Who are the autistic adults?

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Who are the autistic adults? By "adult" I mean the ones who grew up with autism/aspergers before there was any diagnosis or help for the condition. Are they married? Do they have succesful careers?

I only ask because I don't think I really know hardly any of my parents generation. My uncle is the only one I know for sure. He still lives with my grandmother, weighs about 90 pounds and really loves watching cartoons and shows from the 50s-60s. He is an accountant in my Grandmother's business and really has no friends or social life to speak of.

He is quite rigid and literal in his thinking and understanding of the world, and he'll get annoyed and defensive if you ask him any kind of an open ended question.

I hate to say it but if my grandmother weren't there Im not sure what kind of life he'd have .

So.. where are the 40-50 year olds with aspergers? Are they more or less "normal" by the standards of the world, or are many of them homeless/unemployed and unable to find work or friends .

Let me know when you can

I was born in 1977. Not quite 40, but close enough.

I could have gotten an autism dx as a child when it got its own place in the dsm (or before that as it was in there... just not on its own). I also could have gotten an aspergers dx when it showed up in the dsm in 1994 since I was only 17 at the time. As it happens, my mother shunned doctors, so I never was diagnosed as a young child. I was and had been living on my own when 1994 rolled around, so again, I missed being diagnosed. I am part of that pre diagnosis era.

To answer your question, I think it varies. I imagine some are more 'normal' some less so. Some likely have great jobs, others may have crap jobs, some married with kids, some single, some live with parents, and some do not. Some have been homeless, some never have. Some likely have friends, some might prefer solitude, some might not like solitude but live that way anyhow.

For myself, I am less normal. I imagine part of it is autism related, part of it is my messed up childhood, and part of it is just me being me. I took my role as the weird one early on and ran with it. I always understood that if the people who called me weird were the example of what normal was then I wanted nothing to do with normal. I took being called weird by my family as a compliment. That 'thank god i am not like you' moment. As I grew, I never much understood social norms and settled comfortably into being me. I am like that to this day. I really am a weird person. I am more than okay with that.

I am not homeless now. I have been homeless, but that was when I was a teenager. I lived in a car before I could legally drive one. I spent a lot of time on and off homeless from 14 to 17. That ended when I married some abusive @ss. During that time I did work. Sometimes I worked two jobs at once, never more than that. My jobs were not great... retail, bar tending, janitorial stuff.. but they paid the bills. I owned a house and two cars before I could legally buy myself a beer. I had friends and people I enjoyed being around until my abusive ex successfully isolated me from the world. Luckily I got out of that relationship.

These days I am on disability. A series of events led to me having a severe burnout/breakdown type episode several years ago and I never fully recovered from that. It was bad. I pushed and pushed myself to do things that people are supposed to do and the whole time it was destroying me from the inside out. I truly believed everyone felt the way I did. I had no idea they did not.

I now have a spouse of 12 years now who is wonderful and supportive. Between us we have four kids who range in ages from early twenties to 14. My spouse is more social than I am, and he manages to get me to go out now and then. I get along with his friends and could socialize with them more if I wanted, but it is exhausting for me to do that, so I do not. I do have one friend from childhood that I speak with now and then. That is enough social time for me. Family takes priority at this point in life. That is more than okay by me.

So that is who I am. And I am not sure if that was helpful or me just talking more than I need to.

I'm a married autistic adult with a career, but not quite 30 yet so possibly not your target.

I have definitely seen older people around where I live, that fit with the more stereotypical 'autistic look', so not all are blending in smoothly and appearing to be NT, but there will be many that are.

Most people that know me have no idea that I'm autistic, though building friendships very rarely goes well so they can clearly tell, consciously or subconsciously, that something isn't quite 'right'.

I just turned 59. My career has been nothing but crash and burn since 1986. There is no worse hell than working telephone tech support. For me, handling anywhere between 30 and 60 calls a day, with your phone continually beeping in your ear as your trying to type up a trouble ticket for a customer and resolve their issue at the same time with no chance to regroup once the call was completed is enough to send you over the edge. Lather, rinse, repeat. Any wonder I'm now on SSDI? (And I'm still being accused of being a lazy-assed fat motherf!cker who deserves to die for even being awarded SSDI. The mantra around these parts is work until you drop dead, then get your fat lazy ass up and start working again, you lazy motherf!cking piece of sh!t!).

