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YippySkippy
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10 Feb 2015, 9:33 pm

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The bickering of the kids, random, starling noises while I'm driving, my youngest daughter's whistling habit, all increase my stress level to the point where it literally becomes hard for me to breath or concentrate (and I begin talking robotically- weird, lol). Brain overload.


This sounds like a mild autistic shutdown. I get them, too. My thinking, speech, and motor skills slow down and resemble a drunk person. Fortunately, I can recover with an hour or two of peace. Some people are affected more profoundly and require days to bounce back. I guess I would call my issue a "brownout" rather than a full shutdown.



ASDMommyASDKid
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10 Feb 2015, 9:50 pm

Another interesting thing about the spectrum is that professionals are way less likely to identify girls than boys. Girls tend to go under the radar because they can usually appear more social than boys. Also, because there is a history of boys being more likely to have autism, they tend to dismiss the symptoms in girls. Yet girls tend to have greater social obligations, and other girls have greater expectations for their peers than boys.



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11 Feb 2015, 12:32 am

I wish we had the ability to just hit a "like" on some of the posts here. I like the last two posts from both of you.

We have taken a bit of a rabbit trail on my daughters issues and I really appreciate your attention and feedback on that. Over the course of our conversation, a few things are becoming clear to me about what it's been like for me to raised by Aspergers (the topic of this forum).

1.) A person can both have Aspergers and also choose to be mean. One does not absolve the other.
2.) There are legitimate confusions, frustrations, and traumas having been raised by a man with Aspergers who also chose to be mean.
3.) This formed me but I don't have to remain baffled and confused. Due to being raised in an environment where things were awkward, had "peculiars", and some socially/relationally unacceptable behavior was demonstrated, it is my responsibility to wade through these habits and determine for myself what may be a learned behavioral trait and what might be part of my genetics (perhaps the stress from noise).

I haven't seen my daughter or my dad in 7 years, due to a big family fight. And I have been praying for reconciliation. That can't be done in a healthy way if I return to the situation baffled and confused. I have been praying for clarity, answers, and peace. And I am learning a lot here. Thank you very much :heart:



DW_a_mom
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18 Feb 2015, 7:46 pm

Bumping the thread in hopes of moving a new member's conversation.


_________________
Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).


Callan
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12 Aug 2015, 5:54 am

My mother never wanted to take anyone's word for anything, always being suspect of what she could not see for herself. When I said that my father had Aspergers, an understanding I came to after a nephew was diagnosed as being on the spectrum and I did the research, she assumed I was just blowing smoke. She told my sister this after she saw a show on TLC profiling a man with Aspergers and was astounded to find that he was just like her husband! Maybe I wasn't wrong after all, though she would never tell me.

I had no doubts. And when I said the word to the staff in the hospital, they just nodded their heads, the pattern coming clear to them.

What my mother never understood was that she too had Aspergers. To her, life was just a massive disappointment, a place where nobody made her happy, instead annoying her with their stupid insistence on doing things their own way. Everyone was out to hurt her, from her mother to her children. She could never make new friends, so she was just isolated, hurt and angry in ways that she could never really understand, instead just spraying her pain over her family.

At the table she could never seem to find the end of a story, instead having it waver on into dust. She was unable to pay attention to the stories of others, often just breaking in with her story or even walking away. When her children were hurt or angry she just cared that they were making her look bad. I didn't stay home sick from school even one day after second grade; I knew that things would always be worse at home where I would be seen as a whining intrusion.

She was not physically engaged with her children, unable to play with them as she was not coordinated or athletic at all. She didn't touch us except until she decided to surrogate spouse us in our teens.

Everything was all about her and her emotions, emotions that she had no way to understand, own or manage.

I took care of them in the last decade of their life, a crushing job. My mother was still angry at her mother, but the more I understood her as Aspergers, the more I felt for her mother who had a wilful and disconnected child growing up in the late 1920s and 30s, even before Dr. Asperger had identified the pattern.

I never saw myself as taking care of my mother but rather as helping my father take care of my mother. He was incredibly sweet and loving in his own crackpot engineer manner, always avoiding emotional conflict but willing to explain why those experts were idiots and why he had to publish another technical paper even though they always blocked him, one calling him a "sociopath." He was a man who could not take yes for an answer, having to explain over and over and over again what we had already agreed with.

