@94a46b7d thank you for this. Raises hand about the similar treatment and abuse and just completely unreality of the undiagnosed in the 1960s, but the ADHD was easy. Eye contact and tippy toe walking were medicalized or beat out of me. It's a complicated story. I feel this entire post. Internet hug if you want. Be kind to yourself cuz you deserve that 😎👍 

 @37c798f6 

It's so easy to just derealize or depersonalize or dissociate from all that happened to me in the past. I really don't exactly "get" it sometimes, that all of this actually happened to me.  I think we're taught by the need for sheer survival to look forward, forget the past, but there is no real forgetting the past.

The autistic hyperfunctioning amygdala doesn't forget, as much as we may think we do. It's there. I get triggered (yes, yes, an overused word but it really is being triggered) by these discussions sometimes. 

I should know better by now. But its all surfacing these days. 

 @94a46b7d C-PTSD is not a joke and a lot of the crossover is just like an aggravating factor. Remember verbatim things said 50 yrs ago lol it's not always beneficial 

 @94a46b7d I just re read this and realized that you said the magic words about it is surfacing now. I saw that documentary about Nan Goldin on HBO MAX, she said something very similar and I was talking with someone else about it and I said I think being disabled has made me more human being than human DOING and I feel like my brain is just pouring it out sometimes. The documentary is called uhm "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" it really hit me but I loved it. 

 @94a46b7d I see so much of my story in yours.
Thank you.
I'm glad you're here. 

 @1f4c945d 

Thank you, I appreciate that. Thanks so much! 

 @94a46b7d 
there's always something good coming from you telling your own story. There's always a positive discussion, someone recognizing themselves in it and thus feeling less alone. People having their own process, alongside you.
It's so common( and useless) to feel bad about ones drama and pain. While opening up about it is mostly just helpful vor everyone.
It makes everyone more free to reveal themselves I think. 

 @94a46b7d Thank you for telling this story. It's painful to read, and must be very painful for you to tell, but it's valuable. 

 @94a46b7d 

I haven't seen such comments (yet), and I'm really sorrry you ran into them. 

You raise such very valid points. The historical baggage around the whole concept of autism as a deficit to be "diagnosed" is real.

All of us, diagnosed early or not, back in the 60s/70s had to find our way, single handedly mostly, through a rather hostile environment. Painful. Damaging. 

Thank you for pointing this out so clearly. 
I'm glad I saw your thread. Thank you for being here. Take care 💛 

 @94a46b7d thank you for sharing 💜 

 @94a46b7d I appreciate you not deleting. That's a heck of a lot you've had to deal with! I'm not surprised so many people saw echoes of their own experiences, though I wish I was.

It's truly maddening when people assume late diagnosis implies an easy life. 

 @94a46b7d this reminds me of my past. i dissociated from the viciousness so thoroughly that it has been forgotten, replaced by a less horrible, but largely fake past. 

 @94a46b7d I'm glad you didn't delete!
Your story helps other people.