Flashback to the early 60s.

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Flashback to the early 60s. My first school was observant enough to recommend I was taken to see someone albeit it was thought it might be what is now called cerebral palsy. Autism was a narrow diagnosis . NVLD unheard of. Dyspraxia ,or whatever it was called then , far less well known. With the initial suspicions dismissed other avenues were not considered to be explored . There was not the knowledge on such matters that there is nowadays. Fast forward to the late 60s to Mid 70s and in school correspondence I acquired I’m described as poorly coordinated ,bad at drawing and writing,messy and disorganised. There’s already a pattern long before of difficulty interacting with others . Again there are dots ready to be joined together but not the professional will and knowledge to do so.

Mid 70s the long period of psychiatric care begins. As is typical of psychiatry a finely detailed assessment of background is not done , and things not looked at from a whole person perspective. All the signs ready to be picked up on are overlooked. Indeed what should have prompted more intelligent people to consider what was going on (a reaction to being told I was being sent to make doll’s houses which I freaked out at because I have no manual constructional skills ) was instead scathingly dismissed by a less than empathetic and non too bright psychiatrist as my being “an awkward and troublesome teenager”.

Opportunity to help lost. A myopic and far from intelligent pattern of everything being related to the psychiatric diagnosis I had being the order of the day instead for the next 40+ years , and the thought of looking beyond that very much dismissed.

So many years ,so many signs, so much that was overlooked.

I was only officially diagnosed three years ago.
Throughout school, most my difficulties were blamed on my hearing loss.
Even visual and other sensitivities were put down to my senses "compensating for the hearing loss".
I often wonder what my life would have been like had I been diagnosed as a child.

Edit due to WP malfunctioning. (Can't delete post).

WTH?

Sorry, FM.

No problem Raleigh


Without the support of a good partner then wife for over 20 years and now a good stepdaughter and granddaughters I would have been in a very bad place. Not that the psychiatric profession who have always tended to be rather callous ever cared much.

My public school threw me out after 2nd grade luckly a private school accepted me.
I did see a clinicion but whatever diagnosis that was rendered has been forgotten. My public school accepted me back for 5th grade. As for labels they were unofficial pejoratives “fa***t” “homo”, “queer” as that is what anybody who was different was thought of in the 60 s and 70s, “painfully shy”, “spastic”, “does not live up to his potential”.

I was called all those things---plus "ret*d," "spazz," "Hebe," "four-eyes," etc.

No school report ever said I was "painfully shy." I used to get thrown out of class for calling out the answers.

They just said I needed "discipline," and needed to learn to keep my notebook neat. A neat notebook/looseleaf was seen as the entrée to great things. Binders were called "looseleafs" back in the 60s/70s.

I was called the missing link at prep school. At public school I had monkey chats directed at me by virtually a whole class.

I used to behave like an ape in the subway----before I was the Wolfman.