Before there was diagnosis.....

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And people are still fired for their social mistakes. A lot of older Aspies seem to be mistaking awareness for acceptance. It's not. If anything, people are even more socially stringent and it's considered the most important part of the job.

Reading this thread has stirred up quite a bit of emotion in me, mostly bitterness and anger. It has taken quite some time to calm down enough to write a reply.

I am not from the old or the young generation, but roughly in between. The year the teachers noticed there was something “wrong” with me, autism was not unknown, but it was not so prominent in the public consciousness as it is now. If it had been then I probably would have been correctly identified.

As it was, I was examined. I was tested, but as is common, some of my symptoms were magnified and others were ignored. The professionals created a story to explain why I was the way I was. The story was plausible so it was accepted and I slipped through the cracks. The only real change was that I was stuck with the meaningless label “learning disability” (which is ironic since learning is the one thing I don't struggle to do).

When I started doing better in school it was assumed the problems had simply gone away. In reality I was still struggling, but by that point I knew that acting out or asking for help was a mistake, that it would only make things worse. I was miserable, but I kept going simply because I had no choice. My only goal was to get through the day and every day it felt like I just barely scraped by. I lasted about a decade before it I fell apart and then suddenly there was something wrong with me again.

This time I was told I had Asperger's Syndrome (though some professionals said that I was in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, a diagnosis the passage of time has, since, proven incorrect).

After a while, I accepted that I had Aspergers so I decided to do some research on it. All the materials I could find online were utter garbage so I picked up Tony Atwood's “The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome”. At first I was excited, So many things from my childhood began to make perfect sense, but I began to notice a disturbing trend. The author stressed, again and again, the importance of intervention and specialized treatment in early childhood and at one point stated outright that wasn't much hope for people like me who had reached adulthood without being treated. I was devastated, I felt doomed, I felt robbed, I felt cheated and I boiled with rage. I too, began to resent “the young generation”, because from what I read in the book I imagined that they all had patient and understanding parents, teachers who were all highly professional and dedicated and that they received all the treatment they needed and deserved. It felt like they were being rescued while I was being left to die.

I'm not saying its all sunshine and rainbows for them. After all the ideal situation described in Atwood's book is probably pretty rare in real life. The fact that everyone is lining up to promote awareness doesn't mean much, because as they say “talk is cheap” and of course the mental health system in this country is still a joke. It seems all the “professionals” can offer are drugs and bad advice.

I am not trying to compete with anyone's suffering, but I cannot help but feel angry and resentful.

It doesn't help that I have noticed a fair amount of chauvinism on these forums (which is one reason why I lurked so long before posting). I recognize that there are some attention whores out there self diagnosing because they “totally hate parties” and there is an annoying trend where random historical figures are labeled aspies for trivial reasons (I read a book recently that suggested that Field Marshal Montgomery had Asperger's because he was an inconsiderate, arrogant prick who wasn't aware that people hated him),but some people are too eager to play “autism police” and decide who is real and who is fake.

I'll just say that I envy my nine-year-old AS son. He understands who he is and how he's different, and his teachers do too. For me, growing up in the '70s, there was no understanding. I had no idea why some things were so hard for me, why I felt so totally different from my peers as far back as kindergarten, and why I was always thought of as "weird," "freaky" or "space cadet."

