what did parents used to do with autistics

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I consider myself pretty lucky. As others have mentioned it wasn't unusual for kids to be "put away" in the 1940s.

But what "did" happen is you were (at least in my family) treated as a second class citizen. You were expected, in larger groups of people, to stand out of the way (because you were "slow"). Because of physical clumsiness you weren't encouraged to play sports (or supplied with equipment) as siblings were. You ate with the little kids while younger siblings ate with the adults. ETC. ETC. ETC.

In school some teachers wanted little to do with you: I spent almost half of my entire (it felt that way) kindergarten in the stool in the corner or standing between wet coats in the "cloak room." Totally F'd up my latter education.

Unfortunately my uneducated parents would regularly threaten my brother and myself with institutionalization if we weren't "better." I wish I didn't have this memory.

denny

I'm happy that I'm around now and that I was born in the 1970s, instead of the 1940s or earlier. My parents kept me when I was diagnosed at the age of age of 5 and a half in 1980. My parents lost their temper with me a few times, and I got a few spankings. I was chastised for going on about my special interests between the ages 7 and 10 and again when I was 13. I was told that there were a lot of things that a lot of people can do that I would never be able to do by my dad the summer that I was going into Grade 10. I was 15 at the time. I was never given the opportunity to choose my own college courses or pick my own career. My dad stated obvious facts that I knew when I was 6 and occasionally raised his voice to me as loud as he could until I stopped talking to him all together until recently in the past 5 years. My sister was adamant that I was the buffoon of the family, and she made sure that my parents valued her knowledge and intelligence over mine and she's younger than I am. I was made to feel like the family Idiot.

As a result, I do my best not to hurt anybody or anything in any way. My parents have not heard me speak a peep about the special interests that I've had since I was 15. I'm looking for work and pop cans. I don't state obvious facts to anyone, because to do so would be to insult the recipient's intelligence. I don't like loud voices and yelling. I also don't insult anybody's intelligence. It's true that I'm a drum head as I think with my heart, but I'd rather be loved and teased, than feared and respected.

Mick

She was born in New Zealand where she lived and wrote until her death a couple of years ago. One of her novels was nominated for a Nobel Prize.

As a young woman she was misdiagnosed as being schizophrenic and sent to a lunatic asylum where she was confined for years. It was one of those very repressive old time institutions where all the inmates were assumed to be insane. Countless episodes of involuntary electrock shock therapy shredded her memory but not her ability to write. No-one at the asylum took her "scribbling" seriously and they regarded it as a joke.
Fortunately one of the short stories she wrote won a prize just before a scheduled lobotomy took place. Two established NZ literary figures (Charles Brasch and Frank Sargeson) learned of her plight and rescued her.

She went on to write very distinctive novels though became best known to the general reading public for her 3 volumes of autobiography: To The Is Land, An Angel at My Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City.

Throughout her writing career she complained about never being able to find anywhere quiet enough to write without outside noise interfering with her work. Despite her enormous success as a "serious" novelist, many of the NZ public continued to describe her as mentally ill and she lived a very solitary life, never diagnosed as an aspie, nor did she seem to come across the diagnosis herself. In my view, this must have greatly added to her inner pain. After her autobiographies were published, late in her career, many of her detractors said things like "she doesn't sound mad in them does she?"

I'm glad I had liberal 90's parents, who were dead set against physical punishment or pressuring me to be NT. Of course, the pressure started mounting as my parents started drifting apart, bit when they were together, I was treated well and respected for my differences. Granted, I was apparently such a difficult kid to raise that my parents decided against having anymore offspring (until my dad remarried, but that wasn't that long ago), but again, I appreciate the respect they had for me, and I do not think things would have worked out so well if I had been born a decade or so sooner, despite my fantasies of being an '80s or '90s teen.