The Ignored Epidemic (subset)

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I was told by my father that in the 70s he was told that I, his first born son, had a condition that happens sometimes but they have nothing they can do about it. My parents thought I would grow out of it. To this day they still haven't told me more than that, no clairification other than being called space cadet, robot, weird. Presumably the doctors told them no more either. Now things have changed. Autism was once a 1 in 10,000 occurrence, and now 1 in 64 (or 68 or whatever) so child/teen support programs are at an all time high. Would not it stand for statisticians to deduce simply that far more adults are on the planet than adolescents so this 1 in 60 something number applies to the much larger subset as well. If 8 (or 7 or 9) billion people are on the planet and 15% are children. That means we are helping almost 18 million autistic kids and virtually ignoring 107 million autistic adults simply because they did not have the benefit of growing up at the right time. In fact co-morbid collateral damage from the lack of support is even more devastating. I am tired, tired of failing, of being ignored, of barely making it, of being second guessed, of being smarter yet still not achieving what standard NTs average, of the terror of not knowing what I am doing wrong with these "people", networking, social skills, tired of not actually getting better in spite of a doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, & neurologist, I am damn sick and tired of struggling with no recognition. #$$! $ this s**t! So understandably I am sick of hearing about ASD support for children. I am angry in fact. You adults on the spectrum should be as well.
If there was a way, I would vote atypicals into office. What should we do. What can we do? Not the NT support groups, just us. There are nearly 5,500,000 ASD people in America alone. More than enough to swing an election. What of Britain? Of Europe? What do you think?

This condition called Asperger's Syndrome or High Functioning Autism has been around probably going back to the beginning of the human race. It is not new or necessarily increasing. Generally I would put the rate at about 1 in 40 when I was a child seventy years ago and that is about the current rate. I do not believe that NTs with all their good intentions will fix this, rather I believe this is an Aspie problem and must be resolved by Aspies.

What we can do on an individual basis is do the best we can despite the severe disadvantages. Related to the previous sentence not judge success by how most others judge it.

As a group we can support organizations run by autistics or at least organizations with significant autistic input.

Because autism is a "developmental" disorder, it is probably most profitable to intervene early with young children to overcome and prevent as many problems as possible early on. That's one respectable reason why most research and treatment has focused on children.

Does that mean adults are often neglected? Yes, it does. Bummer, I know. Contact your Congressperson, I guess.

Throughout history, I have no doubt autism existed and these people became the hermits, the lunatics, the witches, and the geniuses. I think we have it marginally better today. No one has offered to burn me at the stake. (So far.)

I think some of why there is more focus on children is because parents are better able to advocate for their Aspie children than Aspie adults being able to advocate for themselves.