Born in the 80's. Before the diagnoses I was just a kid who had poor social skills, obsessive, clumsy, tactile defensive, had cluttered and talked funny, and I was seen as slow by other kids or ret*d or mean or rude and weird. I didn't know why I was so different from the other kids. No I was not abused by my parents but my school refused to follow my IEP and saw me as a behavior and tried to punish behavior out of me but couldn't because I didn't like their double standards about rules. I was singled out and made fun of by my peers and taken advantage of and used by my own friends. I had a nanny for two months who didn't like the way I talked due to language delay and she would lock me in the bathroom as a time out and slap me but she was mean to my little brother too, plus I would be kept in my room all the time by some of my baby sitters. I thought that was normal until recently when it dawned on me what they did was wrong because apparently it's abuse to keep a kid in their room all the time just because they are annoying you or you can't handle them. I guess my baby sitters didn't want to deal with me so it was easier to keep me in my room all the time because they were like 13 and 14 years old. It happened about every time they baby sat me and I didn't know why I was in trouble most of the time. I would be playing and then hear my name and them saying "that's two." I really hated baby sitters because I couldn't stay out of trouble for some reason. I am not sure why I was sent to my room a lot and kept there until my mom or dad got back which felt like hours. I was a little kid then so I don't know how long I was in my room for because everything seems like forever for a small child. But I thought it was normal so I couldn't understand why everyone was calling it abuse when people keep an autistic child locked in their room or why it's wrong to just keep them in their room whenever you don't want to deal with them. But then it dawned on me it must not have been right what they did to me if it's so wrong to keep a special needs child in their room. Just like I thought it was normal to lock your brother in the bathroom because that is what our nanny did to both of us. Then my mother couldn't understand why I was doing it to my brother and wouldn't stop.

OP, you make valid points which need to be voiced here; I m one of you and I hav been treated appallingly on Wrong Planet by the young ones here.

I came here today to see if London people are okay since the terrorist incident yesterday, myself also being a Londonder and appalled at the events happening just a few miles from me. I'm glad to note that nobody here has loved ones affected.

I preamble with the above paragraph to put into context that I don't actually come here anymore as a rule.

And the reason why?

I am 55 and got diagnosed two years ago with level 1 ASD. I am one of that older generation whose life was a nightmare because of my struggles with an unknown and unacknowledged condition, whom younger people HERE on WP have poured scorn on me for.

And because THERE IS STILL a problem that crops up here, of younger and early-diagnosed people basically, "in not so many word" telling the older diagnosed they are drama queens, "crazy" over-emotional (YES we are angry and have a right to that) and gaslighting us by making it clear that nothing we say is valid.

And also, most importantly of all, telling us -- again in "not so many words" but still the message is clear -- that if we've even had any semblance of an independent life (ignoring how nightmarish that struggle has been, in fact) that we just can't be autistic the way THEY are autistic.

That a Level 1 diagnosed person and an older person only recently diagnosed is either misdiagnosed or diagnosed by a quack, basically, because if you're level 2 or 3 ans diagnosed at the age of two you're a "real" autistic, and only then.

And yes there is one person here who most hurtfully of all puts this stuff out, and yes that person is still here, but NO that person has not learned a damn thing because that person STILL will post total inflammatory BS like:

Tell me again how high functioning people can still have autism?

And Tell me again how you're autistic if you didn't get diagnosed until fifty years after being born?

Or words to that effect.

And then claim it's only because (s)he has memory lapses. Or is innocently trying to understand.

Oh of course. It's not like it's because they just want to stir things up again. Particularly since this person, though so-called "low functioning" is mentally perfectly intelligent, has a sharp and clear mind, knows exactly what they are saying and the impact it will have, and has fully admitted in other contexts that they are capable of sarcasm and sarcastic remarks. Tell me how this "esteemed" and "important" contributor is not also a shit-stirring troll when they want to be?

And yes sadly this is an "esteemed" member here -- which is another reason why everyone just gives them a free pass while the person who stands up to them and gets called names by them, gets told I'm crazy or just too damaged by my past to even be taken seriously here is the one who gets the ban.

At the time I received multiple private messages from other members telling me they are appalled too by the things that individual posted at me, the things he called me and the dismissing of me. It's good to know I'm not actually the only one upset by him.

They actually said to me he was bullying me -- and yes the word bullying was used by someone other than me, to characterize this person's public treatment of me on here.

But those same people never speak up publicly in my defence on the forum.

I have been bullied, been given sarcasm, gaslighted, diminished, demeaned BY THIS PERSON, RIGHT HERE on Wrong Planet not just two years ago but RECENTLY. And he still gets "esteemed," while I get the feeling there is no safety here.