I knew that I had to be there to protect him or my mothers demands would crush him.

The impossible part of this was how it shaped me. I never learned to be grounded, confident that others would engage and understand me rather than making it all about them. I always felt unsafe at home and unsafe at school, where no one could understand the struggles in my home life. The strategies I modelled after the ones I saw my parents use were isolating and impossible, leaving me acting like I had Aspergers without the insulation that brings.

I became a caretaker very, very early. I stood up against them, earning me the nickname "Stupid" in the family, the target patient who called out the problem so must be silenced. The enmeshment with my parents was intense, and having no healthy models and support for owning my own life past the limits of their vision. I took care of them even in the face of people who thought I was a fool, for surely they were adults and didn't need the kind of attention and protection I gave them.

It was tough to the end. My mother would complain that my father had hurt her when he sometimes put the children first and I would scream inside, knowing that I was one of those children and that we needed and deserved to be protected. She complained to a health care aide so much that they blamed me for abuse and refused to come back. My sister spent time trying to placate my mother by deciding to leverage me to do the things I refused to let my mother manipulate me into doing, often leaving me crushed and alone even as I protected her, also somewhere on the spectrum.

And the absolute worst part of all of this (and the much, much more that occurred) was how little of it I could explain to anyone else in the world. If you don't know Aspergers, you can't imagine what this was like. A very few people understand what having one parent was like, but with two, it is relentless and isolating. I would reach out to others, mostly getting the response of parents who just want their spectrum kids to be fixed, beyond any comprehensions.

My immersion in a Aspergers world has shaped me in powerful ways. I am a master of the meta and the literal, a natural outcome of years of being the translator, helping them negotiate hospitals and systems and such, but my own dreams and emotions are stunted, never having the moments of childhood to return to. I was adultified early and it very much made me who I am.

I suspect this all is baffling and overwhelming, but that is just the expectation I have been trained for.



hurtloam
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12 Aug 2015, 4:05 pm

Callan I relate to a lot of what you've written. Although I've come to realise that my mother must have some sort of personality disorder as well, borderline maybe. Everything always seems to revolve around her. I gave up looking out for my Dad, who has his own problems, he's not always easy to deal with, but he has been suppressed by her over-the-topness.

I left and decided that I needed to look after myself.

However, when they do something bewildering I always think to myself, "would I be angry if a 15 year old did this?" And remind myself that they have developmental issues and they are only doing the best that they can do.

Conversations with them are always slightly surreal, even the more ordinary ones can take an odd turn. My mother suffers from paranoid delusions (yes I know that's got nothing to do with autism) but I have to be careful to avoid any triggers or she'll start down a path connecting dots that aren't there and creating some scenario that isn't really there.

It's difficult when you have to be the adult one your whole life. I am not really sure how to rely on other people. I took a trip by myself this weekend and people asked me if I went with anyone and when I told them no I didn't, they were like, you're so brave, I don't know how you do it. But I've always been alone, it would be more difficult for me to organise taking someone with me on the trip, it's more difficult to imagine that someone would want to go with me.



Callan
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12 Aug 2015, 4:46 pm

hurtloam wrote:
I've come to realise that my mother must have some sort of personality disorder as well, borderline maybe. Everything always seems to revolve around her.
...
My mother suffers from paranoid delusions (yes I know that's got nothing to do with autism) but I have to be careful to avoid any triggers or she'll start down a path connecting dots that aren't there and creating some scenario that isn't really there.


I could make a list of all of the personality issues I claimed about my mother over the years, including her profound narcissism and immense self-pity, but as I came to see her life as centred around the struggle with not being neuro-typical, it seemed to me that much of her challenges while not directly related to her Aspergers were very much connected to the frustration, hurt and separation that not being able to fit in, to feel seen, understood and valued caused over the years.

There is no doubt that trying to hold my parents to any criteria of how people "should" act would be futile and offensive. They very much did the best they could even if that left their kids battered. I am more distressed by a society that had no way to reach them, to help them. They had no effective support for learning to manage their own way of mind.

