Has autsim robbed you of your childhood?

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No. I had friends and parents that cared about me, and I was intoxicated with my own dreams. The extremely cruel verbal and sometimes physical abuse from other kids comes back to me sometimes, but the drunken despair of not finding a good job after college was a lot worse.

Autism did not take my childhood away. The things people did to me because I have and am it did.

On the contrary, I feel like being autistic has given me an extended childhood, since I hit a block in my emotional development around the time I started puberty. Even now I'm unsure of whether or not I'll ever truly act my age.

Good point. Here's how I see my life. Wasted childhood. As my real age hit adulthood, I'm starting to be more aware of my surroundings but I still have a child-like mindset. Like I'm never too serious and I'm not that "proper".

Absolutely not. There were far worse problems in my life than autism and most likely, I would have never made the friends I made if it weren't for autism (seeing as most of the friends I have are through school and through workshops for the mentally disabled/mentally ill). Sure, it doesn't influence everything I do, but it got the first domino to fall, so to speak and to some degree, it has shaped the person I've become. That's not a completely good thing (I'm certainly not perfect and I probably have a serious neurosis) but other people seem to like me (or tolerate me at least) so that's a good sign.

I didn 't have a picture perfect childhood but who really does? Autism was the least of my problems growing up, to be honest (and i've always known I've had it). I think my positive view on autism probably got to do with the schooling I had and the therapy I got.

Absolutely not. Childhood as people think of it in certain places is a cultural construct. The amount of the world where childhood is a blissful and innocent time of frolicking and playing is by far the minority both now and historically. Anyone who thinks they "missed their childhood" because it doesn't have those characteristics is laboring under a delusion of the privileged. All over the world (including in America among poorer people) there are children who have to work the moment they become capable, have to raise the younger children in their families after their parents die or go away, and have to deal with so-called "adult" issues from the day they are born. Those of us who have the luxury to believe childhood should be about playing and a general lack of responsibility, should get a clue instead of complaining that we "lost our childhoods" because they didn't meet an ideal that few people's childhoods meet. It really makes me mad when people run around acting like they know what "childhood" or "adolescence" or "young adulthood" or "mature adulthood" or "old age" ought to be like, and then gripe about how they have "lost" such a thing because they're either disabled or a loved one is. Welcome to reality, you didn't lose your childhood, you just, like most of the rest of the world, didn't measure up to a ridiculous and sometimes even destructive (because people who meet the ideal do it on the backs of those who don't) ideal.

No, I enjoyed it. I didn't have many friends, so school wasn't that great, but who likes school anyway? but I didn't want heaps of friends. I was very very happy at home playing with my toys on my own.

I feel that way in my mid forties-when I was a child I was viciously teased and really was never invited anywhere even by my "friend" at the time-I still love cartoons and still act kind of goofy and immature sometimes. I am not ashamed of it and will not allow myself to be made to feel ashamed about it-there is nothing wrong with it.

That nails it for me.

Yes, that's a lot of the reason why AS has caused me such problems as an adult - because parts of my brain are stuck in adolescence and can never really 'grow up'.

Either I was not "autistic enough" or my parents didn't bother with too much intervention.

no. teenage years & adulthood, yes.

i was more or less ok until there were outside pressures put on me to try to "assimilate"

I know what you mean. I goofed off and was silly, but only with my sister and cousins. But I could also be a pretty serious child, always worrying about stuff. I would constantly ask my mom about financial stuff, when kids aren't supposed to worry about that. I spent recess at school pacing back and forth and twitching my fingers. I was absorbed in my own imagination. I never even noticed other kids staring at me and laughing because I was so zoned out. Let's just say, my childhood was not carefree like a lot of other people. Kids aren't supposed to be totally stressed out about stuff. I was. *sigh*
Also, I don't remember a lot of being a kid. I think I blocked most of it out. I had my strongest aspie symptoms when I was younger. I've trained myself out of some of it, thanks to intervention. But I still obsess over stuff and love my routines.

Same story here.

If anything robbed me of a childhood it was what my mother and the babysitter did to me. I've read some inner child books about reparenting and found them to be interesting.

No, but abuse, neglect, and abandonment did.