Living with Autism in the 80's

Post Reply New Topic

I have very few memories of my youth. I do remember getting into trouble for answering the teacher back. What happened I don't know. Also, I remember getting teased and beaten up a lot. Still, I don't have any complete memories.

Your link at www.aspiewriter.wordpress.com isn't working.

But I did find it later googling aspie writer! Congratulations http://aspiewriter.com/

I was in the army during the 80s and I remember being an [un-dx'ed] aspie therein, it was not a particularly welcoming or accommodating place for me. massive sensory overload. I remember loneliness, being an outcast, an outlier, friendless and unwelcome anywhere. I remember mercilessly driving myself around the running course and through countless miles at the swimming pool, trying to outrun my problems and my bitterly acidic solitude. I remember wishing people would dig me and want me around them. I remember the army women, in particular, how mean they were to me, in general. there were one or two who were civil with me, only because they sensed in me a fellow traveler. but there was never any "chemistry" that would allow for mating or dating. so Saturday nights [when not pulling duty] were cold and barren. I remember hearing my barracks mates [upstairs, downstairs and in adjacent rooms having fun that I felt conspicuously excluded from, and not really understanding exactly why. I remember pissing-off various coworkers and superiors with my obtuseness and general confusion. I didn't have a clue as to why people gave me the cold shoulder, not until many decades later did it dawn on me, the reality of my various addlements [specifically AS] might have something to do with it. this ramble was the best I could do.

I think kids with AS these days are coddled. We did not have the luxury of technology in the '80's and nerdy was most definitely not cool. I shall leave it at that.

Ahh the 80s....miami vice, 3s company, fluorescent clothes, jelly shoes, and scary hair....

I didn't know how to relate to other kids and was afraid of strangers. School was scary, constant over stimulation and I just sat quietly and played with my hair or would get on a swing during recess sometimes. Playing with other kids didn't work out well except for 1st grade. For some reason I had a couple of friends that year. 2nd grade and up I would hide in a book whenever I could, try (unsuccessfully) to avoid the bullies, and freak out when I got home from school because it was all just too much for me.

I also had a big gap between IQ and performance and was always told I was lazy and not working up to my potential. My mom was like...if you're scoring high on the standardized tests then its the schools fault for not teaching you. But of course she got nowhere with the school system.

A-Team.... they were my heros. I would constantly walk away from home. I talked to other parents like I was on their level. I didn't recognise the hierarchy or tactfulness. I would be constantly in the headmaster's office. My supposedly own race didn't include me, so I found comfort in those that were rejected at an early age like me. Which for me was a mixed race guy called Lucky at the time until the riots came and he had to leave school.

Was the clown in the class, but that also got me nowhere. They did hearing tests on me because I wasn't listening according to them. I thought they weren't listening to me. I can hear fine though, but the problem always seems to be communication and what they want and what my own logic told me.

Would get lost in the mall, because I would stare at something intensely and when I turned around they were gone.

well, at the end of the day that is your opinion, .but let me give you mine.
when you speak about coddling yep I agree to some extent, but seeing as you are also diagnosed you would understand that would be how it appears to other people who have not got the diagnosis or have other conditions.
The other thing is that nerdiness is more like neediness and can be mentioned as the hip thing or as they say here, proud to be a geek, I think those terms only apply if by logical data you have the social charisma of either a Morse code interpreter or a trident expert in the field of analogy. Up to these points I agree, but to divert slightly from todays modern retro field I would simply imply that you may not have had the resourcefulness of technology but that the brick phone was the budding businessman's tool for work and for use anywhere portal and they would never reinvent a block phone again. would they?? the likelihood would be slim as modern briefcases are not suitable for the baggage handling compartments and the only place that they are in use now are in the cockpits of your modern easy jet or British airways.

Actually, the data this implies has not got the right scientific input for engaging in daily activity when phones were the late eighties craze in the retro years and would top the bill for environmental waste on the planet. we could always discuss this in more detail if you like as I have a passion for the retro theme.

Yeah nerdy didn't become cool until mtv re-invented 'emo' for their personal gain. sometime after the 90s I think.... and without the internet to draw us together, we would still be isolated in our seperate little corners of the world.

With what many of us went through: Isolated. Confused. Struggling. Misunderstood. Judged negatively. Bullied. Abused. Yes. Todays diagnosed and partially understood generation do look like they have it pretty good in comparison. They have a portion of the understanding we should all receive.

Grade schoo/high school years. The teachers in my grade school knew I had something but didn't know what. (Actually started '75-'81) They probably figured it was just some mental challenge. But I never realized they thought this till a fellow student years later pointed out that they had treated me differently. Here's what I was like:

1. Hypersensitive - I thought everytime someone yelled it might be my fault even though I was a really good kid & never in trouble.

2. Walked around talking to imaginary friends and using made up words in lower elementary school, not making attempts to ask if I could play w/other kids, etc; only doing so if invited.

3. Nose always in a book - great student, but awkward.

I had limited vision and hearing since birth and the guy I talked to, a fellow student, was also legally blind. So he could tell and I couldn't which helped confirm to me (I'm eflt-diagnosed) that my problem reading that stfff wasn't just my lack of hearing/vision.

