Asperger's Dad from hell

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You cannot diagnose a spouse based on your observations alone unless you happen to be very well versed in the field of psychology and ASD's and similar things in particular. Most people who are only familiar with descriptions of AS will inevitably have a false idea of what people with AS are actually like. They tend to have ideas that people with AS are devoid of empathy, uncaring, selfish, or abusive towards others and many other things which are just not the case. They are not familiar with the schizophrenia spectrum disorders that can mimic AS and we even get people here who don't understand the different between AS and ADHD, which are entirely different things.

We find that a lot of women come on here who have confused their (ex)husband's abusiveness with Asperger's Syndrome, and in most cases, their husbands are just jerks or suffer from some type of personality disorder. Personality disorders are for more likely to be acquired and seen in multiple generations of a family.

I think it's far more common for men with AS to be passive in relationships and a lot of them end up getting emotionally battered because they don't know when it's ok to assert themselves.

Last edited by Chronos on 17 Aug 2011, 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd like to be able to give you advice, because you have not provided enough information about your ex and your son or given enough context to the situation. Aspergers is a developmental disorder, not a personality disorder. Although, I do think it affects personality, other factors also play, such as upbringing, the environment, societal influences, other biological factors besides AS, etc. Did he have abusive or neglectful parents? Did his parents just let him do what he wanted with no discipline? When people are victims of abuse, they can either continue to be victimized their whole life, become abusive to others or eventually have the courage to ask for help in overcoming their problems. It's not always a choice. Whether AS has anything to do with his abusive behavior, I don't think anyone can get that bad without having some else wrong with them.

This kind of temper tantrum is not only present in aspies and in fact does not occur in every aspie. Just because his dad is like this, it doesn't mean that your son is going to transform into him. Show your son empathy and support and try to get him help if he does indeed have AS. What you should never do is try to suppress his autism. The way that you talk about your son having his father's behavior, it's as if you think he will transform into his dad. This is your SONS' autism, not his dad's. They're two completely separate entities. Give your son the acceptance that perhaps his father never got as a child.

I say if your ex is being abusive. don't approach him. He sounds like a dangerous man. Plus, the farther away the boy is from the father, the less likely that he'll end up like him.

I think she should just let him fend for himself, until he gets arrested for one of his temper tantrums. Perhaps if the authorities get involved, that will give him some perspective on the issue (plus he might be required to attend anger management classes).

Unfortunately. It's really a tragedy that people don't recognize that many people with AS actually act with the feelings and interests of others in mind, even at their own expense, and this goes overlooked so often.

i wasn't saying i wasn't or saying we can't be selfish sorry if i didn't explain that better i was mainly talking about myself, you explained narcissism as something vastly different from what i thought it was, and now i know i'm not like that, i am selfish big time but i would never want to hurt someone emotionally, mentally, or physically, unless they crossed the line, but even then i won't attack someone to the point that it threatens someone's life.

basicly i'm just saying you helped me understand myself a bit better.

i also have the classic symptoms of AS, but i don't have an aggressive personality, or in other words i try to be nice most of the time, and i don't have whatever it is that makes people want to be nasty to others.

i'm more passive then anything.

i need a label for what i do, if i just say i am messed up, then that's not a label that explains what i do. i need to label things that are wrong with me so that way i can figure out what each label does.

if you just tell yourself that your brain is messed up, then how can you understand yourself. i know that for a sort while i went onto a site that said AS is not an illness, and i started to think i was normal, and threw away the label, the result was i went ballistic, i lost my sense of what was wrong with me, and went through days of meltdown after meltdown, it was hell on earth to me.

i had to abandon the site and return here, once i put the label back on my condition and told myself i was broken because of aspergers i started to recover.

i need to label things that i do at all times just to keep me at peace if nothing else, and i'm not sure what time you think i don't have, because i don't work, i don't drive i don't do much beyond my 4 walls, so i have time to burn, besides writing out that line didn't take forever, and it also didn't take that much energy either. how can typing out one sentence waste a ton of energy? your logic makes no sense.

this rant however took more time, but i can write longer ones no problem doesn't burn me out. i actually enjoy it and i started writing stories to put it to good use, just fan fiction but you gotta start somewhere.

