My paternal grandpa was a mechanically/technically inclined person, a socially awkward, blunt and stubborn person with multiple failed marriages, and no friends … who turned to tobacco and alcohol to cope… and he literally did have an extensive, hand crafted model train set and environment, the size of two queen mattresses, that he built, and often neglected his kids to spend time on/with. That and the alcoholism also caused some serious familial neglect.
My dad was a technically/mechanically inclined person, a socially awkward, very brash and overconfident, sutbborn person with a history of tumultuous romantic relationships, is still in a very unhappy marriage, no friends, who turned to alcohol to cope, which caused him to neglect his kids and wife… and then also went through various hobbies every 2-4 years or so, which became his whole personality untill he switched to another one.
I can remember him one time, piss drunk, explaining to 10ish yearold me the ins and outs of structural concepts in aircraft design.
I am also a technically/mechanically/computer programming inclined person, a socially awkward person with a history of tumultuous romantic relationships, who is overly literal and often quite blunt, with no real friends beyond the age of about 25… who would often isolate with the computer to get away from insane family drama… but at least I have not fallen into alcoholism nor had any marriages or kids, as I realize that social/traditional pressure alone is not a good reason to sign up for massive responsibilities…
But nope! Ask any of my dad’s family if maybe Autism is a thing that runs in the male line of our family, and this is evidently a ludicrous, unfounded notion, but also at the same time there’s ‘just no real explanation’ for the astoundingly obvious pattern I have here described.
They don’t disagree that the pattern isn’t there, they are all just massively biased/stigmatized against any concepts of mental illness or neurodiversity, choosing to view atypical, consistent behavioral patterns as simply indicative of the underlying, quality of moral character of a person.
Its because to them “autism” is perceived as an illness comparable with Down syndrome. The movie Rain man did a lot of harm to this view.
To themselves they lead normal high functioning lives and have good Intelligence that just happen to have some eccentric hobbies. Now you are pointing at those things they do for fun and calling it the hallmarks of a diseased mind.
The first hurdle the older autistic generations have to overcome is to realise there is nothing inherently wrong about being neurodivergent.
The self acceptance can grow from first accepting a child is autistic, aided by other familymembers (NT and not) addressing the childs atypical behaviours (often they used to experience the same before learning to mask)
Once they accepted their child as autistic and witness how much some simple help and adjustments can cause a huge positive effect there going to wish they would have had access to those same information and aid while they where younger…
lol at the level of necroposting, but also I am kind of honored by it, so thanks =P
But yes, I completely agree with everything you’ve said, just bang-on correct imo.
This is a rough analogy, but here goes:
If you had a kid who was color blind, you would just accept that, give them some color blind friendly color schemes to work with in their school work and digital UIs and such, and hey presto, yep, they’re different than non colorblind people, but not in some kind of … fundamentally or morally bad way, not in some kind of way that completely cripples them from living a normal life.
Anyone who needs glasses is imo in the same ‘special needs’ category, if by that you mean… just understand that they are a bit different, accomodate those differences, and you now have a fully functional and capable human.
The fundamental problem is ignorance, lack of empathy, and in my experience, usually also narcissism and frankly just immaturity, from parents/adults.
It really is not that hard to alter one’s own behavior just slightly, for either an NT or an in-denial-ND parent or adult to be much, much more compatible with having a healthy relationship with an autistic child or adult.
But what I almost always encounter in my own life is that a huge number of people simply demand other people, especially their own children, just be and act exactly as they want them to… they’re just authoritarians in their personal lives, their children are their property.
And this is how you get all the religious fundamentalists with autistic kids who infantilize them, make their own identities into basically being a victim of having an autistic kid… and because they mistreat them so badly, imo, they end up basically making their autistic kid low-functioning, because that kid is never going to be able to make any real sense out of a hypocritical idiot with a god complex’s version of how the world or society should work.
So its a self-fulfilling prophecy:
Treat someone like an idiot invalid their whole childhood, they grow up a lot more stunted, then this is seen as proof that they were always going to be unable to regulate their emotions and behaviors.
Yep, there are genetic components to autism… but environmental factors also play a large role too.
… Even worse, these bigoted ignorant fundies basically become genocidal when they believe that autism can somehow be eradicated via some psuedo science bullshit.
That way lies true horror, quite literally, go look up the history of Dr.Asperger …from Nazi Germany.
Why you gotta point out my families behavior patterns to me like that /s
I never played with trains when I was growing up. I wanted to though but I was told I can’t because they’re boy’s toys and I’m a girl and “girl’s don’t play with trains” 😭
I feel ya.
My parents used to be the kind of people who thought autism == rain man, which is funny because my dad often displays some very aggressively autistic behavior (you know, things like inflexible routines, food and texture aversions, gross misunderstandings of social cues which have led him to quite a few actual fights, draconian rule following and imposing, an obsession with guns, yadda yadda) which he thinks is perfectly normal and “how things should be”, because “that’s how he was raised and is therefore good”, according to him.
And, obviously, when some of those behaviors crossed over to me, he thought it was perfectly normal as well lmao
(I say used to because I’ve been trying to educate them a bit but man is progress slow)
The moment I understood my dad was probably in the spectrum, but lived undiagnosed his whole life, so many things started to click. Have patience with your spectrum parents.
