With the right meds I am a semi-functional human being.
My dad had autistic spectrum relatives who never went anywhere beyond their family subsidized apartments and the places they bought food and appropriate clothing. Some of them I never met. I only learned about them when they were dead. Funerals.
This kind of mental illness was the deep dark family secret. Some of these dysfunctional humans would turn out to be engineers and doctors and artists and scientists, but more of them the family would have to hide away.
I'm somewhat in the "hide away" spectrum.
Any kid who read but didn't talk much in our family was suspect. I could read perfectly when I entered kindergarten. Sixth grade level at least. I don't remember not being able to read. But I do remember plenty of "speech therapy." Speech therapy is where I went when the rest of the class (kindergarten, first, second, and third grade) were reading about Dick and Jane. That, and the "posture" classes. I was banned from the "monkey bars" and swings because I was a klutz who would injure myself or others. The recess and lunch playground supervisors knew about me...
In my mom's family nobody would have noticed the odd folk; it was just those people who stayed on the homestead.
Obsessions were often useful. My grandma understood hot metal, horny sailors she passed to women who would satisfy them, walking beef, horses, and dogs. The rest of her life was a mentally ill catastrophe. But the hot metal paid. During World War Two she was a dockyard welder by day and a party girl by night, dancing with sailors. My mom's "daycare" providers were hookers. They fiercely protected my mom. My mom was well loved even though her parents were dysfunctional.
My grandma retired with a good pension. Sadly, the police and paramedics had to remove her from her home when she became a danger to herself and others. My mom had already removed the guns she could find from grandma's house and fortunately my grandma did not remember where the other guns were hidden when the police knocked on her door. She had to make do with clawing, kicking, hitting, throwing things, cussing, spitting, and biting. The police and paramedics tolerated a few hours of that and they did not shoot her dead.
When my wife and I welcomed my grandma to "Our Big Catholic" wedding I was a little worried but she had a wonderful time as the crazy elderly woman in the wheelchair flirting with the handsome young guys.
= new reply since forum marked as read