What were you like as a toddler and what are you like today?

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05 May 2014, 4:20 pm

I don't remember much, I was so young, then.
But I think I behaved pretty normally for the most part, except that I developed an unusual fondness for drawing at around two or three. When I was four I had my tonsils out and when I was home afterwards my mother said I drew a picture on some graph paper my dad had given me, and it looked very similar to the hospital. I really wish she had saved the picture. When I started school I could read and write well for a kid my age as well as draw. I was usually happy but I had strange and unusual fears and scary thoughts other people didn't understand, I had a lot of trouble with math, especially in grade 3, and I would have a lot of meltdowns at school that got really bad when I was in my pre-teens. My parents didn't like to label me as a "tempermental artist" but thought this was just part of my having "a gift".

Of course, not everyone with AS or Autism act the same, plus I was a girl who typically didn't get diagnosed until my mid-20's when my whole life was nearly ruined. Girls tend to behave a bit differently and are often misdiagnosed or not at all.

B19
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05 May 2014, 4:29 pm

The second part of OP's question: what are you like today?

Older.
Wiser.
Still recovering from the wounds of growing up in a crazy abusive home, still making progress on that, finally recovering from post-traumatic stress at 67, can live much more fully in the present, drug free after years of addiction, (thank you NA, you saved my life), loved by my adult son and grandchildren, over-educated, much better at taking care of myself in all the basic ways, grateful for the various good people who I encountered at various times in my life who gave me the scraps of affection and attention that I needed as emotional and psychological nutrition - human angels who showed up and kept my heart going.

fsuhunter
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05 May 2014, 4:33 pm

Toy_Soldier wrote:

I was supposedly an unholy terror! Among other things, breaking a wooden chair over my older brothers head as he sat watching TV. Very reckless with myself as well, diving onto concrete, etc.

Then at age seven I became an angel. :roll:

I followed instructions, was very respectful and excelled at school.

I shifted again around age 16 and once again sought out the most dangerous experiences.

I shifted back around age 27 and have been relatively stable since.

My guess is that while you might see the beginning of some personality threads in a toddler, it is far from enough to make any practical predictions. There are I think, too many variables, like trying to predict your local weather 15 years from now. The result will be the sum of many interactions and events but it can be your guidance, one event at a time as they occur, that can be a main steering current.

I love the analogy you provided and the advice you gave. Thanks!

fsuhunter
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05 May 2014, 4:43 pm

Joe90 wrote:

I was a typical toddler, reached all the milestones at the average stages, and didn't seem to have any issues with mixing with other children at preschool. Well I think I might have been a little shy but some toddlers are anyway and it wasn't enough to be peculiar about. I wasn't delayed in speech, I was just average really, and I was fully potty-trained before I was 3 (my mum said I was actually easier with the potty-training than my NT brother was).

My ASD is so mild that nobody recognised it before I started school. To cut a long story short, I got diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was 8. But each year at primary school, the teachers noticed an improvement in my behaviour and social skills, and by the time I was at High School obviously my behaviour was under control and I developed a lot of self-awareness and mostly blended in with the other kids, and through my years at High school (age 11-16) I felt myself improving in confidence. I was timid and nervous when I was in the first year of High School and I was afraid to break any rules. Then when I got to my last two or three years of High school I began to feel more confident and didn't care if I got a detention, and I tried my hardest to fit in by conforming to the other kid's standards. I still struggled socially, as I do have Asperger's, but I still improved an awful lot.

As an adult I am obviously high-functioning, but I have been having very intense emotions in the past few years, like depression, anxiety, guilt, anger and jealousy. I was beginning to wonder what was the point in my existence, and kept thinking that suicide would be my only escape. After trying CBT and counselling and other things that are supposed to help, I found I still wasn't feeling better about myself, so I had to go on anti-depressants as a last resort. The doctor prescribed me with Sertraline, and I have been taking 25mg for a month now and I have felt a big improvement in my self-esteem and mood since I've been on them. I've been able to look at life more positively, feel better about myself, and not dwell on the small things so much (well, small things what seemed big to me). I still get quite anxious and agitated, but I can still cope with things better than I used to. And I don't feel depressed at all, and I haven't cried since I gone on Sertraline either. Sometimes I feel sad about things, but not depressed. I know depression and sadness can mean the same thing but not always. Sadness is just a mild sort of emotion I feel about things that would make most people sad. Depression was like a mental illness to me, causing me to just cry all the time and generated anger and all that sort of thing.