Junior High...lets not talk about that. They were lazy and didn't even want to help the normal visually impaired kids. I eventually told them years later to change my transcripts so I was at another school - my way of "divorcing them." They said they did; whether to placate me or not I don't know but I consider myself to have been at a different one; where ironically they'd have done a better job because they wouldn't have known what to thinka nd would hve had to try harder.

High school - I'd matured enough in communicating, and beign on the speech team helped *immensely*. Being in a room having to give a 5-7 minute speech in a room with a judge was only tough because I'd know so much I had trouble keeping it under 10 and once spoke for 15 minutes! I made State by my senior year, and it was one of those things that helped me feel more confident. I only ddi it because my 9th grade English teacher recommended me but they at least knew how to guide students like me and encourage us to improve our skills at things.

So, for me it all boiled down to how much did people really want to help me. I think having my other handicaps helped them to figure that my problems were from those; and, till Aspergers became more known, it makes sense that teachers & the kids who did encourage me to play with others figured tht my not doing it was because of being legally blind. For all they knew, maybe it *was* because of my vision. And by the tiem I was in high school I'd guessed enough right from watching others that I could tell our speech coach was joking at tiems about my future career in the Senate doing filibusters, and that I did actually have to make my speeches shorter.

Now I know differently, though. I'm just over the line onto the spectrum, but enough so that it did make a difference. But, I was bright enough that I figured a lot of stuff out by guessing, and some stuff by asking questions if I felt comfortable enough about the person there.

(One example - I'd never heard the word "gar" for the "n" word. So in 6th grade I was hearing something I couldn't figure out what from some of the bad behavior kids when we were on a field trip. I asked a girl beside me what it was they were saying to these black kids and then, "Do they like hearing that?" She said "no" just as calmly as if I'd asked a normal question. From the context most people would get that they didn't like being called that, either from the teasing tone or the looks on the black kids' faces. I couldn't, but this girl was kind enough to just answer my question. And, I knew it was a bad thing to call someone then.)

I don't agree, I think I would still slip through the net if I were a child today. I always felt like the teachers didn't care about me because I was quiet and got on with my work. It was the other kids that didn't like me and saw me as different. I was always amazed at how the teachers never seemed to even see that I was getting bullied. It was like I didn't exist.

That must have been a frightening experience. It sounds similar to my time in Catholic school. I'm being very honest about that.

I can't give a better explanation of my time in the 80s than I did in my previous reply simply because I've blocked out most of my childhood for good reason. The downside is that I forgot many of the positive moments.

when you were there, did the nuns still whack kids on the hands with rulers?


I don't have that many positive moments to begin with. I figured, that if I couldn't have the positive moments then at least I would do my damndest to avoid the negative moments, by just staying away and out of sight of everybody else.

Agreed...it was definitely mid to late 90's when MTV started dropping videos and adding what would become Adult Swim (Aeon Flux) and the first season of the Real World showed "real" NY.

About being so quiet, I think that's one reason why I didn't catch on that this friend I had in high school had been abused. I'd been asked to help mentor him nd include him in stuff with my friends, and I figured either: 1. He'd just moved here; or, 2. He was just really shy.

That's what's so problematic about social cues, if you take just 1-2 they could mean a whole mess of different thigns, then you get 12-154 and they all make sense, like what he said did after he told me.

But, back to my point (if I have one), I walked tall, always had a smile on my face, and so on and was always friendly and said "hi" to everyone because I'd figured out that was how to make friends and my posture would keep bullying from happening. But, I actually did 8too* good of a job. That can be a drawback when you don't have a diagnosis.

Now, I could have still helped him with that, i'd have just been encouraged to ask more questions and the speech coach might have told me a few little hints (if he knew them; for all I know he might have just been told by a 9th grade teacher, "he's had a rough home life/was adopted out of a bad situation. Make sure you get a good friend with a good family to mentor him." But even that would have helped me some.).

But, back then, I didn't get any help with social cues unless I asked, and except for rare isntances like above I never asked, so I either had to guess right or pretend I did. I usually guessed right (though screaming always scared me & I knew I could never be military), but if I didn't I didn't have a fallback where teachers could say "I wonder if he gets what's going on here" since they didn't know about Asperger's. Now, they do.

[quote/]How long ago did you get your diagnosis? How fast did you write this?

(not trying to be rude - in very real terms churning this thing out in six months or less is just a grandiose display of a special interest - like the 12 books I read just after my own diagnosis)[/quote]

I received my diagnosis about one year ago, and began reading, researching, and writing like a madman! LOL From start to finish I had this published in about 6 months times. I began officially writing my memoir in Nov. and it was completed and on an editors desk by the beginning of March. It was edited, and I designed the cover (took a bit to learn how to do that but intensely obsessing over it helped--see our "special interests" can really be our superpowers)

Officially released on Amazon Kindle April 10th, and in paperback April 23rd.

I am quite certain I would too because even though I hated school and compared it to prison I was a model student and teachers loved me because I was so quiet and well behaved. As for not seeing the bullying I struggled at the time wondering how they all miss what's obvious but apparently I recently found out they ALL knew and even talked in the staff room and either decided individually or collectively to turn a blind eye to it because they feared for their at the time new jobs.