Autism diagnosis anniversary

Coming up soon

For me, diagnosis changed my life enough that I remember the date and circumstances around my diagnosis clearly and I celebrate it each year. At the end of this month ( September 2025) I will celebrate my 6th autistic anniversary.

Knowing about my autism has changed my life for the better. Self understanding was something I had missed completely all those years before and it has taken emotional homework to sort and understand so many things from the past.

I am still learning about my own neurology and still trying to find ways to adjust my life to make struggles easier.
It has been hard to accept that I really am impaired in “normal” every day activities by my neurology. I find myself facing grief off and on when I struggle with some aspect of daily living where autism causes misunderstanding or makes it difficult to do something others do with ease. Todays news and strife adds to the emotional pain and like everybody else I feel particularly helpless, vulnerable, afraid of what lies in the future.

I try to remember to do my best self care, not to feed myself on social media’s shock and fright tactics (such things raise viewership and media does not hesitate to feast on horror, fear, distress, etc all over the world to gain customers).

I am trying to keep my life balanced and put myself on a diet of doing things that I can control, things I can do in my own little sphere to make my world better. In order to do this I must accept that I can’t control much, that I am not helping anybody by becoming dysfunctional through distress and anxiety induced by the feeding of my fears through social media/the news/ etc.

I can keep informed with just a few minutes of reading daily, I will no doubt be informed if the world is ending and somebody will tell me what to do (as if we could do much in that scenario).

I have been reading a lot of history over this past summer and have come to recognize that this sort of thing goes on in every generation. There is always a battle of “sides” of understanding… it seems to be human nature. There is always violence, mayhem, killings, sick behavior by individuals, just as there are always others who struggle to do good.
That all seems to be part of human nature.

I can look back in my own life, and I can look into the stars in the night sky and see how insignificant my own personal struggles are in the scheme of the world.

Very few humans are recognized beyond their own lifetimes, the rest of us experience life and all our struggles in different ways and pass on without fanfare in the world scope of things.

Do what matters most to your own life, your own loved ones, your own little place in your group, your community, your personal sphere…. you can safely leave the rest of it to history and world processes that will go on forever.

Thoughts on my own progress/process. It has been almost 10 years since I first began to suspect I might be autistic. It has been since 2017 that I began to try to learn more. I got diagnosis almost 6 years ago and began this blog in 2019. I find I am in a different position now and I have less information to share. Today’s science has uncovered many things and has clues to so much more but it is very slow going. Current trends in politics are very concerning and I am watching with strong interest. People who believe in science and finding and documenting facts are working continually for better understanding and I think funding will continue to be available from those who are financially able and who are concerned. Beyond that it is not within my sphere of control and I must rely on others who have the powers I don’t.

“accept the things you can’t change, change the things you can, and find the wisdom to know the difference” is something I am trying to live by. Learning what we can control and what we can not seems to be a key to mental health as we all struggle with conditions in the world today.
Find ways to give yourself what you need, what your loved ones need, what is good and right for you and yours. The rest is just details.

Autism diagnosis Its OK

Its OK if others don’t believe in your diagnosis or accept it.

So, today let’s say I finally figured out “what is wrong with me”…….. I suddenly understood that I had different neurology, either through a sudden insight, long study, or professional diagnosis. I am autistic. I have always been autistic. It explains so many struggles of my past. I can suddenly understand a lifetime of “whys” by seeing how Autism had its workings behind the scenes and nobody knew! I am excited!

It is such a relief to finally understand that I am not wrong, or bad or morally weak or deliberately evil. My neurology has impaired my understanding in social situations, given me a tendency to misunderstand and miscommunicate, I may have other struggles, such as time management or organization skills that are not what have been expected of me. It is not my fault! My neurology has been to blame for my lifetime of struggles where others seem to thrive. What a relief!

I rush right off and tell my best friend, my family, my co workers and instead of being excited and happy for me, they scoff, saying “no you’re not”, “you can’t be autistic “because (a thousand reasons such as you don’t look or act autistic etc).

Oh, that was unexpected.

My mother does not believe I am autistic, says she would have known. My sister says I am trying to get attention for myself, my co workers say I am trying to escape my responsibilities and making excuses for lack of performance. Now suddenly I am devastated. They don’t accept my diagnosis, they don’t believe me! They think I am making it up, thinking I am doing this to cause trouble. Now what? How do I make them understand and accept my diagnosis???

Answer: I can’t, and I won’t even try.
Its OK for them to think whatever they want to think about my diagnosis.
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This experience is quite common among the most recently diagnosed individuals who want to share the exciting information they have just received.