When I was sent to a therapist in eighth grade (the one who told them to stop calling me "stupid") I only agreed to go if someone would help my parents. Of course, as a kid I had no clout to get them help, because I was the problem, right?

The ability to both be hurt & angry while also being loving & caring is crucial in tending to parents. It was very important that I be understanding and compassionate, but that didn't mean that I wasn't also frustrated and pained while engaging them.

If we don't learn to trust other people with our tender heart when we are young can we ever really make up that ground? My sister spoke today of how a friend saw that if she was locked in her studio for days she would never be bored or desperate, only finding new projects to engage her. I laughed and noted how a friend when I was in college for education asked me if I played alone a lot as a child. "Is there any other way?" I answered.



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24 May 2016, 9:48 pm

DW_a_mom wrote:
graemephillips wrote:
I have no intention of doing any further research into child development. If the Bible describes it as mandatory (Proverbs 13:24), then as far as I'm concerned, I have absolutely no reason to look into things any further. It is my view that no human has any wisdom in excess of that in the Bible.



I am a Christian and I disagree with your interpretation of the Bible on this. Perhaps you can expand your study of theology. You will want what is best for your child, period, and modern study should be part of that decision process.


Hope that your kids don't look at porn!?
Matthew 5:29
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.



HTM
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04 Jun 2016, 2:12 am

I never knew why my father was so "odd" and difficult until my son was diagnosed with ASD. It all made sense once I read up on Asperger's. My son has very mild ASD, some doctors say it isn't ASD and that it is ADHD with anxiety, but everything I was reading about Asperger's TOTALLY described my father and my sister.
My father was funny and quirky, but unfortunately had a hard time connecting emotionally (had a lot of guilt but couldn't really have empathy) and had terrible meltdowns. His meltdowns caused him to fly into rages and become abusive or withdraw and leave us pretty much isolated for days. Now I see he was a single parent with mild ASD and he tried so hard to love us and connect. I remember how he'd try to be patient and we kids would push him over the edge. My sister has severe ADHD (maybe ASD?) and I have inattentive type ADHD, so we were a handful. Not our fault that he was abusive, but knowing he fits the description of Asperger's allows me to find understanding and forgiveness for him.
My family said he was always odd and thought he had OCD, then he fought in Vietnam and came home with phobias about safety and germs.
The good news is I've been able to connect with him as an adult. He still doesn't know he has ASD and I'm sure never will. That wasn't something that was diagnosed in his generation, especially if it was very mild and the person was highly intelligent like he is. I enjoy his favorite hobby, competitive target shooting, so we "bond" while shooting and on his terms. That's ok. He does the best he can and is a wonderful grandfather! I'm just glad he is more relaxed with me now that I am an adult and he doesn't have to worry about me and take care of me.



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13 Aug 2016, 2:11 am

I'm a NT woman in my 30s. I think my mother might be on the spectrum. I don't know a lot about the autism spectrum, so I apologize if I describe it incorrectly.

My mother has always been odd. I used to think that it was just an extreme form of introversion and anxiety, but I'm starting to think it's more than that.

She really can't read people or social situations at all. When I tell her a story about people having emotional reactions to things, she doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about. It's like I'm speaking another language. She has a really hard time empathizing with others and seems to be constantly surprised and confused by people's feelings.

She gets overstimulated by crowds and noise. She hates crowds more than most people and won't take vacations during the summer because places will be too busy.

She's very rigid about things that don't matter. She would like to control her physical space at all times. She does not like being told what to do. She does not like being disagreed with and will almost never admit that she's wrong.

She gets really obsessed with things and has a hard time talking about things she's not interested in.

Does this sound like Asperger's? Or something else? I know I can't diagnose her but this feels like a real possibility to me. And it would explain some of the weirder parts of my childhood.

I always knew that my mother loved me, but I didn't feel it the way I did with my dad, who was much more nurturing and empathetic. I love my mom but I don't feel connected to her. I used to think that I was awful because I couldn't even feel a connection with my own mother. But if she has Asperger's then maybe it's no one's fault.

