Very well said. Thank you for this.

You almost tell my life story....

To all who feel devalued and attacked, I am saddened, but I hope that you can continue to hope for a better day.

nt

It gives us all some needed perspective.

Thank you.

You are loved, you matter. It sounds like your struggles with this have been worse than mine.

Hang in there. We’ve all got your back.

I struggle with reading others, but, have gotten better.

I can’t help but to think RFK and the government probably think of us as something to be removed from society.

Last edited Tue Sep 23, 2025, 12:39 AM - Edit history (1)

It is important for us to listen to the myriad of autistic experiences, whether of triumph or tribulation. Otherwise, simplistic analyses, such as RFKjrs, take root and control the narrative. I’m not sure one narrative will ever fit the varied lives that are currently classified under the umbrella term “autistic”.

Never tested but I believe so and 2 of my doctors also think so. I am emotional unlike some autistic people. But I am terrified of social situations and do awkward things like look down or away. Also not super verbal but do talk. Hate loud noises. Kind of child like in some ways but in better ways than TSF!

I have studied almost all modalities over my 60 years and it has done me a world of good. I am now very good at reading ppl. 🤓

Grew up in an abusive household, so I got pretty good at reading people. I got much better at it when I trained as an actor. The characters I tend to play are truly nasty ones, as they're the ones I learned to recognize first out of self defense. I suspect that there are a lot of us in theatre with similar stories: Bela Lugosi was likely undiagnosed, Lon Chaney's compassion probably came from caring for his deaf-mute parents, a certain living starlet is fellow Asp who recognized it in me when we worked together.

There's certainly no evidence of that in this OP....

... with the equivalent of a minor in English, although it wasn't called that in our college.

I took all those English classes hoping I'd become a better writer.

It wasn't easy.

I put words together in somewhat the same manner I write computer code or math equations. Unfortunately English is not so well defined as math or computer programming languages. It can go wrong fast and this used to panic me.

My writing skills are hard won. I still write very slowly.

Thank you for speaking out.

We are in such a weird environment. I live in a red state so I worry about giving too much away about myself here. People have been encouraged to turn each other in and ultimately, I report to a Republican governor.

It feels alien and strange to be in an environment where I feel like the equivalent of Chinese minders or “Good German” neighbors may be watching over our shoulders. I’ve experienced a troll swarm before. It’s unpleasant.

Be safe hunter.

Just last year, I never knew.

Your thoughts are clearly stated.

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!

I just figured I always looked at things different than most. If sound is too loud my brain shuts off and I get a metallic taste. I don't take hints and used to misread facial cues and tone of voice. I also struggle with 3 and B, 0 and space key, what and when, that and than.... stuff like that.

But I am over 80. Thanks to decades of keen study to overcome, it is mighty hard to get any shit past me now.

I volunteered to a family member about 5 yrs ago who is now a neuro-psychologist and found out then. Didn't mean anything one way or the other to me. I figure why need a label. Everyone is unique.

For some really struggling to function, the diagnosis would mean more.

Pretty much everything RFK Jr. does is appalling. But the solution to that isn't to veer off in a radically opposite position that is just as unproductive.

Many people lead fulfilling lives with some variety of the spectrum. And that's great. I want every success for them.

But as you outlined so eloquently, many, many people living with autism encounter great difficulties. If we can reduce suffering in a scientifically and medically sound way, we should.

RFK Jr's path ain't it, but hopefully in the future we may be able to find the mechanism for the more severe forms we're encountering at increasing rates.

treatment for today’s kids.

She is a beloved family member that I can not imagine this world without. Thank you for sharing your story with us, dear hunter.

Thank you for this post.

Some are good, others not so much.
We all deserve respect and compassion.
Sociopathy is no substitute for Empathy. And, the God of the Christians expects us to Love Our Neighbor.
I'm sorry your journey has been made difficult by people with no concept of Charity. I'm glad you've been able to navigate your challenges, and hope your Life is rewarding going forward,
Thank You for sharing.