Thanks for sharing your experience! I realize that depression is highly comorbid with ASD and it is one of the things I fear most for my kid going forward. My little sister has always struggled with depression. No matter how much I and the rest of our family love her and value her, we are helpless to help her.

B19
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05 May 2014, 4:46 pm

What kind of help have you tried to give her?

fsuhunter
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05 May 2014, 4:49 pm

B19 wrote:

What was I like as a toddler?

By toddling stage a lot had already happened in my life. At six months of age, my married parents decided to divorce and dropped me off at an orphanage, refused to tell my grandparents where I was, telling them "She's dead to you, you'll never see her again".

Two foster homes later I ended up at another orphanage at age one year (very abusive, strong visual and emotional memories) - (the memories were so vivid that I was able to find the building again in adulthood by describing the dining room furniture and features and the view from the window) and then released by the state into the adoptive "care" of psychopathic weirdos who wanted a female child with "married parents and no black blood".

So by toddlership I had already had many experiences and very little care. In the weirdos' home, I sat: wouldn't walk, wouldn't talk. I just sat and stared at them. I remember this. I have an eidetic memory. I can remember detailed features of rooms from very early infancy.

The weirdos took me to a doctor as they thought I was intellectually handicapped. The doctor didn't think so; he said "She doesn't want to walk or talk to you. Give her time".

When I decided to walk and talk, there were no middle stages. I didn't crawl, I just stood up and tottered along. I started to speak in roughly formed sentences, not single words. I taught myself to read with the help of a lady who lived up the street at 3 years old.

When I was 8, my grandmother - through an astonishing coincidence - found me because she recognised me in the street. (I have a distinctive brown mark in one of my green eyes). When she spoke to me "Do you know who I am?" - I recognised her voice from infancy (she had a distinctive Scots accent). Memory of it sprang from my memory banks. The joy!! ! My heart rose in my chest like a flying bird, and I could see the joy in her face. No-one had ever looked at me with love before that day. What a day it was!! !

She had searched for all those years. I was not allowed any contact with my family by the psychos though in adulthood I formed great reunions with my cousins, uncle, and distant members of my family. By then my grandmother had died. But she never forgot me and often talked about the wondrous day her prayers were answered and she found out that I was still alive.

My heart rose in my chest when i read your story. I realize there was a lot of sadness in the story, but the happy ending really made my day:-)

fsuhunter
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05 May 2014, 4:54 pm

B19 wrote:

What kind of help have you tried to give her?

I (and i guess the rest of my family) end up "babying" her. If she stuggles financially, I/we give her money. If she is sad, we give her hugs. If she wants to talk, we try to listen (although I am not the best listener). My wife thinks we "spoil" her. Maybe. But what is the alternative?

Lumi
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05 May 2014, 5:29 pm

fsuhunter wrote:

Wow, when I read about your struggles and then see how eloquently you describe them I have a hard time reconciling the two.

Do you have any insights on why for example, my son can build a buzz lightyear spaceship out of lego, turn on his ipad and surf youtube (at four years of age), while at the same time, he has never on his own been able to wash his own hands, use the toilet (actually he did it once out of the blue but never again), or dress himself. He has a vocabulary of 500+ words and has properly used sentences in context consisting of 10 words, yet until recently could not answer his own name, nor consistently differentiate between yes and no. How do I make sense of this?

The more apart skills are, the more severe the autism is. Some kids with autism have difficulty knowing where their body parts are in space, I still do. Or how to do a seemingly simple task. It could be harder for him to understand what his senses are telling him, thus missing information.

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Acedia
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05 May 2014, 5:37 pm

daydreamer84 wrote:

As a toddler I spent hours twirling a string in-front of my eyes

This, however my speech and language were delayed. My social integration was very poor since the beginning. I didn't start interacting with other kids until year 3-4. And still I had problems.