I was born in 1979 so I would have been 15 when I would have first been able to get a diagnosis. Back in the 1994-95 time frame, my parents weren't interested in seeking any help for me either. I had my ADD diagnosis and given the fact that I wasn't doing anything like sneaking out of the house at night they were content to let me escape really deep into my own world during my summer vacations, and ignored all the odd things I did. School was a similar thing. I'd get off the bus each day and I'd crash hard in bed from being on overload all day.

Given how the first 12 years or so of my life went, not having to worry about me getting into typical teenage mischief was a relief to them.

Also we must remember the knowledge and awareness we have today wasn't there in the 1980's. Where I grew up, I wasn't going to get any kind of PDD diagnosis, let alone a mention of it unless I was non-verbal kid who hit his head when upset and liked spinning things for hours on end (although the later of the two DID apply to me).

I'm not married and I've only had a few very short term relationships. Through all of this I've never been able to figure out how to make any kind of connection with the opposite sex.

I do have a job though. Despite my aspieness, I was able to figure out the whole getting a job shtick, but like with school, work leaves me drained at the end of each day and I have little energy to much else.

All in all I've managed to do fairly well, but if something were to happen that would act to "yank the rug out from under me", I'd be stuck at square one with no idea what to do.

I'm 54 and was diagnosed nine years ago. I've had patches of unemployment between jobs, and I've lost those jobs for reasons I don't think were related to autism — new management decided to shed a lot of old staff, company went out of business, that sort of thing. I'm not married, but I've had a couple of long-term relationships — the only types of relationships I've had; I'm not good for flings or the like.

I know several adult auties. My best friend recently told me he'd also been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (some diagnosticians in Australia still prefer to use the older terminology), which was interesting since we'd been best friends for years — I was best man at his wedding — with neither of us knowing we were on the spectrum. We just knew we got along really well. He's also been through patches of unemployment, for similar reasons as me, but currently has a very good job with a software company. He's married with two kids.

Another friend, not as close, is a top-flight lawyer. I mean seriously top-flight; the firm he's with charges something like $300-$500 per hour of his time. He's not married, but has been in a de facto relationship for years, with three kids (all his partners from a previous relationship).

I also know a couple of adult auties who are long-term unemployed. One works as a volunteer at various advocacy groups, doing various things. The other is pretty much a recluse, who stays home all the time, mostly watching DVDs. Neither is married, in a relationship, or has any kids.

I think successful auties, like the ones I know, may be unusual, but they're not unknown.

I learned of autism, and instantly self diagnosed when I was fifty two. A few years later, having learned that I still didn't exist without a formal diagnosis, I got one of those. Now I'm sixty four. I live in a world where autistic adults are like anthropogenic climate change. Don't exist.

I was was born in 1957 and I am right here on WP. I have also read two detailed histories of autism in the last year.
A lot is determined by the nature of the individuals autism and the people him or her were surrounded by.

Many are dead. A study that just came out this year found that autistics die at a considerably younger age. The leading cause for those with intellectual disability is epilepsy for those without suicide.

The vast majority were misdiagnosed(Autism was considered a rare childhood disorder) with a variety of mental illness or undiagnosed and thought to have flawed charactor such as weak, lazy or attention seeker. Those considered "mental defectives" autistic or not were institutionalized. Usually this was a life sentence as most of these places were snake pits where if you "acted up" you were chained to floor and heavily sedated and a lot of other mistreatments. If the family could not afford an institution the kid was locked in a room or thrown in the street. Many parents tried to beat the bad traits out of them as autistic behavoirs were viewed as willfull defiance and corporal punishment was an accepted way of disciplining children.

