Trigger warning for isolation-related PTSD
Growing up, I might not have had an autism diagnosis, but that does not mean that my parents were oblivious to the differences between my behavior and typical behavior. Sure, when I was very young, they made their mistakes. For instance, my mother thought that the fact that I would sit for hours, focused on my own thoughts, made me an "easy" child. In some ways it did, because that meant that she could leave me unattended and run downstairs to change the laundry without worrying that I'd wander off. To a nineteen year old with a toddler, I'm sure that that had to seem like a blessing at times.
Similarly, when I was two or three and I started to get obsessed with organizing and arranging things, that made my parents' lives easier. After all, a child that can be kept busy sorting a pile of sticks from longest to shortest, then from thickest to thinnest, then from darkest to lightest is not a child who is likely to notice if you can't afford to get him a new toy every time he wants one. He's not as demanding.
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