Asperger's Parents and What That Means For Us...

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Recently, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. This diagnosis came about while attending counselling for other issues, and during my diagnosis, along with the knowledge of my older brothers' diagnosis when he was a small child, we noticed traits in my Dad, who was diagnosed consequentially soon after.
For as long as I can remember, my father has never given me the affection I have tried everything to recieve. I would do jobs for him no matter the weather or circumstance, changed my prospective career path (and am still pushing myself through the required qualifications as a result),take his side in every argument and things as silly as reading articles on his favourite topic (motorbikes, which I have no interest in) in an attempt to build a relationship. The saddest part is that my father does not respond. My mother, who I could not live without (no traits of ASD), has been the one that cared for me the whole time, often having to fill both the maternal and paternal roles. She often tells me the story of when I was very young, maybe 5 or 6, and my father worked long hours away from home, meaning I saw very little of him. Upon his first time seeing me in over 5 weeks, he walks into the kitchen, ignoring me and instead picking up the cat right next to me. This may sound small, but it is one of the easiest ways I can illustrate his nonchalance effectively. In fact, no story represents our relationship like that one; to him, I am invisible.
On the rare occasions where I become visible, it is only for the purpose of receiving wrath. Never have I known a man to become so enraged for the smallest of issues. No matter what I do, it is never good enough (29/30 on an exam...his reaction was simply 'what happened to the other mark?'. All of the things I am recounting may seem so small and insignificant, but I cannot accurately put into words how small and desperate he makes me feel. He watches me cry and sob and scream for hours while he berates me again and again, telling me why I am not, nor will ever be, capable of achieving the dreams he has told me to have, and not once has he shown any remorse or apologetics. In fact, there have been times in which I have felt like such a burden and such an "abomination" I have seriously considered taking my own life. He responded to this issue in a family therapy session with more lectures and insults as to how I was wrong, and what I had to say was wrong. Although he has very little experience of things in general and never fully knows what he is talking about, he cannot ever be wrong.

I ask anyone here, with Asperger's parents: is this normal, and does it get better?

I like to hold my son and kiss him and cuddle him. I wonder if this is unusual for an aspie parent? Anyone other aspie parents hug or kiss their kids or hold them? I can't imagine not wanting to do this to my child and don't understand what parent wouldn't.

Every time I hear a story about being raised by an aspie, it's always about abuse and neglect. But yet hear from an aspie parent, they sound like good parents and I wonder.

We have a very, very long thread with stories from those who had a parent with Aspergers. Search "Raised by an Asperger's Parent." I think you can find it only a page or two or three back.

The stories vary. Different parents had different levels of awareness of their own issues. Some brought in more offsetting gifts than others. Some had devastating co-morbid conditions that may have accounted for more of their negative behavior than the Asperger's did.

It can be a difficult and contentious thread but also, at times, a revealing one. It isn't very popular here for the obvious reasons (most people in this forum either have AS or are raising a child with AS) but I get a feeling it might give you the starting place you are looking for.

What is clear in your post is that your father has not been the father you needed. Maybe there is blame there, maybe not, but it is still something you need to analyze and reconcile in your own mind. I strongly recommend working with a therapist that has some true understanding of ASD (be careful, too many are stuck in false generalizations) to help you sort out your feelings and needs in the relationship with your father. You will have to make a decision on where you need to go from here, and what process it will take to help make you live a happy and full life, with or without him in it. That journey will be highly personal to you, and no one else can tell you what it should look like.

Good luck.

My husband and I both love snuggling our snuggly autistic child. I am aspie and my husband is aspie-light. I don't know what percentage of aspies are snuggly vs. unsnuggly -- or how that compares to the corresponding ratio for NTs.

I don't think snuggly aspies are rare, though the percentages may be significantly different, statistically.

I don't think it does get better. Sorry to say. My grandfather on my mom's side was like this (though not quite to that degree) and it never did get better.

The only thing that EVER got better was that his wife, his daughters, and his granddaughter learned to understand that it was HIM, not US. By the time I came along, we just understood that Grandpa didn't say "I love you," Grandpa rarely gave praise, and Grandpa constantly worrying about money and fixing stuff and yelling over small mistakes was how Grandpa showed that he cared.

Grandpa had a lot more problems than just Asperger's, I think. I think all the worrying about what people would think, and what would happen, and being good enough probably gave him a raving case of generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder, and exacerbated the living crap out of the emotional dysregulation issues that go with Asperger's.

It did get better for Grandma and the girls when they learned to understand that it was HIM, not THEM. That made a huge difference in being able to love him without going completely freakin' insane. I don't ever remember having a real problem with it, really-- maybe because I'm an Aspie too, maybe because by the time I was old enough to care we already had the information about how to look at it (and yes, I DID have to live with him-- Grandma and Grandpa raised me practically full-time from the time I was 2 until I was about 7, most of the time until I was 12, and half of the time until I was 14; other than Saturday and Sunday, I saw them every single day of my life for 12 years).

