Anyone else here?
-
techchick
- Posts: 56
- Joined: June 27th, 2015, 5:05 am
- Gender: tending toward NB
- Issues: Autism, ADHD (self DX), cPTSD, depression, binge / restrict eating disorder
- preferred pronoun: she / they
- Location: Central Mexico
Anyone else here?
Autistic elder woman here, sending out a message in a bottle. DXed in April 2019; self DXed some time prior.
-
kookaburra
- Posts: 7
- Joined: November 9th, 2021, 3:41 pm
- Gender: Female
- Issues: ADHD, ASD, depression, GAD, PTSD, OCD
- preferred pronoun: she, her, hers
- Location: Texas
Re: Anyone else here?
I'm here! I think I'm close in age to you: I just turned 54.
Self dx'd/accepted recently. Dx'd by proxy by my husband's counselor in 2008 lol who suggested I might have Asperger's and to consider that it might be impossible for me to change. I may have been identified as autistic in second or third grade, but no one told me. My father died when I was six and we moved 300 miles away. I was pulled out of class with a small group of other second graders where we talked about emotions. It may have been the move, my father's death, or that I was autistic! I remember my mother and stepfather were friends with another couple around roughly the same time. I did not know then but I learned around the time we realized our twins were autistic that the wife worked as a teacher's aide with autistic children. Hmmm. I also remember a book around the house about a boy who had autism. I remember noticing from about age 8 that I had some little quirks that I would later see in my more severely affected son: I had a minor habit of playing with my fingers. His habit was more pronounced. I was pulled out of class several times in fifth grade to work with a counselor 1:1 who taught me how to make eye contact. I remember one session in which she talked to me about the fact that I isolated from the family, and asked what I thought I was missing out on by not participating. I also remember reading a book when I was about 10 or 11, and my sister relaying to me that our mother had said that I get lost in my own world when reading. I have asked my mother, who is still living, if she knew I had been pulled out and taught how to make eye contact. She says she did not, but I think she's hiding something from me, because I do not think that fifth graders are pulled out to work 1:1 with a counselor on their eye contact without the parents' awareness.
When my husband relayed that information from the counselor to me, it felt like a copout on my husband's part and "Aspergers" still had a narrow connotation for me at that time. We have two sons on the spectrum - the one with Asperger's (I know it has a different label now) and the other one who is autistic and has IDD. They are fraternal twins. I knew something was off when they were a little over a year.
Anyway, there's more to tell and share about points in my life that I realized were "off" and I look forward to hearing about yours, as well!
Self dx'd/accepted recently. Dx'd by proxy by my husband's counselor in 2008 lol who suggested I might have Asperger's and to consider that it might be impossible for me to change. I may have been identified as autistic in second or third grade, but no one told me. My father died when I was six and we moved 300 miles away. I was pulled out of class with a small group of other second graders where we talked about emotions. It may have been the move, my father's death, or that I was autistic! I remember my mother and stepfather were friends with another couple around roughly the same time. I did not know then but I learned around the time we realized our twins were autistic that the wife worked as a teacher's aide with autistic children. Hmmm. I also remember a book around the house about a boy who had autism. I remember noticing from about age 8 that I had some little quirks that I would later see in my more severely affected son: I had a minor habit of playing with my fingers. His habit was more pronounced. I was pulled out of class several times in fifth grade to work with a counselor 1:1 who taught me how to make eye contact. I remember one session in which she talked to me about the fact that I isolated from the family, and asked what I thought I was missing out on by not participating. I also remember reading a book when I was about 10 or 11, and my sister relaying to me that our mother had said that I get lost in my own world when reading. I have asked my mother, who is still living, if she knew I had been pulled out and taught how to make eye contact. She says she did not, but I think she's hiding something from me, because I do not think that fifth graders are pulled out to work 1:1 with a counselor on their eye contact without the parents' awareness.
When my husband relayed that information from the counselor to me, it felt like a copout on my husband's part and "Aspergers" still had a narrow connotation for me at that time. We have two sons on the spectrum - the one with Asperger's (I know it has a different label now) and the other one who is autistic and has IDD. They are fraternal twins. I knew something was off when they were a little over a year.
Anyway, there's more to tell and share about points in my life that I realized were "off" and I look forward to hearing about yours, as well!