It’s true. It irks me to see older people claim that autism/ADHD/anxiety etc. didn’t exist in the past. Not only is it an attempt to invalidate people’s experiences, but it’s pure bullshit.
For example, what we today know as PTSD was characterised as “cowardice” during WW1. Do they really want us to go back to that?
I am sure this still goes on today in some cases. Also, PTSD was called shell shocked during WWI and was recognized as a medical condition, it was just that there was no idea what was causing it so a lot of people did not think it really existed.
Haha yeah…
Its because the techniques to make people autistic are advancing. It used to be only a type of vaccine. Now its all vaccines, masks, phones, books and bread
It’s in the plastic!!!
(Jokes aside, it may actually be in the plastic…)
yeah i got dropped into a state run childrens home for a couple years cause my mom couldnt handle it by herself
related
mememicroblog post :
Bonus points if your boomer parent got a ND diagnosis in their 50s, yet still refuses to believe that neurodiversity was just as much a thing when they were young as when you were, it was just ignored harder, as they actively ignore your ND diagnosis that you finally got independent of them in your 20s or 30s.
My boomer mother has never been diagnosed as far as I know. . She is obviously on the autism spectrum towards what used to be called aspergers. Add in a violent streak, some narcissistic tendencies, religious extremism, and deeply ingrained racism to the mix to make it extra spicy.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her in more than a decade but I doubt anything has changed.
I’m in a similar boat (E: things were always worse with the parent who would never seek diagnosis), cutting contact was the best decision I’ve ever made for myself.
I don’t want the bonus points, I just want my mom to get the help she needs. But no… she’s stubborn, prideful, etc. And even though she’s a huge bigot and I want to punch her in the face, she’s still my mom.
Personally I realised that if being related meant so little to them to treat me the way they did, there’s no reason it should mean much to me, so I did what was healthiest for me for a change and cut contact. I wish you the best of luck getting her help (seriously), but you shouldn’t be suffering just because someone is related to you.
Same but grandma.
There was no mental illness in the good old days. Just alcoholism. A lot of alcoholism. Those things of course have nothing to do with each other.
And nicotine. If you didn’t smoke yourself, you still got it secondhand. Most of the post-WWII era in America had everyone at least mildly on a psychoactive substance 24/7.
Nicotine use papered over so many things.
90% of diagnosed schizophrenics smoke cigarettes. I don’t think they’ve found the mechanism but something in the tobacco helps manage their symptoms.
Oh, so that’s why people seem to remember the 50s fondly…
No, that’s probably because of the Hayes Code, which limited the sorts of things you could show on TV. People don’t remember the real 1950s, just the film and TV of it.
Yup. Tobacco, alcohol, and meth advertised directly to housewives. Yanno, good ol’ wholesome Americana.
How hard is it to read the article you posted? They didn’t sell methamphetamine to housewives, it was amphetamine. That is a VERY big difference
Yea, the ones selling methamphetamine to housewives were the Nazis in the '40s.
As a woman with crippling ADHD, I can’t imagine the horror of trying the new wonder drug, discovering it helped me keep the house and avoid being beaten, and then eventually having to go back to doing without…
Hey now, don’t forget model trains.
Ah, the shitty narcissistic boomer assumption that anything “new” must be a lie. Yeah, people all over the fucking world are making up neurodivergence, queerness, and food allergies just to be difficult, right?
Wasn’t the spectrum expanded in the last 20 years? That in itself would raise the numbers. If I may play Devil’s advocate, a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person back in the day may have been seen as a bit eccentric or weird, but would overall pass for a neurotypical person and manage to hold a job, have a normal life if with some difficulty. So boomers probably knew quite a few people on the spectrum but just thought of them as just odd but good people.
I grew up in a place where the word autism isn’t even in the vocabulary and thinking back, there’s at least a few people I can now look back on and say they were autistic, even if we didn’t know the term then.
Yeah, back then “autism” was a full-on disorder. It had to be so strong that it impacted your ability to participate in society. Now we realize that it’s more a character quirk with individual strengths and weaknesses, that it’s worthwhile to be aware of, even when you manage to navigate society.
Not just that, but IIRC the very first person to be diagnosed as autistic is still alive.
a level 1 or even a level 2 autistic person
Lol
Edit: Ouch, I’m apparently bad at being autistic, had no idea there were actual levels, thought it was a poor approximation of the spectrum by applying levels to something I thought of as more complex than that. My bad.
Still funny. So have you leveled up recently?
Level 70 elite autist
Y’all are levelling up?
I must be slacking 😔😔
Actually I kind of have lol. I guess I don’t have an expert on hand to tell me it’s because of my being on the spectrum but I do require a lot more support the past few years. Possibly related to COVID?
Sorry, had no idea, see edit. I arrogantly thought you were speaking from an uninformed perspective, I apologize.
Then there was the transitional phase of Gen X calling them all gay or retarded before Millennials introduced acceptance.
before Millennials introduced acceptance.
I’m not suggesting that we’ve made it to full acceptance, but that Millennials really began normalizing acceptance of disorders as well as mental health treatment.
I make it a point to talk about my mental health and treatment openly with my friends and co-workers. Everyone should do it. You never know if you could be the little push someone needs to seek help.
Gen X here. Anything that didn’t fit in our box was gay or retarded.
We were so gay back then
I’m on (just barely) Gen Z and I still get called retarded for symptoms of neurodivergence
I’m a Gen Xer, and I think it’s fucked up that people say things like that to you. I’m sorry, you deserve better.
That’s very kind, thank you
And started making jokes about old people
Today’s behaviors would get you beat back then. I know.
What’s with the boomer stuff? Does the internet really need any bogeymen to blame for everything bad? Seems to be the case. So it’s hardly surprising that people like Trump are so successful. It’s the same thing, just packaged differently
I’m reminded of the scene in The Sopranos where Tony finds out he had another uncle he never knew about.
It’s a good thing they didn’t censor it! 🫠