Do I sound completely off track?



impossibledreamer
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18 Sep 2016, 10:48 pm

I do not mean to dismiss Aspergers parenting in what I have to say, as I realize all our experience are different and people on the spectrum can make competent and loving parents, but I myself feel I had quite a confusing childhood being raised by one (and possibly two) parents on the spectrum. My dad has Aspergers and is very limited socially and emotionally and has strict rules about what is acceptable. I felt very lonely as a child, very invisible and constantly invalidated. I received almost no physical or verbal affection. As I've moved into adulthood, I've started to resent my father more, though at the same time I have been able to understand that my dad can't help his limitations. So it has become a constraint struggle, feeling suffocated by his self involvement and trying to forgive him for what is not his fault. I think a great deal of this is made worse by us having lost my mom who, though she had some spectrum traits herself, was much more flexible and invested in us kids.

My father's narcissism (which might have existed without him having Aspergers) has effected the type of men I've dated and its taken me until now (early 30s) to really actively change what I want in a partner.

I wish I had an easier time being around my dad. Maybe with time I will let go of my resentment and enjoy him more. I do want to, but at the same time his limitations are huge triggers for me.



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16 Oct 2016, 1:28 pm

I would like to tell another story a la Saint Alan. I'm giving everyone in my family pseudonyms.

This is NOT a horror story. There are some dark parts, but not concerning Dad, and the ending is happy.

The Hagiography of Brother Mark

Once upon a time there was a great empire. It wasn't an empire in the sense that it was ruled over by a dictatorial empire; rather, it was an empire in the sense that it was extraordinarily, wondrously diverse, yet still had a common nationality called humanity. It was ruled over by lots of different groups, but in the Western Regions, it was ruled over, more often than not, by the Cultural, Ethical, and Economic oligarchies.

There were lots of tribes and ethnic groups in the Empire of Humanity (Kosma). In the past they didn't need papers and less people knew their names, but nowadays there are a lot of ethnographic studies and . . . well, never mind.

A long time ago, in an empire we still live in now, there lived a lady called The Teacher. She was (as the name suggests), a teacher. This gave her a low-ranking but powerful position in the fabric of the Western Region's politics - a post that she had gained because, not in spite of, conjectures this historian, her affiliation (at the very least, if not membership, but that's debatable) with the Aspie tribe. She was a good teacher, as it turned out, and a storyteller, and a remarkable woman, if not a perfect one, and she got married, fairly young, to a strong, silent, quietly humourous man, called Mr. Outdoorsy, and they have been together and happy for upward of six decades now.

Well, Mr. Outdoorsy and The Teacher had two boys, the elder of which was given a rather unflattering nickname at school that basically meant 'shy and awkward' by his default-normal ethnicity (whatever that means) peers, which was to say he got called Frog. Cruel, I know. Anyway, The Teacher loved him, still does, but Frog was such an absent-minded dreamer sometimes. It's possible that she wished he was a bit more . . . down to earth.

Well, Frog was shy and this historian had reason to believe that his long-term confidence took a big knock, but he had a lot of good times with Mr. Outdoorsy and his brother Genuinely Nice Normal, as well as a staggering intelligence and wide-eyed wonder whenever he looked at the world. Anything from Plate Tectonics to the Anglo-Saxons fascinated the guy, and he could be quite charming to people, at least the ones who gave him the time of the day. Not because he was trying to be charming, but because he was intelligent and kind and sensitive and had an innocent enthusiasm for so many things. Still does.

Unfortunately, I suspect that there were a fair few people who didn't give him the time of the day.

So Frog muddled his way through school, and through university, and then a friend showed him the Kingdom of Christ, which lies outside the jurisdiction of the Empire of the World because it transcends it. It's a place where all nationalities and tribes are welcome, and where no minority is oppressed or discriminated against. Access to the King is always free, and there is more peace between the citizens there than there is in the empire of humanity, where there is an awful lot of conflict and endless culture wars and wars of oppression. Frog became Brother Mark there, the wise, intelligent, kind man I know, who actually has friends and brothers who see him like I do: kind and wise and earnest, instead of shy and awkward and cold.