I am here to tell you its OK if they scoff, if they misunderstand, if they disbelieve. Ignorance and stigma run deep. Its OK if they want to believe differently. You don’t have to explain, ask permission, educate, justify, or apologize.
The experience of becoming diagnosed may not change the way they think about you or the way they interact with you, or the way they expect you to behave, believe, think, perform, etc. . you may get acceptance and support but don’t expect that! Many people will want to cling to the old ways of interacting, their own beliefs and feelings of guilt, shame, misunderstanding may impede a healthy exchange of information. Its OK if they struggle with adjusting to or accepting your diagnosis too.

Diagnosis will mean a world of difference to you but to them, not much will change and they will mostly be unwilling to change to help make your life easier and better. That is human nature. Change can be scary for anybody.

They may even make remarks saying things were better, easier, happier, etc. before your diagnosis.

Well, for them maybe that is true, but their opinion is their business.

It is not our job to change ourselves or our own self understanding or our ways of self support and accommodation to suit their opinions.

Its OK if they don’t accept adjustments you make to your schedules and activities to remove the things that distress you the most, make you sick with anxiety, cause overwhelm and overload, or that are simply something that you have only been doing to please another person.

It is OK to give yourself your best self care, to dress the way that is comfortable for you, to use stims for self comfort, to choose something else besides the demands and expectations others have for what they want of you at any time.

Its OK to have your own agenda, your own enjoyment, your own independent life, free of their opinions and their pressure to conform to their demands, their anger, their manipulation, abuse, shame and blame.

Knowing about our autism sets us free to see ourselves not as losers, broken and incompetent, aggravating, infuriating, impediments to other’s lives, etc. After what may have been a lifetime of failed expectations of others we can finally be free to be ourselves in our own way at our own pace and in our own style.

Its OK if they accept and support your diagnosis as they see you making progress and finding life better and healthier as you learn more about your neurology and put adjustments for self accommodation into place. This may happen in many cases. Its Ok if they never do understand.

You do not have to have any other person’s approval or acceptance or permission to find self understanding and find a healthier way to live your own life.

Its OK to be who you are in the best way you can going forward as you sort it all out and make adjustments to make every day life easier and better for yourself..

Autism Escape Plans

Do you have an escape plan? You should have one

Survival technique #1. To avoid overwhelm remove yourself from the situation as soon as you notice you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or distressed.
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This is a sort of “insurance plan” to make sure you do self care for yourself immediately instead of trying to tolerate something that causes you to feel overwhelmed, upset, afraid, distressed. Meltdowns and shutdowns happen when we have too much input and our processing systems can’t keep up.
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In long experience with my spouse, I know I can tell him I am headed to the car, outside in the yard, to the back of the building, the washrooms, or any other place to remove myself from the feeling I will soon be overwhelmed in a new or different place.

I have escapes built in at home with my quiet place and comfort items, and I can go indoors or outdoors at will to avoid input I want/need to avoid.

I mostly don’t venture out of my comfort zone, and I am old enough and experienced enough at my age (73) to detect the signs and to be able to avoid situations which may be distressing to begin with. I almost never subject myself to overwhelm just to please somebody else or because doing the “thing” is expected of me.
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Sometimes we can’t avoid being in such distressing situations, where there are things we must do, places we must be, etc and for some reason other ways can’t be substituted. If you are headed into the unknown, make a plan ahead of time.
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Arrange with others ( if you are accompanied) ahead of time so if they can’t find you, they know where to look. You will have gone to your “safe place”. If you don’t have an escape plan or have never used one, its time to think about this handy self accommodation/ self care technique and put it into action.
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There is no reason to subject yourself to shutdown/meltdown/overwhelm or expect yourself to endure painful or upsetting experiences just to please somebody else. Self care always first; make sure you have a backup plan when you venture into potentially upsetting territory, then make your escape knowing it is understood where you will be found if you need to shelter yourself from too much physical or emotional input.

