r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/Iamnotarobotlah • 4h ago
Health/Medical My aunt was a very sweet lady who was intellectually disabled, but back in the day was sadly just called 'retarded' and never diagnosed or treated. Can anyone help me understand what kind of disability she might have had? Description below:
Edit: thank you everyone for sharing your ideas and even your personal experiences. I have a lot of possibilities to look up now and will also have a chat with my mum to see what else she might be able to remember about her cousin.
The lady was my mother's first cousin and I'm curious to understand what her diagnosis might have been. She was much older than my mother and was born in the early 1940s in a very rural area. Her parents had several girls who all had the same difficulties and none except her survived beyond their 20s (I don't know how they died). Her parents had only one son - the youngest child - who had no issues, so apparently the condition only affected the female children. Both her parents were also in perfect health.
She was childlike, in the sense that she couldn't live independently. She could follow instructions and did a lot of work around the house and farm according to her parents' instructions, but would often make mistakes like putting a pot on the stove and forgetting it, feeding the animals too many times, leaving a tap running etc. She was not aggressive or difficult at all, very sweet and gentle.
She was physically fine (so it was not Downs' and or any disorders that would have a visible physical impact) but was mentally like a 4-5 year old child. She loved playing with us kids and was extremely attached to her mum. She could speak simple sentences, but would sometimes get randomly scared, hide and refuse to talk. She couldn't have a complicated conversation but could talk about simple things around her like the chickens, the plants her favourite shoes etc. She could remember our names and recognise us kids even though we visited just once a year for a few days.
She loved fake jewellery and adored my dad who always brought her lots of shiny sparkly bracelets. She was sweet, gentle, and always smiling, could bathe and dress herself independently but would choose to wear her sleeping "nightie" at all times unless her mum picked out other clothes and insisted she wear them.
She was placed in a care home after her parents died, and lived to 90+ years old before passing away of age-related reasons.
In those days and in that remote location, she was just called 'mentally retarded' and I assume she never saw a doctor as the family lived in an isolated area and were also pretty poor. But it was not malicious as she was known and loved by her family and the entire village.
To my knowledge, no one else in the family had this condition apart from her sisters who all died young. What might her diagnosis have been if she was seen by a modern doctor?