And who knows if an assessment would have even found anything. I was assessed by a child psychologist in (I think) 1968. Asberger's syndrome was not yet a formal condition, and neither was the idea of autism as a spectrum of neurological differences.

My teacher knew something was up, but health-care professionals didn't have a label for what it was, not to mention they lacked tools to help. So a diagnosis would have been stigmatizing without, in all likelihood, doing me any good.

My first-grade teacher wanted me assessed for poor socialization and learning disabilities, but formal tests didn't find anything.

An Asberger's diagnosis waited decades until I was already about 50 years old.

Few people who knew me were surprised, though I was.

Your grandmother must have been a bit like my teacher. She didn't need formal tools to be concerned. Add her own terrible experiences on top, and it's no wonder she was over protective.

I wish we had progressed as a society beyond the point where we needed such protectiveness for people who aren't exactly like the majority.

One day.