After clinical-psychology counselling for about 3 or 4 spells of depression, very low self-confidence and similar problems, I recalled my Mum seemed to have been very reluctant to talk about something. But what? Ours was a family whose individuals tended to keep things to themselves anyway.


So about 8 years ago I asked for my NHS Medical Records. They showed when I was young, in the early 1960s, someone I now realise was a clinical-psychologist had assessed me and reported rather vaguely that he would have recommended "therapy" if it were not for my "rather excitable mother" being reluctant, apparently blaming herself. Sedatives. Wow! Thanks Mum! By now my parents had died so I could not ask about it.

I remember the assessment fairly well. It consisted of basic general-knowledge and intelligence-test (puzzle!) questions, followed by a time in his company but uninterrupted to make up a scene in a large sand-tray, using an assortment of toy vehicles, cars etc, then explaining it all to the doctor. The model-making probably tested values like creativity.
  
So what the Hell was it? Mild Autism? The condition was rarely if ever recognised in 1960-ish. The early-1970s, British film A Day In The Life of Joe Egg was something of a breakthrough in describing it, albeit that the fictional young girl was in very deeply autistic, totally uncommunicative; far, far worse more than I ever was /am. (It's of many myths around the condition that you "grow out of" autism - but if only mild you can learn to live with it, although it makes certain aspects of life like relationships difficult.)  

Around the same time, a friend told me his teenage some was autistic, though not too desperately although finding certain situations difficult. Talking to him (the father) certain aspects of me seemed to click into place - but obviously it's very unwise at least to diagnose yourself with any difficult condition, mental or physical, so I could be wrong.

So here I be, left wondering but at least I had answered one question: yes, something had happened. So that was laid to rest, but Oh, to know what was/is really wrong!

Incidentally that child-psychologist's report gave my IQ as unusually high, to my surprise, BUT - another myth to break. There is NO link between autism and intelligence, and so-called "autistic savants" simply have particular gifts unaffected by the autism itself; and sometimes probably highly exaggerated perhaps in sort sort of defence.

In any case I could never capitalise on that IQ because I was always a slow learner, leaving school with fairly mediocre exam results. I found some academic subjects hard to learn to even a moderate level; especially maths and (despite being highly literate in my own language) foreign-languages. 

There is a sad sequel to my friend's experiences. His own parents and brother disowned him and his wife for producing an autistic grandson for them. Although ironically they tried to dote on the child (or buy his affections with gifts perhaps?) they were totally unable to understand the condition and worse, that no-one could help it; and virtually blamed their daughter-in-law as if it were deliberate. This in the last decade or so of the 20th Century: Ye Gods!