Raised by Aspergers parent

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AAActually...lol you ARE going to really hate me for this, but that's exactly what i feel compelled to answer to. I'm going to leave out everything else you said, even if I don't agree with all of it, and ask you your reasons for doing this. Not all autistic parents are perfect, of course, and not all NT parents are perfect. There are certain particularities in both groups that can affect their parenting.
A few examples could be: an AS parent who is not aware of misreading their child, or an NT parent who is willingly ignoring what they read for "educational purposes". The result is the same, the child feels misunderstood.I'm not talking about abuse, but the same thing could be said: there are cases of abuse I suppose in both groups.
Why do you want to "keep the focus" on bad autistic parents ? Let me tell you something that might hurt you. This is not the subject you want to discuss. What you want to discuss is your abusive childhood. it is perfectly reasonnable to want to let it all out , but it so happens that your father was autistic, and that you wish everyone to join you on a conversation about how you were only unhappy because he was autistic. This is not true. Had you had the opportunity to change families with the help of a magic fairy , and had you wished to have an NT family , the issues might have been even worse depending on what family you would have landed into.
I have seen some pretty messed up things done to children by NTs, and I'm not saying "most NTs should accept that they need help to raise their children". Can you imagine me going onto an NT forum and stating this? I think the answers you got so far have been pretty reserved and open .
You definitely had a bad childhood, but can't you be resentful of your father without dragging us all down with him? I know the type of person he is, and I would probably have hated him too. But he is just ONE person, with apparently not enough parenting ability to take care of you. It's ok to feel the way you feel. But your father was not trapped in his autistic condition and unable to make a change. He was UNWILLING to make a change, probably because he had been raised that way and had never analysed how hurtful it could be for a young child. Maybe it's time for you to have a talk with him if he's still alive, and get it off your chest.

The thing is what we are trying to tell you is that there are jerks in every group. You can ask League_Girl. There are aspies who can be jerks as well. They have been put into their place. Jerkiness crosses all kinds of groups and spectrums.

Of course there are cases of abuse in both groups. And in both groups, it's vital that the parents -- or spouses, or children -- be able to hear that what they're doing is harmful, and move to correct whatever it is they're doing that's harming other people.

Note that I'm not talking about "feeling misunderstood". Every child, every person, feels misunderstood sometimes. I'm talking about harm. Deep, pervasive, and ongoing harm. The kind of thing you've heard about from many children of AS parents on this thread.



This is an autism board, right?



Well, that'd be a pretty twisted way to read it. How about this: Having discovered that the problem was not that he was a huge jerk and a horrible guy, but AS and completely clueless, I sought out others who'd had to live with the same problem, and found some here. And also found parents with AS presenting with the same shocking and harmful cluelessness I've seen in my own family. And I thought, My God, an opportunity to help families that might be living with the same problem. Tell the parents now, even if it hurts their feelings.



Once again, I'm seeing an attempt to kick the problem under the bed. "It's nothing to do with AS! You'd have been miserable anyway!"

Only it really is to do with AS, unfortunately. The same social problems that are discussed all over the rest of this board can have serious effects on family. What I'm telling you, and what the other children of AS parents are telling you in this thread, is that unless people with AS recognize the problems *and are willing to get help* in their relationships with family, the effects can be brutal.

It seems to me a pretty agnostic point. I understand that you don't want to hear what kind of damage AS can do, and move immediately to mitigate by surrounding it with "well, other things hurt too," but the fact remains.

I'm actually reminded of smokers who get really mad at laws that stop them from smoking indoors, and who immediately move to point out that car exhaust and all sorts of other things make breathing hard, too, and besides smoking is legal, etc. All true. But we deal with one problem at a time, and when we're dealing with smoking in restaurants and its effects on others, we leave the question of exhaust pollution for another time.



You do realize that most mothers do look for help in raising their children? This is one of the points I've been making all along. We're constantly checking with others to see if we're doing right by our kids; we're constantly comparing what we do with what others do, and quizzing them about it; we're usually beset by worry that there's something we're not doing all we can to raise them well. There's a vast market in "how to raise your children" books and classes, and a similarly vast market in family therapy. We're usually looking for mentors and teachers for our kids who can give them things we can't; that was the point of my daycare story.