It DOES get better...

...but the change happens in YOU, not THEM.

That is me and my son, too. My mom is not a hugger. My dad was.




My mom is more rigid than graphene. She will never change in the least degree. She thinks is smarter than everyone and a superior being because of that. I don’t expect to see any change in her until she shuffles off this mortal coil.

For a few years in my twenties I could not speak to her. Every time she spoke to me, I had a meltdown. I felt like I was going to have a stroke. I had to forgive her, eventually. And now I see that she is almost certainly autistic, like me and like my son. I hope I am not such a pain.

I am pretty sure you will find quite a few who had similar experiences and some others whose experiences with autistic parents were different.

Sorry to hear your dad was not the person you needed him to be. I hope you are OK despite that and your life is good now and getting better.

Yeah, about this. While some of the parents described in that thread may have had co-morbid conditions -- I haven't read every post there -- I do think there's this tendency, when the AS parent is awful, to say, "Well, that's not Asperger's, it must have been something else." Even when the behaviors described were recognizably AS-like. I don't buy it, it sounds like propaganda to me. DW, I recognize your son is AS and you want such ideas to stay far away from him; fine. But if we're going to have this talk about how each aspie is unique, I think we also have to admit that the manifestation in some can actually be less than fantabulous for their children, spouses, etc.

Here's how far I'll stand behind that: If my kid comes to me in 20 years full of wrath and tears because I've unknowingly made her childhood hell, I'll buy it. And I'll buy that it had to do with my own cluelessness and inability to notice various things. Because it's possible. She's a really sweet, nice kid, but I have no idea how much of that's just about trying to deal with me as a mother. Maybe none, maybe lots. Someday, maybe, she'll tell me.

Aziaeve, there's no knowing what was in your dad's head when he made a beeline for the cat and ignored you, or did the rest of those things. What matters here is how it affected you. And yeah, I've heard such descriptions before, and some of them match my dad, too, though you have to push him pretty far before he gets to screaming abuse. Does it get better...in my dad's case, no. Are you asking the question because you want to know what your relationship with your dad can be, or because you're thinking about having kids (or have kids) and are worried?

As far as what this may mean to you as an Aspie parent raising a child, it doesn't mean that you will be like him or harm your child. I suggest that much of the older generation's harshness comes from being undiagnosed, misunderstood, and therefore mistreated in their childhoods.

I do hope you can find that fabulous therapist that DW recommended to find. Your childhood was abusive, and that's not easy for anyone to overcome.

I would like to point out that there is likely a reporter bias in effect. Those with ASD parents are probably ALL going to have issues with them, because they are coming on a forum for help. I had great parents (who are both ASD-adjacent) and I have never felt the need to write lengthy posts about it or seek out a forum to talk about it...because I simply don't need to talk about it.

On the other hand, those who are ASD parents themselves and are seeking help seem like decent parents because they are asking for help (and having the basic attitude that goes behind seeking help) and altering their behavior, etc. Those parents who don't look for help aren't coming here.

So, I think it can easily seem like all ASD parents are abusive. Or, it can seem like all ASD parents are good. Depending on which thread you read. But the truth is something else entirely, and like everything else ASD, represents a wide spectrum.

To the OP, I hope you are able to find some better resolution. How are you handling your own diagnosis?

^^^^This

You know very well, why we come on there and defend aspie parents. That thread has a lot of bigotry on there, and it does not get to stand there with no counterpoints. Do we really need to start that argument again?

I agree with screen_name and buyerbeware. I think that ASD parents can be good parents or they can be crappy parents, just like NT parents. While I don't have ASD, I do have some traits and my kids say that I am the best mom ever, and I believe they really mean it. But I am by no means perfect. Actually, I make lots of mistakes. But I am open with my kids about it and we get through each day together, mistakes and all.

My dad was not an easy dad to have growing up (I believe him to be an undiagnosed Aspie). But as buyerbeware explained, this became better when I changed, not when he did. He was not the dad I needed him to be, but I am sincere when I state that I know he did the best he could, even though it didn't always seem like it when I was a kid. He did not show love the way I wish he would have and sometimes he was downright mean, but now that I can recognize how he shows he cares, I know he loves me and I respect and appreciate him for who he is. I changed my expectations and things got a lot easier. I saw him as a man with flaws just like any other man and things got easier.

As for me, I was very snuggly with my kids when they were younger, but not so much now. I don't know why, but I wonder if that is just kind of "normal" anyway. I don't imagine many moms still snuggle with their sons who are the same size as they are. Or maybe they do...but I don't anymore.

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Post is quoted in the new thread "un-hijack"

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 05 Apr 2014, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do have a thought on the cat thing.