Last edited Tue Sep 23, 2025, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Autism is a spectrum because people are affected by it in different ways and to different degrees across a number of criteria.

I spoke early, wrote and read precociously, did fine in school but the sensory issues and the energy drain from social masking started walloping me from college onward. I almost had to give up the career I love because trying to work in an open plan office left me feeling exhausted, shell-shocked, and shut down on the weekends.

I would mask all week, get to about 4pm on Friday and then lose the ability to speak, connect thoughts or do anything besides pace in the hall and stare out the window counting tree branches for the entire weekend. This made it almost impossible for me to eat a healthy diet or keep my house reasonably clean. It's always amazed me how anyone finds the time or energy for social relationships.

Someone dropped a book next to me unexpectedly at work and I felt a compulsion to run into the bathroom and kick the wall until my toes broke. The COVID lockdowns saved my career because I finally got a full-time work from home job and my stress levels dropped through the floor. As soon as I was working from home, I got promoted twice because I could finally concentrate on what I was doing without interruptions.

I can hold down a full time job, and appear "normal" for a certain number of hours a week but that takes a massive toll on my well being. I can't go to restaurants, bars, concerts, or other crowded public places without shutting down. I have basically no social drive. There is a very limited range of types of clothing that I can wear for any length of time. I do all my shopping online or at 7am to avoid people. I have to take a full day off to get a haircut or go to the dentist because the background music, blowdryers and people touching me make me shut down. I find it almost impossible to talk on a telephone without working myself up to it for about an hour. My whole life outside of work is scaffolding that allows me to do my job and if one piece of it falls down, everything falls to pieces and it can take days or weeks to recover.

So sorry, but I resent the insinuations I've seen in some threads on DU today that:
a) it's a trendy diagnosis for bored blue-haired Gen Zers on Twitter
b) it's not "real autism" unless you're non-verbal and in 24/7 care
c) high functioning autistic people could be "normal" if they just put more effort in. The fact that they can mask means they we don't need to support them or take their issues seriously
d) just because you acknowledge some benefits of being autistic and proudly identify as such that you are being Pollyanna-ish and naive about the severity of the impacts for some and how difficult that is for their caretakers
e) caretakers of "real" autistic people know more about the autistic experience than people who are actually autistic but "high-functioning"

Functioning is context dependent. Tony Attwood, an internationally renowned autism researcher's view is that the "cure" for autism is to put the autistic person alone in their room and 100% of their symptoms go away. What creates the disease? Dealing with environments that are not designed for autistic people and having to socialise with people who don't understand the autistic person's way of communicating. Put me in a noisy and crowded enough room and I am literally mute and paralysed even though I am "high-functioning". Put another non-verbal autistic person without sensory issues in the same situation and they'd be having the time of their life.

My "cure" for my own autism is to play to my strengths, avoid or minimise situations that make it hard for me to regulate, manage my energy levels and to find acceptance and love for who I actually am, which is an autistic person doing their best in a world not designed for them. Not a victim, not an afflicted person, not an object of pity or a guinea pig, a cross to bear or someone else's life lesson or project.

I think all the parents and people who "work with autistic people" and therefore think they know everything about autism would do well to take a breath and remember that they are dealing with a person and that their life has value even if they are always going to live it in a way that is different to what the caretaker would define as desirable. Because sorry to tell you, there is no version of your child or your student that is "them but not autistic" just like there is no version of "you but with a totally different personality, way of thinking, and way of processing the world". All we can do is embrace who we are and not let others define us.

I am really, really glad I missed the earlier responses here to NotRFK and the Mango Mussolini. I avoided the tv today too.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for posting

I, of course, am not the final arbiter of what is important to know about autism, but I do feel that my understandings of its degrees and variances improves greatly from first person accounts. It is important that the points you make are heard and I applaud you for making them.