Check out this study:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/con ... 163/7/1239

Specifically this chart:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/content ... 622T3.jpeg

Out of 47 subjects with autistic spectrum disorders, three fit the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. Out of 27 subjects with both an ASD and ADHD, one fit the criteria for NPD. The only one that has fewer is Histrionic PD at 0 total for both. There are 5 total (all with both ADHD and an ASD) who fit ASPD, and 9 total (divided between both groups) that fit the criteria for BPD.

In other words, there really is very little overlap between Asperger's and narcissistic personality disorder - or really, between Asperger's and any cluster B personality disorder.

I don't believe that a person who is self diagnosed is more likely to justify their bad behavior than a person who has a "formal diagnosis". You will get people in both groups who reason "Well I have AS so people should accept however I act because I can't help it." It has nothing to do with who diagnosed them.

Concerning self diagnosis and formal diagnosis, you might have heard me complain about wives who have concluded their abusive/jerk husbands have AS, or about marriage counselors who diagnose these spouses with AS without ever having have met them or doing a "proper" evaluation, and it might seem that I object to self diagnosis based on that, but I don't necessarily.

A "formal" diagnosis, as is a diagnosis from someone with a degree or certificate which theoretically gives them credentials in the field of mental health or even medicine, can be more baseless than a self diagnosis, and a self diagnosis can be more sound than a formal diagnosis.

Consider that when AS was first entered into the DSM-IV, there was no protocol to diagnose someone with it. Then a protocol was developed under autistic assessments but this only applied to children. Then later on, an assessment for older children and teenagers was developed, and then youg adults, and now adults.

Does someone diagnosed in the early 90's, who's psychiatrist/psychologist simply said "I think he/she has Asperger's Syndrome" have a formal diagnosis or does this diagnosis no longer count due to the development of diagnostic assessments for AS? Is the diagnosis any less correct? What about today? Is a diagnosis any less correct when a psychiatrist or psychologist just says "I think they have Asperger's Syndrome" instead of doing an assessment?

Is does a self diagnosis count when the individual in well read on AS and got a hold of an adult assessment and performed it on themselves?

What it really comes down to is, how well does the person know the disorder? How familiar with it are they and how familiar are they with the individual in question?

I am sure there are many individuals on this forum who are actually world experts in something despite credentials. People with AS who have "special interests" can absorb massive amounts of information about the topic of their interest and I don't doubt for a second that some individuals here could tell you more about topic X than the credentialed, published world experts floating around acadamia. And some of those individuals are going to be world experts in AS.

Likewise, I can tell you a lot of people with credentials have as much familiarity with certain topics in their profession as a week and a half allowed them when they were learning about it a few years ago as an undergrad or in graduate school.

And unfortuantly many clinicians who feel they are qualified to diagnose AS have just that much familiary with it. In fact one of the reasons they are proposing to roll AS under autistic spectrum disorder in the DSM-IV is because of the inconsistency in diagnostic practices and the paradigm shifts caused as a result of that.

With that said, there are some places one can go to be diagnosed with people who are very familiar with AS, using one of the assessments formulated for AS, however these services are out of reach of the vast majority of the American adult population due to the way the US health care system works. Most invidiausl would have to pay out of pocket for this type of diagnosis and they can cost almost $5,000 dollars. A formal diagnosis may actually be detrimental to them as well as there might be few serves they are able to obtain with it and it is sure to greatly increase their health insurance costs and make it difficult to secure health insurance.

That being said, I do not object to self diagnosis at all provided the individual takes the time to familiarize themselves with AS and other things which can mimic it or superficially resemble it. And I also reserve the right to question a diagnosis made by a credentialed individual.

yep i'm guilty of using my illness as an excuse, and i'm formally DXed, i try not to do that but it happens.

yeah i know alot about xemnas [my main interest] till it came do to getting really picky about xemnas art, i can tell if a single line is out of place on a piece of art of him. if one hair strand is out of place. and i was probably one of the first that figured out xemnas had to have been a keyblade master at some point, and i knew he was terra from birth by sleep as soon as the final mix bbs trailer was made.

and i almost have his time at hollow bastion figured out even though [besides the reports in kingdom hearts 1 and 2] there is no info regarding that time period.

anyway just an example.