I think if you went into any motherhood forum and said "you parents need help to raise your children", people would wait to hear what your point was. (Or say, "Oh God, are you offering? When can you be here?")

This, really, is one of the key things, I think. It's normal for parents to look around, look at what other parents and children are doing, and ask, "Am I doing this right? Could I do better for my kids? Are the kids okay?" If what they're doing is out of step, they usually know why and are very much aware of the potential effects on their children, and try to mitigate; there's constant reevaluation, because there's some presumption that there are good reasons for others' doing what they do in raising their children, something important for the children. It's a rare parent that doesn't do this, as far as I've seen.

What other kids of AS parents and I seem to be reporting is that many AS parents *do not* do this, with devastating results. When the AS parent does do that continuous checking in and comparison with the rest of the world, with the assumption that there's wisdom in what others are doing -- as you did -- it appears to make a big difference.



I don't know how many more ways I can say that some AS parents do a good job, but clearly, some do not manage and wind up harming their families with the AS. You seem intent on ignoring the first part, though. There's really nothing I can do except say "go back and read the actual words I wrote."

As for my dad, no, he had not been raised that way. His father was very warm to me, and -- as far as I saw -- was always very interested in other people's lives. He found my father somewhat bewildering, and was asking me about him till the end of his life.

I don't think my father's aware of his condition. Unfortunately, talking to him has the same result as mentioning problems with AS parenting here. Phrasing problems politely, we get ignored, brushed off. If we're blunt, we get anger and insistence that it can't be true, that he's a good guy; denial of any problems; and personal attacks. In both cases, zero curiosity about any of the claims, no apparent lasting interest in the experience of others. Only defense and denial.

We -- my brother, mother, grandparents -- have brought things up with him many times, things he's done that have hurt us or are causing problems, and again, the responses are reminiscent of what I hear on this board. "Well, I just think that's wrong/nonsensical." "I don't do things that way." "That's just not how I see things." These are fine answers if you live by yourself, familyless, but it doesn't work if you're part of a family or any other social group. You (general you, not ediself you) may not think it's necessary to be present or consistent in a child's life, for instance, but your own private theories on the matter have nothing to do with the child's experience, and your failure to behave in what others can see as a loving way is still harmful to the child. These things can be difficult or impossible to get across. Attempts usually end in my father's belief that we're horrible people attacking him. I've offered to talk with him with a therapist, skyping in, but so far he's refused.

The acute selfcenteredness is hard for me to understand, especially in the context of children. My friends, too, have a hard time understanding why my father behaves so selfishly when it comes to his grandchildren. I get a lot of, "Won't he even bend for [grandchildren]? I mean they're only children! Oh, it's so sad." What they don't get is that he has acute difficulty stepping outside himself far enough to sense others' experience as real. If he hasn't felt it, hasn't experienced it, it hasn't happened. You can stand there talking about it forever; it makes only the most transient impression. His imagination about what his children and grandchildren go through is shockingly limited, and puzzles my daughter, who tries to explain to him that she's not a baby, and make it plain to him how old she is and what she can do. In time she'll understand that this is largely pointless.

His behavior isn't malicious, just deeply harmful. I remember a time -- I might've told this story -- when he wanted me to go take on some major project that he found exciting, something I was tangentially involved with. Wanted me to go write big grants, set up a whole enterprise. It was the kind of thing he might've done decades before. At the time, I had a toddler and a seriously mentally ill husband, and I'd spoken with my dad many times about how overwhelming it was and the difficulties we lived with. Obviously, I couldn't run off and set up some major enterprise of my own just then. Obvious to anyone else, anyway, who saw how thin I was already stretched, and how unpredictable my child and husband's needs were. But not at all obvious to him. He'd never been in that situation, and so it was as though it didn't exist. I understood then that he didn't know, and wouldn't know, that my family was in real trouble.

