I was born in '58, and I don't remember any videos of myself as a young child. I think my father started taking home movies when I was about 9 and we started going on family vacations.
I've been looking at old pictures of myself lately, and I can definitely see the autism. It's subtle, but it's there. In some pictures (<--like the one to the left), I'm looking directly at the camera. Those are usually the ones taken by family members.
But there are some school pictures where I'm definitely looking askance, like I'm shying away from making eye contact with the guy behind the camera. I've been comparing them to a photo I have of my dad, and the thing we did with our eyes is pretty similar. I've also been looking at some photos of myself that a friend took as a graduation present my senior year of high school. In one of them, I'm looking directly at the camera with a kind of "Don't mess with me" look, but in some of the others, I have that same kind of unfocused, looking away, not knowing what to do with my arms thing happening.
I don't think I would have noticed any of this if I hadn't been diagnosed as an adult. I've looked at the pictures all my life and never seen the features, because they're very subtle. But I pointed them out to my husband and he saw them too, so I know it's not just my eyes playing tricks on me.
30 Dec 2008, 7:14 pm
