If You Could Go Back

[OkRad]

I love the theoretical threads that are popping up and stimulating me. Here is one I often think about. Since a lot of us were DXed late, we ruminate on WHAT IF? What it if I knew????

If you knew then what you know now........If you could go back to age ten, knowing you are Apsie/Aut and how that would mean.....what would you change?

At first, I thought, wow, I would study all the Greek and Latin I could. But then i realized I would be called a Prodigy and go into special schools and maybe miss out on the people I met who have brought great joy into my life.

I have gone over how different it might be if I knew. I might never have even Tried to get into realtionships. I might have gotten into despair. My parents my have treated me with kid gloves.....I don't know.....maybe I would have not fought so hard.

I do think it's good to know, but looking back, I am not sure I would change anything.

So, in the end, I am not sure I would change anything.

Just wondering how those of you who have considered this, what did you end up thinking?

 

[Keigan]

I’m Aspie and logical, I am very comfortable that I do not have access to a time machine in order to alter the past.

With that, I can certainly learn from the past, though I have found that looking backwards at luggage only keeps me there - keeps me in the past with my mistakes.

Out of survival, I look forwards and I create based upon who I am and my capabilities. It is a matter of thought cycles and emotions, both are constrained resource that I choose to focus forwards.

 

[Chance]

Knowing I can't, but also knowing I need to learn from my past... I dream up a present, that will build a future that will take me to my wildest dreams... I can't just "believe" that... I have to KNOW it.

I try really hard to not go back (but I do slip up and do that sometimes)...

It's too dark, but it had it reasons. Nothing is an accident. There is something to learn in any experience, and now that has made me not turn to that darkness, so I became grateful and appreciative to move past it.

Maybe someday I can help others find the way out also. I have a very soft spot in my heart for people who are hurting in their mind. I know it too well and I know there are ways out if we so choose. : )

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

I think i probably would not have punched my friend at age 11 and vow not to have nothing to do with them ever again.
They were just messing about being kids, i didnt get it and wasmortally offended by what they did.

Although our paths would have differed - i doubt i could have kept up with their burgeoning social world anyway.

But i hit someone and they didnt hit me back - go me

 

[Ragnahawk]

If I could go back in time I would have made the same friends i made now earlier. One of them is dying, but still. He will live through me by influencing me to know. Also I would use the lottery to get quick rich. I would use that money to start my own autistic accepting lower through college school. It would even offer jobs for them. If they don't want to invest in themselves such as elitist I would put them back where they belong because those are the type of people that use others viciously.

 

[Bolletje]

On the one hand, I wish I had been diagnosed earlier than age 29, just so I could've been spared some of the pain I endured from feeling like a failure for being so different. On the other hand, I think 16 y/o me would have lacked the emotional maturity to process a diagnosis. In the end I don't think my life would have been that much different, I just might have learned some more self acceptance at a younger age.

 

[Mia]

If I knew as a child, in my era I would have been placed in the 'slow' classes, yet should
have been in the accelerated ones. I would have been like the children that were placed in sanitariums and left there if I had been diagnosed. When I worked at a local one for a summer, I realize now that many of the residents were autistic. None could read or write and most couldn't speak, and they were trapped in that world forever.
If I'd known way back, and had parents who understood the implications, I could have done more, and focused on just a few things that would become my life's work. I didn't need to understand or memorize many of the things I did, most of which I want to purge from my brain. Yet the hundreds of pop songs and commercials that I memorized, and the ditty's and phrases probably helped me to get along with other people.

 

[Katleya]

Honestly, I don't think I would change anything.

Junior high was really bad, and of course I wish I could erase those memories, but it's also where I got into gymnastics, and where I had one of the very few teachers in my school years who valued the additional knowledge I had to bring, and both gymnastics & that teacher played a crucial role in developing self-confidence (you know, the one that other teachers and the vast majority of kids tried to destroy).

I don't like that not knowing of my diagnosis made me more vulnerable to certain things, but they might have happened even if I'd been an NT, so there's that.

I also think that if I'd known about being an Aspie & what it entailed, I would have picked my career differently, and studied for something where I actually had a chance, but who's to say I would have liked it? And also, with possibly fewer expectations on my success, maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard, so wouldn't have ended higher than now anyways.

All in all, my life would have been different, but not necessarily better. It took a while to get to that conclusion, though.

 

[Judge]

Having hindsight of being on the spectrum early instead of late in life. Would it have made a profound difference?

I honestly have no idea. I can only say that I think it's better to know, whether now or later.

 

[vangelis]

I think having known at an early age would have helped my parents more than me. They didn't have the first clue about me to be honest.

 

[Judge]

I think having known at an early age would have helped my parents more than me. They didn't have the first clue about me to be honest.

The irony in my case. My parents knew there was "something different" about me. Sufficient for them to investigate their suspicions with medical professionals. Though it was the medical professionals who couldn't find anything different- or necessarily wrong with me at the time. Circa 1961. Decades before Dr. Asperger's research was formally and professionally acknowledged.

After that my parents never again pursued the matter, although they did display their exasperation with me over the years, lamenting at times that they simply didn't understand me.

 

[Flinty]

It's quite the conundrum. The question is what the school would have done for me, if anything. They either would have sent me to be with the two special education students and thus given quite a headache to Mrs. A., or they would have sent me to another town because they couldn't handle me. One of these would have made things much worse, the other is a complete unknown.