Not my job

Autism, appeasement, people pleasing

I grew up in fear, lived most of my life in fear, beginning with corporal punishment from my caretakers before I could even speak.
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I learned early on that I must try to please those around me in every way to avoid punishment. I learned to be obedient, submissive, “helpful”, quiet, to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself, that nobody wanted to hear about my interests, my thoughts, my wishes.
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I learned that to resist any suggestions, directions, orders, requests, or demands was to be a bad person, terrible, selfish, hateful, thoughtless, insensitive, evil, greedy, ( this would be a very long list if I completed all the negative descriptions and discussed the anger, punishment and treatment that went along with them)
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Today we know appeasement behavior comes from trauma, it is one of the instinctive responses to trauma. Fight, Flight, freeze, and appease/fawning are all responses to trauma. We use them to save ourselves from dangerous situations (traumatic events) early in our lives, or whenever the trauma begins.
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I became hypervigilant, wary and very aware of any signs in others that they might be angry, unhappy with me in any way.
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I never learned healthy interactions with others in my “growing up” home, nor in the disaster that was my first (abusive) marriage.
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I finally got therapy as an adult. The therapist was able to explain the unhealthy dynamics of my relationships, all based on me pleasing others as a response.
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I learned that I was not ever, (ever, ever, ever) responsible for another person’s happiness.
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I learned that I did not “make” another person angry, I learned that it was not my job to serve and please others, not my job to give them my possessions, my body, my labor, my paycheck, my time and effort. ( its not your responsibility either!)
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I am not responsible for anybody else’s happiness and comfort but my own.
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This was a huge concept and difficult to figure out. All my life I had been told that I made others angry, that I made them unhappy, that I hurt their feelings, that I caused them emotional pain, caused them inconvenience, that I caused them distress. It was always my job to fix that!
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I tried so hard! I learned eventually through therapy and so many patient explanations from that blessed therapist, that I am not responsible for the way others see the world, how they experience any event in their lives, that I have not got to fix things at any sign, signal, request, demand for my services, servitude, actions or interactions.
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It was a very difficult concept to understand. Autism’s inflexible thinking no doubt hindered my progress at first.
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I learned how to say NO, how to set boundaries, how to recognize when I was being used, abused, intimidated, manipulated, and how to enforce the boundaries.
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I learned how to make healthy choices for myself and not to weigh the results regarding what others thought, felt, believed, or insisted on, but only what was right for me.
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This was such a huge change from the way I had always thought and believed (and behaved).
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I still fall back on appeasement from time to time, but for the most part have learned new techniques to help myself consider what I feel, think, want, believe in making healthier choices.
(This can be done! If I could do it, I believe almost anybody can)
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The difference in my life set me free. I can’t tell you how different my life has been since I finally found out that the way we have been taught is not necessarily the way things must be forever.
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I was given new communication skills/ tools, and learned that I could choose for myself what is right for me.
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It is not our job to make others happy, to fix anything for their problems or situations in this world.
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It is not our duty to be sure that others get what they want in any way at all.
(read that again and rub it in , repeat when necessary)
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In case you have not discovered this concept, give it some thought.

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So may older autistic adults were raised using physical and emotional abusive coercion, can you see how this might apply to your own traumatic past????
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You can do something about it. You don’t have to live in fear. This fact was one of the most difficult concepts to learn and learning how to free myself has been a struggle, but the difference in my life has been that of night vs. day.
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Are you afraid of displeasing others? Are you sacrificing yourself and giving all of your time and efforts to pleasing the aims, demands, desires of others? Its something to think about!

How we do it

Self accommodation/unmasking 101

When we first discover our autism, we recognize that our different neurological wiring

has given us difficulties that neurotypical/normal/average people simply don’t have.

We discover that our responses to stimulus or any neurological input is processed differently.

Where neurotypical people seem to process information/input in similar ways, we may over or under respond or respond in surprisingly different ways to sensory input.

We may be the first to react to bright or flashing lights, cold, hot, pressure, being touched by others. Or we may not react at all.

We may find a cool breeze or steamy weather unbearable, or we may not notice if we go outdoors wearing light clothing in below freezing weather. We can be more sensitive, or less sensitive than our average counterparts. Our reactions are different because each of us will have uneven neurological development, but each of us did develop differently.

The things I do every day to make my life better, healthier, easier, less distressing or stressful may not work for any other autistic person but me.

There are lots of accommodations we can explore by trial and error for ourselves. Many adjustments require no costly adjustments or things like building construction, special equipment, furnishings, or large investment in certain brands or kinds of “training” or lessons, or therapy.

Many autistic people have the hardest time figuring out HOW they are struggling, they have tried so hard to do things to fit in, to please others, to avoid social contempt and gain acceptance.

Here are some clues that adjustments/ self accommodations are needed.

You come home from school, work, social outings, other activities completely exhausted or you frequently melt down or shut down, and must rest completely for a long time to recover your emotional and physical resources and be ready to do something/anything again. This pattern is continual and does not change as long as you keep doing the same things on your schedule.

You do an activity and find yourself breaking down due to anxiety, feeling sick, having headaches, vomiting, having meltdowns or feel on the verge of it every time you do that activity.

Certain people pressure you constantly to do things you don’t like to do because you don’t enjoy it, you do it anyways knowing how hard it will be, how upsetting, how sick-making or stressful, distressing- regardless. Or you may get sick, anxious, overwhelmed, every time you do these activities and may not realize that the activity or presence of certain individuals may be the cause of it.

When you interact with certain people you are always bullied, have meltdowns or anxiety.

When you wear clothing, shoes, makeup, special gear or uniforms to “fit in” and it causes you misery due to lack of comfort or sheer physical misery.

Going to certain places of doing certain things ends up in misery each time (and you may not even have recognized each time you got that horrible headache, for example, that you were in this certain situation or doing that certain activity.

Sensory sensitivities my also affect the way we eat, the way we clean ourselves or our surroundings, the way we do almost anything in our personal or shared lives at home and at school, at work, or in almost any situation because the others we live with, work with, play with, or interact with insist on certain ways being used, certain conditions being met or responded to only in certain ways. (this can be anything as simple as which way you put the roll of toilet paper on the dispenser to whether you sleep with windows open or closed, sleep with heavy blankets or light, with a fan on or off in the room for example).