And it's why I don't come here anymore. I HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT of this place by this individual, effectively, because he is of that younger, early diagnosed generations who holds utter derision of our older generation who did not get diagnosed at the age he did and have suffered a life of forcing ourselves into coping that is not coping, with NONE OF THE HELP he gets.

In a very real sense, a mores severely affected young person who is getting heaped with amazing help every day of his or her life is actually going to do better in life and find a way to have a more productive and happy and accepted life than a so-called "high functioning" person who is older, missed earlier diagnosis, never got help, was YES shut in cupboards, and even though we can button our own shirts or find a job, we are also losing those jobs, suffering mental health issues because we get no help, and committing suicide.

That person is still asking why we weren't diagnosed earlier. That person still has no understnading and doesn't WANT to, of older people.

That person still recently spoke to me on here with appalling disrespect and very clearly dismissive language basically telling me I'm too damaged to be be anything but ignored in my rantings.

It's BECAUSE of that damage that I should have a voice on here.

But knowing that everything I post here will likely be perused by that person at some point, and stored away for another attack on me the next time he feels like posting his cynicism --- oh and framing it OH SO INNOCENTLY -- then I can't speak my truth here.

And off-topic again, please do not minimize the events in London yesterday just because you think it "could have been worse.".

My two cents: I don't believe anyone of the older group is saying everything "would have been wonderful" if they had been born later.

I don't think that's even ANY part of what the older ones say.

To raise that assumption is a false argument deflecting the actual issue under discussion, which is a different issue completely.

What we ARE saying is we're tired of the younger ones being cynical of our diagnosis just because we were born before it was possible for years of our lives.

The younger ones are stereotyping us by assuming we are wannabes, fakers, or misdiagnosed just because it didn't happen until late in life.

It's you guys who are "intentional" in your refusal to accept or understand how what happened to us happened to us.

The generations' experiences are different because peoples' knowledge of autism is different. One is neither better or worse than the other, just different.
My point is that the differing experiences preclude a sharing of experience between the generations with regard to some, not all things.
It's not a competition.

One issue I am struggling with right now is that having learned that I am disabled (by autism and bipolar disorder,) and realizing that, were I a child now, the behaviour I exhibited as a child would draw the attention of childhood behaviourists, I am distrustful of society; it's like they changed the rules on me and I'm supposed to act like it doesn't matter.

We are all in the "same boat" now. Why fight?

There was an "autistic" diagnosis in the 1940s through to 1994---but it was reserved, by and large, for those who would be diagnosed with "autistic disorder" according to the DSM-IV. It would, by and large, have had to be the "severe" version of the disorder--wherein those diagnosed didn't speak, didn't initiate socially, and seemed oblivious to the world.

Of course, Hans Asperger wrote his paper in 1943---but nobody thought anything of it until the early 1980s, and Asperger's wasn't an official diagnosis until 1994. Most who would be called "high-functioning" today wouldn't have been diagnosed with any sort of autistic disorder at all in those days.

People were diagnosed with all kinds of "funny" things, especially before the 1970s, some of which are obsolete now. I, for one, was diagnosed both with autism (via the old definition) and "brain damage" (too broad!) It was believed that I fit the profile for "minimal brain dysfunction" (which is an obsolete diagnosis).

Now, there is an expanded definition of autism--which is justified. It "put" many more people on the Spectrum. Therein lies the "confusion."

The reason why many older autistic people weren't diagnosed with autism---was because it was believed that they had these obsolete and broad conditions. Many times, the diagnostician couldn't come up with anything in particular, so they made up something on the fly. And that "something" frequently made the person ineligible for intervention services (if there were intervention services!)

A similar thing happened with "PDD-NOS" under the DSM-IV; it became a catchall for somebody who didn't "fully" fulfill the autistic criteria.

I've had it pretty easy as I've been able to routinely parley my Aspie skills into something that benefits NTs.

For instance, rather than being outside with other kids during lunchtime and being the target of bullies, I did things like fix the electronics of a science teacher. I recall fixing his oscilloscope and ham radio set.