Oh yes, I have vivid memories of being much more impaired as a child and young adult than I eventually managed to be, although I still feel impairments. I have horrible memories of very, very autistic behavior in myself and the the detrimental consequences, particularly since I was not diagnosed, so nobody understood what was happening, not even me.
I "seem" improved as an adult only because the only way forward in life that I could see, was to force myself to conform to "normal" behavior and life, as I was able to muster a certain degree of ability to do that. But it has cost me in other ways and I don't recommend it or say that its a good thing, it's just what I felt I myself had to do to survive.
But before I started that forcing stuff, my life was filled with incidents of what I look back on now and see as quite a moderate-to-severe child in terms of challenges that are now known to be those of the autism spectrum.
I have to admit I think I AM "haunted" by that because I'm angry and sad that that little girl (the little girl being me) was given NO help or understanding when clearly I was "something".
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07 Sep 2014, 8:24 am