Today I haven't improved that much. My stims are still severe and pervasive. I am better at social reciprocation. And I have a loose group of friends that I see sporadically. Not often, but rarely. And I get on well. I still have all-absorbing obsessions that I focus on to the point of nothing else. It does affect my life in a negative way.

I can't say I've improved that much, but I'm hoping to do better.

---

fsuhunter
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06 May 2014, 4:11 am

lostonearth35 wrote:

Of course, not everyone with AS or Autism act the same, plus I was a girl who typically didn't get diagnosed until my mid-20's when my whole life was nearly ruined. Girls tend to behave a bit differently and are often misdiagnosed or not at all.

Did your getting diagnosed help you? My sister's son sounds a lot like you. He is approaching 10 years old and I suspect he has AS (he does very subtle stimming, obsessed with bugs and being and entymologist, calls his teachers stupid, appears to be in his own world at times, moody, etc.). My sister does not agree, but even if she did, she asks what is the point of getting a diagnosis?

LtlPinkCoupe
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06 May 2014, 11:33 pm

As a toddler, I was very quiet and obedient. If I was caught doing something I was not supposed to be doing, all you had to do was say, "No, LtlPinkCoupe!" and I'd never do it again. My mother also noticed that I was very anxious and shy around people. I loved my stuffed animals and always wanted to carry one or two everywhere with me. They were like my friends. My very first special interests were Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo (and elephants in general), pinwheels, stickers, the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, and The Lion King. If I got ahold of toilet paper, paper towels, or a box of pastic Ziploc bags, I would sit there yanking at them and appear to be fascinated by how they unfurled and seemed to be never-ending. Even though I was withdrawn and shy as a toddler, my dad says that my relatives and other adults still liked being around me and holding me on their laps and stuff like that...maybe that was because I WAS so quiet and passive. I guess most other toddlers preferred to run all over the place getting into everything.

My dad tells me that when I was approaching two years old, everyone warned him and my mom, "Oohh, you're in for it now," "That's when they really get a mind of their own," "Make sure to put everything out of reach," but like I said above, I was really obedient and didn't really get into things I wasn't supposed to. I was afraid of loud noises, especially of the "skipping" noises my dad's records would make on their turntable when I ran across the floor as they played. While most little kids would just brush it off, I would actually cry and need to be comforted by my mom or dad after I'd heard a loud noise (possible sensory problems? idk) I only ate a handful of foods, mostly peanut butter, tortilla chips, white bread, vanilla yoghurt, grapes, milk and juice. Getting me to try new foods was like pulling teeth. I loved it when my folks read to me. I also loved dogs. The surefire guarantee to getting me to sleep was to drive me around in the car.

I mentioned something at the top about stuffed animals being like my friends...I have one with me in pretty much every photo of me up till about the age of 12 (aside from the one from my 15th b-day when I got a plushie of Tod from The Fox and the Hound as a present, that is). And the interesting thing is, even in the photos that show me surrounded my other people/family members, my attention is solely focused on the plushie I have with me. There are some that seem to show me actually talking to it and being totally withdrawn from what's going on around me; which I guess was a sort of coping mechanism I had in chaotic environments or crowds of people.

Well, I think that covers what I was like as a toddler. As for what I'm like now....

I'm a senior in college (took me a little longer than we thought), and would like to get a degree in library science, or get a job as an editor. I eat a wide variety of foods now - occasions in which I eat something that tastes "yucky" or uncomfortable to me are very rare - which is kind of a problem now, since I'm clinically obese and have high cholestrol. I have social anxiety and some anger management issues. Change is still difficult for me. My stuffed animals and plushies are still some of my best friends - I have a small collection of favorites that I refer to as "The Away Team" or my "Plushie Support Group." There's still one or two that go everywhere with me in my bag. I still like animated films (the Cars and Planes movies and Finding Nemo in particular) and anything "cute." I'm pretty funny and optimistic as a rule. I seem to be well-liked, and keep in touch with relatives and old school friends via Facebook and Pinterest.

I know my point of view might be too subjective, but I think I actually turned out pretty good.

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