Had an overall positive experience growing up aspie?

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Hi, I'd love to hear from those who feel that because of great teachers, or an early diagnosis, or their parents involvement, the schools you went to, the clubs you joined, the friends you had, your own smarts, social services received, or great siblings, or having a very mild case, or simply sheer luck of your environment, that they had a very positive teenage and early adulthood years. And if that's carried on to the present.

None of the above

Absolutely not, apart from one great teacher for one school year. My experience was mostly miserable, abusive, isolated, lonely and memories of the bullies at home, school and other places are as clear now as then.

The only other positive was cats, who were immensely nicer to me than NTs.

PS: MumOfaTeenAspie, the avatar you chose - perhaps unconsciously - symbolises to me the eye contact difference between ASD people and NT people. For me, the continuous bright yellow "blink and stare" is somewhat distracting. Just me, perhaps.

OK. I changed avatar.

I'm nice enough that I will lie and tell you I had a pleasant childhood experience if you wish.
It would be a lie though.

Thank you. I like your new avatar.

The avatar makes you look like a flamenco dancer. Very pretty

I bet you're this pretty in real life.

I won't candy coat this. I've been to public, private and boarding schools and all of them where a living hell. The #1 thing that made school a living hell for me and anyone here on WP will agree is having to interact with the other kids. which for anyone on the spectrum, that's a recipe for disaster.

I will not lie and tell you that it was all great. Because it wasn't. There were things that completely f*****g sucked. The bullies were always there, the fear was always there, the knowledge that I was somehow some kind of f*****g freak, that different WAS less, was always there. Selective mutism and self-abuse came and went. There were seasons when I had friends, seasons when I bought friends, and seasons when the only friends I had were between the covers of a book.

I will not lie and tell you that it was very positive. Because some things were very negative.

I will, however, tell you that I think it was positive ON AVERAGE. Some people would not agree, but I think it was positive on average for a teenager and young adult period. Based on the life stories I've read here and in the literature, I definitely think it was positive on average for an ASD kid.

I will not lie and tell you that there haven't been terrible dark spells since then, because there have. Things I wouldn't wish on anyone-- my horror stories are plastered all over WP. Most of them have happened because of autism, because of misunderstandings caused by people not understanding autism, or because of stereotypes people have about autism. But I'm eating food that didn't come from a soup kitchen or dumpster. I'm typing on a private computer. I live indoors. I have a family of people who swear they value me. I have friends I didn't have to pay for. I get to live with my kids, and I think they know I love them, and I think they love me too, and they seem to be turning out more or less OK so far. I'm still a freak, I will always be a freak, I still hate it, I still hate me, and I'm pretty sure I always will. Notwithstanding, I'd say that as of this moment, the overall outcome has been on average positive.

Who or what gets the credit for that?? Everyone and everything. Luck. Fate. God. Whatever. The stars aligned.

I was lucky-- I was smart enough to figure out enough of it on my own for people to be willing to help me a little bit here and there, and enough to have successes enough to keep trying.

I was lucky-- I was born in 1978, not 1988. If I'd been ten years younger, and I hadn't had enough working knowledge of myself to say "BS!!" when all the misrepresentations hit the popular media (and the medical community, for that matter), I wouldn't be where I'm at. I probably wouldn't be alive. It came pretty close to killing me anyway. Hopefully the gang of autistic kids born ten years later than THAT (1998, so to speak-- your child's rough cohort) will fare better than GenX or GenY. I think it's going to be hit-and-miss, though. I've a bit more hope for the "Post-Millenial" autistic kids (born, again so to speak, in 2008-- the ones just now reaching school age). Maybe. Maybe. More "hit" than "miss." Maybe.

I was lucky-- I had smart parents/grandparents. They weren't necessarily all educated-- my dad dropped out of college and my mother had a two-year nursing degree and other than that they all had a high-school education-- but they were all smart. There was no diagnosis for me to have (born in 1978; I was 16 when Asperger's was entered in the DSM) but they still saw the traits and recognized them as "like me" or "like him" and figured out how to teach me to make the best of it, compensate for it, work around it, or get over it.

I was lucky-- there were enough scrapings on the bottom of the barrel for me to have friends. They might have been the kids from crazy churches and the abused kids and the kids on welfare, but friends were friends were friends. They still constituted a chance for me to learn to interact with people my own age on a small-group or one-on-one basis.

