Why ain't my cousin on the spectrum?

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It's not fair. Why me? How me?

When my aunt was pregnant she drank whisky for the first few months, then during the last few months the doctor said that the unborn baby wasn't getting enough oxygen or something, and said that there was a high chance that she would be born with physical and mental disabilities. My aunt has traits of autism or ADHD.
But my cousin (same age as me) had some mild learning difficulties as a child where she needed some support at school but otherwise she doesn't have anything as bad as me, although she displayed autism traits as a child she grew out of it by around age 10 and has always had more friends and boyfriends than me.

My mum and dad are both NTs, my mum didn't drink whilst pregnant with me, and the pregnancy and birth went well with no complications at all. I was born 5 days late and was a healthy, normal baby. The birth was natural and quite quick.

Yet I had to be the one lumbered with a hateful brain wiring that's always made me have emotional and behavioural and social issues. I get so resentful and angry about the odds. Why me? Please can someone tell me why me and not my cousin?

It's just genetics. That's the way the mop flops.. Life's a b***h and then you die.

I so badly want to be an NT. I understand fully that NTs have problems too, but to be able to fit in and make friends easier would be all I ask.

I suppose I'm feeling like this because I've been socialising with my family on new years eve and although I love my family being with them at social gatherings reminds me that I have an ugly f****d up brain while they all have normal brains.

I want a normal brain. It is very nearly an NT brain, so surely it should be easy to just get a brain surgeon to poke a couple of regions in my brain and then it could make me normal. I'm going to go for the surgery. I can't live like this any more.

Have you tried ADHD meds such as Ritalin?

I don't want more medication. I'm already on Sertraline which doesn't really help control depression or anxiety, only controls anger. Well, I'm feeling angry now but I mean I don't have angry outbursts like I used to have.

I heard a lot of ADHD meds can cause sleep insomnia, and I already have enough trouble sleeping as it is.

I'm the same, when I used to post on Digital Spy I used to get banned frequently after getting into arguments with people but I'm a lot better at controlling it now.

People should aim, if at all possible, for LESS medication.

Luck of the draw I guess. Shame your aunt had kids at all judging from what you said. She seems like a terrible mother.

How's she a terrible mother?

Did she know she was pregnant during those months? It's really poor parenting even before a child is born to drink while pregnant or under the assumption one might be pregnant. It's a horrible thing to do.

I'm being overly harsh on her if she genuinely didn't know, but drinking while knowingly pregnant is a sign a mother can't be bothered to take being a mother seriously before she's even a mother.

She didn't know she was pregnant. As soon as she realised she was she stopped drinking. But I heard drinking alcohol while pregnant can cause the baby to have ADHD, and the baby lacking oxygen in the womb (whilst also having a parent that could possibly be on the spectrum) can cause autism. My cousin seems neither of those.

Just ME. I sometimes get so resentful about it. I feel like smacking myself in the head to punish my brain for being wired this way. I hate it.

My mistake then. Yeah alcohol causes serious problems for babies but that, along with a lot of other risk factors are not black and white, green and red as they would seem. If she carried on drinking till month 5 or 6 then it would have likely caused problems. Hard liquors and fetuses hardly mix well.

Some of us just get a crap hand given to us at birth.

I think all my cousins were at risk of having autism but they all seemed to have dodged the bullet. It makes me feel so depressed.
My uncle's children could have had autism too but they don't. They have cousins on their mum's side of the family with autism (I'm not related to them), and on his dad's side is me. But nope, they're both NTs. Well-adjusted NTs actually, not even any mental health issues. They've always been just normal.

Whose side are they from, mom's or dad's? Or are you talking about cousins from both sides? If from just one side, then it's likely that you got the autism genes from the other parent. And it's possible that someone among them is autistic and has just gone un-diagnosed, having it just as hard as you without you just being able to see it, perhaps because the person masks? Or they might have autism, but got lucky by being surrounded by more understanding people?

Sometimes I wonder about this, too. I have 24 cousins, yet none of them are autistic or have ADHD as far as I know. None are physically disabled from birth, either, unlike me. Why me? I did hear from mom that I have some distant cousin from dad's side who has an even more difficult form of autism, but I've never met her, so I'm not even sure if it's true. One cousin's one kid has ADHD, but apparently he started to do well in life after he got a fitting medication.

Did you have ear, or other, bacterial infections as an infant/toddler and receive antibiotics (repeatedly) to cure them? Did your cousin not? Was your cousin breastfed and you weren't? Were you a very picky eater and your cousin wasn't?

Gut flora from infancy through development is a huge factor in many peoples' autism.


As for cousins, pretty much all of the cousins on my mom's side that I can think of are on the spectrum. Not sure about one of my mom's cousins I've only seen a few times for a few minutes. But what's interesting is that her 2 brothers (2 or 3 different fathers) are 100% (they're older than me) yet their mother, my great aunt, is Not.. but her sister, my grandmother, most likely was. Could be hit or miss on gene expressions, could be gut flora related during infancy and development, or some combination of them and/or other factors.

I did have glue ear when I was 4, making me partially deaf. But my cousin also suffered with frequent ear infections and also mouth infections (which I didn't get). I don't think antibiotics or vaccinations cause autism though.


I'm close to my cousin's mum (my aunt) and she said she never breastfed. I wasn't breastfed either.


No I wasn't a very picky eater.

But I don't think I was born with ASD. It seemed to have developed very suddenly when I was 4. Before that, I reached all my milestones at the average stages and was sociable and mixed well at preschool. I seemed just as ready as my peers to start school in September when I wasn't even 4 and a half yet.
My cousin went to the same preschool I did on the same days and she seemed delayed socially and emotionally, so they kept her on until she was almost 5. She had noticeable speech delays and often toe-walked (I never had speech delays or toe-walked).

Maybe we swapped brains or something.