Why was this allowed in the 80s/90s?

[Anxiousanx]

My parents were allowed to decline my ASD diagnosis ?

At age 8 the school started pushing for meetings with them and I was having severe difficulties. They didn’t want to engage.
The following year the school had someone come in to observe me.
My parents made it clear to me I wasn’t to ‘get a label’ and needed to ‘behave normally’

2 years later at a different school with even more difficulty I was involved in meetings and had to go to what i assume was camhs or whatever it was called then ?
I saw doctors and a speech therapist and I think a psychiatrist?
My parents were given the likely diagnosis and asked did they want to proceed with that and said no as again, didn’t want me to have a label and this was allowed ?
I’ve seen some of the clinic letters in recent years and I’m really astounded and don’t understand why this was allowed ?

Your parents were making choices in very different circumstances from education today. They did what they thought was best for you.

That. I was teaching in a special school back then, and autism diagnosis was actually quite rare.
But fundamentally there was a huge feeling that 'labelling' was a bad thing. Obviously those of us in special education didn't believe that, but in the general population it was pretty much what everyone thought. SEND help in mainstream schools was almost non-existent, so parents would think there was no point, because it's not as though the diagnosis would open any doors.

Seriously @Anxiousanx , as parents we can only do what feels right at the time. I understand your frustration, but your parents were far from alone in thinking and acting this way. They'd be a minority now, as awareness and support ad proressed massively (if still not enough). But back then they were in the majority in feeling this way.

I do hope that you will now get the help you need, but I can also understand your mum doubling down out of defensiveness. It's hard to deal with having let your child down, even though you thought you were doing the right thing.

@saraclara it would be a lot easier to forgive the choices many parents made at that time if they would acknowledge that it did do damage, that instead of denying their children needed any support that wasn't available in education they'd at least have tried to show support and understanding at home and not punish autistic children for having sensory difficulties and meltdowns, and if now that they are adults and finally have diagnoses they'd stop gaslighting their children pretending it's not real - "in my day we called it personality", "this attention-seeking does you no favours", "stop being a drama llama", "just get on with it and stop complaining" etc - and then telling us we are "damaging" our own children by showing them love, understanding and support and giving them the tools they need to navigate life more successfully without huge damage to mental health, instead of ignoring their needs and telling them they are weak and pathetic and need to "get a grip".

It's one thing to say society wouldn't have helped us with a diagnosis. It's another entirely to excuse parents who could see their children were different and struggling and either punished them for that or ignored it entirely. It would be a lot easier to forgive the mistakes if they acknowledged the mistakes, and stopped trying to gaslight us into not supporting our own children properly either because that might reflect badly on their own parenting or lead to uncomfortable questions about their own conditions that they don't want to engage with. How utterly selfish: to be prepared to ruin the lives for another generation of ND children because you find the topic uncomfortable. I know I am far from alone in this experience.

I'm sorry that you've endured that, and I don't excuse present day ignorance and intolerance.

I think you can forgive the choice, while still expecting, if not an apology, at least some consideration. And active cruelty is inexcusable whatever the context.

"This navel gazing is self-indulgent", "people didn't have time for such unhelpfil introspection and complaining in the past", "we had so much harder childhoods and just got on with it" etc. In my case massively ironic giving said people did nothing to protect me from sexual abuse then left me to live alone and provide for myself as a traumatised, undiagnosed autistic 16 year old. 🤣 While they went on very expensive holidays. Because housing me wouldn't "fit with their commitments". The irony is lost on them, apparently.

There is something about that generation in question where - and of course this is a generalisation, but it seems remarkably common - they tend to have a huge inability to admit when they have made a mistake. Or even utter the word "sorry", or recognise the impact of their behaviour and (lack of) parenting in particular. As if they somehow think it's beneath them to admit that they are flawed humans like the rest of us, and made mistakes, and own the impact of those mistakes or even discuss them openly. And that in itself compounds the damage done.

Again, I know from all of my adult autistic friends that I am very far from alone in this experience. In fact many NT adult friends have experienced similar attitudes from their parents on other topics. It seems to be a generational problem about a tendency (again not all of them!!! But a large proportion) being unable to apologise or communicate properly or acknowledge the impact of their behaviour on others. And this destroys family relationships that could be repaired. The OP's parents seem to have a similarly defensive and damaging attitude - rather than being open about the situation at the time and their reasons and being defensive and shutting down any conversation, invalidating her experience, rather than reflecting and explaining why they did what they did and acknowledging the impact it had and how, even in those circumstances, they could have done more to support her at home at the very least - and that is a great shame.

Sorry that was a bit garbled, but I hope what I meant is clear. It's really sad that so many parents of adults who suffered with no diagnosis or understanding still behave in this way and refuse to try to engage in discussion when their children try to find a way to heal their wounds and move forwards. And also refuse to support their children trying to provide better childhoods for their grandchildren; in fact in so many cases they actively try to undermine their children trying put that in place for their own children, driving their children even further away from them and destroying any chance of mutual understand and acceptance, expecting their children to sacrifice their own children's wellbeing to avoid "offending" them and them having to recognise that their parenting was lacking, to put it kindly. It's really sad.