How autistics were treated in past decades and centuries?

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GREAT posts, r2d2, and ASPartOfMe----I totally agree!!

Also, r2d2: Your post made me think of all the Salem Witch Trials / burnings of the middle ages. Lots of times I've read that alot of those people were mentally ill. I believe, also, that ASDers would have been lumped-in with them.

There is a PBS documentary on it that I saw about a decade ago.
It is very well made and a few hours long.
He was known for struggling socially, while also hearing voices and seeing things in his older years, especially after his imprisonment in the castle tower by the German princes.

There is a good amount of research into all the health problems he suffered from, including his own diaries.

Oh! I forgot----and this is actually off-topic, I suppose----but, if you could indulge me, for a moment.....

One of my all-time favorite books, that I like to re-read, alot, is about how, back in the 1800s, people weren't caring for their wheat storage bins, properly, and the residue was making people have hallucinations (meltdowns?), and were thought to be witches, and were killed. This book, "Acceptable Risk" (written by an MD; but, fiction), was so very provocative to me----really made me go "Hmmm----what if that's happening, toDAY, and making people have mental / ASD problems, contributing to them, exacerbating them, or whatever!?!?! !"

It's probable that my relatives (from both sides of my family) had Aspergers-like traits. Decades back, my relatives got by through occupations that didn't require strong social skills, as well as occupations (by their very nature) involving only some interaction with mostly like-minded people e.g., Forestry, Engineering.

I found a source here, describing a memorial to 3,500 autistic children killed at the Nazis' hands during WW2 in Germany and Poland.

Ummm....try up to the early 1980s in some states. You were considered profoundly ret*d and untrainable.

If your child was unmanageable at home and at school, the doctor would talk to the parents and strongly suggest you place them in an institution for the child and your own good. Especially if there were other children at home. There was no help other than that. The parents would take them to the state "hospital", sign over their rights, and that was it. I don't imagine the kids got very many visitors after that. It was basically warehousing.

I know this occurred during the mid 90s, because my boyfriend's sister had twins. One was severely developmentally delayed, and she turned that one over to the state. I believe he is 25 and still living in a group home now. He may have ASD, but the mom never bothered to really get him checked out.

For LF people (anyone with a severe disability, and had families who couldn't afford a nanny or a "handler"), the family peace trumped you being in the family. That is why Grandin should thank her lucky stars, her mom was as aggressive as she was with Temple's learning and growth. That was so SO unusual at the time.

Many doctors would tell moms -why would you want jeopardize your marriage and family happiness over a child who will never leave home and amount to anything. And if you did want to live with a non verbal, screaming, running, head banging, barely trainable child, what the hell was wrong with you? There was major pressure and side eye given to moms who did that. Obviously not everyone did, but I knew at least 4 rather large families (6+ kids, 19968-1982) growing up who put siblings on the state homes. There was absolutely no help at all for those families to make it possible for the child to stay. I don't even think my school district got a rudimentary special (other than for deaf and blind children) education program until 1977. That was only for Downs Syndrome and the physically disabled. (spina biffida and issues like that)

You don't need to go back to the 1900s for warehousing. It happened 30 years ago.

I sometimes wonder if for the more mildly affected things may have actually been easier in the past, the world is socially a lot more complex place today than in the past, people were generally more reserved, the world of work more stable and routine.

In Russia it is still strong social stigma - autistic people are treated like dangerous psychos. So as it was in Soviet Union when doing everything together was considered the only normal and natural way of behavior. And the same was in Russian Empire prior to 1917 when autistic persons were regarded as "feeble-minded" or even "demon-possessed" by the powerful Russian orthodox church.

I don't think that life was ever less socially complex and indeed when people lived in small villages in subsistence agriculture people were even more socially enmeshed and reliant on each other. High functioning folk might have done ok in monasteries and convents or may have ended up the maiden aunt or bachelor uncle living with their parents, but a lot of people were probably locked in sheds and died early from poor care. There was much less understanding and tolerance of conditions of the mind. Meltdowns might easily have been seen (and still are seen in some places) as possession - and the best treatment for that was being locked up, much better than having the devil tortured out of you. Otherwise people might end up beggars or worse. I don't think you should look back with too much nostalgia.

I definitely could have been warehoused in the 1960s. I'm glad my mother didn't believe those doctors.

Let's not forget that "[Hans] Asperger called his young patients 'little professors', and believed the individuals he described would be capable of exceptional achievement and original thought later in life. In a society governed by the Nazi eugenics policy of sterilizing and killing social deviants and the mentally handicapped, Asperger's paper passionately defended the value of autistic individuals, writing 'We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... sychopathy .

Standing up to Nazis on behalf of Aspies. Amazing.

I suspect a minority of ASD adults back then became either recluses, alcoholics or both.

This is more of a small town vs big town question. I as with many others on the spectrum do better with smaller groups.

I found it far from easy but a lot less difficult then today once I became a young adult and learned the basics. You could get a job by answering newspaper ads and proving you had the skills for the the job and were presentable at the interview. Networking was far from as must. Today with all the social media every word is massively analyzed and there is more of a guilty until proven innocent and assumption you have a hidden agenda today. You thought of yourself as a person, the idea of "personal brand" was not widespread.

My husband might have been better off in the 50s and 60s. He has Aspergers.

You didn't need to graduate high school.

You could do a job like a janitor or stocking and make a decent income.

You could rent a room or a studio apartment. No one cared about "lifestyle".

You weren't expected to be dynamic or socialize. If you were single at 25, as a man, everyone figured you just weren't the marrying type. People left you alone.

Now (minimum)

Everyone must be college educated!

Everyone must be have fabulous, dynamic job!

YOU MUST SOCIALIZE AND SCHOOZE like a used car salesman. So many thing in your life depend on social networking.

You must like working as a team/collective/group.

Collaboration! Yes!

You can never appear to be depressed, angry, stressed or anything. Now you are a buzz kill.

Introverts need not apply.

60 years ago, the social skill set bar was much, much lower.

60 years ago, mental health professionals did not dominate in the way they do today, nor had they invaded "normal life" with their drive to pathologize everything for their own financial and professional benefit. No-one went to a therapist because there weren't any. There were no helplines. People needing support went to their families, partners, close friends, churches or GP (who would have prescribed tranquilizers), or just got on with it. A lot more involvement with local community structures was the norm - whether sports clubs, service clubs, or local social activities like dances, fund-raising events etc. There was far more connection and less social isolation, full employment and no dog-eat-dog ideology of individualism gone mad. This was positive for everyone's mental health, overall.

I went to school in the early 1970s. Throughout my academic career teachers would often realize I was "special"--went to the ret*d classes for few days until the figured out I didn't belong there.

My special interest of airplanes may have really made a difference. My mom let me build balsa wood and tissue airplanes at a very young age, even though it meant using a very sharp razor blade as a tool. I'm sure this is why I am very good with my hands. I just realized that this skill made it possible for me to complete standardized tests extremely quickly--in those days folks who did well often got a "free pass" in class--they didn't know what else to do with you. One totally inept social studies teacher--she just had use read of books and never did any hands on teaching--ever--let me read the newspaper--every day!

Unless I had developed this coordination with my hands, it wouldn't have been possible for me to routinely do obscenely well in standardized tests.