I finally had to explain to him, gently, that if I did get such a grant, I couldn't promise to fulfill its terms. That shocked him, but he understood grants, so he understood that it meant I couldn't do the work. Not because we were a family in crisis, though. He said that of course I couldn't, then, because if I failed to deliver on a grant, it would damage my reputation and make it harder for me to get other grants. (I don't have a grant-based career. He had a grant-based career.) Then he stopped pushing. He was very shocked, though, that I'd say I wouldn't be able to deliver on a grant.

Something like that is sad, yes, and it makes one feel the lack of a relationship that's reasonable to expect. It obviously isn't his fault; something's not connecting in him, that's all. Something is missing. But I wouldn't call it harmful. Other things that stem from that lack of connection, though, do wind up harmful. Very harmful. But we've found no way to open his eyes to either the deficit or the need to do anything about it.

Actually lot of parents get very defensive when you tell them they are doing it wrong or something.

On Babycenter, I see by a lot of women who are always talking about how they get unsolicited advice from people and why they can't mind their own business. They even get defensive about when people ask them why can't they breast feed or how breastfeeding is better for the baby. They interpreted it as "Oh how dare you give your baby formula you selfish selfish mother. You care more about yourself than your child." So they view it as being judgmental.

And I know parents would get bothered if you came up to them and told them about their three year old child "Isn't she a little old to be wearing diapers?" or asking if they should be potty trained by now. Some might tell you off or just not say a word but would have negative thoughts about you. But I sure see those type coming Babycenter and bitching about a comment they got about their child or what parenting choices they were making. So that is how I know all this.

Maybe things are different where you live but here, people are defensive about their parenting choices. They feel they are being judged for their choices. It's like you can't even make any comments about yourself and your own choices you make because they interpret that as you are talking down to them about their choices. I found this out on Babycenter by reading. Like if someone told me they formula feed and I said I breastfeed because it's cheap, I bet they would totally take it out of context because they sure do with other comments. I find it very frustrating because I just wish people take things literal and it be so much easier for me to talk to people and I wouldn't be so afraid without worrying how they are going to translate my words into something I didn't even say.

So if you jumped on babycenter and posted in a group "you parents need help to raise your children" the whole thread might turn into a flame fest and trolling by angry mothers. But only OPs have it the worst, if you said it in a thread, you might get a few angry responses and that's it. It's the PP's that are more focused on the OP than on what any PPs have said in the thread so most of them would ignore your comment and not argue it and would rather fight with the OP. And I think it also has to do with them not seeing it because it gets buried in the responses. And Babycenter is an American website so lot of people come from the USA who post there. Some are from Canada too. Very few are from another country.

And it's not just parenting places where I see people act so defensive about their parenting, I see it on other forums too when they happen to be talking about something. Then they might use their kids and their choices as an anecdote. They mention how ignorant people are and how they assume. Heck I even learned when you tell parents to quiet their kids, they get defensive and see it as you don't like children. I learned this from another autism forum by an aspie who has hyperacusis and can't stand it when kids are loud and babies so when she tells parents about it, they get defensive. Even when she tries to tell them she has hyperacusis. Then not too long ago I saw a thread at Babycenter about people who are bothered by screaming kids and some women mentioned in it how people just don't like children because they can't stand them to be loud.

League_Girl, I couldn't have said this better myself. I believe, we can extrapolate some of you what you perceive to other forums that have to do with babies and do not have to do with babies as well. I would love to be able to get this father's point of view.
*addendum*


League_Girl, I just realized something. There are some people who go by their feelings and their opinions. There are some people who want to go by objective facts. Some people want to go by a mix of both. League_girl, I believe we're both trying to seek what the objective truth and facts are. I think all Tarantella64 wants is us aspies to do is validate her feelings. Tarantella64, what you feel is from your perceptions, I validate that you truthfully feel these perceptions are true and I accept and again validate you. I have a wife. I think I may have been neglectful of her feelings. The thing is I do not know how to deal with other people's feelings. In fact, I don't know how to deal with and understand my own. All I can do is go by logic. I do not know how to think in the emotional realm that well. What is the logic behind people's feelings? Will you be willing to teach me so I can be a better husband to my wife?