You have simply taken one common trait of narcissists and elevated it to the status of core feature.

Narcissism isn't self-love, or self-esteem, gone haywire or otherwise. It is the "love" (although that word hardly seems sufficient) of one's reflection. I know it might be difficult to make the leap from "love of one's reflection" to "autism", but, fortunately, we have a rather handy conceptual "bridge" in egocentricity, which is merely the incomplete or "malformed" differentiation between self and world.



And here we go...Asperger's and cluster B personality disorders have a HUGE number of traits in common, but we are made to think that this is simply a coincidence, because a big part of "autism" is to provide sterile-sounding "explanations" for what is generally repugnant behavior which exempt the autistic individual from responsibility for that behavior. People with both NPD and Asperger's are often obsessive perfectionists...but with Asperger's--awww, they're just trying to fit in better! Poor widdle guy! With NPD, however, it's just because they're a screwed up person.

You will find this double standard in any of the vast number of traits common to both Asperger's and cluster B personality disorders (or just "bad" people in general). Another great example is "splitting" or black and white thinking, which is supposed to have a completely different basis when it occurs in Asperger's and cluster B's (BS...what a coincidence). I'll address another one in a moment, as Verdandi was kind enough to bring it up for me.



Well, I'll be damned, you've been diagnosed with a cluster B personality disorder...isn't that just the icing on the cake here?

Seriously, do you think it's just a coincidence?

If you'll allow me to quote from an older post of mine:



So, yeah. You probably fit both profiles.



What a coincidence--your diagnosis of BPD is quite plainly inaccurate, yet your family is loaded with cluster B personalities.



Oh Jesus...number one, I said the comparison wasn't perfect, although I do reject your ideas re: "comorbidity" (they seem to ignore the true nature of autism and the autism "spectrum"). Number two, Sam Vaknin? Come on. I'll be the first to admit that he has some worthwhile things to say about the concept of narcissism in general, but if you can't see that HE is clearly eligible for a diagnosis of Asperger's...with his crooked head and little man purse...



You're missing the point. I'm not concerned with how autistic people are portrayed, but the archetype of Asperger's that's forced upon us by people like you and websites like this. It's what's behind everyone screaming "NOT ASPERGER'S!! !" every time a description of someone sounds just a *little* too much like "bad person".

Perfect segue to:



Yes, we have talked about this. But I'm willing to give it another go.

First of all, the word "laziness" describes behavior, or a predilection towards a certain type of behavior. Explaining the neurological "basis" for that behavior doesn't mean that it shouldn't still be considered/called "laziness".

Saying "that's not laziness, that's a person's brain not working properly" is meaningless insofar as our behavior is the result of our neural functionality. If the behavior is "not proper" or "undesirable" or "dys"-anything, then there is a corresponding neural structure/process/etc. that isn't working right, either. What repugnant human behavior can't be described as a result of "executive dysfunction"?

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the concept of executive dysfunction is perfectly valid, real, etc. Likewise, I think the concepts of "responsibility", "fault", "free will", etc. are not whatsoever what they are traditionally made out to be. But--and this is a huge "but"--the "illusion" of fault, responsibility, etc. is extraordinarily important for our species. Indeed, where do you draw the line between people who would do better to know that it's "not their fault", and the ones who should be made to feel responsible for their actions? Surely that you can see that the former group "fades" into the latter, and that the people who a) need to hear one of those two messages the most, and b) would cause/be caused the most harm by hearing the opposite message will necessarily fall directly on either side of said line? Think about it...the ramifications should absolutely scare you.

We usually try to draw the line by determining whether the person in question is more likely to be a victim, or to victimize. Indeed, people have suggested that this is a reliable way to distinguish people with Asperger's from cluster Bs.

Just follow me on this one. Imagine that this victim/victimizer dynamic is measured on a linear scale of 1-10. People who are a 1 are always the victim and never the victimizer, while people who are a 10 are always the victimizer and never the victim. Now, when someone like you (Verdandi) describes autism/Asperger's, they describe someone who is a 1, and for contrast you describe a person with (NPD, BPD, etc.) as a 10. The difference couldn't be more clear, right? The problem is that people like you are most likely a 3 or 4 or 5 or 6...there's no way you'd ever be diagnosed with BPD otherwise, unless the doctor in question was literally insane.

