ASD in families.

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Both my parents exhibit unusualness. Possibly AS cases, in different ways. My father's ex girlfriend is incredibly autistic too. My brother, mmm, hard to pin down, but has many traits, as does his wife. Descriptions of my grandfather make him sound unusual, but that may have been war trauma.

ironically, my maternal aunt exhibits traits. No friends, OBSESSED with cleaning the house at the expense of her social life (I'm not even like that!) she insults people without meaning to and opened my wardrobe without my permission. Strangely enough my father is almost defnitely autistic, with a number of scientific relatives. But unlike my father's abnormally intelligent relatives, my maternal aunt is not clever. I don't mean her social skills. She doesn't read better things or solve things rationally. She overexcites herself over trivial things. When I look at my aunt I understand why some thoughtless NT's make hurtful comments about we Aspies.

There is another related spectrum that runs in my family : Schizophrenia
These genes and autism are quite related , as more research is indicating this.
Some siblings of 'these 'Schizo ones' are not "Schizo", but are eccentric and acutely socially phobic.

My great aunt would crawl on her hands and knees if someone unexpectedly would show up at her door.
She would panic and hit the floor , as would a soldier would do in combat , and crawl to the window to see the the origin the car door slam.
And my uncle didnt even appear at my wedding due to the same type of phobia, and couldn't leave the house the last 20 years of his life, but only to go to work.

I can remember in school of the remarks of how weird my extended family was , as my cousin knew the same classmates as my self

Weird memories.

My dad has ADHD and I see a LOT of that in his father's line. It's like the ticket to get into the _____ family.

My grandmother on that side is just...I don't know WHAT her malfunction is, only that she really should've gotten treatment for something, because she isn't faring well at all. If there is an ASD in there, unfortunately there's so much else going on now that I don't think she is at all indicative of that condition, but of all her OTHER conditions. It's a sad situation.

My mother is the quintessential NT (not that such a thing exists, but she could be used as an example). Her mother is definitely NT, and her dad I THINK is NT...introverted and bookish, but NT.

I find myself wondering if something from my paternal grandfather and grandmother's lines combined to put me a smidge further towards being on the spectrum than anybody else in the family. I have ADHD but the more I observe, the more I'm thinking that in a more recent time I would have gotten the PDD-NOS diagnosis. There's too much else going on for it to be JUST ADHD, but not quite enough for it to be true AS. As to my synesthesia, I don't believe that has ever been seen in my family before.

I find myself quite curious as to what genetic mechanism might have led to me moving "further" than my father. I find it incredibly fascinating, and I wish I could find out somehow whether it is a de novo trait or whether something did somehow pass down from elsewhere in my family and combine to create this. How I would love it if I found out!

Given how I find myself relating to people with ADHD, or people on the spectrum, I would say my odds are certainly higher than average of marrying someone with similar or more pronounced traits than my own. I admit to being quite curious as to if I will end up having a child more obviously on the spectrum. If that happens, I wonder if being an in-between will come in handy for being a mother. I believe there is a purpose for everything, and who knows...maybe that would end up being another purpose someday for being as I am. Just as it helped me to have my dad with ADHD, I think if I had a child with PDD-NOS or AS, or autism, I would like to think it would be nice if my child might feel a little bit better knowing that Mommy's been there too in her own way.

(Of course whenever the teenage years hit, it doesn't matter whether my child is NT or neurodiverse, I WILL be seen as talking out of the place where the sun don't shine. But the general principle remains.)

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Official diagnosis: ADHD, synesthesia. Aspie quiz result (unofficial test): Like Frodo--I'm a halfling? 110/200 NT, 109/200 Aspie.