Ways we may accommodate others or try to endure in any situation can be masking behaviors if we make ourselves miserable to keep others happy.

So many of us have been trained to be compliant and people pleasing and taught from a very young age that our opinions, thoughts, ideas, comfort and feelings of safety do not matter.
For many just finding the things we do that bring us anxiety, distress, stress, and physical misery may not be immediately evident. We have been doing these things all our lives.

Knowing our neurological strengths and weaknesses can help a lot. If you have a diagnosis summary, many times test results will show which things we are best at and which things are hardest for us. This can help us understand how to work around or re arrange things in our lives to help us do better with less stress, distress, physical illness, anxiety, fear, discomfort, etc.

So lets start with the hardest things first.
I realized early in life that having many people in motion around me was distressing. I was afraid of being touched/pushed, knocked down, falling, getting stepped on.
School was misery physically due to the necessary gathering of masses of children all being directed up and down hallways, stairways, into and out of rooms at the same time. There was plenty of pushing, shouldering aside, squeezing in between, tripping, stomping of feet, etc. It was an everyday experience I dreaded deeply. I was forced to endure it.

I have always hated going to events that naturally draw crowds, sports events, concerts, lectures, movies, shopping malls. My life became much more endurable when I stopped doing any of those things. None gave me pleasure, all gave me huge anxiety.

What is hardest for you to do each day?
Do you wear clothing that makes you miserable so you will fit in with others around you? Are there adjustments you can make for your comfort’s sake but still be within keeping of school or company dress codes, etc?

An easy one would be to lose uncomfortable high heels or pinch-toe shoes and find something that conforms to the code but doesn’t hurt when you are on your feet all day. When you start thinking about the things each day that you hate or suffer through, how many of those can have substitutes which still meet requirements, but which will be easier and better for your own comfort, productivity, and more comfortable for your ability to cope with bright or flickering lights, loud or otherwise upsetting sounds, etc.
adjusting those things and doing “something else” instead is the ultimate key to self -accommodation/unmasking . It doesn’t have to be done all at once but happens over periods of time. One day we will look back and see how much better our lives have become because we made many small adjustments over time.

If you get sick each day at work, it is likely this is not the job for you.
If you have meltdowns at work, home, or other places continually, can you recognize the thing that is triggering them? Maybe you can change your situation, location, the overstimulation or other sensory or emotional input that is overloading your system and do “something else”, “somewhere else” or in “other company” or “at another job” where meltdowns won’t happen because you will not be constantly exposed to unbearable input.

There are many everyday things we can change or do differently, swapping one activity for another, doing something else a different way which will get the job done whatever it is, in a way that is easier and less distressing for ourselves but still meets social, family, work, or other expectations in any situation. sometimes the answer is to stop doing the “thing” all together.

Can you think of “work arounds” for some of the things that are hardest for you? Can you substitute “something else” and still accomplish your intentions? If you take one thing at a time, you will find that as you move through life, your every day living will be easier, less difficult, and even more comfortable , if less “conventional”. Self care always first. If you need help discovering your worst struggles or need help thinking out new ways to self-accommodate, there are lots of books, blogs, forums, podcasts, Youtube, or other online venues available to help.

If I could do it, I think almost anybody could, but first I had to have the self-understanding that knowing my autism diagnosis brought. Without realizing that I had many struggles which others simply did not have, I was stuck trying to do things I was just not neurologically set up to do. It has been amazing to recognize my struggles and strengths and make adjustments to everyday life. Things here have never been better. Hoping this will happen for you too!

Autism and maladjustment or maladaptive behavior

The way we learned to cope with life may not work for us as adults

Autism works in us, and in our worlds in many ways from the day we are born to the day we die.
we have many struggles, most not visible to any human perception, which cause us to expend more energy, try harder, fail more frequently, cause us endless frustration, exasperation, shame and self blame.
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Many of us grew up with our autism working “behind the scenes” and we as well as our family/caretakers/ teachers, peers had no idea why we perpetually failed to perform as expected. Most of us learned coping behavior of many sorts to deal with the constant negative input surrounding our “failures”.
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Self blame, shame, aggressive self defensiveness, avoidance, mimicking behavior and camouflage, hypersensitivity and reactive behavior , including substance abuse, emotional or physical abuse and violence to others.
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Many to most of us reflect adaptation of our behaviors common in trauma responses, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn/appeasement.
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We may have dysfunctional family behavior patterns going back generations and including physical abuse, drug or alcohol abuse, fights and arguments, estrangements, lack of emotional care or neglect of children, and so much more. Unhealthy patterns are for the most part learned and can be “unlearned” and replaced with new and healthier behavior.
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I have come to the conclusion that autism hidden in many families includes parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. who may also be autistic, in older generations like mine, there may be years of “handed down” learned behavior patterns that helped families live their lives (unhealthily in most cases) and simply survive around undiagnosed autism. I bet if you think about it, you can see the unhealthy family patterns of your own experience. Nobody knew!!!!!!
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The survival techniques we learned as children in such unhealthy homes rarely work well for us when we reach adulthood. Many of us have lived long and painful lives trying to use unhealthy behaviors we learned to survive in many cases even before we could speak. We may not have any idea at all that we have choices we can make every day in the way we choose to respond to others and how we may react to others in any situation.