Yes, League_Girl, if you walk in and start attacking people about breastfeeding v. formula-feeding, or wander up to perfect strangers and tell them they're diapering wrong, you're not likely to get a friendly reception. (Although you can bet that they'll think about what you've said for a long time afterwards, and check it out, because they know you might be right, and you'll have worried them.)

That doesn't mean that people don't want help with parenting, and aren't looking to improve their parenting. It means that social context is important. It's freakish, socially, for someone to come up in a mall and start interfering with your baby. But a large part of the reason Babycenter exists is that women are looking for these conversations about whether or not they're "doing it right" with their kids, and what else they might do for them.

The bf people would get a friendlier reception if they didn't try to equate formula-feeding with infanticide and child abuse. And if they were to recognize that there are times and places where formula-feeding's not such a bad thing. That said, they've certainly raised awareness and probably done more than anyone else to shift infant-feeding patterns in the US; they're also responsible for the fact that many more companies make it possible for nursing mothers to breastfeed while at work. My university actually has lactation rooms scattered around campus now; that info is provided to people coming on campus interviews, many of whom are new mothers. That's a direct result of the LLLers' work. (I couldn't stand them, by the way, I thought they were like cult members. I wound up having to formula-feed, and the attacks didn't freaking stop. But because of them, I did a lot of research to find out whether it was worthwhile pumping to get these minute amounts of milk, and I really learned a lot -- it wound up influencing my childcare choices later. I did pump for most of a year, and had my daughter been less healthy, I'm sure I'd have gone longer. I also wound up teaching my daughter...oh, breastfeeding culture, I guess you could call it. She saw it all around her at daycare, and I was happy to reinforce it, because in general the LLLers had me sold on the idea that breast really is best -- if you can -- and that publicly we should be much more welcoming of it. Anyway, it'll have some effect on how my daughter views her own body as she grows up, I would imagine, and that seems to me a great thing.)

You're right, though, that a lot of people get super defensive if told they're doing something wrong with their children, and will read into remarks just because they are so worried that they're doing something wrong, or even that others will think they're doing something wrong. But have a look at what happens in those Babycenter conversations when a woman comes flying in all upset because of what someone said to her.

She'll report the conversation, and others will cluster around to console her. And then she'll ask, tearfully, if maybe the person was right? And others will either say "no, you're fine, that lady was nuts, what you're doing is normal and reasonable" or very tactfully rephrase what the person said to make the point that, well yeah, maybe there is a bit of a problem, and has she thought about this resource or that, etc. They'll guide her to help -- protesting, of course, that she's a great mom and really this proves it because she's doing this for her child, and how terribly that other person behaved. Resolution comes when she agrees that yes, this thing really could be improved, and she'll look into it, and thanks, gals.

That's a lot of what those mothering boards are about, really.

But yes, it's hard. I have a friend from one of my social circles -- she's very sensitive to being judged as a parent, and she's in a very tough spot. Single mother, no money or child support, won't identify the dad to the state and so doesn't qualify for help, but she's well-educated and her friends are people who're on a different planet financially. Her eldest is autistic, and it was clear there was a serious problem by the time the girl was a couple of years old. My friend couldn't bear to think it was so, though, and so there she was struggling with the girl and her baby brother, and not getting help. So yes, we began suggesting that she consider this, and here are services, and so on. She was livid, of course. But we persisted, because obviously she and the children were in a terrible situation, and eventually she did take her daughter for evaluation, and did get help, and while things aren't easy now, they're certainly better. I remember how shocked I was when she told me they'd done the evaluation, and the sense of relief. Everyone was so happy for them, too, that she'd finally been willing to do this. Her sense of humiliation is obvious and we do what we can not to inflame it. But sometimes you gotta say something.

