Asperger's Dad from hell

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Just because someone says one thing and then another doesn't mean there was a contradiction.

Maybe her nephews are diagnosed which she said already and when she said it's highly diagnosed in her family, she probably meant because of her nephews. How is that a contradiction?


As someone who has been accused of contradicting myself in the past just because some people are too dense to understand what I was saying, either they are dense or it's my communication problems, it makes me not assume so quick that someone is contradicting themselves. I think about what they say before assuming they contradicted themselves.

And sometimes without further elaboration it does. Until she elaborated, I saw a contradiction. Nothing you say will make me agree that there was no contradiction. I really cannot see this conversation going anywhere as we are clearly going to continue to disagree.



I already explained this. After two or three times, repetition becomes frustrating for me. If you really want an answer to the question, then feel free to go back through to my previous posts.

I assume this must be the answer to my question:

Sounds to me it could be ADHD. Most of those symptoms actually fit moreso with ADHD than Aspergers although a few do not.. I have ADHD, a mother with both conditions and a stepdad and brother with Aspergers. I also work with ADHD and Asperger children so have decent experience to comment, however this is just my opinion.

My dad also had adhd, and one day broke down in tears asking my Mum to teach him how to love =/. I've had the same difficulty with feeling connected to people of recent.

Anyway. Perhaps he is co-morbid with Aspergers/adhd.

ADHD and aspergers share a lot of the same symptoms also. The music gift seems to fit more with ADHD than Aspergers (no offence aspies! I do know some with amazing Music talents but in my experience it's not that common whereas it is with ADHD). I have ADHD, i'm good at math but have a lot of natural ability in music as do many others i know. My imagination also runs wild and it's half my problem with projects because i come up with so many different ideas and try to implement them all - that nothing gets done.

The angry outbursts you've described and emotional difficulties don't really seem to fit with Aspergers at all. In general, every single one i've met is overly sensitive and scared to hurt peoples feelings. And i mean terrified.

He may actually feel terrible for cheating - but is agressively denying it because he cannot face the guilt.

When i broke my foot, my younger brother with aspergers was in my room every hour asking if i needed help or needed anything. He was only 7 at the time. The sympathy he shows animals and even bugs is amazing. He spent a good 30mins trying to get a beetle out the bathroom the otherday because he was worried about the fact it was missing a leg!

In addition, making a public scene definitely DOES NOT fit with Aspergers! Many hate being in the limelight like that.

I've highlighted the symptoms that most stand out to me as ADHD(although some are shared with Aspergers like suicide attempts). Many with ADHD do struggle A LOT to hold down jobs and go through education. Quite a few of my friends with ADHD also have problems with not being able to stay loyal to one person and do a lot of cheating =(.

Also, things like Spontaneity are problems with Aspergers, but can be with ADHD also due to the fact we struggle to keep routines at times, so can end up doing them religiously...and if someone messes up my plans it can piss me right off because i'm trying so hard to sort myself/organisation out! However i love spontaneous stuff when it's on my own terms, for examples randomly going walking at 4am up a hill to watch the sunrise!

Lastly, compressing ones ADHD symptoms can make it appear they have Aspergers.

ANYWAY, back to your actual post!:
I had quite an abusive father when growing up, not to me directly but to others and his behaiours and what i saw did affect me.

My mother however was great! She taught me to understand him 'love who they are, hate what they do'. She taught me to take the positives from my Dad, and not the negatives and helped me to identify the positive/negatives so i could take them on board and become who i wanted to be.

It'll be impossible to change your husband - but you can help your son learn to deal with his dads behaviours with understanding. It's important for your son to be able to talk to you about any of his dads behaviours that upset him - so that you can address them together =). So i'd advise you to REALLY encourage that as much as possible. If your son seems upset after seeing his dad do anything in particular, ask him about it, even if you know whats caused him to be upset, really try to draw him out .

That's the only advice i can really give, apologies for the long post, i tend to trail off quite a bit. Best of luck!

I agree with you.


I have emotional outbursts, but they are connected mainly to meltdowns. You can say I'm not diagnosed with anything, though. I don't want to hurt other people's feelings, but certainly there are occasions I do and I'm aware of it. It can happen when I'm overly emotional about something. I just can't help it. Remorse inevitably follows.

Maybe.

I do public scenes sometimes or at least I did. It's embarrassing just to think of one in hindsight.

@AshleyT - No those characteristics would be associated with Aspergers than ADHD.

Too bad Cohen didn't check his research closely - autistic people (along the entire spectrum) tend to have impaired cognitive empathy and about as much affective empathy as NTs, sometimes more. People who are accurately diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have an extremely high degree of affective empathy, although their cognitive empathy tends to be impaired.

People with BPD tend to score much higher on Cohen's Reading the Mind in the Eyes test than Baron-Cohen's controls, and Baron-Cohen's controls apparently scored much higher than the actual average for NTs, which is very close to the same average that autistic people scored.

Simon Baron-Cohen's research is a mess.

Also: Cognitive empathy is the ability to take another person's perspective. Affective empathy is "emotional contagion" or the ability to perceive or mirror someone else's emotional states. Some autistic people say they can take others' perspectives, others say they have trouble. I'll just go with believing them at this point.

By demonstrating cognitive empathy? How does anything of what you have said make sense? How would I prove that I had it? By proving that I had what cognitive empathy is about?

