Are you autistic? I am.

[slightlv]

23. Very insightful, hunter...

thank you for relating your personal experience. I took a position working with an autistic child while I was an undergraduate. It was enlightening, terrifying at times for me (and I can imagine what it was like for her!)... but very telling for me. I graduated with my psych degree, but ended up going into technology when it was just a nascent career field, instead of psychology. The time I spent with my autistic charge, and my time spent at a State Hospital changed my mind on the career field. I learned I couldn't "leave it at the job"... and instead, took it to heart and back home with me. Eventually, sooner rather than later, it would have burned me out completely, and I recognized that fact early on, thank goodness.

My grandson, I suspect, is on the Spectrum. Very high functioning, still, I recognize behaviors and attitudes from my psych days. And I bless every day I'm with him.

What you said about your mother becoming a cold hard bitch to the doc... well, I don't blame her. It's the same thing we saw when they tried to figure out what caused childhood schizophrenia. I curse Bruno Bettelheim for his decades of damage and harm to mothers (and their children!).

I've honestly thought... with no validation to back me up, of course... that a lot of what we're seeing in fields of neurodiversity and other "situations" is environmental, mixed with genetic predisposition. For example, I've always believed my lupus and fibro were genetic predispositions that got kicked off by some aspect of our modern world... chemicals, genetic manipulation in foods, air/water qualities... etc. The fact that I, in addition to at least 7 other women in this one office I worked at all ended up coming down with autoimmune diseases only bolstered my belief there was *something* environmental that kicked it off. And going back through family histories on my Mom's side, I can see at least four generations that had the same symptoms.

The right wants what the right always wants: Black and White answers to questions that are inherently Gray. They just don't do nuance or subtlety... or rigorous research. They find a paper that says what they believe, and wallah! they've proven themselves to be experts. I just haven't figured out how they haven't all died out by now!