It was here that Brother Mark met Lady Passionate, a fellow citizen of the Kingdom (although with normal papers in the empire), and they got married. In due time, there came a bunch of kids: Mistress Historian, Stan the Man, and Mr. Precious, in that order. I think you can guess who the author is. (The Teacher was over the moon, by the way. She was getting worried that Brother Mark might never marry. And I guess Opposites Attract was the case for both The Teacher and Mr. Outdoorsy, AND Brother Mark and Lady Passionate. I mean, just look at their names!).

Brother Mark and Mistress Historian got on like a house on fire. Brother Mark could, if he chose, almost certainly get the paperwork confirming his citizenship of Tribe Aspie, and his kids, I think, could probably get partial citizenship. At least. And Brother Mark and Mistress Historian had similar natural interests. They just seemed to get each other. Brother Mark understood how Mistress Historian found Academic Talk a first language and small talk a second one, even when Lady Passionate (Queen Passionate by now, but more on that later). When Queen Passionate (justifiably) worried about Mistress Historian, and showed it, Brother Mark just sat the young mistress down and talked to her calmly and rationally. Mistress Historian tended to respond to this a lot better than Queen Passionate's overt worrying. And there were other things that only Brother Mark seemed to understand about Mistress Historian; her difficulty in talking to people, in figuring out what was appropriate, her difficulty with eye contact when stressed/tired/upset. They just grokked each other. And if she was having difficulties, he always went out of his way to give her the best advice he could, not to mention practical help and support.

Which is not to say that Brother Mark was perfect. He wasn't. But he was, on the whole, a good parent.

On to Queen Passionate. I decided to call her 'Queen', because she tried to give all of us kids the guidance that was best, even if she knew we wouldn't like her very much afterwards. In short, she put our needs before her own, and I appreciate her to the moon and back for it. She also became Queen Sensible without ever stopping being Queen Passionate, which was a wondrous thing to behold, although the timing of that transition is highly debateable. Maybe Mistress Historian just got more open-minded with time, hence the apparent change :wink: . Queen Sensible taught Mistress Historian what a woman who is both comfortable in her own skin AND working for the good of her family looks like. A female role model with a decent helping of common sense and good self-esteem and self-confidence, even one who doesn't agree with everything the feminazis say, is worth more to a girl that all the Facebook feminazi memes and think pieces in the world could ever be. And it was nice to have a parent in the house who seemed comfortable in their own skin too.

Well, when Mistress Historian was in her teens, she realised that she - and Brother Mark - might belong to Tribe Aspie.

This didn't trouble her at first. She didn't mind a label, or being smart, or even being a bit shy. She had enjoyed life so far, and what, exactly, was the problem with enjoying special interests, or having no interest whatsoever in High School Cliques? And sure, Brother Mark was shy, and a bit narrow-minded sometimes, but what did that matter when he was a great Dad?

None, amirite?

Then she wanted to write a story featuring an adult, married Aspie, and did a bit of research to see what it was like being the spouse or child of one.

You can probably guess what happened next. Mistress Historian literally wound up questioning her humanity, her right to life, whether or not it would ever be ethical to marry or have kids if she was going to Doom them all, and worried obsessively about whether or not she would damage and abuse everyone in her life, and all without knowing it. The previously happy, reasonably confident girl was literally grieving for the future that she felt she had lost. This all happened in her first year at uni.

First step out of the Dark Pit: The Kingdom of God. I wasn't worried about bad social skills, I was worried about Hurting People, because Making People Happy was the goal of my life. I got reminded that God wanted my untouched spirit, and that I was to live for Him first, not other people. Maybe I couldn't live for people, but I did know how to live for God, and I know that aspieness, in itself, is no barrier whatsoever. Free access to the King, remember? It really is free access, and how wonderful that is!
Second step was philosophy (theology and theophily came first, ha ha!). I figured that all those NTs out there sobbing out their hurt were being quite damaging to us aspies, and I totally understood the aspies who ranted back. I still do the same sometimes. But I also figured that even though our hate to NTs wouldn't hurt them on such a wide scale as their hate did us, it would still hurt them on a personal scale - and it would hurt us too. If you never trust an NT again, then you're shutting yourself off and hurting yourself as much as you hurt them. I figured, in the end, that tolerance, understanding, humility of both NTs and Aspies on a personal scale in personal relationships, and compromise was the way to go. It actually even helped a little bit, and perhaps made me a richer person down the line, although the profits are a bit spotty still. :)
But that was all theory, and theory isn't enough to live on. You need to live it, or at least see it lived. Enter Brother Mark and Queen Sensible.

