Is this the worst time to be on the spectrum?

Post Reply New Topic

With so much noise and 'shiny' cities and whatnot... not sure if people are having sensory issues *due* to that, but at any rate, surely being born centuries ago when cars didn't just devastate the landscape with noise and sirens drill huge bloody cavities in one's mind... would have been better? And I know some might argue that since ASD is more recognized that it's an okay time due to that... but, not really, as all psychiatry does currently is label people and barely anything else (there isn't any specific medication that is prescribed (even though there can easily be, in the form of entactogens, if only everyone wasn't so goddamn prejudiced)).

I, personally, would have given anything to live in an era when cars hadn't yet been invented. (Whoever invented them... f**k you!! ! )

Yes I can understand what you mean & really I like cars it is noise from a loud car radio that bugs me. Me I prefer medium sized cities to large cities.

In the past Aspergers wasn't invented, it was just a different type of personality or possibly, depending on how different people thought you, you'd be put in the local asylum

I agree with you from the point of view of all the hi-tech stuff and noise and insistence on perfection but in the past we didnt' have the internet so you'd be sitting on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere with no way of communicating with other people who felt like you. Or perhaps you'd be more included anyway from being part of a tight-knit farming community, with a role to play. It all depends on how people with what is called Aspergers now were treated in the past. Did they integrate better or worse? - hard to know as we don't get to write history very often.

Life expectancy would be lower. You could die of a horrible disease or get murdered a lot more easily. Depends how far back you want to go.

Probably not. For those of us lucky enough to live in relatively prosperous countries there is more support to allow autistic people to live enjoyable and fulfilling lives than in the past. Autistic people don't get left in asylums to rot any more. Our difficulties can be recognised now whereas before we would have just been labelled as "misfits" or "ne'er-do-wells". I think, on balance, it's probably better now than at nearly any time in the past. edit: Except for those living in undeveloped countries where it is probably just as bad or nearly just as bad as it always was for autistic people or anyone else who doesn't fit the mould e.g. the situation that gay people face in many African countries.

i have lost use of one of my windows in my room because of motorists.

Personally, I think this is a great time to be on the spectrum. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, back in the days when being born and raised in Brooklyn actually meant something, it's been striking me more and more that perhaps "the spectrum" is an evolutionary way of coping with living in large cities. I've been away from NYC for over 30 years now, but from what I remember of then, things like totally ignoring people around you, never making eye contact when you did have to pay attention to them, and being quickly able to shut off one emotion and get on with another were perhaps more marked in me than in most but behaviors that all fellow New Yorkers -- well, okay, most -- engaged in simply as a way of coping. The noise didn't bother me, probably because I grew up with it and learned to tune it out. (In fact, when I moved to Colorado, I couldn't sleep because it was _too_ quiet. In NYC, if it's quiet, something is very, very wrong.) I have never adapted to living out here in "the country," where all the social rules I learned the hard way no longer apply.

As far as integrating in a tight-knit farming community, well, that's pretty much what I moved into. And trust me, they integrate FAR worse!! Unless you are of an old established family and go to the "right" church, you are a waste of time. And if you thought social rules were strict in a city, they're strangulating out here! For example, in NYC, when you move to a new building (or at least, this was the case back in my day), you immediately introduced yourself to the people on your floor. Out here, at least amongst the natives, you never, absolutely never, introduce yourself to a stranger except in an obvious emergency. The natives introduce themselves to the newcomer first; until they do, you don't exist, and most of them would like to keep it that way. They take the American ideal of self-sufficiency to outrageous extremes.

I miss living in Brooklyn, but I can, alas, no longer afford to live where I was born, which is just sad. I don't think I could cope with the weather there anymore either. But it was a LOT easier to live there than here!

But no, it's a great time to be on the spectrum. I'm enjoying it! The folks around here ignore me and I ignore them, but there's this internet and it makes life a lot more entertaining.

@CrazyOldBat - you say it's a good time to be on the spectrum, but from what you've described it doesn't seem like you have many difficulties commonly encountered by those kind of people. You say you've learnt to tune noise out, and maybe some do have that capability, but I seem to be getting worse at it as I grow older.

Mootoo, I will second Invisiblesilent's excellent response.

Noise is a problem for me too, but since I live in a place now where I can hear nothing but the birds singing and the blood rushing through my head when I turn off my household appliances, it is still possible to escape noise, although it's not easily done. It's a matter of relocating to a rural area off of any major highways. I would strongly advise doing just this to anybody who shares my sensitivities so noise.

Since I'm guessing you were diagnosed at a young age, I hope you will take my word for it that you are blessed, even if there is no cure. I spent the first 46 years of my life not having a clue as to what was wrong with me. Those around me, including my family, thought I wanted to be the way I am, and since I had no answers, I wound up internalizing that poison. I still don't speak to my family to this day over the terrible way they treated me. The reason I live in such a rural area was that I was obsessed with escaping those I saw as my persecutors, which was essentially everybody; I longed to be a hermit. Finding out what AS is was the happiest day of my life. When I found out was AS is, at last I was able to start making some real progress beyond thinking I am somehow uniquely evil and deficient for not being able to fit in. Now at least I can accept myself even if others can't always do the same. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anybody.

I say count your blessings, as meager as they may or may not be. If you can't deal with the noise, as I couldn't, move to where it won't be an issue.