‘A Lot Fell Into Place’: The Adults Who Discovered They Were Autistic—After Their Child Was Diagnosed

Pocket ^ | December 16, 2021 | Joanna Moorhead, The Guardian

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

When John Purnell’s 10-year-old son was diagnosed as autistic, he knew exactly how to respond. “I’ve always been fascinated by research, by detail, by finding out everything there is to find out about something,” he says. “So I did a really deep dive.”

As he pored over academic papers and delved into medical science – including how many autistic people have a propensity and appetite for copious research – an unexpected realisation crept into his mind. “I was reading about the traits of an autistic person, the difficulties they often have in social situations, the need for order and planning: and suddenly I thought: this person they’re describing isn’t just my son – it’s me.”

Purnell is far from alone in discovering that he’s autistic as a result of his child being diagnosed. Viewers of a 2021 BBC One documentary, Our Family and Autism, saw the same thing happen to the model Christine McGuinness, whose three young children with her television presenter husband, Paddy, are all on the autistic spectrum. In recent years, the number of people diagnosed with autism has rocketed; a study of diagnosis trends, published in August, found the median age for diagnosis is 10 for males and 13 for females, and there was a 787% exponential increase in its recorded incidence, in the 20 years to 2018.

An unexpected result of the greater number of children being diagnosed has been that many parents have discovered that they are autistic, too, often by figuring it out for themselves, as both Purnell and McGuinness did. There are no exact figures, says Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University, Britain’s leading academic on autism, but it is a phenomenon.

[Boowhoknew]

perhaps...but

[E. Pluribus Unum]

We are all victims now.

[CJ Wolf]

Some autist are very smart.

[Albion Wilde]

I can relate.

[nascarnation]

For sure.
I know an autistic girl who is a mathematics savant. She ripped through a Masters program like it was kindergarden.

[CJ Wolf]

My daughter was diagnosed with aspergers when she was 6. Had a eap for a whileat the school. i hated that. I never told her until recently. She is pretty dang smart, weird too. gets it from me. 😁

[DannyTN]

My daughter scored 35 and went to a private college on full tuition scholarship. In her senior year at college, she had a task that should have taken her 30 minutes and it took her 7.5 hours. And she came to me and said, “I think I have ADHD, and want to get tested.”

So we got her tested. And yes, she has ADHD. She’s taking some medication that she says helps tremendously.

I bought a ton of books on ADHD to figure out how to help her. The symptoms of ADHD vary by person and there is a long list of symptoms. It’s kind of like a horoscope. Almost anyone can find something in the list.

But I had about half of them. And it would explain a lot about my life. I haven’t been tested, but I am trying a drug that might help. And I have some supplements that might help.

[DannyTN]

scored 35 on the ACT. (36 is perfect).

[Psalm 73]

Our daughter (20) is high-functioning Autistic, but not high enough for independent living.

A few years ago my wife finally noticed many parallels between our daughter and her own adolescence - yup, she's autistic.

Amazing she navigated through life for 64 years (just barely, but survive she did).

[freepertoo]

I have always suspected my dad was a savant. No education, very odd personality, but a masterful violinist and composer. You couldn’t hold a conversation with my father because he tuned you out and talked non-stop. Not being unkind, but he was an ignorant man. But my...how he could play the violin, and was mostly self taught.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Should be obvious. After all, theyve been pushing “spectrum” for decades and we all must be on it.

[Pollard]

While he welcomes the more accurate picture, he doesn’t want the new numbers to dilute the understanding of what it means to be autistic. “It’s a medical diagnosis and you only get it if the symptoms you have are causing distress,” he points out.

That would be my son burning his mouth on his favorite comfort food, yellow rice, to the point of shuddering because it's burning his mouth and then taking another bite right away and shuddering from the pain again but not recognizing it's pain or his thoughts of the comfort food overriding his common sense or sens of pain. I have no idea how it works. That was in his mid teens.

The wife and I are separated now and he's 20 and lives with me. Daughter lives with her. They came by a few weeks ago and he looked out the window and started pointing. I said, what? He got panicky, pointed some more and finally managed to spit out "people". He was a bit excited I'd say.

[piasa]

Used to be called shyness.

[Ezekiel]

“I’ve always been fascinated by research, by detail, by finding out everything there is to find out about something,” he says. “So I did a really deep dive.”

Re the Torah:

21
Ben Bag Bag would say: Delve and delve into it, for all is in it; see with it; grow old and worn in it; do not budge from it, for there is nothing better.

Ben Hei Hei would say: According to the pain is the gain.

Pirkei Avot Chapter 5

John 4:29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

Truly, a man on the spectrum:

"Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies; hence electromagnetic spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, etc."

***

The world sees something to fix, or eliminate. I see

Mathematical Beauty

I was reading about the traits of an autistic person, the difficulties they often have in social situations, the need for order and planning:

38 And Pharaoh said unto his servants: 'Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God is?'

[hoagy62]

Nowadays, they call it being ‘neurodivergent. Those that aren’t are called ‘neuronormative’. I’ve always strived to be considered ‘normal’...but I know I’m not. It sucks.

[NorthMountain]

I’m very glad not to be a child in today’s environment of pseudo-therapeutic madness. They’d “diagnose” me with some made-up nonsense and ruin my life.

[Magnatron]

Our youngest has been diagnosed with mild autism. Weirdly, of my three children, I see myself the most in him. We didn’t have the name “autism” when I was growing up, but I remember the same challenges. I grew out of most of it, and I hope he does too.

That said, I do believe the prevalence these days of autism is mostly related to the heavily increased use of anti-depressants in women.

Of course, pharma companies are sacrosanct, so we won’t be seeing any studies to prove out this theory any time soon. Keeping women drugged is big dollar business…

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

There is also something I heard on the Matt (Bracken) and Fernando videos on Sundays, that is, the children of women who breastfeed them are 1/2 as likely to be autistic as the children who were bottle-fed with formula.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I’m pretty sure I’m not normal. I actually took one of those “Aspie” quizzes to determine whether I’m neurotypical or neurodivergent. It determined me to be mainly neurotypical, so maybe I’m just awkward and strange.