I went home for the summer holidays for a few months, and stayed for a few months. And this was where I got to learn . . . a lot. Sure, Brother Mark can be absent-minded and inconvenient and oblivious and awkward. In comparison to that, Queen Sensible seemed, for the first time in a while, to be more lovable than Brother Mark, who seemed, at the time, more admirable than lovable (note the superlative. He was definitely still lovable). She pointed out, one day, that there was a lot of good things I got from Brother Mark . . . as well as naivety, awkwardness, stubborness and shyness. But that last bit didn't matter. Queen Sensible thought that there were a lot of good things about us both, and that was enough. I knew for certain that she loved me, and if she loved me, then I must be worth loving. And she, a fine judge of character, said that there were good things about us - and that she didn't regret being married to Brother Mark.

And then there was Brother Mark himself. Whatever anyone else said, he was a good parent. Not that he didn't struggle - visibly so - but he loved us all, and we know it, and he tried hard and did his best. His personality helps too. Staying around Brother Mark, I came to an astonishing realising: even though he ticks so many boxes for 'aspie', he's so much more than *just* and aspie. Asperger's is part of him, an integral part, but it's not all of him and it doesn't define him. If you want to love the man, you love all of him, even this part. Sure, it's an inconvenience - but it's also an advantage, and the whole man is worth loving, and accepting, inconveniences and all. Asperger's doesn't make him defective, because he's not defective. There's nothing wrong with him at all, at least, no more than there is with everyone else in the empire of humanity. We're all imperfect. But some of us are still worth loving, and admiring, and accepting, warts and all. Without knowing it - without even knowing that he quite probably has Aspergers! (and I don't think I want him to know, TBH - I don't want to put him through the pain of thinking himself defective when he isn't) - he's become my aspie role model. He's proof that I CAN make it, someday, in the world of adult personal relationships. He's proof to me that Asperger's Syndrome is not just a horror story on the internet, or a list of diagnostic criteria.

My NT and AS parents - TOGETHER - raised me to be a worthy human being. Thank God for yoking those two together and giving them custody of me. Thank God that Brother Mark didn't die of cancer when I was a teenager, which he nearly did. I would have spent my teenage years being confused and misunderstood and scared. Thank God I had my Mum, who showed me what a confident, sensible lady can look like, and who taught me how to be a woman.

I would never hope to make my Dad less of an aspie. I like him just like he is. The only thing I would change is the experiences I suspect he had as a child, and then as an adult - for his sake, not for mine.

And that, folks, is the Hagiography of Brother Mark the Kind, Sweet and Pious and Queen Sensible, Passionate and Loving, by Mistress Historian, aka Lady Aspergirl. :D



Elvira
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27 Aug 2017, 11:33 am

So excited to have found this thread! I have recently realized that our family, while not diagnosed, has Aspergers after my nieces and nephews have been receiving autism diagnosis (unable to speak at 5 years old, etc). My parents dont believe aspergers is a thing, so they would never seek a diagnosis and even deny that the neices and nephews have anything wrong with them. Thinking about this has led me to see the Aspergers Traits in all of my parents Mom, Dad and Step Dad, and one brother, and then myself. I have been seeking answers my whole life, in therapy, trying to figure out 'what is wrong with me' because I'm definitely not like other people, and now that this piece of the puzzle is in place, it really seems so obvious that I cannot believe I didn't see it sooner. I have floated the idea to siblings, but my family is in denial and I put it to bed after a couple of frustrating conversations.

First of all, let me preface by saying that it has taken me all this time that none of my parents know how things work IN REAL LIFE. They have all three created worlds for themselves where they dont have to navigate institutions, social structures, or the real world at all. But they still speak from a place where they are trying to give advice or tell you what you should do, and I didnt realize till I was an adult that they had no idea what they were talking about. I had to go on many wild goose chases before I realized it was THEM.