I was lucky-- a few teachers saw that even though I did well in school, I was struggling in other ways (or saw that even though I couldn't keep my foot out of my mouth, I was smart in other ways) and encouraged me, or taught me, or challenged me.

I was lucky-- I got the hell out of the suburbs and went to high school way the hell out in the sticks, where almost everyone was poor and almost no one "had any future" and basically no one could too much afford to crap on anyone else. Those were the friendless years-- but they were also the years when the kids at school left me the hell alone, and I had four years to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I didn't want to be. I survived adolescence in part because of that school.

Teachers: A few were helpful, but most were 'meh'
Diagnosis was late elementary school, but did little to help
Had a few friends, but was mostly isolated and bullied mercilessly
Clubs? I wish
SIblings was both a blessing and a curse
Luck of environment: High school was in a terrible location and was underfunded terribly
Own smarts: Grades didn't carry my happiness far enough
Services received: Helped a little

I wish I could give you the hope you're seeking. Perhaps, as knowledge about ASD grows, there will be more positive outcomes out there. I believe many of us are here because we didn't have much understanding and support from others.

Maybe that will change.

I am quite convinced that if a person grew up in this more enlightened era with an early diagnoses along with devoted, enlightened, psychologically secure and financially prosperous and stable parents in an enlightened community - they could quite likely have a reasonably happy - perhaps even very happy childhood and adolescence on the Autism Spectrum.

Unfortunately that was the stark opposite of my experience. Oh well, perhaps in my next life.

My life was good after I was 18, although I did not have a supportive community, early diagnosis, a mild case or supportive family. My life was good because after the school system was over and I did not have to be around people in my age group, I was able to find work environments where I fit in more than I did in the school system. I was also able to move in with people I liked instead of my family.

wow, I'm shocked that such few people have responded to this releative to my other posts and that all of the experiences hve been very negative (even your story, Buyerbeware was a very very tough story even tho you say it was positive on average, espedcially for those of you younger ones, 21-ish, for whom 10 years ago the knowledge was available although not as much as today and much less support like wrongplanet, etc.. I'm not surprised about the older folks, 50ish, because aspergers was not known.

Had I not been a stay at home mom I would not have had the time or energy to figure out what my soon needed and to give it to him. especially since i have MS and that sometimes zaps my energies. What he most needed were 2 things 1 - rewarding social contact and 2 - help to develop his executive functions.

The executive functions we're starting late (at 14), academically its been torture for both of us from the start, but the social cotact i started since he was very little, age 2 first by sending him to prescool to play which he desired very very much, and then when he started grade school at age 3 (all his friends today are from the same classroom even to this day) I started having parties at home, frequent play dates at my house by bringing the 3 closest friends first, and later adding more boys to the invite that I liked (and he did as well) who would for all these years provide him with tons of social interaction, emotional connection, and at school "credibility" with the others, as my son was in this circle of respected and admired boys. (he's also a very sweet outgoing kid so that made it easy as well).

As for bullying, luckily the kids in his school were in great majority nice kids. The worse they would have done was turn their backs on him socially, which as i said has not happened because they grew up having fun together in my house. The kids in class also had a helping attitude with him in school even from a young age when it was not known he was aspie or add.

In spite of the punishments he has received at school and home for not studying or not listening in class or not wanting to work, etc, he has been living a very happy life. He is a happy kid. And so far his self-esteem is fine, in spite of being the one who is always failing an exam or needing extra help, etc.

Ironically, I, in turn, being NT, was a depressed child and preteen, not fitting in because i was an immigrant and fat and my parents did not know how to raise a strong-willed child with separation problems.
I'm know for a fact that my experience pushed me very hard to make sure my son did not feel the way I did. It was one of my driving energies. the other was love, knowledge of his real worth and knowing that it was my job to give him the best of me and of society, I am his mother.

Thanks for telling me about the avatar, this is how people learn, by telling them things they don't realize, i just chose it cause the others available do not go with my 54 year old mom style, and the happy faces this seemed the most appropriate ? wide-eyed itently listening and absorving (the blinking) the information that I was getting here. But the blinking is annoying and this other one looks a bit like me, white skin, dark hair.