumping for obvious reasons. . .


Merle

This is practically all I think about because I have two adult children, one high functioning autistic and one severely autistic. My severely autistic daughter will end up in the "dogpound" if my husband and I don't force changes to happen in the autistic community. My high functioning son can wind up lonely and confused by life's little challeges even though he's way up on the stratosphere when it comes to math and science.

My husband and I are spending the rest of our lives focusing on figuring out how to ensure life enhancing futures for our kids. We're trying to build up a supportive community for our kids, trying to get care givers and other autistic spectrum people and families and other cool people to work together to solve these problems. We need to protect each other.

On another topic, Merle, that picture for your avitar is one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen. I had a poster of it once but a Chinese guy my husband worked with wanted it so much I gave it to him.

Aging is increasingly becoming something suffered in loneliness and helplessness by most people, at least in the U.S.. I'm basing this on a few documentaries I've watched on the subject. One statistic I heard is that a person's best chance of not dying in a nursing home are if they have many daughters or daughters-in-law. Even those people have a 50% chance of dying in a nursing home. In other words, the best odds are still 50%.

Any elderly person-- NT or AS-- has a high chance of facing a lonely, institutionalized death due to the declining birthrate, the decline of women in the home, and a society that worships youth and shuns age.

As far as making appointments and dealing with bureaucracy, these are especially difficult for people with AS, but if you think of old people today, many of whom still use rotary phones or have never used a computer, you can imagine how difficult it is for them, AS or not.

The main problem is that society no longer respects or cares much for old people, unless they happen to be lucky enough to be in a kind and loving family. Many people, AS or not, are not so lucky.

there are quite a few people who have lost their mind in my family... due to tumors and other conditions...

i fully suspect i will be amongst them.

hopefully, ill be less lonely when im %100 crazy

Interesting, but sad topic.
I think that people can manage to function as they get older.
As for hiring someone to do work around my home, it's inconveinant, but I do it.

Sedaka, that's very sad. My family history is very few of us passing 70 years old.
So if that's my genetics, I don't really have all that mush to worry about ....

I'm more afraid of getting old than of death. The old people aways told me "don't get old, whatever you do.'' I don't think I would last long in a nursing home.

Yes I feel that way too. Ageing is very worrying. My mother was always adamant that she didn't want to end up in a nursing home, but when she was immobilized by a stroke, she had to go in one. It was an undignified way to spend her last months, and not what she would have wanted.
It's worse if you don't have kids to make sure you're looked after properly if you can't function yourself. There was a news item the other day about the relatives of old people in hospital being allowed to visit at mealtimes to make sure their relatives eat, as some find it difficult, and nurses 'don't have the time' to feed patients individually! It's too bad, and that is actually what we pay our national insurance contributions for, to make sure those who can't look after themselves are cared for properly.

There seems to be a 'don't care' attitude in society that's quite depressing. I wonder if it's something to do with the patriarchal nature of society, which seems to infer that once you've stopped being able to earn, you're worthless, which is of course, complete garbage. You only have to look in the fields of art, literature, and music, for example, to know that it can take a lifetime to hone creative talent and this is the time when a lot of people find their abilities are at their peak.

Also there is a kind of 'worship of youth', in western culture, which doesn't help.