03/04/2022
ETA: thank you so much to Staṡa Morgan-Appel for this image description!
[A red cat sitting on tattered blue puzzle pieces with one in their mouth, like prey. caption reads, "Autisticat kills puzzle pieces."]/ETA
Happy Autism Acceptance Month!
It's story time.
I first suspected in 2012 or 13 that I was autistic; before that the only reference point I had was the movie "rainman".
It was only after a) my adult diagnosis in 2014, b) coming across a transcript I'd typed up in the early 90s of when I asked my grandmother about my (missing) childhood medical records, and c) having learned a lot of the different terminology of the 60s wrt to autism that I found out I'd been diagnosed as a child, circa 1964.
I was, my grandmother thought, about 3, maybe 4, at the time. I'd started greeting everyone every time they entered a room with "Hi!!" at the usual age, but I didn't go from there to stringing words together.
My grandmother took me to a specialist one of her friends suggested -- not because she was worried, but because my RN mother was worried. My grandmother knew very well that some children do things much later than others and that that was ok.
She had been equally parts horrified and dismissive of that specialist's recommendation that I be institutionalised on the basis that I was "incurably psychotic" and that my mother should be urged to forget me and try for a "normal child".
When my grandmother said neither of those would be happening, the specialist gave her the number of a group in Berkeley or Oakland that she could take me to as a day patient, to "give you a break every day".
My grandmother declined that as well. She told me "Why would I need a break from you? There was nothing wrong with you! You just did things in your own time! You were perfectly fine at home with me."
It's probably worth noting that my grandmother found some social norms bewildering. Like WHY did her best friend want to waste money eating out when they went shopping, when my grandmother made much better food and coffee and was happy to make them lunch when they were done shopping? Why did that same friend ask her sometimes why she didn't moderate her voice? (Grandma was 6' and strangers who phoned always addressed her as "Mr [surname]"; her friend thought it wasn't a womanly enough voice.)
The #1 rule in the house was do not change Grandma's schedule, especially not suddenly, because she'd likely have a bit of a breakdown. Meals were at specific times, and big chores like going to the laundromat and ironing were specific days.
I lived with my grandparents full time until my divorced mother remarried when I was in kindergarten. By then I was speaking, although I didn't, per other children, speak "right"; I spoke like an adult. (My friend Kelly related to me that my mother told her that she'd thought I'd NEVER start talking, and then once I started, I never stopped. I also started with full sentences from the get go, asking "May I have a banana, please?")
The only access need I can recall for my mother is one she was able to satisfy herself -- rather than working where she'd see the same patients daily who'd want to chitchat, she chose to work in the ER.
Both Mama and Grandma taught me social scripts sans having that name for them. They explained things I didn't understand (like the term "read between the lines").
Mama told me about having to learn new phrases when they'd lived in Cincinnati for a year (eg: if you missed soemthing someone was saying, instead of saying "excuse me", you cocked your head to the side and said, "please?", which she demonstrated).
tl;dr: while I didn't know I was autistic until my late 40s, I was 100% supported & nurtured in a family where autism was common, rangy from quirky to high support needs like me.
Instead of being taught that there was something about me that needed to be "fixed" or hidden, I was *explicitly* taught that I was fine the way I was, and that things like others teasing me or mocking me were 100% about their own insecurities & unhappiness, not about me, because "Happy people don't try to hurt others."
And I wish that every autistic child would have that.
eta
![https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/health/article/2021/11/15/i-am-autistic-not-someone-autism?dlb=[2022/04/07]%20del_v...](https://img3.findhealthclinics.com/480/813/535605094808135.jpg)