Here’s the good part about this heritage of unhealthy learned behavior:
We can “unlearn” it.
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I was stuck in a rigid pattern of trained response to the demands of others, and I never had a clue that I had alternatives that I could choose in how to react or respond in any situation. I had to have an outsider point it out to me. I had to have “how to do it” explained to me. I had no insights or ideas beyond those I had been taught and clung to throughout my abusive childhood to survive.
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With the help of a therapist I was able to learn healthy communication, how to set boundaries and enforce them, how to recognize when I was being used, intimidated, manipulated, abused, and how to defend myself in healthy ways by making better choices and choosing from several responses that were healthier than the learned automatic responses I had learned through trauma as a child.
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Practicing new techniques and consciously applying them was very emotionally scary at first but as I gained skill through practice, I was able to become independent, make my own healthy decisions, and defend myself from unhealthy demands by others.
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I believe if I could do it almost anybody can.
Getting therapy to learn healthy communication and decision making was the best thing I ever did for myself. Therapy saved my life and my sanity, and it was not until 40 years later that I discovered the autism that worked behind the scenes in my own growing up and family life.
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Even without your therapist knowing about your autism, you can learn and grow new skills to help you interact in healthier ways for the rest of your life. Ask your therapist to teach you healthy self assertive communication , how to set boundaries and enforce them, how to make healthier choices.

There is no shame in reaching out to learn things others can teach us, there is no shame in recognizing that we need new “tools” to live healthier every day lives, and no shame in asking for help to do that.

What we learned in the past may not be serving us as grown adults, and we have so many new and different choices in tools we can use, we might just need somebody to help us learn “how to do it”.

Hope you find what you need. Don’t be afraid to explore the possibilities!

Autism and Elopement

Escape or exploration?

Another “aha” moment for me. ( they are still coming even after 5 years past diagnosis)

I have been reading information about “elopement” that sometimes accompanies autistic behaviors. Most articles are yet aimed at controlling children and keeping them safe.
Autistic children get lost /wander and have fatal accidents at a much higher rate than the general population of children. These children seem to fall into two categories – escape or exploration.

Those who seek to avoid something will leave the triggering situation or event/ sensory or emotional overwhelming experience. “runaways” fit into this category. They seek to escape anything that makes them feel desperate to avoid the input they are experiencing, whether noises, crowds, punishment, scolding, rules of the household, school, etc etc. Escape is flight response to trauma and instead of concentrating on the action of the child (or adult!) One must also look at what triggers this response.

I am going to guess that the individual in flight does not know there are other alternatives to this “response” behavior.
Feeling unsafe and/or inadequate to cope are huge activators of the flight response. I use a controlled flight response to remove myself from any distressing experience, excuse myself as soon as I recognize my discomfort and leave the situation to my “safe place” where I can gather my resources and get myself composed in security and in privacy. I plan ahead for “safe places” when I travel or do things outside the home. In many places, I return to my car or a public bathroom, etc. I recognize that my primary response to any upset (response learned from early childhood trauma) is flight. See information about “fight, flight, freeze, and fawn/appeasement” as responses to trauma.

When I was isolated for punishment/ scoldings, being chastised and blamed/shamed, as a pre teen and older, I would leave the house and not come back until supper time when the family would be distracted and gathered together, my father being present, and my mother would not scold me in front of the others. (she chose to abuse us privately with no witnesses. until very recently I had thought I was the only one in the family this had happened to! -I am 73 and learned this from my sister). Mother was pleased to tell me she was going to put me in a “home” if I didn’t change my ways and I understood that she did not want me and did not want to deal with my disobedience/ displeasing autistic ways. I believed she never loved me and was focused on finding new ways to blame and shame me, looking for more ways in which to tell me how bad I was, how immoral I was, how lazy I was, how thoughtless…. the list could run to several pages… I simply could not please her. She seemed to look for excuses to make me feel bad. So I eloped to escape her.
I chose an abusive first spouse, who followed almost exactly the same behavior of family patterns that were already established and which I had learned all my life. We seek what we know and are comfortable with, so no surprise I ended up in exactly the same situation ( but even more abusive) when I left the nest upon my first marriage. I ended up in flight several times within the framework of myrelationship even before marriage. I simply did not know how to find other ways to deal with the misery. I attempted suicide as escape finally.
I had been depressed and anxious since age 8 and finally at age 29 I took that step. It was purely desperation to escape the situation and in my mind there were no other alternatives. Inflexibile thinking/ rigid behavior learned as a child kept me from finding or understanding I had many choices and alternatives. I had to be taught “how to do it” , an outsider had to explain in great detail exactly what I had missed as a child growing up in that unhealthy household. There were “no ways” besides what I had been raised to, I simply could not imagine alternatives on my own.