Real Dad: No friends, not remarried. He has always been interested in mechanics. Was in the navy and worked at a shipyard. Worked on nuclear subs. I have always had a difficult time talking to and being around him. I was anorexic in high school and during that period of time my mom forbid me from being around him because she said that I got 'worse' every time I spent time with him. He has no friends. Very negative. If you say black, he'll say white. If you say up, hell say down. He will argue in circles, and when I got older and able to track, I realized that if I changed sides in the middle of an argument, he would automatically switch to the other side. He just really likes to argue, whereas I find it very frustrating and energy sucking. I dont have any verbal functioning at all, so its very difficult for me. When I was young I didn't see the things he was doing socially. But now i see it. He will say the rudest things to the grocery store clerk in an attempt to make jokes. When he talks about mechanics he will go on an on about the inner workings of an engine, as if you understand what hes talking about, but ya dont. He will wear layers and layers in really hot weather, and then complain about how hot it is. When I had my baby, she would cry every time he would come around her and not want to be held by him. That was because he held her with his arms out like she was a biohazard. He has some issues with women. He hates them. He has never had a girlfriend or partner since my mother and really only has bad things to say about women. On the other hand if I had friends, which was rare, if I brought them around him he would claim they were interested in him, even though they werent and they were half his age. I stopped bringing my friends around him after my aunt told me he wouldnt stop talking about one of them. If a woman is age appropriate, he thinks she is a hag. if she is normal weight, he thinks she is obese. Needless to say that hasnt helped with my confidence growing up. He used to love to walk or hike. His other main interest is that he likes to drive and will drive forever but never get out of the car at the end. He once drove to vegas but then turned around and drove back. As a child, our visits were driving around in the mountains but then never getting out of the car. He just wanted to see where the road went. One time he drove up into the mountains and his truck slipped on some snow and went half off the road so his tires were just in the air and he couldn't get the truck out. We had to walk forever (after carefully getting out of the truck cab) till we saw some guys with a truck and they got the truck out but he refused a ride with them, so we had to walk into the night back to the truck. He didnt do self care so on the times when we went hiking there were never snacks or water or anything. He always complains about the fact that I have toys for my daughter. When we would visit him at his house there were no toys. One time he finally got toys for me and my sister and they were two dump trucks. Now that I know of his diagnosis its easier to understand, but then again, and another poster said this, when he calls I never want to pick up the phone because I cannot stand his criticisms, circular conversations, and just bullying. Its not fun to talk to him. Now he's losing his hearing and I have to yell, but of coarse its MY fault, he says its my voice. On the other hand, my logical mind knows its not his fault. but that's still not enough to make me want to pick up that phone, because i know it could ruin my day.

Mom: No friends. She had obsessions that would come and go. We lived in a trailer in a trailer park. She went through a plant phase and bought a million plants. they were everywhere. you couldn't see the tv because all the plants. then she let them all die when she was tired of them. She went through a bird phase and bought a bunch of parakeets and other tropical birds. there were a million cages, then she got tired of them and 'set them free'. This would make me cry because I knew the birds couldn't survive out in the real world, especially I do believe a lot of them had their wings clipped. Then the fish, and you know where this is going. Her obsessions were intense but short. She never trusted people and most of the time would try to talk me out of the friends I did make because they were not to be trusted. She said that women never liked her because she was so pretty. that was her main narrative. We never went anywhere. not out to dinner. not to a park. nowhere. my parents just had no interest in doing things outside of the home and we would beg to go to the seven eleven when my dad went to get smokes. She was an alcoholic and as the disease progressed she started doing weirder and weirder things. One time I came home from work at like midnight and she jumped up out of bed (she slept on the couch bed) and started calling me satan and shouting things at me in olde english 'Get thee satan out of my house'. I locked myself in the bathroom because I was scared she really thought i was satan and would go get a knife or something. She did quit drinking and is much better now, but still has her same issues. She's just like a kid, really, emotionally. Like my dad, she just hasnt seemed to have evolved emotionally.

