As is also true today a lot depended on your version of autism, your personality and the people and institutions you interacted with.
Disadvantages of growing up in the the 1960s?1980s before anything was known about the Autism Spectrum vs today:
The only logical conclusion others and yourself could reach based on available evidence was that your difficulties were the result of you being a weak or bad person if not both. There was no help whatsoever, but there was harm of misdiagnosis and institutionalization. I stayed away from professional psychological help from third grade until last year because there was still great stigmatization about middle class and working class males using their services Thinking about it now, logically my decision was stupidly based on ego but in reality it was one of the best decisions I made because non diagnosis is often a lot better then wrong diagnosis. Bullying was a "right of passage". If you did not fight back you were not a real man. Once you were an adult there was no other option other then trying to fit in to the company culture. I was often complemented on my work ethic. My motives were not altruistic, I knew I had to work 3 times as hard as everybody else, not to be as good as everybody else just to prevent from being fired. Tired?, that meant I had to ?double down? and work even harder. And they still complained I never smiled. Yes It worked at times. It also took a deep and lasting toll.
Advantages of growing up 1960s-1980?s before anything was known about the Autism Spectrum vs growing up today:
There were some real advantages if you were mild enough and had enough willpower to survive and get employed. All the talk about diversity today is just that, talk. This is the most conformist period since the 1950?s. From the 1960?s through the 1990?s if you were different there were countercultures to go to. With no internet you had to put in the time and effort and have the know how to find them. Just because it was a counterculture does not mean it was good for autistics. Despite the ?do your own thing? expression popular back then, the ?hippie? counterculture emphasized large group based and touchy-feely activities(ie Woodstock) over the self made man(gender understanding was way behind today). What generation does Autism Speaks and a lot of DSM 5 come from? Baby boomers. By the end of the 1970s and 1980s you had the punk, post punk, New Wave, Alt Rock subcultures that emphasized more individuality. Billy Idol?s ?Dancing by Myself? was somewhat of a hit. Nerdy, spastic groups such as The Talking Heads, Devo found an audience and we found them. You had the arrival of the personal computers. And in the pre internet 1980s ?personal? devices were literally what they were.
As I mentioned earlier circumstance had a lot to do with your ability to take part in countercultutures . If you were a teen or young adult with some means in the UK or on the east and West coasts or college towns in America it was there, If you were stuck in Junior High or in middle of nowhere it was as much of a hell as it ever was. Dressing ?New Wave? got you beat up for being gay. If you married you had too many responsibilities to go seek counterculture, conforming was expected.
I mentioned individualism in the last paragraph. Like everything else it had it?s advantages and disadvantages for those of us on the spectrum that we did not know existed. The disadvantages were discussed above no support or sympathy if you were a ?failure?. Advantage was the ?loner? who did their own thing be it John Wayne, Dirty Harry or Einstein were respected if they succeeded.
In the working world personality and extraversion were important but not the be all and end all it is today. As has been mentioned there were a lot more jobs and good jobs around. Autistically the main advantage was if you could survive, it was often being in the same job while working for the same company your whole life. Perfect for people like routine/dislike change. Insurance and retirement was not something you worried about, the company paid for it and the insurance actually paid for a lot more then today. These factors acted as somewhat of a counterbalance to the stress of being social and trying fit in. Employers did not care what the hell you did during evenings and weekends as long it did not effect your production or result in bad publicity. And they could not find you anyway, no smartphones. You were not tied to your job, cameras where not recording your every move so you really could de-stress by being yourself during the evenings and weekends.
Observation and Commentary:
The DSM IV era saw so much progress not only in knowledge but more importantly in attitude from the outside world and most importantly from the Aspie/Autistic communities that were created during that era.
Now we are in a different era. An era of backlash. I am reading a lot more posts with these themes, of a lot of NT?s also have those problems, you are have a job/have friends that shows social cognition so you are not autistic, it is just social anxiety (for reasons described above, in todays world that by itself is a more of a problem then ever). Another words pretty much the same themes that were common back before knowledge of the Autism Spectrum.
There is something to the cliche ?innocence is bliss? because having seen the light it is so damm frustrating to see us well on our way to going back to the pre DSM IV way of thinking. The backlash to me feels like a ball of mud rolling down a hill getting bigger and gaining momentum as more mud and other objects cakes to it. It seems too late to stop it from doing whatever damage it is going to do.
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“Self Acceptance is a process not a performance”
“You are autistic enough. And you always have been”
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.
20 Jul 2014, 4:57 pm