I'd be happy to if I could. Here's what I'd suggest:

One, find a counselor who specializes in people with spectrum diagnoses and will help you with these things regularly, and go. Bring your wife, if she's willing to come. The counselor will help both of you talk about things that can be hard to talk about in useful ways. She'll help you learn how to pick up on your wife's emotions and how to respond, and she'll also explain to you what your wife is expecting from you, and how to give it to the extent you can. She'll also work with your wife to help your wife understand AS better and what your limits and needs are, and to come to terms with the fact -- if this is a problem for her -- that there are some things you just aren't going to be doing, and help her find ways to satisfy needs in other ways. Assuming that's what she wants to do.

As for objective facts...alas, these went out of fashion, even in science, sometime around the turn of the last century.

Am I looking for validation of feelings? Eh...no, I don't think that's it quite. Boy, how do I put this more clearly. Apart from sharing experiences with other grown children of AS parents on this thread, which helps us see patterns, and see that we're not alone or crazy, I'd say the idea is fairly simple: it's to communicate to AS parents, or those thinking about becoming parents, that difficulty in noticing family members' AS-related suffering seems to be common in AS, as does difficulty in accepting its reality. That stands mightily in the way of the AS parent/spouse's ability to do anything to stop hurting people they presumably love. Key in getting rid of that roadblock is shortcircuiting this scene: NT family member tells AS person he's hurt her; AS person denies that she is hurt (by attempting to prove that she isn't hurt, by making her out to be ridiculous, or by denying that it was possible for him to have hurt her), is angry and/or complains of victimization, and makes the scene about himself, not the fact that the other person is hurt and some remedy is needed.

It's the action that's important, in the end, rather than the validation. Accepting that the other person's feelings are real and valid, though, are key in that.

Read around Wrong Planet long enough and you will find a lot of evidence of deep, pervasive, ongoing harm done by perfectly "good" parents, NT parents, either unable or unwilling to understand their autistic children. It's a two way street; if you think you've got the market on harm because you had an autistic parent unable to understand you, you are mistaken. At least in your case you get the fact that he sounds like he was also a jerk; image the harm done to a child who had a supposedly "wonderful" parent that simply was the wrong parent for that unique child? EVERY parent owes it to their kids to try to understand the unique person that is the one child. But NT parents can be just as oblivious to it as an autistic one. At least a parent who knows they are autistic will come out of the box assuming they have to work twice as hard at figuring out their kids as an NT parent. EVERY parent on this board is already doing that work; perhaps not to your satisfaction but if they weren't on that journey already, they wouldn't even BE here.

Which is exactly why you have no right to take out your childhood issues on the parents that visit this board. You are a guest in their house and as a guest you should be respectful of their needs. This thread started back when I was a moderator and I allowed it only because I preferred people voice their issues here quietly rather than on some of the more negatively focused places I know exist on the internet. Sharing experiences can be healing, and this thread has been healing for some who came here and found an answer they could relate to, a story they finally understood. I've been pleased to see that, and I would like it to be able to continue. But if you are trying to use this thread to be critical of the AS parents that post here, to try and make them change some invisible something that you think they should change but that makes no sense to them, then the thread will get shut down. That isn't what this place is about. Not to mention, I'm not seeing any evidence that you've figured out enough about how the AS mind works to have a clue how to approach our AS members and have them understand you. Without that level of understanding, the only thing that will happen is a flame war. IF you want to help, you've got to read and study and learn first.



And that surprises you? You are talking to a group that was often horribly harmed by well intentioned people saying exactly the kinds of things you are saying, believing they knew it all better than the AS person did, when the reality was they understood NOTHING.

I'm skipping the rest.

Here's the thing: many people have crappy childhoods. Almost every single AS parent on this board did. But AS is not the problem. With your father, I'd bet the biggest issue was that he didn't know he was AS and he carried the garbage he had lived in his own childhood straight over into his family, not understanding that there could actually be a better way. His parenting wasn't just a product of his AS, but also of the experiences he had lived as a child. My father was unidentified AS and I am well aware of the difficulties that imposed on all of us as children, but I also figured out fast that he was also a product of his own parent's failings, how he was ill-treated in school, and more. He also had amazing gifts he brought into our family, and I know in my heart he truly did the best he could. Overall, if I could sit here and pick a different parent, one without my father's AS and without my father's failings, I wouldn't want to take my chances on it. I had it pretty decent when all was said and done. I'm glad to have had the father I had.

