Has autsim robbed you of your childhood?

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I may have made similar posts before (hey, everyone has their obsessions) but as I was eating lunch today at my university campus, there were a bunch of kids playing around (for some reason a certain summer camp for kids took place on campus). It reminded me yet again of how I wish I could've enjoyed my childhood playing around. Instead, I refused to interact with others and I always got angry and start crying over little things. There were a few people looking after the kids (perhaps high school aged people getting their volunteer hours) and they seem to have plenty of fun too. I'm not sure if I interact well with kids nowadays. Even if I do interact well with kids, it would look really weird because all I can do is play around with kids and I can't interact with older people.

I've had a very good childhood, full of fun and excitement.

I'm not sure if I was really robbed of my childhood, but if I was it was the people around me who did it. Not autism.

I'm about to turn 41 and I feel like I've been robbed of my entire life.

I worked at a child care center for 3 years as I was going to college. Good therapy. I don't know if I was good at it, and I don't know if I could do the same thing today, but at the time it worked. Try volunteering at a child care center. Usually they ask you pass a police background check.

No. I had a happy childhood.

I probably would have voted yes at age 12 but today no. I was happy and seriously, kids don't need birthday parties and social groups to be happy. They can live without that stuff. I sure did and only had two parties total growing up. Once for my 4th birthday, it was just all my family and relatives and everyone played and visited while dad and I spent time with my new roller skates. And I had one again when I was nine and I hated it so I never had one again. And in my teens I never threw parties or had social groups. Yeah my AS made my life harder but I lived and got over it. I still had friends and toys and did normal kid stuff like riding bikes or playing in the dirt or climbing. I had loving parents and a roof over my head.

Absolutely not, but then I had no idea that I had Autism as a child, so I wasn't worrying about it. It affected my teen years a lot, both socially but even more so in terms of depression - I don't think my AS began to cause me serious problems until I hit the workplace as an adult.

Frankly, an innocent and playful 'childhood' is largely a product of industrialization and affluence - a luxury. I feel fortunate to have had that at all.

My AS may have interferred with whatever having a "happy childhood" involved; what definetly interferred with my ability to have a "happy childhood" was growing up with two alcoholic parents and a severe beating by a babysitter when I was ten years old. Like Willard, my undiagnosed AS didn't really start mucking up my life until after college and I made the attempt to function in the NT world.

I spend most of my childhood absorbed in my own little happy world. Then middle school came and socialisation and interaction with other people became important and that's when I started to have problems.

I had a great childhood. Not exactly normal, but not because of AS. I didn't know I had it then, wasn't diagnosed until I was a young adult.

Yes

I had few friends. The students and teachers at my grade school treated me like I was a ret*d. I was in I.E.P till high school. My parents were always yelling at me to try harder in school. I had to play alone with imaginary friends because other kids thought I was too ret*d to play with them. I didn't start making friends till I was 12 years old. I was physically assaulted at school and teased. I didn't start enjoying school till high school, after I was sent to a high school for learning disabled kids and ended up fairing much better socially.

Pretty good. Nobody liked me, but I had many books and I visited many places. All was organised. Now I must care about many things.
And I'm no more this cute and terrible Wonderkid. Sadly

No, AS/Autism didn't rob me of my childhood... like others, I had no idea I even had AS/Autism.

It sure made it less than it could have been.

Nope, I was completely happy, and still am. Even the bullies didn't get to me, my mind was just thinking of how immature they were.

Yes, partially, maybe even largely; I don't know what a normal childhood feels like exactly.

But so? Childhood sucked. The rest of life sucks less. We're all robbed of childhood sooner or later by aging, and when you were a kid, you hated it. All kids hate it.

Yay for being grown-up and happy!