poll: are you the only "different" person in your family?

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My brother has autism and intellectual disability. Everyone else in my family is NT, as far as I know. Though I've noticed some AS traits in one of my uncles.

My cousin Scott, five years my seniour and I are the two oddballs in my immediate family at this time. There was also my paternal grandma, my aunt and my Nana at one time, but those three have passed on. My cousin appears to be an aspie. I've told you about my differences many times this year.

My mother, though never officially diagnosed with a disorder of any kind, doesn't have any friends, comforts eats everyday, and she is prone to extreme mood swings. In addition to being lonely and having low social intelligence, I surmise that she has either bpd or bipolar disorder.

When faced with public situations, she can be far too open about her life and regularly attempts to initiate conversations with complete strangers.

Whilst it's not beyond comprehension that she could be on the spectrum, I would be surprised if she is.

I think that my dad has Aspergers. A also have a cousin and an uncle with ADD on my moms cousin. My uncle on my dads side has passed away, but he had ADHD and I think Aspergers as well.

I'm pretty sure there are others as well.

I voted "there's two or more atypical people besides me in my immediate family." No-one else is diagnosed, but there is a definite atypical value to my immediate family.

I do not know how to vote in this poll.
I am the only person in my home who has diagnoses of mental disorders, but I suspect that my sister may have a sort of autism similar to mine. She does not look (so) abnormal as I, I do not see "typical" "young professor" "signature" in her, she spends a lot of time with the computer. She is not (so) "active" as I, I liked bicycle riding when I was in her current age (and even younger). She is above 15 years old and may behave "like a ten-years-old child" (emotional maturity of two thirds of her biological age - it appear to fit to Aspies).

Everybody in my family, including aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents are pretty ordinary average people far as I know. My dad and his dad might be considered slightly eccentric. But that's like in a former hippie and son of hippie kind of way haha.

I'm the only person in my family who has been diagnosed with AS. My older brother has ADHD, my older sister (mabye) has ADD. My twin brother has dyslexia and my other older sister probably has ADD and something else.
My father hasn't been diagnosed though I think he might suffer from something (paranoia (querulous paranoia)/sociopathy/hospitalism/etc.). My grandmother is anorexic, ony of my cousins suffers from BPD and his brother shows some symptoms of both ADHD and Asperger's.

I didn't click a survey selection as I don't actually know if anyone in my family is or was clinically diagnosed, due to both long estrangment and also, back when I did know most of them, people kind of didn't even bother to pursue help or diagnoses anyway.

There was a great uncle of mine, at least I think that's what he would be -- he was my grandfather's brother. He was quite severely....something.....nobody ever named it or said what he "was" or had. I suppose he was what people used to call the R word even though back then it wasn't an insult at all, and was just what people named people who were developmentally different or challenged. My great uncle was very clearly what used to be "the R word." I don't know anything more detailed about how or why. My grandfather looked after him but I think he also had times in some type of care home.

The time period was in the 1960s and going back much further, as they were both born in the late 1800s. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, people "kept it in the family" and often didn't even see a specialist or get diagnosed with much. They just looked after family members who were "different."

Both my parents exhibited elements of high functioning autism but it's impossible to say for sure, and they're gone now.

I also have a first cousin whom family members used to be concerned about when he was a child, teenager and young adult. Again, nothing clear was said, and again it was the 1960s, a time before enlightenment.

He wound up actually doing very well for himself so who knows, maybe it was all nothing, but looking back with what I know now, some of the concerns about his younger self seem now to me like HFA.

My sister's eldest daughter seemed (now, in retrospect also) very on the spectrum, again completely unrecognized back in the 60s. She too now is "better" than she was but she too is someone I remember vividly from childhood as having very HFA issues or even level 2 back then.

I have been estranged from all these people for decades now, and I have no idea if maybe even someone has in fact been diagnosed with anything; they don't know that I have been, and I don't know what's up with them lately either.

Everyone else in my family considers themselves normal, but, having watched her my whole life, I secretly think my mom is more autistic than I am.

I don't know anyone from my father's side of the family but on my mother's side they are all normal. My mom and bother have some aspie traits but just a few. Despite this they still make fun of mine. I hate being the only odd one out, I can't even connect with family.

definitely not. My dad with his humor and characteristics, makes little sense and could be diagnosable with something...

Greetings. I decided to choose the last option. Here is some info about my family:

My dad was diagnosed with AD/HD as a kid, but never got an adult diagnosis because he didn't want one. He has pure signs of it so it probably still remains. He has some autistic traits.

My mom, I believe, is a narcissistic or has some personality disorder, along with a somatization disorder. None are officially diagnosed. My mom does, though, have hypo-pituitary disorder, which is rare.

My cousin has severe autism.

My almost step-brother has mild/moderate autism, along with almost every single type of specific learning disability in the DSM-V (all reading, writing, and one math). He also has epilepsy. We aren't genetically related.

One of my step-grandpa's grandson has Asperger's. Not genetically related.

My siblings seem fine. I think my brother had a depressive episode a year or so ago, but nothing now.

My youngest step-sister shows many, if not all, signs of AD/HD - combined type. Her mother won't let her get testing for it. Not genetically related.

The middle one may have AD/HD - PI, but I see intermittent explosive disorder. She has severe temper tantrums at least three to five times a week. Not officially diagnosed with anything. Not genetically related.

My stepdad may have an anger disorder, but am not sure. Not genetically related.

My great aunt is diagnosed with depression and takes medicine for it. One of her son's also has depression. Her other son has MS.

My dad's mom died from liver cancer. My dad says she probably was a hypochondriac.

My dad's dad shows many signs of OCPD, and now some of OCD.

Although I'm the only one who is 'different' in a neurological sense in my immediate family, my paternal grandmother, who came from a family of ten children, had at least two brothers who would nowadays almost certainly be diagnosed with AS, and perhaps other conditions. I have often been compared to the most clearly autistic one of them, who died before I was born, and got on very well with the other one, who seemed to enjoy my company when I was a boy. But they were all of the generation long before autism came to be widely recognised (they died in the 1950s & 1960s/70s), so were simply regarded as eccentric, stupid, mentally deficient or 'other' in some way.

But this raises the question of the roles played by genotype and phenotype in autism. We often inherit conditions and traits from quite a way further back than our parents, and also from more remote branches of our families. Similarly we absorb behaviours and other characteristics from those with whom we have a closer affinity than our immediate biological family, what might be called our 'tribe'. This, the theory of 'vertical' and horizontal' families, is explored very convincingly in Andrew Solomon's excellent book, 'Far from the Tree', which a lot of WP members have probably read.