Those few who were diagnosed with autism and their families recieved a special type of hell. The ongoing "refrigerator mother" theory held that autism was the parents fault. That was because it was believed they hated thier children so much they treated them so coldly the child reacted by losing all empathy, emotion and desire to connect with other people and thus were not fully human. These mothers were compared to Nazi concentration camp guards by the nations leading celebrity psychologist. In the institutions the autistic children were shocked and given experimental drugs. Parents were told to get rid of all items related to the child such as photographs. Years of psychotherapy were proscribed for parents to out what they did and why they hated their children so much they robbed them of thier humanity. If found out the "refrigerator mothers" were severly stigmatized and ostracized by thier communities.

Many of the "milder" autistics struggled and tried to muddle through. As is true now they were target of bullying which was considered a normal part of growing up. Parents gave kids more leeway. People were generally expected to figure out themselves how to do things. You were expected to solve your own problems and not burden others with them and face the consequences for your mistakes. This hurt many autistic people but this freedom forced other autistics to become more independent and learn skills. There were many more permanent jobs and being a team player was not important in certain jobs.

A lot of misdiagnosis such as depression and anxiety etc were not wholly incorrect and the result of the difficulties of trying to constantly deal with a non autistic and non understaning world. Without knowing the real reason why these difficulties such as bouncing from job to job in a booming economy when you were intellegent were occurring, you came to the logical conclusion, it was your flawed charactor.

Those of us here are the survivors.

We're here! I'm 41, actually, and 7 months, to be more exact. Scarred a little from childhood but otherwise OK. Career, yes. Marriage, no. The career thing was way rocky for a long time, but I think I have a handle on it now. We do exist, but many of us were not diagnosed in childhood. I was diagnosed with other things and exposed to the special education system, which had no idea what to do with me. My father had the same problems I do. He was kept back in 4th grade and sent to private school so he could have smaller classes. He did great. He's got two careers and, obviously, kids; and a almost 50 year marriage to a woman who also has some neuro-differences, but its harder to tell what her's are.

My husband is 56 now. Diagnosed at 50. Married. One kid. Worked for 28 years until his job changed, and he couldn't handle it anymore. One spectacular Aspie burnout.

There were just as many ASD folks way back when. They worked, probably married and had kids.

Why?

Way back when, you didn't need to be a dynamic, overly social team player to find work. There were plenty of jobs where you punched a clock, did more or less the same task for 8 hours and GTFO to home. A man could find a job where the boss left him the hell alone for 8 hours. Manufacturing, middle management desk jobs, or lower level office jobs (typing filing) could be had. You didn't need a degree or a "personality" to get them.

Family life was different. Women married men because after age 21, her ass better married. You didn't expect your husband to be helpful or really attentive. (Bonus if it happened). The home was totally the wife's domain. Husband came home from work, and it was his God given right to hide out. If the marriage was s**t, the wife stayed because of religion, economic reasons and raising kids.

A man could live his life without much demand for social interaction by others. Marriage was to have kids and a legal sex partner. It wasn't a big deal for a man not to be married, and not have this huge, rich active social life.

So what you are seeing now, with people coming up through the SPED system is an anomaly. Being born before 1975, was no mild autism diagnosis. There was no SPED. Even for a severe diagnosis not much was done except warehousing them.

People with Autism have always been around. The mild could "make it...pass" because societal standards and expectations were different. People who had less functioning were warehoused with different diagnosis. Usually the catch phrase "ret*d"/mentally feeble" was given.

My MIL has home movies of herself and her siblings. She has ASD, and how she acted on the movies roars Aspie. She is 82 now.

ETA: where I live it was near impossible to get an mild ASD diagnosis before year 2000. Even PPD was not routinely diagnosed. Kid with *issues* were given an emotionally impaired diagnosis or ADHD. Only parents with $$$$ to private pay/go out of state would have their child receive an Asperger diagnosis.

ASD seems to run in my maternal family. I have cousins, children, siblings etc all with ASD (both diagnosed and undiagnosed). I also have older relatives in their 60s who seem to be on the spectrum for autism. Some of my older relatives that I suspect have undiagnosed ASD are in long term relationships (20+ years), and others have chosen to remain single after they decided relationships were not for them. Like NTs, aspies (from my experience) are individualised, perhaps even moreso than your average person. I would not be surprised if there was no general pattern or trends for ASD in the older generations just like there seems to be no real pattern in the lifestyle of people with ASD now.

