A television station in Indiana is doing a week long special report on Woman and Autism. The video from today is a very uplifting and enlighting story on what its like to be a woman on the autism spectrum. Its about a young girl who has been diagnosed Pervasive Developmental Disorder (Not Otherwise Specified) also known as PDD-NOS. The video concentrates on the happier moments of raising the girl, but does show some of the negatives as well.
Do you think girls on the Autism Spectrum are under diagnosed?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
As long as someone else runs it, I’m happy to give the business plan to anyone who wants to implement it.
I buy what I can through mail-order but some stuff doesn’t ship well cheaply so I have to go to the store. I go at 3 am. I don’t know what I’d do if there weren’t a 24-hour grocery here. Probably go hungry a lot.
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“I wish there were groceries that went by library rules where people have to be quiet and not bring screaming children so I could feel safe shopping.”
Do you have any idea how many other people, from autistic to aspie to neurotypical, would like that too? You just may have a good business plan on your hands!
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That’s why I don’t have children: I can’t afford to pay someone else to watch them while I get groceries. I could only have children if I could afford someone to take them off my hands when I’m having a meltdown or when I’m going someplace that would cause the children to have a meltdown.
Because I realized that my autism plus my poverty means I should not have children, I have tried for years to get sterilized but have never been able to find a doctor who was willing to sterilize a childless woman.
At least I don’t have sex now so as long as no one rapes me, I’m not in danger of having a child. And I’ll hit menopause eventually and then it won’t be an issue.
I wish there were groceries that went by library rules where people have to be quiet and not bring screaming children so I could feel safe shopping. When I have a meltdown shopping from a screaming child next to me, I have to leave the grocery without buying food and then I’m so anxious I can’t leave the house for a couple of days afterward. If that’s what you’re saying it’s like for a parent of an autistic child having a meltdown in the grocery, I really feel sorry for them because they have to deal with being stuck in the house with no food for days like I do but there’s a hungry child screaming there, too.
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“So in a situation like that, what is one to do? The mother needs to get her groceries. I need to get my groceries. The child is in the midst of a meltdown that is not going to stop any time soon.”
Good question. Imagine how much tougher it could be if you were in the mother’s position (like if the child having a meltdown was your child).
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My personal opinion on why girls are under diagnosed is the fact that girls are expected to be somewhat withdrawn according to societies standards.
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The bit about the meltdown in the grocery store raises a valid question. When two autistic people’s needs conflict, whose needs should be recognized? I have Asperger’s Syndrome and many times I have had to leave a restaurant with food half-finished or leave the grocery store with my half-filled cart just sitting in the aisle because children who scream with high-pitched piercing voices for prolonged periods send me into meltdowns. Rather than have a (very scary) meltdown in the store or restaurant that could end up with me in jail or under observation in a hospital, I have to leave what I am doing.
So in a situation like that, what is one to do? The mother needs to get her groceries. I need to get my groceries. The child is in the midst of a meltdown that is not going to stop any time soon. I struggle not to feel resentful that I am the one who has to go hungry and try to shop another day, but it is very hard for me because getting out of the house to do something in public is a struggle in the first place and if I have to abandon my outing because of an impending meltdown, it will take days before I am able to talk myself into going out again.
I just don’t know what kind of easy answer there would be, though. When two (or more) people have needs that are conflicting, someone’s needs will have to go unserved. I just wish it weren’t me who has had to live without food or toilet paper (and I never know for sure if the child who drove me away is disabled or poorly disciplined, so it can be a REAL struggle to remain compassionate sometimes.)
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Uh…definitly. I should know because it took my family 18 years to finally realize that something was wrong with me! I’m so bitter about it because I’m a girl, also from Indiana and every single sign of my Asperger’s syndrome has been waved in their faces during my whole childhood and they remained completely ignorant the whole time. Theyre still so ignorant about it that it angers me.
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I have a stepfather who refuses to believe my diagnosis. He says I am selfish and self-absorbed and socially inept and don’t understand other people very well, as well as talking on and on about things people are not interested in because I want to “look smart”. In other words — I am a bad person, not an autistic one. Never mind that his descriptions of how I am this bad, self-absorbed person are descriptions of my Aspergian traits as informed by the fact that I am extremely isolated from others and have been my entire life. How does one *not* be self-absorbed in that situation? The Self is the only person I have to interact with.
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