Are you autistic? I am.

[hunter]

Autism almost killed me in adolescence and it's the root cause of all my PTSD and most of my scars, both physical and mental.

My inability to "read" people, and propensity to say whatever pops into my head, has gotten me into a lot of trouble. I've told of some of my experiences as amusing stories here on DU, but leave out most of the violence.

I quit high school at sixteen because I was always in trouble. I was great at multiple choice exams which got me into college, from which I was "asked" to take time off twice, the first time for fighting with a teaching assistant, among other things. This teaching assistant was probably as autistic as I was but a little more prone to reacting violently. I took the hit and took the time out because I was an undergraduate.

It took me nine years to graduate. I have the equivalent of a minor in English but the chair of the English Department refused to sign off on it. Fully exasperated with me, she'd previously told me I write like an ESL student with a head injury. A dean of the college did sign off on it, but he only wanted to be rid of me and politely said so.

My grandfather, an engineer for the Apollo Project, was similarly afflicted. His personal life was always a flaming catastrophe, his relationships with colleagues often tense.

I can easily imagine the horror my life would have been if I'd had more restricted verbal abilities, obsessions that were not useful to society, even greater klutziness, a complete inability to write, and much less awareness of how others think. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Oh, and people, even doctors, blamed my mother for my disabilities. This only reinforced their opinions of her when she'd turn into a stone cold bitch on them. My mother was my greatest defender. (And she never took any Tylenol...)

My form of autism is clearly inherited from my dad's side of the family. He had cousins who were not functional in ordinary society, hidden away in apartments the family paid for, sometimes employed by people who accepted their severe limitations.

Kennedy is a flaming pile of shit. If there are environmental causes of autism the only rational way to discern them is through hard core science. Otherwise people are just making shit up. Kennedy is making shit up and this misinformation will harm people.

Yes, people can be on the autistic spectrum and sail easily through life regarding it as a simple personality quirk that shouldn't be discriminated against. That does nothing to help those with more severe difficulties.

I wrote this in response to a thread that has since been deleted.