WHERE have all the Adults gone???

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Yeah, it's awful stuff. Goes all too well with the Cassandra Affective Deprivation Disorder boosters.

Rant from a NT spouse.

Thank you! Thank your for bring up where have all the adult Aspies vaporized to.

In my area, there are NO support groups for HF/Aspies. The only adult supports groups are for families with adult children who are really impaired. I'm talking non verbal adult children.

How many Aspies here have multiple degrees and are stuck doing jobs that felons and illegal aliens get because they need help just navigating the hiring process? How about just managing your house hold? How many Aspies are in marriages/relationships that melting down due to Aspie communication/sensory issues, but all marriage counselors are geared to NT relationships? There are no marriage counselors that work with Aspie/NT couples where I am, and that's a large, Metro city.

I know cute kids make people part with cash for fund raising purposes, but HF/Asperger does not magically cure itself one the person hits the age of majority. Autism is a life long issue.

In my area, Aspie help goes through Community Mental Health or jail (depending on what happens). Both are a joke. CMH will only really help the severe Bipolar or Schizophrenic get loaded up on antipsychotics. Jail, well, have a melt down like Fior did in the store, and no one gives a s**t about your Autism. The police get called, and during your sensory overload have to figure out how to keep yourself from getting tasered and dragged off.

Rant over....

I consider myself lucky in many respects. My mother has been very helpful until about the time I finished university, I can thank a lot to her. I think some counseling and mentoring is inevitable even if someone can manage to live independently. I get it through a friendship, we talk through my actual issues on a weekly basis. In addition I've found a therapist I think I can trust, since she's been my kindergarten teacher, now in adult therapy. Unfortunately, the local NHS does not have much financial resource for adults. Personally I'm fine with it, at least at the moment.

Oh, and don't forget about support groups. Finally I've found something like that here where I live. Besides, I'm helping a less-abled AS group, so to speak.

Recently we have launched a support forum with the hope that it would function much like WP, but it's primary language is my native one, not English.

@Verdandi, try to use double-quotes when you are searching expressions like "autistic parents".

Yeah, every interesting-looking or easy test I take is only aimed for parents with babies. There is only one test that is aimed at adults but I've seen it everywhere so many times that I wish they'll make new tests aimed for adults on the spectrum.

My thoughts exactly. I'm tired of adults being pushed aside and ignored by these so-called autism advocacy groups. I guess they think that people outgrow it or magically become neurotypical when they reach adulthood

Or perhaps the mentality is that you're an adult and need to help yourself. Either way, it's absurd. Sure, it's great to help children, but they need to remember there are thousands of adults who need help too (many of them need more assistance due to the lack of early intervention when they were children).

I think it does little good to provide services for the kids you plan to abandon as adults if they turn out to still need some help when they get there. If they want their money's worth, they're going to have to recognize the need for continuing services for those for whom childhood intervention is not enough. Some will be okay, because what they get as kids is enough to go on. But others will have trouble, because they need ongoing support.

At this point in my life, I can "pass" but do very poorly with some things that others don't commonly see. Few people know me well enough and see me often and long enough to know all that's really going on. So, the assumption is that I'm doing so well that, even if I turn out to be an Aspie, it can't be affecting me very much. Even most of my family members think this. I'm very lucky for my sister, my girlfriend, and the friends who are cluing in (right now, especially the one who's been watching my niece while my sister and I go in for my appointments and who even came in with us for the last one, because my niece was with her dad that day).

Oh, and, speaking of passing, that may be one reason for people thinking Asperger's is currently being over-diagnosed. If people can't see it up front, they assume it isn't really there. Same for any hidden disability, as I've learned from having fibromyalgia. When I first got diagnosed, in the 80s, hardly anyone had heard of it. I was 19, and people just thought I was lazy.

As I said in my post in the EEG brain trace 'can detect autism' thread, if I get diagnosed, I'm planning on doing something about this problem of unacknowledged adults. This thread is making me all the more determined to do so. I have an activist history, though it's receding more into my personal history these days, and maybe it's going to be time to revive that aspect of my life for the sake of this issue. My issue.

I went to a couple of ASD conventions. Went to every booth and table. There were some very interesting services being offered, some of which I felt would be useful to me. The response to every inquiry I made was that I'm too old. They don't want to deal with anyone over 28 years old. I think these groups only want to deal with people who were children AFTER AS was included in the DSM. It's unfortunate because many of us who grew up before AS was officially recognized are more f****d up than people who had support as children. As pathetic as the services are in school now they are still better than what I had growing up. The answer to my problems when I was growing up was 'bad kids' school. I don't mean 'slow' kids, I mean kids who were at risk of being sent to juvenile hall or jail. Instead of helping me with my problems they turned me into a monster that wanted to destroy everything and everyone I came in contact with. I pulled myself out of it after a few years but I had to do it on my own. Every little gain I've made has been by myself but I've also had many failures along the way. Even today there is nothing out there for me, I'm still on my own. In this society the answer to many problems is prison; fortunately I was able to avoid it when I was younger but there were some pretty close calls. I'm glad most of you have some help available these days, as sh***y as it is.

The fact that some of us have learned so much on our own ought not to make them think we need nothing. It should show what worth is being hidden by the lack of help we've received and how much there is to gain by providing support. I've also come a long way, though not so at risk in my youth for run-ins with the law as you, Rascal77s. I respect your efforts and admire your accomplishment of helping yourself out. Isn't that what's supposed to earn respect? Aren't people who help themselves supposed to be worthy of other, additional help? (Meaning no disrespect to those who can't help themselves, which would include those kids whose parents advocate for them.)

I was told there's an organization locally that only provides services to those diagnosed before age 21, regardless of how old they are now. So, they'll help adults, but only those lucky enough to find out they needed that kind of help early enough in life. This is even though they'll assess an adult of any age, apparently. I think that's ludicrous. Maybe it's a funding issue or something. But it still stinks.