I was rescued from the suicide attempt and told that I would go to jail if I did not get psychiatric help/counseling. I tried 4 therapists before I found one who “got me” and who finally was able to reach and teach me the healthy communication and decision making techniques to survive in the world outside of the sick patterns that I had learned in my family growing up.

Therapy saved my life and my sanity! Having alternatives and choices to the way I respond to any individual every single time, besides the ways that had been “programmed” into me has given me healthy alternatives to flight as a response to overwhelming experiences.

Learning that I have options in my choices of response and planning ahead of time for ways to “flee” or escape from overwhelming situations has kept me safe now for over 40 years.
If you are prone to suddenly exit upsetting situations, leave your home under duress, leave work, gatherings, or other overwhelming situations (anger from a boss, spouse, friend etc for example)
consider getting therapy to learn new ways to deal with distress and overwhelm. I believe that we as adults can learn to do this.

Look for a therapist who can help you learn healthy communication and decision making skills with less probing into “feelings”. The first 3 therapists wanted to talk only about my “feelings” “how does that make you feel” sent me into sobbing spasms “I dont know” was the best I could respond to any of them. I can still remember the distress of trying to figure out what this oblique suggesting meant, what I was supposed to learn by re-living so much pain and trauma. I could not get any of them to explain, they just wanted me to “think about it”.
I guess I was supposed to figure it out for myself (then why were these people there?) My rigid thinking in those days before diagnosis simply did not allow me to see implied lessons or to sort cause and effect.

It was such torture to go repeatedly to re-live trauma without any explanations.. It was such a relief to find that 4th therapist who “got it” and could see what I needed, explain to me, and teach me the skills I needed. The process of finding a good therapist alone took me about 2 years. All that emotional pain for all that time did nothing to help and is still so upsetting to remember.

I hope if you struggle with elopement due to distress (and you might need to think about this to see the patterns in your life surrounding this issue) that you will look for new and healthier ways to deal with these events. I do believe it is something we can learn. If I could do it I believe anybody can.
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About “wandering”. First, it does not make sense to me to classify evasion elopement together with exploration elopement. They really are “something else” with entirely different motives and objectives.
I am a wanderer, but was never a wanderer as a child because of strong restrictions laid down since infancy… I learned to stay put, whether in a chair, on a rug or piece of furniture, or to stay in the fenced yard we had by the time I was 8 years old. Those boundaries were well defined and I could not leave without permission for fear of punishment. Fear has been a great motivator even before I could speak and worked well to “keep me in line” when small.
But once I began to walk to school, I dawdled and took “alternate routes” home from school, often arriving well after my sister, who attended the same school. We walked for a while together to school, but I don’t remember a single walk home from school together.

My mother did not drive, and she had 3 other younger kids to take care of, so I was free to take my time and explore on my way home. I got scolded when I arrived late each day but it was worth it to be free from anybody else’s demands and to be alone for that short time each day. In a family home of 6 there is mostly chaos, and very little peace or privacy.

As a teen I was allowed to leave the house, and I spent hours and hours walking all over our small town, sometimes even exploring country roads. I walked for miles every day and my favorite long walks were after dinner as it became dark, I left the house and walked until my curfew… I think the parents were relieved when I was gone and did not object, and I certainly was able to relieve my considerable anxiety by the stim of rapidly walking for miles and miles.
Many times when I got home, the rest of the family had already gone to bed. It was peaceful and safe to slip into the house and make for my bed in the dark and the quiet.

Today I walk the shorelines and the wooded trails near my home as often as possible. I have strong curiosity and appreciation for the natural world and these forays bring peace and enjoyment as nothing else can. “Alone time” is so very important to me, as is the activity of walking which I rely on for release of energy and to help find my emotional center while satisfying my curiosity about so many things in nature’s realm. I believe walking is a “stim” for me.
Small children wandering are often exploring, or trying to find a way to get to an experience they would like to repeat (a trip to the beach, to the favorite fast-food restaurant, to grandma’s house? Wherever they want to go. Kids who leave the house alone at a very young age while unattended may simply be exploring or trying to find stimulation, satisfy curiosity, or to find other ways to interact with their surroundings.