One wonders if perhaps adults with aspergers in 60s/70s didn't have an easier time of it than autistic kids today.

Sure society was way crueler and less accomodating to them. But idk, things like the internet and video games did not exist back then, and perhaps that being the cased urged/encouraged productivity and good habits?

IMHO solitary internet/video games are the big killer for those with aspergers. It is a fun and attractive way to escape the world, but makes it so we miss out on key social development.

Maybe the world was just better in some ways back then, and maybe people were ( in some ways.)

I don't want to sound like a puritan or scold but I think today's culture is somewhat in a bad way.

Years ago kids were far crueler and bullying much more of a problem than today. Sure bullying is a problem, but I do think that since adults encourage being "inclusive" and disabilities are known, the bullying is somehow "lessened."

I can give an example. When I was in school my mother would sometimes help on the playground. One time she saw a kid who was somewhat "girly" being made fun of by another kid. She complained to another playground worker about it, and he shook his head in disbelief and said " you think that's bad? In my day a kid like that would have just had the crap kicked out of him."

One wonders if perhaps adults with aspergers in 60s/70s didn't have an easier time of it than autistic kids today.

Sure society was way crueler and less accomodating to them. But idk, things like the internet and video games did not exist back then, and perhaps that being the cased urged/encouraged productivity and good habits?

IMHO solitary internet/video games are the big killer for those with aspergers. It is a fun and attractive way to escape the world, but makes it so we miss out on key social development.

Maybe the world was just better in some ways back then, and maybe people were ( in some ways.)

I don't want to sound like a puritan or scold but I think today's culture is somewhat in a bad way.

Years ago kids were far crueler and bullying much more of a problem than today. Sure bullying is a problem, but I do think that since adults encourage being "inclusive" and disabilities are known, the bullying is somehow "lessened."

I can give an example. When I was in school my mother would sometimes help on the playground. One time she saw a kid who was somewhat "girly" being made fun of by another kid. She complained to another playground worker about it, and he shook his head in disbelief and said " you think that's bad? In my day a kid like that would have just had the crap kicked out of him."

I am a 60YO man. I was diagnosed in my late 40s. I almost felt the gist of your post is "ignorance is bliss". I have been referred to as almost every derogatory term imaginable. As a result I grew up with a very poor self image. I have been somewhat successful financially but socially, no.

I am 54 years of age, but with a year-old diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Though, I almost certainly would have been diagnosed with a variety of diagnoses if I had been assessed for them earlier.

I don't know how to describe my life in normalized terms, but, despite having dropped out of high school and college, I have ended up working with a lot of people with recognizable names. I was able to turn my special interests in history, law and politics into a political career where I wrote or helped write several state and local laws in my community. Several lawmakers asked which law school I had attended; I had to correct them by saying that I was self-educated. In college, I practiced administrative law to help military veterans pursue their disability claims.

I also worked in film and video tech, concert tech, theatre and concert management, graphic design, technical writing, advertising, marketing, public relations and government. The only non-normal part of all this is that, while I had a wide and varied professional career, my jobs, like my friends and partners, tended to abandon me (or vice versa) after about three weeks to three years.

I'm 55. Diagnosed with Classic Autism at age 3, changed to "brain damage" a little later. Spoke at age 5.5.

Became, in retrospect, "Aspergian" after I acquired speech. Didn't do well socially, did better academically.

Had no idea I had a disability. Just thought I was weird. Didn't care what people thought. Made very few friends. Didn't care too much about that. Shoplifted a couple of times because of boredom. Very apathetic about life. Enjoyed reading alone for hours on end. No Internet or video games. Liked pinball.

Went to "special" schools most of the time. Experiments with "regular" school failed.

Always thought I'd graduate high school and go to college. Did graduate high school, but didn't go to college until age 36. Graduated at age 45.

Have worked the same clerical job since 1980. Got my license in 1998. Independent since 1981. My job involves only cursory personal interactions, though I'm a friendly person. Not involved in the social whirl.

Made some mistakes, but moderate ones. Still paying for them. Will retire in 6 years with a pension.