It is a spectrum. And just like just like the rainbow has colors which are more different and colors which are more similar, all of us on the spectrum have qualities which are different and qualities which are similar.
I've struggled to make a life, but I have made a pretty satisfying, though solitary, life.
I wish you the best.

That was when I was under-20 y.o. Later, when I had more life-experience, I realized that these mothers were trying as hard as ever they could to present themselves to psychiatrists and educators as calm and rational and intelligent and capable of understanding what was going on — and in so doing, to help their children. “Refrigerators” my ass. The world was run by men with the ability to judge them and their children very harshly indeed.

I mean, it't's the autism spectrum. i think of it like the color spectrum, or the identified 16 shades of gray between pure white and pure black.

I've always considered things differently than most people (a description of that requires far too much to go into here). I don't think the word had even been coined in my early youth, and my mom just thought, and often angrily told ne, there was "something wrong" with me, despite the fact that I got nearly straight A's all through elementary school.

I've never been tested for autism, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if I were somewhere on the spectrum. In fact I think I'd be rather proud of it because it would mean "I think and feel in ways that you can't." (I'd just leave out the part about those ways often being quite frustrating.)

My mother would often complain "Why can't you be like other children?"
In my senior years, I've been "diagnosed" as neuro-divergent.
Thankfully my husband and children find my weird traits endearing even though frustrating to them at times.
People who don't know me very well are often not so kind.

I tend to be very naive even though I've served in leadership roles.
The stories I'm reading here are very moving.

I have a sister who's two years older. She was bookish and satisfied with tee vee for entertainment; didn't go out much. I was always messin' around with friends and most stuff came naturally or easily to me. So I got "Why can't you be more like your sister?" and she got "Why can't you be more like your brother?"

Also, mom, in case you forgot, we were both adopted.

to all of us. During my long elementary teaching career, I was fortunate to have had quite a number of children with autism in my classes. Oh how we all benefited! I have so many special remembrances; I’ll share one example: I had a prism window in my classroom that a parent had made for me. One morning, during math time, my little guy jumped up and started dancing around. The sun was shining through the prisms and reflecting rainbows all over the floor. He whispered, “I’m dancing in the rainbows.” I joined him and asked, “Would anybody else like to dance with us?” Soon, all of the children were up dancing and laughing and carrying on. It was joyous and wonderful. Just think what we would all have missed had he not been a part of our classroom family. I always felt my children with autism or Down’s syndrome or ADHD taught me so much more than I taught them. It is vile what ludicrous Drumpf and the RfK nightmare are spewing out from positions of power and horrifying that their minions will lap it up and spread it around. Thank you again, hunter, for speaking out. You’re inspiring! Be well! 😊🧡

Thanks for starting it, hunter, and thanks to all who contributed their experiences. Helps me understand a lot more.

Thanks for sharing.

My son was autistic. He suffered. He just wanted to be normal and fit in. I miss his antics, talents and smile.

I'm likely one of those with a "quirky personality" who can function in society, though it is sometimes a struggle. My parents were also possible, especially my mother.

My kids definitely are and have been diagnosed as such. None of them can read people or be aware of how people think. One, possibly two, are likely to need a group home to survive once my wife and I are gone because they can't navigate the peculiarities of life.

RFK Jr. is a charlatan. TBH, I think he's half operating in shame at his own Aunt Rosemary, who, save for Eunice, was considered a stain on the Kennedy reputation and ambition.

They just wanted to know I was safe, they wanted to tell their friends I was doing well in school or working. But mostly, from the time I quit high school until I graduated from college nine years later, they didn't have any of that security.

The reality is that I wasn't safe, I wasn't taking care of myself, I was occasionally homeless, what relationships I had with others were frequently toxic, the campus and local police knew me by name, etc..

I was a terrible accident waiting to happen. And some pretty horrible things did happen. I figured I was doing my parents a favor letting them imagine the best. That's not what they were doing, of course.

Self-diagnosed via videos and stuff online. So many boxes checked off.

Not that I believed it was a hindrance. But there have been instances and interactions in the past where I felt something was "off".

