Older Aspies~ Feel like "bad vibe" to parents of y

Post Reply New Topic

Iam in my 50s and I was not DXd Aspergers until my 40s,well into them.
Bluntly,older Aspies who likely were not diagnosed until well into adulthood-Espeially if you ARE pretty poor and "decidedly not a sucess" materially-social status-speaking,do you ever think that the parents of modern-day,DX'd young,Aspies might see you as a "Ghost Of Christmas Future"-a not thatn ice reminder of the life that may be waiting for Aspie Sonny Boy a few decades in the future,when he's older and no longer tow-headed and cute? A bad vibe...........

Well, you've gotta admit, the new generation have it better than us in that they were diagnosed earlier and also have more resources at their fingertips. In my youth I was just garden-variety crazy.

Yup Thanks for reminding me
I do wonder what my life would've been like if I had been DX'd/treated/"understood" earlier Obviously,I'll never know

No. What parents of young Aspies think about is not something I ever think about.

Well, we can't all be the heroes of inspiration porn. It may be that my most useful role is as a bad example. "Work on your social skills, or you'll end up like HIM!"

"Inspiration porn"(turn on certain Peter Ctera song-or that duet with Amy Grant,even?) I like .Thank you.

Well, here at the commune, we get a lot of college drops and grads who want to "change the world" instead of get down to it. Sometimes I point to me -- 54, the village idiot, and weaving hammocks for a living (barely) the rest of my days -- and that helps them get their heads straight. I wish I had a college education to piss away. Because I wouldn't. Ancient mariner, that is me.

Yeah, we all got to be supercrips now, or we're no good. Lost your legs? Better get some prosthetics and climb Mount Everest. Not allowed to be an ordinary person with a disability. Oh, no, we've got to be "inspirational", or else we're horrible tragedies. Can't just put on our pants one leg at a time. Can't mess up, or we're failures; can't succeed without being inspirational. Can't be people, oh no, because, y'see, we're not quite human. If we're allowed to be everyday people, then the world has to accept that disability is a real thing that is part of some people's ordinary everyday life, and then they'd have to stop distancing themselves from it as though it were contagious. Bunch of cowards, really.

When my mom took me to doctors back in the late 1970s to peg what was "wrong" with me, I was diagnosed with boredom and low self-esteem...really.

Looking back at the psychiatric care I received in the 70s and 80s was absolutely worthless, seriously "tickle play" was pure torture and being made to talk about my "feelings" was even worse. I was actually so autistic as a youth that I was institutionalized for a year and a half which only served to make me feel even more like a deviant who was beyond help as well as ostracizing me even further from my peers, not that I ever spoke to anyone at all, much less someone of my own age.

When I went to see a psychologist last year to get an official AS dx she said that I was the mildest of the mild, but that I hit a home run with being HFA/Aspergers, the only reason that is the case is because I grew up, I am still very autistic, but I can at least communicate with others reasonably well now, and I did manage to serve a 20 year career in the USAF, I am now bagging groceries at the base commissary because I am autistic and have no tangible/marketable skills much less the ability to "sell" myself in a job interview. At least I am retired at 45, I am so freaking lucky that I somehow eeked out a career in the military, seriously every single day was a challenge, good thing my autism endowed me with a crap ton of tenacity.

My point being, I actually have a point to go along with my rant, that there is no real help out there for autistic, no one cares, oh you "think" that you are autistic and need help? Riiight
So if there is help out there (talking about Team America here) for people on the spectrum, I aint seeing it, or I don't know who to ask for help, why? Because I am freaking autistic, thats why!

Yeah they said the same about me in the early seventies. My seven year old son has had a much better time of it due to the fact he has been recognised and diagnosed as autistic.

I don't think parents are too concerned with older aspies ect, they are too busy trying to get the best for their kids, I know I am.

I think those that were born after 2000 are way better off I am part of the first gen of aspergers and did not receive much of help I was just more or less segregated from my peers

^putting it like that,being way better off due to being born after x year sounds pesamistic or resentful even if that was not the intention at all.
autistics who are children or teens now are not better off,they just have a better chance at getting their autism recognised and understood,theres been huge cuts in funding for all kinds of support so its a fight to get any.
speaking purely from a UK view,the autistic kids and teens of today;those who either need support now or when they have to leave home are pretty much screwed because even some profoundly autistic kids are being refused full time residential funding and part time respite funding,our place used to have a lot of kids in it but the kids wing is struggling to get contracts because of this muppetry from david cameron and his bunch of hooray henrys.
those with less needs but still IN need have been having their direct payments canceled,which leaves their parents having to be full time carers and the youngsters having no freedom or independance away from them with their carers.

it sucks for everyone to be honest,am not sure getting diagnosed early and having early intervention is a good tradeoff for a life time of mental health or behavioral issues,and regressing due to poor support.



BydSarrett,
why not start writing a blog about the experiences have had from growing up to now? am sure a lot of us on wp and elsewhere woud be interested in it.

+1

Seriously.

Fior and I went to an Autism support that supposedly included parents, SO, adults and children. Also of every range of the spectrum from LFA to Aspies.

Well...

The NT patients bitched that having the Aspie Adults there was a buzz kill aka downer. That their children were never going to have "those issues* (never understood what that meant), and the Aspies had really nothing to offer them.

Mind you. General support group. Not just for parents.

Yeah. Throw enough social skills classes at them, and that will cure them. And the general feeling HFA/Aspies were a drain on services, which is BS. Aspies in our area get zilch for help.

Eventually the parents got their own group.

Duplicate post

Last edited by Tawaki on 14 Jul 2013, 4:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

This.