Let's be real: there are no perfect parents. There is no list you can look at that can predict what type of parent a person will be. Every parent brings in a mix of gifts and faults and the best we can hope for is that God/nature matches the right child to that parent so that mix works out OK for the unique child.

You want to transfer your frustration with your own father onto the parents on this board, but that simply is not appropriate. It won't help them and it won't help you.

Let it go. Move on.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 20 Mar 2011, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Change a few words and that sentence applies to how you've approached this conversation. Think about it.

Don't purposedly misunderstand me. Feeling misunderstood is not something to be taken lightly, it is hurtfull. Especially if you are thought to be someone you're not and punished for it during your entire childhood.


DW has answered this perfectly, but I have to say your logic baffles me...How do you think this justifies that? I don't get it.



First of all, AS does not equal clueless. Even if I really do not appreciate you telling a new mother that she is clueless and harmful , and feel compelled to defend her just based on that, there is a point you are missing that makes your point insulting: you are denying her her humanity. She is not only defined by her AS. She is a NEW mother, all new first time mothers are clueless, but what do you think made her share her cluelessness with you with this trust and honesty? That's right. So please, do not insult her for being honest. Most NT mothers know when to shut up about their shortcomings. She might not. So do not take advantage of this.





Try to understand what I mean by it, not just the words! You want to say repeatedly that your problems with your father were ONLY caused by his AS and not by him being a jerk. So I'm answering directly to what you say here! And shockingly enough, I don't think it is the case, we are not all replicas of each other.

Tarantella, something to think about, since you do seem to want to understand your father:

You say your grandfather has always been loving to you, but also seems perplexed by your father (paraphrased, so if I'm incorrect, let me know). I want you to consider what that was like for your father. His dad did not understand him, and probably applied many of the assumptions of his time trying to deal the child he could not understand. He may have thought your father was lazy, self-centered, careless and many other negative things, and he may have expressed that in various forms over time. Your father, on the other hand, was confused, bullied at school, and often punished for things he did not understand. What a child can take from that experience into parenthood can take various forms, but the two most common would be:

1) Reverse everything and try to be the parent you wish you had, or
2) Apply what you saw from your parents because it had to be for the best, even if you don't really understand why or how.

The problem with the later being that he didn't understand what he saw from his parents so, of course, he ended up doing it entirely wrong. The problem with the former being that you weren't AS or just like him.

The not knowing strikes me to be a big part of the problem. If everyone had known, adaptions would have taken place or at least been attempted. But they didn't know, and they didn't adjust.

One advantage the members you talk to here have is that they know. How much that lets them see varies, but it is a huge start.

It's not like being NT allows you to see. You seem like a kind and compassionate person, yet your posts indicate that you don't see accurately when it comes to the members here. You believe that if you say something with good intentions, you will get a positive result. But it really isn't that simple. There is a whole other language spoken here, an entirely different history.

Sorry if I go a bit off topic but what you just said left me wondering if there is something in what tarantella64 has written that I misunderstood because she was speaking...NT language ? I was quite sure she was doing her best to be clear, but was somewhat unable to . It feels like we're discussing two different issues , I am trying to make her understand that her father's autism cannot be the only cause for his unfit parenting, and she is perseverating on this idea despite also saying that not all parents with autism are like him (which defies my idea of logic), so yeah, we might have a communication problem, there must be something that I didn't get...
You're like a perfect bridge between AS and NT, so, all rear end licking aside, can you explain where we are going off track since you seemed to be on to something?
That might help the conversation moving forward in a peaceful manner

Ediself

I think I may partially understand what's going on. Look at the words some NTs especially women use. They mainly talk with feeling words, bonding words, and belonging in a group of words. One word they like to use is relationship. When you hear about the workplace one of the first things you hear is the word relationship.