I would be on a high-functioning spectrum.

I'm considering going to a psychiatrist to see if I am or I'm not. I wouldn't feel better or worse, depending on the diagnosis.

I teach autistic children and at first, I believed I was over-identifying with them.

But I'm comfortable with who I am.

Oh, and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. can go fuck himself.

what his needs were, and he grew up incapable of successfully interacting with other people. He never had a significant other, and I was one of the few friends he had in this world. Otherwise, he was a genius who designed the interiors of nuclear submarines with Electric Boat in Connecticut.

I have a nephew who was brought up by my sister(who is also autistic) and her husband to interact successfully with people. He is married with two kids and has a very fulfilling life. We have always had a very good relationship.

I've recognized autism in quite a few people I've known during my life, many who are still lifelong friends of mine. I suspect my mother was autistic, so I guess I grew up with an understanding and appreciation for the gifts the syndrome provides.

You could take your life s you just told us here and write a fascinating book about your life.

Societal acceptance is growing. But RFK Jr, a.k.a. the Flaming Pile of Shit, enabled by the Rotting Orange Blob, are going to use autism for political theater. Disgusting.

What is the best way to get him help?

They'd probably tell you, along with the rest of my family, that I'm not the one to ask.

I'm not sure I'll ever be done processing the damage Trump and RFK are letting loose upon this world. I currently have no words.

To be honest, my circle of autistic friends is small and selective so I cannot speak with knowledge of the entire range of autistic people. But on the positive side, they really do say what they think, although some grow out of it. An autistic friend however is likely to be a friend for life.
Here is the odd thing. You can joke with an autistic friend in ways that are unsafe to joke with others. They tend to understand free thinking and that not all that you say is a reflection of anything but your current thoughts. As long as you don't judge them, they can take criticism that would make anyone else slam the door and never speak to you again. As long as you listen, you can give feedback. They can be stubborn, so stubborn, but if you want the truth, they will give you their truth freely. Expect it to hurt from time to time.

I don't see a lot of my old autistic friends much these days, but I treasure them all. The world would be a less wonderful place without them. Sure, I would try to prevent it for the most part since it is not an easy life. But I think they provide a perspective and we are all diminished without perspective.

It is nice to know why I am. I found out about a year ago that I was one of those that can't say "NO" to anyone.

Hunter, thank you for sharing this with such honesty and depth. It takes real courage to speak so openly about the pain, confusion, and unfairness you've endured — and survived.

Your story isn’t just a personal reflection, it’s a powerful statement about the realities so many neurodivergent people face, especially those who don't fit the media-friendly, “quirky genius” stereotype. The violence, the misunderstandings, the systemic failures — all of it needs to be heard.

Your mother sounds like a force of nature, and I’m genuinely moved by the way you speak about her. She defended you fiercely in a world that too often blames and shames instead of supporting and learning.

You’re also 100% right about Kennedy — misinformation around autism is not just wrong, it’s dangerous. We need real science, not fear-driven narratives.

Please keep writing, please keep speaking — voices like yours are necessary.

I certainly did.
More interested in introspective thinking, working out how physical things worked - wind up clocks just begging to be dismantled - and other humans were just mere shadows.

Sailed through school and 6 years of University because, well, something to do while NOT communicating with others.

Then - fortunately for me - I went to work as a teacher.
Figured out I'd better learn to communicate with others. Took some effort, but that opened up a whole new world for me.

Still prefer my own company.
Stil prefer physical devices over people.
Cars and computers, amongst many other things, are my reliable and predictable 'friends'.
People on the whole are less reliable, less predictable.

Wife is the opposite, comes alive only when in a crowd.

News flash! We are all NOT the same. 'Different' doesn't instantly deserve an 'autism' or 'ADHD' diagnosis.

My suggestion:
Accept yourself and others as you find them.
Forget self diagnosis, forget labelling yourself and others, accept we are all on some 'spectrum' or other.