Also, just because I recognise some basic body language? Aren't you trying to say what I have without ever having met me or talked to me or seen what I can do? I think so. Quit trying to make up what you think is true of me.

Which characteristics specifically? There's three in there at least which do not overlap imo and just signify ADHD purely.

There generally is a lot of overlapping between Aspergers and ADHD. The fidgeting and lack of being able to sit still signifies stronly to me he has ADHD. Also, the lack of empathy signifies more ADHD than Aspies. I don't mean to offend those of us with ADHD but if i need too, i'll expain myself a bit better. I have a family whom a large deal of them have ADHD and a few with Aspergers, i've seen some exceptionally nasty things done by the ADHDs for their own benefit or giggles, and i mean NASTY. My best friend has it, and she again, apears quite sociopathic to the people around her, manipulating to get her own ways. Infact i'm not even sure she really loves the guy she's with now of 2 years, it seems she sees him as an object. And sadly, i don't think i've met an Adult with ADHD who hasn't attempted suicide =/...

Eye contact is an example of symptoms that overlap between ADHD and AS, we also have socialising issues and can take language literally(though not as prominent as Aspergers). If someone randomly turns up to our house or cancels on us, we can get very angry. Everything really has to be on our own terms, so in this way we can be quite selfish - but most people don't realise these problem for those with ADHD because they are constantly on the move. And as the OP has more experience with Aspergers, it's that which she'll be looking for. Similarly with these forums, most on here have ASD type conditions so will be looking for that. If the OP heads over to ADDforums - guarentee they'll also spot the ADHD likliness in her posts.

My Mum went to a highly trained Aspie doctor, quite well known throughout the UK and was diagnosed with Aspergers. Personally, i couldn't understand it because it didn't quite fit her. 2 years later, and she was diagnosed by a different doctor as ADHD, co-morbid with Aspergers. And tbh, it gave a lot of answeres! AS didn't entirely fit, Aspergers didn't entirely fit, but the both do!

I'm not saying he does or doesn't. Tbh, my actualy opinion is he's comorbid with both conditions because as a lot of people have pointed out - there's something very 'un -aspie' about him...but he's definitely not just pure ADHD.

I do not see an inconsistency. Why can't it be possible that it has been heavily diagnosed in his family and he stil has many other undiagosed family members? Couldn't this be possible?

ADHD doesn't cause a lack of empathy or sociopathic behavior. It does, however, have a higher rate of comorbidity with personality disorders than the general population. This may be what you're observing.



And guarantee that they'll point out the same things people here have: That ADHD doesn't make people act like sociopaths.

Perhaps it is, but every adult i've met has acted in the same way so that's simply where my opinion stems. However, each of those adults has what our family calls as 'ADHD gone a bit wrong' - basically they start manipulating and playing mind games with people, so perhaps they loose touch with being so sensitive to people since in order to achieve that, you need not feel sorry for the person you're manipulating.

And i'm not saying having ADHD makes you a sociopath - i care a lot for people although block out feelings up empathy simply because my mind will go off for hours on one situation feeling sorry for a person, imagining myself in the situation and many other factors that end up coming into it as i have a vivid imagination lol. So now being over empathetic has gone the wrong bloody way.

I don't think the guy is a sociopath, it may just be he's perceived to be acting like one. Aka, angry outburst due to impulsiveness, appeared 'lack of empathy' or 'remorse' because he feels so bad he just tries to hide/not admit it .

Manipulation and mind games is not a symptom of ADHD nor caused by ADHD, however. But, ADHD pretty commonly has comorbidities, some of which may cause that kind of behavior, or that may be what their personality is like.



I didn't say "makes you a sociopath" either, I said ADHD does not cause sociopathic behavior or make people act like sociopaths.

And my point was that I doubt the people at ADD forum would agree with what you were saying. I do read that forum and I have seen threads where NT partners post threads much like this one, and the responses from posters with ADHD nearly unanimously say "This behavior is not associated with ADHD."

People have told me that too. What they don't know is my parents use to smack me in the face when I was rude, mean or just plain weird. After a hundred smacks I started to become a very polite little gentleman. I also got slapped for yawning without covering my mouth or dragging my feet and even bad posture. I also learned to mimic the behavoir of the other kids to avoid getting beat up or spit on.

I should add that I am diagnosed with ADHD, I live with three other adults (two of them fairly young adults) who are diagnosed with ADHD, and there's a fourth who moved out a few years ago. There's also a teenager who lives here who is diagnosed with ADHD, and then one older adult who likely has it but is undiagnosed. Of all of those I listed, none of them are very manipulative. The two who come the closest are more likely to be like that because of comorbid bipolar, and are very bad at being manipulative because they're so blatant about it. One (the teen) might qualify as playing mind games occasionally, but this has more to do with her mother neglecting her, I suspect. I also suspect she might be on the spectrum, for so many reasons.

Yeah, Asperger's and narcissism have nothing to do with each other...

This forum is a joke. Full of "self-diagnosed" emotional basket cases whose egocentricity prevents them from seeing how utterly repugnant their behavior really is, who explode into fits of "NOT ASPERGER'S!! !" when someone dares associate the condition with any sort of behavior that might be considered "bad".

(Of course, I know plenty here are officially diagnosed...but my point stands.)