When I read these questions, I see myself at the younger ages. I see myself doing the exact same things that are still problems today. Meltdowns, chaotic behavior, different attitudes and behaviors, you name it, nothing has changed about ASD related behaviors in 50 years.
What has changed is our knowledge of the spectrum. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's we knew nothing about the spectrum. The only form of autism then were the savants. The human interest shows would do a clip on someone who couldn't even acknowledge the outside world, but could sit and play a beautiful concert piano without ever seeing the music. These were and still are very extreme cases. 'Rainman' was autism to us. We knew just as little about Tourette Syndrome in that time also. Someone barking like a dog uncontrollably or shouting obscenities had Tourette's. Again, extremely rare and extreme conditions. I also have Tourette's. I was just the kid who twitched while growing up.
A big part of my ASD is that it is very difficult, especially when I get frustrated, for the thoughts in my head to come out of my mouth in a coherent fashion. I never spoke much until a few years ago because this was so frustrating to me. This medium of writing my thoughts works much better. I can see and understand my thoughts when I am writing. I can organize my thoughts so they make sense to me and hopefully to the reader. This, I guess you could call a learned behavior. It took me many decades to learn this method and turn it into a positive behavior for me.
Remember that there is no overnight cure for us on the spectrum. We are drugged on a much more than needed basis in my opinion. It's not really to help us, it is to help everyone around us and the big pharmaceutical companies. I, along with all of the millions of kids now diagnosed with one part of the spectrum or the other learn differently. Our brains work on different wavelengths than the rest of the world. Since there is no cookie cutter one size fits all cure for autism, we have to learn how to fit in and process in our own ways and on our own time schedule. For some, this is relatively quick. For others, it is a lifetime of learning. I happen to be in the lifetime category.
I guess that the biggest thing I am trying to say here, is that in this day and age we are no longer alone. Not the individual or the family. With the internet now (and I can full well remember our world without the internet) we can now find support and help from half a world away. As much as I love to hate Facebook, I belong to several autism support groups there and have learned much about myself by reading about others. It can be a very useful and effective tool. We can all learn together.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Hopefully, it entertained you. More important, hopefully you learned from it.
By the way, the cover pictures are from Ally the Wonder Huskie. I got a quick break from work in Galena and this is what I came home to. She loves Kitty, but I belong to her!
Recycle, Repurpose, Reuse
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