Look at some of the words we use here. Some of us use words like rules, logic, procedures, and systems. Some of us are looking for things like objective truths and facts. I believe one of the things we at least I may be doing wrong is trying to consider their subjective feelings and opinions as objective facts.

I think it might help substantially if some of the people reading my replies would quit reading universals into specifics, which is a little self-inflammatory. For instance, ediself wrote, "First of all, AS does not equal clueless," in response to my saying, "Having discovered that the problem was not that he was a huge jerk and a horrible guy, but AS and completely clueless, I sought out others who'd had to live with the same problem, and found some here."

I never said that AS=clueless. I said that my father was AS and clueless. If you want to extrapolate from the rest of that sentence, you might surmise that there were other AS people who are clueless and have harmed their families through such cluelessness. That's a lot of qualifiers. It doesn't follow that AS=clueless.

I don't really have time for the kind of megaresponses I posted yesterday, but:

1. I'm fully aware of the fact that many autistic people have suffered mightily thanks to their parents', school's, and classmates' lack of understanding of them. I've actually seen it go on in my daughter's classroom, thanks to mainstreaming without adequate support staff. I don't mean to diminish that in any way. I suspect my father suffered more from his neighborhood's toughness than his dad's insensitivity, but for all those questions you'd have to go to my dad. What remains, though, is that once you're grown and married, or a parent, it's your responsibility to handle your own deficits and issues so that you can avoid harming yourself and the people you love. Part of which involves being open to hearing that those deficits and issues exist.

One way that people avoid repeating their parents' mistakes, or going too far in the opposite direction, is to do what I've mentioned before: check in frequently with others and see what they do, hear their reactions to what you do. It's does require considerable socializing.

2. I'm not going to wade into the "person with autism/autistic person" fight. That's an internecine battle and while I understand that talking at all looks like taking sides, I got no dog here.

3. My apologies on not taking being misunderstood as seriously as some here. I find it's chronic in life, whoever you are, and...aha. Aha.

Here's the thing: I think for most of us, being misunderstood is major trauma in childhood and especially adolescence, but as we age it recedes in importance and we accept that, you know, few if any people are going to know us to our core and genuinely understand our intent, vibe, anything. We're content with lesser forms of being understood, and considerable superficiality. Is there some mournfulness, sure, and in midlife you get a lot of extramarital affairs out of it, but on the whole people let it alone. If you do find someone who really gets you, man, hang on, because it's rare.

If I'm understanding correctly, here, being misunderstood, in autism, is a much deeper thing, a much more central and painful thing, like a boulder in the living room. It's there all the time, and it's painful all the time. So when you feel that anything to do with your way of being in the world is being slighted, attacked, misunderstood in anyway, it's huge.

This reads, to...for lack of a better descriptor, NTs, as insane egotism and a complete inability, or unwillingness, to look past oneself and focus on actual problems at hand. For instance, look at what's happened since I criticized the new mother. Big response from several people to do almost entirely with how okay ASness is, with tangents into their own lives. I'm sitting here thinking, "Is anyone remembering the baby, or are they all busy talking about and defending themselves?" But no, that's not what's going on. I mean it is, in a sense, but the wound of being misunderstood -- which is experienced as major -- has to be tended to before anything else can happen.

This would explain very well my dad's apparently bizarre response and the responses of other parents described on this thread. If that's something like right, that's a valuable insight, and thank you for it. What it says to me is, "Okay, they really can't deal willingly or happily with the issue at hand until you've proven that you genuinely do understand them, though this is likely impossible." I think what you'll find is that many NTish people really will make an effort...but not that much, because for us it's developmental work. It's the kind of thing you'd spend a lot of time on with a teenager, maybe. But in general we aren't going to be willing to spend that much time on it with an adult, because it seems to us so vastly out of proportion.

