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How was your childhood?

During childhood was your home environment

  • Loving and supportive

    Votes: 7 19.4%

  • Not ideal but ok

    Votes: 12 33.3%

  • Disfunctional

    Votes: 17 47.2%

  • Verbally abusive

    Votes: 17 47.2%

  • Violent

    Votes: 12 33.3%

  • Known or suspected genetic component

    Votes: 10 27.8%
  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
Fitzo

Fitzo

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I have read that researchers believe that autism could be the result of genetic predisposition and possible environmental factors.
As I've read people's posts concerning their upbringing it seems as though there may be quite a few of us who had less than ideal family environments.
I thought it might be interesting to get an idea of what percentage of us had either genetic factors, environmental factors or both.
My own situation was violent and disfunctional. I also believe it is likely my father had AS and my nephew does. Therefore my own situation had both a genetic and environmental component.
 
How was my childhood?

Different to the one I provided for my own children.
Different to the ones I noticed other children my age were having.

There isn't just one way to raise a child.

There have been moments, over a lifetime to date, where I think 'I would have liked it if ...such and such a thing happened ... instead of what actually happened but I only have the capability to change what happens now (not back then)

I am no longer that small, frightened child, I'm an adult with choices in front of me and don't look to lay blame, just look for ways to make life easier.

Like you I was weaned on anger and dysfunction and carried those toxins into life with me ... Until I didn't. But I had to look for and learn a different way of being.
I still am.
(Looking and learning)

I suspect, (it has never even been discussed, let alone confirmed) there's more than just me in our family that experiences life as I do.
 
Like both my brothers I was born with autism and had very serious developmental issues including being extremely slow with speech from as early as experts could tell as a very young child, unlike my brothers however I started improving as I got older, but I kept numerous autistic traits. My childhood was dysfunctional, but only because of the way the 3 of us behaved and because my dad didn't have an infinite amount of patience unlike my mother, and also because of the awful time I had at school when my parents kept insisting I attend a normal school against expert advice. Even though 3 of us in the family are autistic and my brothers are still very low functioning as adults and can't for instance count to 5 or read, in the 1970s they believed that there couldn't possibly ever be a genetic link in any autism despite it being against astronomical odds for all 3 brothers to be diagnosed autistic (views have since changed). I still suspect our autism was more likely caused by my mother's asthma during pregnancy than a genetic link, although nothing is proven and my family finally blocked us from further testing in the late 1970s after we'd already been to see numerous doctors and experts including Professor Michael Rutter, they had basically had enough of experts wanting to do research on us. I have therefore only voted "Disfunctional".
 
For my close circle of family it was dysfunctional and my wider circle of family some violence I never witnessed it
 
I had more trouble outside my family. School, scouts and friendships. Obviously my condition wasn't understood. No one had even heard of Asperger's when I grew up.

Our family was not a close family. But then there is a lot of autism in it as we are discovering.
 
I chose 'loving and supportive' and 'dysfunctional'. My parents looked after us well, but assumed I was just a bit weird rather than actually looking into whether I should see someone (mainly for my tics growing up) and my Dad was quite bad for mocking my tics and losing his temper with how bad I was at maths. I chose dysfunctional because my whole family on my Mum's side is messed up (long history of child abuse within her family, and they're all just...messed up). There was a lot of things that were never spoken of, or we were told "I'll tell you when you're older" type of thing.
 
On one side :
A slow disintegrative mess.

On the other :
I was independent from a young age :)

They say you learn a lot from making mistakes.
As i have learnt : this does not mean make as many mistakes as you can.

I made a complete break from my family - not the nastiest people on earth - just made a choice that was best for me and im sticking to it.

Otherwise it becomes same people,same problems.

Lots of things i dont want to think about and those people from the past wluld annoy me greatly.
 
Gracey said:
How was my childhood?

Different to the one I provided for my own children.
Different to the ones I noticed other children my age were having.

There isn't just one way to raise a child.

There have been moments, over a lifetime to date, where I think 'I would have liked it if ...such and such a thing happened ... instead of what actually happened but I only have the capability to change what happens now (not back then)

I am no longer that small, frightened child, I'm an adult with choices in front of me and don't look to lay blame, just look for ways to make life easier.

Like you I was weaned on anger and dysfunction and carried those toxins into life with me ... Until I didn't. But I had to look for and learn a different way of being.
I still am.
(Looking and learning)

I suspect, (it has never even been discussed, let alone confirmed) there's more than just me in our family that experiences life as I do.
Click to expand...
I just want to clarify that the purpose of this thread is not to ascribe blame to anyone, merely to get an idea of how accurate the researchers are in their beliefs of the causes of autism. It is believed that autism runs in families, which would suggest a genetic component, yet so far no one except myself has selected that option. It's really more of a bit of unofficial research amongst this particular group just out of curiosity and for our own information.
 
Chaos... No one needs to hear the details of my life anymore... I don't even want to go back there in thought and or write it out. It was at times situations I had to try and survive and a couple of times I nearly didn't. But instead of going out and turning into an ax murderer and blaming everyone... I decided to let it go.

I was a hand flapping, ear pulling ASD kid who didn't speak, who hated people touching him...
No one knew I had ASD??? They called me retarded until they figured out I could think circles around them and maybe that made them hate me more??? Who knows, who cares? Its over. I grew out of most all of the physical traits... I become more than most all of them put together... though thats not what I ever wanted at all... I just wanted to be loved and that wasn't possible it seems.

