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Generation X

MROSS said:
Here is a news-story on 'Generation X.'

News-story doesn't mention 'Generation X's' experiences with the Autism Spectrum. Personal experiences?

News-story on Generation X:
Click to expand...
Well, the primary experience from someone with an ASD-1/Asperger's variant is that "it didn't exist". We didn't understand that we were experiencing our world in a very different way than everyone else. Why? We didn't talk about it... with anyone. Culturally and socially, we were just expected to be like everyone else. It was a very simple mindset... you weren't given the option of social isolation, avoiding people, learning life skills, working... and you were expected to leave the house at 18. Our parents cut that umbilical cord if we liked it or not... we didn't have anything to say about it... mainly because we were absolutely NOT allowed to have a conversation with our parents nor express feelings. We were to be seen and not heard... we were quickly punished if we spoke our minds. Any "behaviors" were quickly dealt with with physical punishment. Autism wasn't part of the vernacular... we never heard of it... at all... until the 1990s. **I say "we", as in that was the cultural and social expectation of everyone in typical mid-West US.

If you were an ASD-3, you were "special ed" and/or institutionalized (extreme cases)... but parents pretty much hid you away and nobody ever knew. Sure, rumors in the neighborhood suggested there was a kid who was "retarded" (had no clue what the issue was) who lived in the house down the block... but those kids rode the "short bus" and otherwise, were not out in public. In fact, if you were physically and/or mentally disabled, you didn't go out in public... or it was extremely limited. There were not special buses with lifts, there were always sharp stairs, street curbs, no powered doors, no powered chairs, no ramps... absolutely nothing was "accessible".

If anyone wants to know why, in the past 20 years, we've all sort of "come forth" is because although we may have sensed we were different in certain ways... we didn't know the extent... nor was "autism" even on our minds as a possibility until recently.
 
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MROSS said:
Here is a news-story on 'Generation X.'

News-story doesn't mention 'Generation X's' experiences with the Autism Spectrum. Personal experiences?

News-story on Generation X:
Click to expand...
ADDENDUM: Generation X applies to people born between 1965 and 1981.

The 1954 to 1965 years (as in news stories applies to the younger baby boomers.

The awareness of the Autism Spectrum (beyond classic Autism) with the Autism Spectrum for the older-half of 'Generation X' was pretty much non-existant.
 
MROSS said:
The 1954 to 1965 years (as in news stories applies to the younger baby boomers.
Click to expand...
I was born in 65 so I'm sort of both.

When my mother tried to suggest there was something different about me my father replied "Rubbish. He does it deliberately just to give me the shits.". At that time I had no idea what it was that I did differently that upset people.
 
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