I've noticed that my son approaches everything with a mission, a plan. "Walk in door, get to work on project B." And, often, he doesn't notice anything that is not part of the plan. If he comes home from school and I am there but he did not know I would be, he won't say hello or even notice me; my presence was not in the plan. And I've been known to do that, too. Part of a hyper-focus that seems to go along with ASD.

So could your father have expected a routine of the cat greeting him or him greeting the cat and not been expecting to see you, or had been expecting to see you at a later time? If, for example, you were usually in your room doing homework when he got home, his expectation would be to leave you alone until it was done, and then talk to you. Much of life is a plan, a routine, for those with ASD, and they don't adapt well to changes - if they even notice the changes at all.

Not that it matters. A young child can't be asked to understand that like I. Having me accept it from my son towards me is entirely different than asking a child to accept that from her father. Your pain in feeling invisible is very real, and that has to get worked through. I don't know how to help you work it through, which is why I suggested a professional.

My dad had hyperfocus and sometimes this really hurt, when I wanted his attention and it was somewhere else.

One memory that stands out was the summer day when he was deep in thought about something and went for a walk and came across me unexpectedly while I was clearing brush. He registered my presence suddenly and then sort of visibly pulled his thoughts away from wherever they were. I had been away at school for months and was happy to see him again...

"So, how old are you now, Unobtanium?" he said, calling me by the name of my half-brother, the much older second child of his first marriage. I was in high school and Unobtanium had been a practicing MD for years...

On that day, at that hour, he did not know anything about me, because his mind was somewhere else. I have to say realizing that he did not remember my age and couldn't distinguish me from my very different brother from another mother.... Hurt like hell. He did not notice that either. When my mom did notice that I was upset some hours later and asked why and explained that it was not good realising how I sometimes barely existed to him, she said, "oh that's just how he is, don't let that bother you."

And the thing is, though that and other things did bother me, the flip side of that was that he sometimes hyperfocused on me.... and that was heaven. And when he wasn't being unintentionally cruel, he was one of the nicest, most caring, most loving people you can imagine.

He was a writer and I found a passage in one of his early books that was clearly about his relationship to his father that described the same thing with a powerful metaphor. The character who was a stand in for my dad described the attention of the character who was a stand in for my grandfather as being like the beam of a lighthouse at night. Blinding and brilliant when it was on you, like a second sun if you were close, but then leaving you in utter darkness when it moved on.

I miss my dad more than I can say. Tears are welling now, just thinking about him. He died when I was in my early twenties, more than two decades ago and I still miss him intensely.

He was never diagnosed, and I am not capable of diagnosing him, but he had a lot of traits. He was extremely intelligent, and was able to get well-paid writing jobs for prestigious institutions because of that, but he also was remarkably good at alienating and antagonizing people. His friends (few) and supporters (few but powerful) loved him for his many wonderful qualities but many who knew him hated him for his explosive temper, insistence that things be done the right way (his way), and unflinching, harsh criticism of anything that fell below his very high standards. He was jailed on three continents for his perpetual failure to acknowledge or respect police authority. He lost the right to drive in the US for repeated speeding offenses, often followed by extreme, obscene invective aimed at the officer who was enforcing the speed limit.

That same unflinching, precise, penetrating critical eye that was central to what he was paid for and simultaneously alienated most of his colleagues was turned on his children as we grew. He would review all of our creative efforts: little drawings and paintings, first tunes on an instrument, etc. And we never failed to disappoint, though he sometimes tried to be encouraging. It was enough to make me never want to try again, or keep everything I was doing hidden. I am still pissed at him for this. Even so, I have to be careful not to pass this legacy on to my own children, as I often discuss things with them in too much detail and can see that this is intimidating when the thing is something they are just starting to explore. You want to show a young person who is interested in flying a j3 instrument cluster, not a 747...

Some of the brightest and darkest moments from my childhood flow from him. I guess that is normal for most kids and their parents, but I know that neither of us was "normal" in the sense of neurotypical and I think this did complicate our relationship. Still, he's the only dad I had and I can only be me, so I find it unproductive to imagine what some other life with a different him or a different me would be like.

I was really angry that he died when I was barely an adult. I felt cheated, and as I grew there were things I wanted to talk about with somebody that I think dads would usually talk about with their sons, and I used to wish that he was still here so I could ask him about those things. But I also realized that if I could have him for another day or month or year, he would never be able to talk that way with me, because that was not him.

Still, I would give anything to have another day with him. Just to hear his voice. He was a wonderful man.

Did I mention I can monologue, too?

Adamantium - wow, that was an incredible and powerful piece of writing.

And very much describes my AS husband's childhood (or what I can piece together of it) and his relationship with his mother (AS suspected by me). The relentless criticism, the glow of praise. The mark that falls short. The wrath, the apathy and the absence.