How does that read to you?

you seem to be using AS to explain everything your father did, but there is a line between a condition and other personal faults. It being a spectrum it gets allot easier to place that line where you want. Yet there is some social and emotional information you cannot see and some you choose not to see, the same is true of someone with AS even if there is more they cannot see.

You mention yourself, you mother and siblings crying frequently, at some point I think this had to have crossed that line. I think almost any person with AS who has grown and married, can identify that their wife retreating in tears has an emotional meaning that they should deal with. Having the strength to face that problem, is a personal responsibility, wither a counsellor is involved or not, wither you have AS or not.

I have one parent that cannot show emotion and another that cannot hide emotion, neither really acknowledges there is an issue or feels they need help. I'm not going to pretend the family dynamic was normal or perfect, yet they did very well by me and my NT brothers. Other than general comments about "get help, if you need help", I don't see much of your advice as realistic or practical. I think trying to model after other NT famines would have been a disaster in our case, causing much deeper problems. Even assuming "you must need help" is not fair or true. Allot of the time I think the deficits or issues with AS are besides the point, and you don't necessarily have to admit them to not emotionally hurt others.

Please consider as well, this thread is self-selecting toward people who have had negative experiences, based on the forum the attitude and the site, I don't think it is representative of the average experience. Ask a focus group of people with family problems to complain about their NT parents, I think allot of the exact same themes are going to come up.

League_girl, you have since changed your avatar, but i wanted to say that the previous image was the most iconic image of BABY, HAPPY i have ever seen.

Last edited by huntedman on 21 Mar 2011, 10:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

There is lots on this last page I'd like to address but since I am actually a CPA in the middle of tax season and mom to 2 kids to boot, I just don't have time. So, I'm honing in on the one point.

Trantella, yes, I suppose you could call that hurt the big boulder in the room. But don't misconstrue the need to deal with it as selfish; it is, instead, pragmatic. Why engage in a conversation when the odds are that everything you say will be missunderstood or twisted into something you didn't mean? Better just to keep your mouth shut, isn't it? The whole point of communication is to cross bridges, get business accomplished; but if your experience with communication is that walls get built instead of bridges getting crossed well, then, you are going to approach communication differently, aren't you?

I watch my vocal, social 13 year old AS son engaging in the world and can SEE him slowly coming to that realization: just shut up and isolate, things are better that way, at least you can't hurt anyone and they can't hurt you. This is a kid that loves to talk, but has long ago learned that few want to actually listen. He really struggles with it, and it is sad to see where he is at right now with the evolution of assumption, because I know where it's headed and I can't fix or stop it. The world is the world and I am who I am and by the time he finds someone perfectly tuned into all his same interests it will be too late, the assumptions will be written. He was so very social as a baby ... interested in everyone and everything. And so naturally happy. But the world has beat him back, and just two years ago I would have said that was going to be hard to do. I thought we could stop it because he has so much going for him. But, we can't. I wouldn't say he carries a big ball of hurt, but he is writing a script for his life, and that script is being made from the realities of how the people around him react to him, and want him to react with them.

My husband is a little different from my son; he's the quiet AS guy that was never a problem to anyone. But I know that my AS husband FEARS saying the wrong thing; to you and me, it's no big deal, you back track, figure it out, and fix it ... or decide you can live with the misunderstanding. To him, it's a big deal, because error or missunderstanding of any sort is something he does not know how to deal with. He believes he is supposed to be perfect even though he has no idea how to acheive that result; to him, that is what the world simply expects from him. It is the one thing I've worked on with him hardest in our marriage, for him to learn to allow himself to fail. He seriously worries, still, that I'll just leave him if he loses a job, gets grouchy, or otherwise falls short. He shouldn't, but I know it's there. Your father worrying about that grant? To him, not following through would be failing someone and you are not allowed to fail. Simply not allowed. My father understood his obligation to be providing for the family and teaching us a few key things. There was no gray in this; in his eyes he was either succeeding or failing, and failing was not an option. Who has time to stop and give an extra hug when the boss might fire you tomorrow? You can't get fired: that is failure, and you are not. allowed. to. fail.