I am grateful to have made it through it... All is forgiven and I try very hard to forget it and distance myself from it as much as possible. In that I am still learning to become who I am supposed to be - my way... Not the worlds way. : )

I am the only official case in my family, but I think my Grams and my Uncle would be easily ASD as far as the gene thing...
 
My life growing up wasn't exactly ideal. Family members were always moving in with us - at one point, I was living with 9 other people total. We also didn't have a lot of money, and I found out as an adult that there were a couple of times during my childhood when we came pretty close to being homeless.

But even though it wasn't perfect, my parents and brother loved me and supported me very much and we always made the best out of any situation life threw at us. I think it's made the bond between us very strong over the years. Our lives have drastically improved but the bond between us remains incredibly strong.

I believe that there is also strong genetic component to my Asperger's. Both of my parents are quirky loners who are incredibly intelligent. Neither of them have been officially diagnosed, but my mom has told me that she has suspected both herself and my dad of having ASD too. My brother was tested for ASD but it was ruled out. But like my parents and myself, he is a loner though.

As a matter of fact, between my parents, my brother and myself, none of us really have any friends; we much prefer to spend our free time with each other and we generally dislike spending time with others who are outside of our inner circle.
 
My family changed from time to time. Started out ok but after my dad died my mom coped really poorly, my problems at school were getting worse, and everything deteriorated.
 
I had a loving family. It wasn't all kittens and rainbows, but as loving an supportive as one could ideally want. I do know that autism runs in the family on both sides, although most of them are undiagnosed and/or unaware.
 
Early childhood was great, and I was on my own exploring the surrounding forests. My first words were 'go outside.' Which might give you an indication of how it was inside. Yet it
wasn't all terrible, I visited my grandfather most every day, and we went for walks. My mother never comforted us, or held any of us, or hugged us, she mainly admonished or criticized us for whatever we might be doing at the time.
Meals were on the table at noon and at five o'clock sharp sounded by the ever present factory whistle, for my entire childhood. So my physical needs were met, I had clean clothes, and a bed to sleep in. I got to go to school, I saw the doctor, I had a bike and swimming lessons and ice cream cones in the summer. I went to fairs, picked apples, grew vegetables, went on vacations. A basic working class upbringing of the time.
 
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Confusing, inconsistent and I would like to forget a lot of it. Ironically perhaps because of AS not being able to forget as much as others means I am often haunted by memories, conversations and thoughts I had all those years ago. Fortunate in some ways though as I was never bullied or experienced any abuse at home.
 
Unconventional. Born to two moms with a lot of issues of their own, and lived with them until the age of 3. Then lived with loving, yet extremely devout religious grandparents until the age of 11, then started traveling and my narcissistic mom came back into the picture for good and it's been insane ever since.
 
For myself, I experienced a mix of the best love and support you could imagine plus significant abuse and neglect.

Both my parents have ASD traits (communication and social issues, a need to do things in particular ways, obsessive interests). My mother also had a lot of the same ADHD issues I have....I'm pretty sure that she actually had ADHD.

Actually neurodevelopmental atypicality is common on both sides of my family -- extends out to aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins.

As an aside, I just want to point out that environmental factors are not just psycho-social factors like the social environment and how you were raised. "Environmental factors" can also refer to the things like presence or absence of certain chemicals (organic/natural or otherwise) that can be taken into the body via air, food, water, or objects people touch, it can refer to things like sunlight or other types of radiation/energy, it can refer to ambient temperature, it can refer to pathogens a person is exposed to, the nutrient content of the food a person eats, it can refer to the sensory environment they live in (e.g. the sensory input found on a busy city street versus an acreage in a rural environment)....Also, it can refer to all of these things during the period before a person is even born and is still developing in utero.
 
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the_tortoise said:
For myself, I experienced a mix of the best love and support you could imagine plus significant abuse and neglect.

Both my parents have ASD traits (communication and social issues, a need to do things in particular ways, obsessive interests). My mother also had a lot of the same ADHD issues I have....I'm pretty sure that she actually had ADHD.

Actually neurodevelopmental atypicality is common on both sides of my family -- extends out to aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins.

As an aside, I just want to point out that environmental factors are not just psycho-social factors like the social environment and how you were raised. "Environmental factors" can also refer to the things like presence or absence of certain chemicals (organic/natural or otherwise) that can be taken into the body via air, food, water, or objects people touch, it can refer to things like sunlight or other types of radiation/energy, it can refer to ambient temperature, it can refer to pathogens a person is exposed to, the nutrient content of the food a person eats, it can refer to the sensory environment they live in (e.g. the sensory input found on a busy city street versus an acreage in a rural environment)....Also, it can refer to all of these things during the period before a person is even born and is still developing in utero.
Click to expand...
I agree that environmental factors could be many and various, but most of us would not be aware of those in utero or very early childhood.
 
My parents were very "hands-off" with me and tried to program me through being passive-aggressive until that didn't work and then it turned active-aggressive. It wasn't so bad with my sister there basically raising me until she left for college when I was about 9 and after that it was pretty much up to me to figure **** out for myself because I was afraid of and would avoid my parents - and forget about "peer" support or support from other adults.

Meh, made me decently self-sufficient I guess. No diagnosis til 23 through so no idea what genetic factors are there. My parents both definitely have autistic traits though, but I'm fairly sure they're still NT
 
My childhood was pretty good compared to many others'. My parents were loving, I did well in school, and I wasn't abused or bullied. Yes, I did have my own internal struggles. But I was pretty lucky.
 
I was adopted, and because of my aversion to eye contact, they always assumed that whatever I said was a lie. I was raised in a cult, didn't go to school, and was regarded as nothing but free labor by the people that raised me.

as far as genetics I do not know.
 
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