Lightbulb moment with my mum

[AlternativelyWired]

I was chatting to my mum this morning. She is truly lovely and we are very close. I had very difficult teenage years and looking back was odd as a younger child and different to my siblings and most people. We were talking about Dd who is just like me and of all our similarities. Mum remembered asking the health visitor why I was so difficult as a baby. I cried a lot compared to my 3 siblings. The HV said I was finding all the people around me too much and needed less attention. Mum had never mentioned this before and I found it really interesting that as a baby I didn't like too many people or attention. How were you as a baby/young child/teenager? Do you look back now and wonder how it was missed for so long because the signs were there all along?

Yes but my eldest brother is severely autistic and I think my mum is also autistic so it just was missed.
I taught myself to read at 2, was selectively mute, hated play dates, would sit upstairs alone if family came round. As a toddler I would hold my breath until I passed out if I was stressed 😬

I think my dad was autistic. With hindsight it's so obvious. He self--medicated with alcohol and was overwhelmed by life constantly. He couldn't understand my feelings at all and was always perplexed by me as I was him. My mum is probably dyspraxic. I used to cry for no reason and often felt homesick even though I was home at the time. Nothing was constant except uncertainty and that influenced my teenage years drastically. Mum got phone calls to say I was crying in the playground and on my own. I didn't have many friends and didn't understand why I was excluded from friendship groups. I was always weird about food and still am but no longer full on eating disorder like I had.

Im 58, and was diagnosed as ASD two years ago. It wasnt really a thing in the 60s and 70s, and certainly not for girls. I was shy to the point of social phobia, I couldnt cope with change, I was highly intelligent but couldnt function at school and left without any qualifications.

I thought I was just a hopeless disapointment and a bad person, because that was the message I was given. I was sexually abused, because abusers recognise vulnerability, and I believed anything grown ups told me.

I did manage to turn it around a bit as an adult, I went back into eduation and learned to get along with people. But sadly even though I have a professional qualification and a degree I have had to retire early due to burn out and other mental health issues.

I feel that most of my life has been blighted by my undiagnosed ASD, and not being helped to gain the skills to manage my differences, and I wish more than anything that I had been given support and nurturing when I was a child and helped to reach my potential and keep myself safe.