Is(Was) Your Mother On The Autism Spectrum?

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Not at all. She's quirky and creative like me but she's as neurotypical as they come. It can make for some sad and frustrating situations; she loves me but she often doesn't understand me.

My mom was never diagnosed, but I think she is neurodivergent in a way. She had seizures as a kid and severe executive dysfunction that caused academic problems. I also used to have seizures as a kid, but my two siblings did not. My brother is neurotypical and my sister has dyslexia. So maybe it's an X chromosome thing.

When my mother was dying, and my sister was still trying to get a motherly reaction from her, my renewed research turned up AS. Suddenly, I understood our family. Sis and I had known for years we were from a dysfunctional family, but only I had had an unusual life, along with mother's siblings. She had first bonded with other women in the military, and when the war ended, she had married to avoid returning home. She approached parenting as a duty to be done as efficiently as possible. Our job was to make her look normal. Back then, Asperger's was not recognized, so she just had to pass as well as she could to avoid a dangerous mis-diagnosis. She just moved quickly, maintaining superficial relationships from the war.

I never bonded with either parent, so even though my AS is fairly mild, I don't do very well with friends. I'd like to hear from others who also got no help at home. Mom was almost dead before she asked me why I'd left home, two years after she split. I told her that dad had set an impossible condition if I wanted to return to school that fall, so I'd stayed with the summer job. She said he would have changed his mind. I said I had no way of knowing that. I had never seen either of them respond to an appeal. Then I asked her at what age she had last formed or changed an opinion. She didn't answer, probably because she was afraid I was going to mention God next. She was wrong, but she rang off anyway, with "Don't call me, I'll call you."

My mom is definitely an NT.

No, my mother has not been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. However, there are/were members on my mother's side of the family with autistic traits.

No, but she thinks she has some autistic traits. I don't think she does, but her sister probably had it based on what she's told me. Several other relatives are on the spectrum including a sibling.

My mother is as NT as could be. The only reason why she sometimes doesn't understand certain social rules is because of cultural differences.

My dad is the one who has questioned a few times if he could be on the spectrum, but then dismissed it. I do see a few possible traits. Maybe he is and maybe he isn't. What I am pretty sure about is that I got my Tourette's from him, though he refuses to consider that he could have Tourette's. For one thing, he always flat out denies that he shouted at the top of his voice.

No. She was normal and perfect and I was nothing like her, except that we both had a love for animals.

My mom was also very naive when she was a child but I am not sure how she was socially. I know she had troubles in math and my uncle had to help balance her checkbook and he saw the mistake and he was ten years old. I used to think she had aspie traits as well but my husband disagrees. I do notice she tends to have the "I am right" tendency so my husband told her one day 'I have a right to my opinion' and I thought 'so that is what I say next time' when she acts that way. If I know I am right or believe I am, I will just call it an opinion by saying this is my opinion and I have a right to it.

I think that my AS mother had a very hard time with noise and interruptions, so she never did any of the socializing needed for early child development. She thought mothers sounded ridiculous when they used "baby talk." She was sure that nothing was happening of any importance in a young brain until it had developed language and memory, so I was ignored until I'd absorbed words from others. Then the barrage of questions was hard to take. My "afternoon nap" was her break time - the one time I fell asleep and gave her an extra hour, she had a big smirk on her face when I dared to re-appear and then demanded to learn about the hour hand as well as the minute hand on the clock. Then, one day I asked her about a drawing I was having trouble with. The appropriate answer would have been "I'm too busy cooking now; I'll help as soon as I can." Instead, she said "That's nice." I never asked for her help again. I was quite surprised to learn that other parents would help with homework from school.
When I had trouble with some things, I got a tutor, and when I got sent to a shrink for evaluation, the investigation ran into a brick wall if it was headed for questions about her parenting.

The spectrum is strong in my family... My mom suffers from executive dysfunction, learning disability, social discomfort, sensory overload, and insomnia. Still, she's always managed to (barely) get by in life, whereas I haven't.

I think it's more likely that the autism spectrum comes from my dad's side of the family more than my mom's. The reason for that is that I have a great grandmother who it's believed had traits of Asperger's, and might have been diagnosed if it were possible then. She died before I was born, so I never actually witnessed any of her traits.

No, I don't think so. She did suffer from social anxiety/panic disorder when she was younger, so we have that in common lol. I don't think that even any of my relatives really fit the bill... I always felt like the weirdo/outcast in family gatherings. ^^'

It's funny how learning more about ASD and autism has caused me to secretly review the people closest to me. My mother has never had any kind of assessment regarding autism, she makes full eye-contact and is very open with her feelings. She has none of my social inhibitions and has her own (social) life with friends. A trait she does share with me however is that she can be hugely tactless in a conversation. In fact, some of the things she says when talking to others make me cringe. I'm not sure how much of that is just the feeling of being embarrassed by one's parent, and how much of it is just her nature. My grandmother is the same and it's often hard for other members of my family not to be insulted by her comments, even though I personally find them hilarious.
I think at this stage, though ASD may certainly be at least partially genetic, the other women of my family though seemingly NT must all unfortunately carry some sort of benign, 'unintentionally offend everyone within a 5 metre radius' gene. Ah, inheritance.