Plans can be made, and precautions can be taken to prevent wanderers from leaving unnoticed. We had to put complex latches high on the doors in our house when our children were small. We learned tricks to keep them with us in public unknown places, we found ways to work around the sudden impulse (in our smallest it was sheer energy and exuberance combined with impulsivity- ah if we could bottle that energy)
As adults we have the ability to choose when and how we wander (unless we rely on others to make this happen for us).
Have you ever experienced elopement personally or in others close to you? How did you deal with it? What alternatives do you have to help keep safety first and still provide the release that is needed for escape or satisfaction of the need for motion, the stimulation of curiosity, etc.? there are loads of articles “out there” about preventing elopement and about enrichment experiences.
I had forgotten all about my “running away” until recently. Little by little, the aha moments are decreasing as I gain better self understanding. I hope this is true for you too.

What is behind the increase in Autism Diagnosis?

Today’s understanding of autism means more are being diagnosed.

I have been reading the news! Headlines report a huge and alarming increase in the occurrence (diagnosis) of autism. Statistics are quoted, speculation abounds, as in many other facets of experience with autism, politics swing, sway, hold court, agitate, educate, and exacerbate opinions and fears. We can see the work of the press, pharmaceutical advertising, faction groups, appearance of pop culture heroes with opinions all over the internet in articles, videos, podcasts, sub -culture groups, and videos, popular social forums and sites where many people now obtain their news.

Here is the thing. Although statistics from previous record keeping show increase of autism by leaps and bounds, record keeping and definition and understanding of the nature of autism as well as guidelines for diagnosis has changed dramatically over the years.

When Autism was first discovered, documented, and began to be an official medical/psychiatric diagnosis, it was not well understood.

Official diagnosis began around 1980. It was a huge relief to have a few explanations or definitions for so many severely impaired individuals struggling in institutions and care homes.
Autism was at first diagnosed only in people who today would be called “profoundly autistic”.

Autism is still the “new kid on the block” as far as scientific understanding goes. The very first person diagnosed officially as autistic only recently passed away.

During that time much has changed, from recognizing signs of autism to the way it is understood.

Instead of a behavioral disorder, where focus was on changing the problematic behavior of autistic individuals, we know today (through scientific research and huge gains in the tools we use to analyze and discover genetics, neurology, biology, the brain, behavior, etc. )
that autism is caused by uneven development of our neurology long before we are even born.

It is primarily genetic in nature, is not due to trauma, pollution, medications, foods, brain damage, vaccinations, or evil spirits.
Autism is not caused by exposure to things after we are born, not caused by injuries or diseases, we are born with autism and we die with it.

Other conditions may closely mimic autism and with no defining feature common to each and every autistic individual, some who have had brain inflammation, trauma, or other physical or chemical causes for their neurological struggles may end up with autism diagnosis. Science and understanding are always “works in progress”

Autism has been present in the population for generations even before it was named. In my own family, it seems autism has been present since at least 1859 when my great- great- grandmother was born. She spent the last 15 years of her life in an institution and there are letters and other papers to document her unusual behavior and “strangeness”.

In literature and philosophy and general social culture, autistic people were ‘fools,” “idiots”, “simpletons”, often even then classified by lowest possible social standing.
In the 1980s it was believed that autistic individuals had no empathy, would never marry, would have no friends or relationships, never hold a job, and must be trained like animals to function at all.
( read a complete history of autism including the changing theories and definitions of autism as science and medicine has advanced – I have written articles on autism history near the beginning of this blog if you want a compact version)

Today we know people like me can be autistic, too. I am married, have a family, read and write and have been gainfully employed. The understanding of autism and the parameters which define it have undergone a massive evolution. Statistics available tell so little of the actual story of Autism and are grossly misleading when cited and quoted without context, definitions, or explanations.

People speculate that some of the most brilliant individuals in history may also have been autistic, but that “branch” of Autism was not understood “back when”.
My mother (born in 1929) was called a “simpleton” by her parents and siblings. When I got my own autism diagnosis at age 68, long after she had passed away, it was easy to recognize that my mother and probably her mother too, were autistic, as was the before mentioned great great grandmother.

In each generation of that family line, there were suicides of young women up to age 30 and of men 50 and over for as far as I can trace that family line ( late 1700s).
I suspect this also shows autism runs in this family line, although when those people lived nobody knew about autism. Suicide rates are up to 8x higher in the autistic population as compared to the general population.

Today there is still no defining single test to determine diagnosis of Autism. Science is still avidly looking for one! Nobody can say “for sure” an individual is autistic through dna, blood, or other tests, and there is no physical “look of autism” to give clues.

The only thing every single autistic person has in common is that their uneven neurological development is discernable and definable in many ways. What neurological struggles we have are different for each of us depending on how our neurology “develops” before we are born.
Descriptions used to diagnose autism today are extremely different from the descriptions used in the 1980s.

Today’s media or other people examine the medical statistics which quote the huge rise in numbers of the diagnosis of autism, but there is little understanding that it is because autism is being recognized more frequently, the parameters used for diagnosis have been widened, narrowed, redefined by science repeatedly. This is bound to continue as understanding continues to grow.