Me: I struggle to understand if its my parents that caused me to be so non verbal and socially outside the norm or if its true aspergers. I just haven't had any words this whole time and when people are talking around me I look around and have no idea what to say, or what it is that made them say the things they are saying to each other. Socializing is baffling to me. My instinct is to put myself far away from people. I do want friends and I do want to connect with people and I don't know how. For 12 years at school I just wandered around alone by myself or would find a place to go hide. It was excruciating. When I grew up and had to go to college to meet my goals, I never made friends, and would sit in class in the front row with tears streaming down my face because I knew they would tell us to get into groups and I wouldn't fit in with my group and I was just so sick of it after so many years.

My biggest thing is that I just really wished I had known about all this sooner. I feel like my life could have been much easier and I could have been kinder to myself if I had known what I was dealing with. Also feel like there wouldn't be so much anger because I would be more understanding. I really appreciate those who have shared their stories.



hurtloam
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27 Aug 2017, 12:04 pm

Hi Elvira, I relate to a few things you've written here.

My parents would never bring drinks or snacks on outings. I remember going on a hill walk and one of my Mum's friends gave me half her sandwich because I was hungry.

My parents don't seem to have evolved emotionally either. They are still tactless and don't have very good theory of mind skills. They're not good at understanding how other people see things differently to them. They think that what they experience or read must be the absolute facts because they can't conceive of another way. Occassionally I can explain things to them and they do accept that there might be another way to see something.

I get the being non-verbal in social situations. I have a suspicion it springs from my Mothers' reactions to me when I was a child. I think that was related to her unbalanced hormones rather than aspergers, though she completely believes that she has aspergers now she knows what it is. But she would just snap at me when I tried to talk, so I learned not to talk about things. I don't think teachers helped either. They would tell me to be quiet or not care about what I had to say, so I don't expect people to care about what I have to say as an adult.

I've improved over the years. I've learned how to engage people in conversation to a certain extent. It's easier for me now that it used to be. But sometimes I still just feel blank and no words come. Especially in a group setting.



Elvira
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28 Aug 2017, 11:12 am

hurtloam wrote:
Conversations with them are always slightly surreal, even the more ordinary ones can take an odd turn. My mother suffers from paranoid delusions (yes I know that's got nothing to do with autism) but I have to be careful to avoid any triggers or she'll start down a path connecting dots that aren't there and creating some scenario that isn't really there.


This is exactly my experience now. It's like dealing with children. Weird children. But I am baffled by how long it took me to realize that their reality is separate from the rest of the world's reality. I was so confused for so long and doubted myself because I couldn't sort out the two realities. My mom also had paranoid delusions, but I suspect they were related to asperger's because they were all stories that she created to explain why people didn't like her or how people were conspiring against her. Sometimes in my worst moments I have caught myself slipping into this spiral, but for the most part, I can now recognize and stop it. I now stop my mom and say 'no one said that, you are making that up'. When she starts fabricating stories. They always are that someone said something over the top mean to her, but no one but her ever seems to have heard that person say it. Sometimes she even giggles like she knows that she does it.

One time my dad was arguing me in circles changing sides in his argument finding ways to criticize me that didnt even relate to what we were talking about, confusing me and sending me into a rage, and I stopped the conversation and yelled, 'dad Im sorry, i have to get off the phone, it is so hard to talk to you, nothing is productive!' and he started laughing, and said 'I know, Im the worst'. He, too, knows he does it but cant stop himself. So frustrating.

I just don't understand, for all the pain that they have experienced, why they have never sought help to make life easier. Why cant we even talk about autism or aspergers with them. There has to be something too, about people with aspergers finding each other, because it is too difficult to pair up with an NT, or something.



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28 Aug 2017, 12:36 pm

Elvira wrote:

I just don't understand, for all the pain that they have experienced, why they have never sought help to make life easier. Why cant we even talk about autism or aspergers with them. There has to be something too, about people with aspergers finding each other, because it is too difficult to pair up with an NT, or something.


What help? I remember seeing a documentary about autism, from Australia. They interviewed an autistic woman. She said after her own diagnosis she realized her mother had been on the spectrum. At one point, her mother had a massive meltdown, and was carted off to a mental institution, where she was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia and medicated into a catatonic state for the rest of her life.

Seeking help might have made things much worse for your parents and your family. I don't know how old your parents are, but they must have feared that if anyone ever knew, they'd lose their child(ren).


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