 

[vangelis]

The irony in my case. My parents knew there was "something different" about me. Sufficient for them to investigate their suspicions with medical professionals. Though it was the medical professionals who couldn't find anything different- or necessarily wrong with me at the time. Circa 1961. Decades before Dr. Asperger's research was formally and professionally acknowledged.

After that my parents never again pursued the matter, although they did display their exasperation with me over the years, lamenting at times that they simply didn't understand me.

This is very interesting to hear and would certainly agree with the last point about not understanding. They did always acknowledge I was odd though and defended this to the point of upsetting and, at least temporarily, losing friends.

 

[dragoncat16]

I wouldn't have wasted my whole life waiting to find friends and to find someone to love, erroneously assuming that I had just as much chance of getting both as anyone else.

I would have been expecting to be bullied and mistreated and it wouldn't have come as such a shock when that's what happened for the umpteenth time. I wouldn't have promised myself "I won't let it happen to me again" because I would have known that of course it was going to happen again. I wouldn't have been so willing to trust other people who turned out to wish me harm.

I would have told my teachers to go to hell when they let the other kids tease me and beat me up and then sent reports home with me saying that it was all my fault I didn't get along with the other children. I wouldn't have bothered going to university because I would have known that I had no chance of having a meaningful career no matter how many degrees I earned.

I probably wouldn't be any happier, but at least I would have been forewarned that my whole life was going to be a piece of crap.

Meh, maybe it would have been better. I have no idea. I just know that I didn't get the chances that I deserved and that everyone else got, and I'm not convinced that an earlier diagnosis of having something wrong with my brain would have helped me in my academic career. Now that I have my diagnosis, my mom won't listen to me any more because she says I'm "deficient" and therefore none of my opinions are valid. Not that she listened to me very well before, but at least she pretended to try.

 

[Fitzo]

If I had known when I was young I would definitethly have taken a different career path and found less 'peoplecentric' jobs. That would have made for a less stressful work life.

Other than that though, I think in some ways it might have been better not to know because I might have isolated myself even more. The flipside of that would have been that I wouldn't have been so hard on myself when things didn't work out.

I know it wouldn't have made my home life any easier because my parents would have just denied it anyway.

I honestly don't know whether I would have been better or worse off had I known, but I'm glad I know now. There was no AC when I was young!

 

[Chance]

It's quite the conundrum. The question is what the school would have done for me, if anything. They either would have sent me to be with the two special education students and thus given quite a headache to Mrs. A., or they would have sent me to another town because they couldn't handle me. One of these would have made things much worse, the other is a complete unknown.

My young days (maybe a lot like yours)... The school spoke with my parents wanting to send me to a different school because I was the only one like me there... My parents decided no, (maybe because it would be a long drive everyday), and just labeled me as "bull headed stubborn."

So if there had of been earlier assistance, sure things might be more different than I can even grasp, but the reality of that was that didn't happen. However, I might have grown dependent on the "system" and may have never developed into what I did... Though it sucked, maybe it wasn't as bad as it could have been...
I don't guess I will ever know, nor should I worry over what I cant possibly change. : )

 

[InPrincipio]

I love the theoretical threads that are popping up and stimulating me. Here is one I often think about. Since a lot of us were DXed late, we ruminate on WHAT IF? What it if I knew????

If you knew then what you know now........If you could go back to age ten, knowing you are Apsie/Aut and how that would mean.....what would you change?

At first, I thought, wow, I would study all the Greek and Latin I could. But then i realized I would be called a Prodigy and go into special schools and maybe miss out on the people I met who have brought great joy into my life.

And would the special schools really be special? How would you know that a really qualified teacher would be teaching you? Would they "get" you and your talents? Just sayin'...
One of my sons was in a congregated gifted class with 24 others, all with one teacher. The thing is, every child has different interests, and the teacher can only do so much... so they did a some self-directed learning and presented their findings to the class (not always though) and to parents during certain open house dates. Each kid would still only have a limited audience (and some would still have an audience of one). My son still got bored. My kids still thought that homeschooling was way better (but that just got to difficult for us to continue after my husband's workplace closed).

If I knew that I was autistic/aspie before I had kids, I would have done a few things differently with my ASD son. He was first diagnosed as gifted, but I didn't really know about Asperger's before 2013, so he went a full 12 years before I knew and pursued a diagnosis for him. Still, I did interact with him a lot when he was a baby and toddler, so I think that helped. I got down at his level back then, and played with him and observed him, and made sure that I encouraged his interests. Really, I did the same with all three of my kids, but I think it really drew my ASD son out of his own world more often, which I believe really helped him. It was when I thought he was just gifted that I let him do more of his own thing, when if I had known, he could have had more support. Better late than never, I guess. And at least he started getting help at age 12 and not 49 like me!

 

[Bella Pines]

I'm glad I didn't know until later in life. I would have isolated myself and would probably not have had children. Without the struggles to fit, the rejection, the pain, the attempted emulation of neurotypicals, I wouldn't have been able to function in NT society. It will never be easy, but at least I know how to do it and no longer get anxious. So all in all, it has been a rough road but I'm glad I traveled it.

 

[InPrincipio]

If I had known when I was young I would definitethly have taken a different career path and found less 'peoplecentric' jobs. That would have made for a less stressful work life.

I definitely would have pursued a career that suits me better, and I would have gone to university/college much earlier than waiting until 10 years after highschool. But that's only if I knew everything I know now, of course (including all the tidbits about what the bullies ended up doing - or not doing - with their lives).

 

[megacomic]

I would try to get along with my dad a bit better. I foolishly assumed he'd be around most of my life and never made time.