It is not because the actual frequency of autism has increased.

Society, science, and medicine are forming new understanding of autism and the statistics are reflecting this.

Keep an open mind and remember that what makes good headlines and sells news is shock, fear, anxiety, scare and horror. Who benefits by this sort of reporting of statistics with no actual understanding of autism, its history, or its changing definitions? Follow the money.

“Autism for profit” is a big deal these days, watch what you use as your source of information, find more than one source if at all possible, look for the motives, the movement of money, the politics, and explore the science and the history of what is reported with such shock and fear headlines to find the “real story” behind them.

Special Autism

You are so special! Now you have “Autistic Joy” too!!!

Oh man, here we go again. I am noticing lots of online conversations, and now suddenly Youtube and blogs, suddenly even articles written about “Autistic Joy”.
I am not certain where this originated but the same people who promote “special interests” and “autism is a superpower”, “autism is a gift” are at it once more.

I have been scolded and prompted to respond to multiple queries about my “special interests”, my “superpowers”, my “Autistic Gifts”, and now my so called “Autistic Joy”.

The power of positive thinking is real, the ability to recognize and appreciate the good things in life is real, the sense of accomplishment or self we may obtain from recognizing positive traits in ourselves is healthy unless it is unrealistic or imagined.

I find these prompts to be condescending and actually the opposite of empowering. They all fall under that “special” label where we are constantly pointed at and labeled and “othered”.

These things may be well meaning and meant to encourage a positive outlook in children, but when some 20 year old lectures me about my “special abilities” and how I should be proud because I am autistic, I wonder what sort of BS they have been raised to believe.

Autism in childhood is hard enough, wait until they figure out they have been given a completely unrealistic evaluation of their abilities and their potential (you can be anything you want to be)

I am proud of my autism like I am proud of my diabetes or my high blood pressure. These things are what they are and I don’t go around like some PR person touting the “advantages” of these conditions and how important they make me.
I smell something bad when patronizing people praise and condescendingly (metaphorically) pat me on the head, telling me how wonderful I am.

There may be advantages to being autistic, but in all these years of living, I’m not sure I can name even one.

Most people experience positive traits, and can appreciate things about themselves, but that does not make them “special”. Yet folks are here all over the internet once again telling me how “special” I am.

Its perhaps mistakenly meant to be positive or encouraging, but I smell condescendingly shallow patronization and back-handedly once again pointing out that for an autistic person, I am doing so very well! For an autistic person, pretty good, (still not neurotypical though, too bad for you, your performance in one or two areas of life may meet or exceed neurotypical norms, good for you, you are so special! )

PS, even after almost 73 years of life on this planet I am unable to find “happiness” and as far as I am aware, have never experienced “joy”.
Your experience may be different, good for you, that’s not bad for an autistic person!!!
( sarcasm)

Nobody Knew!

A lifetime of shame and blame for sensory processing disorders.

Those of us who grew up before diagnosis and understanding of disabilities surrounding sensory processing, autism, adhd, learning disabilities such as dyslexia, were blamed for our struggles.

Were you told “you just don’t try”, “you are not paying attention” “you are lazy”, “You know very well what you have done”, “pull yourself together” “get with it” and other shaming and blaming comments, frequently with punishments according to the failure to perform as expected?? So many of us lived lives of misery trying to explain how hard we were trying and being punished for things we failed at which were beyond our neurological abilities. Nobody knew.

In the days when many of us grew up, failure to take personal responsibility and to perform as expected was considered mental weakness, moral weakness, or even worse, we were given labels “stupid” “idiot” “simpleton” … you can fill in the blanks.

Many of us carry the scars of well meaning “correction”, emotional or physical, or both, testimony to the concern of parents, educators, religious leaders, and others “back then” who were advocates of punishment as the way to correct and control any failure of children right through adulthood, beginning in some cases before the child could even speak.

Today we know so much more about autism and the neurology of so many ways we struggle to perform.

This is such a relief and vindication for so many of us born before 1980, when autism was first diagnosed, when understanding of neurological function struggles was just being discovered.

We have come such a long way from those roots of scientific searches to explain why so many of us failed to thrive, failed to perform, failed to live up to expectations or to fit into society and its mandates. But many of us carry scars in our minds, hearts, souls as well as our bodies.

It was such a relief to finally understand the lifetime of failures I had lived before I got that diagnosis . “Autism” explained so much. “Autism ” answered almost all the “whys” of a long and painful life of struggles.

I never understood that I had struggles which most other people did not. What a relief! It is never too late to find new understanding .

It is wonderful to me that so many adults today are learning about autism and how it worked behind the scenes all our lives without knowing or understanding, our own or that of others.
Now we can make our own lives better through self understanding and self accommodation. We have the answers and the means to discover new tools to help us every day.

Nobody knew!