In fact, I'd bet a large sum of money that MOST of the members of this forum fall MUCH closer to the middle of the scale than they'd like to admit. But, of course, they've been fed the same silly "logic" (autism = 1, cluster B, etc. = 10) by people who are desperate to exempt themselves from responsibility for their repugnant behavior. A bunch of 5's get together, look at the two "idealized" poles, and quite naturally wish to interpret their behavior in terms of the less reprehensible label. It doesn't take long for an entire lexicon of rationalizations to crop up. Laziness is now merely a result of "executive dysfunction", psychotic emotional assaults are now "meltdowns" that are triggered by "sensory issues", or even the result of having "too much empathy"!

Yet I'm the one who's accused of giving "extremely oversimplified" descriptions of the two ends of this "scale"! BS. It should be obvious to any reasonably objective observer what's happening here...someone with extreme issues (which could probably be described, accurately, as "repugnant behavior") who has an ENORMOUS vested interest in the proliferation of this "1 or 10" thinking is just doing their job.

Never mind the fact that, taking this laziness/executive dysfunction thinking to its logical end, NO ONE is ultimately as "fault" for their behavior, for there is always a corresponding neural structure/system/process/whatever that's associated with (and can be "blamed" for) any behavior!



Of course. You're a 1, and your sister just happens to be a 10. Despite the fact that you've actually been diagnosed with BPD! Does anyone here REALLY think that your opinion on these subjects isn't absurdly biased and unreliable?



So individuals can be a blend of different flavors of "10". Of course. Keep them poles separate! Push 'em as far apart as you can!



Uh...yeah, that's "hypocrisy", and what I said was relevant.



As long as that person isn't you, right? Hilarious that you should make this brave stand for people being held "accountable" for their behavior.



Here's a tip: while you're still wearing the rose-colored glasses, it's almost impossible be cognizant of that fact. Your entire angle has been to idealize the concepts of "autism" and "bad people" into 1s and 10s, as distinct as can be, yet you think trotting out a couple of minor examples of autistic bad behavior being acknowledged is supposed to prove that the rose-colored archetype doesn't really exist? Please.



A couple of things here. Number one, we have someone who was "misdiagnosed" with BPD who, on the basis of the outcome of ONE study (which she obviously didn't think about too deeply before posting) proclaims, with no qualification whatsoever, ...there really is very little overlap between Asperger's and narcissistic personality disorder - or really, between Asperger's and any cluster B personality disorder. Red flags? Check.

Number two, there is a very good explanation for why few autistic individuals might qualify for cluster B diagnoses in a study like this. It all depends on where the doctors in question draw the proverbial line between what should be considered autism and "normality". Everyone has their own threshold, and the threshold of these doctors is probably a good bit lower than the average member of this site. Does anyone here seriously doubt that, should the membership of this site be evaluated by the same doctors who did this study, a large percentage would not receive a diagnosis of autism? Yet the common conception of "Asperger's" quite clearly applies to most people with ANY personality disorder. There is confusion, but the presence of confusion makes sense when you understand the nature of autism.

Number three, do you understand that 3 out of 47 is 6.4%? A staggering figure when you consider prevalence among the general population. 8 out of the 47 fit the profile of a cluster B PD. That's 17%. In other words, a shedload.

Yet you look at these figures and say, there is "very little overlap". Why? Because 3 is, like, a tiny little number, and 47 is, like, a big, big number? Something tells me statistics isn't your best subject.

Naturally, the incidence of BPD in this study skyrockets when you get to individuals with ADHD, as the relationship between these two conditions is widely hypothesized/affirmed/noted. As is the relationship between Asperger's and ADHD.

Yet traits like "splitting", "perfectionism", etc. are supposed to have an utterly different basis between Asperger's and cluster Bs.

Yeah, right.

It's not like, ultimately, these are arbitrarily assembled profiles that typically occur in people with messed up brains, with no real boundaries to separate one from another, which are all very closely related.

I've been accused of being a sociopath, but I don't expect much from NT women who I tend to believe are the real problem.

to poke: why are you even here? this site is a refuge for aspies, meaning that if you join here you are either a aspie that is trying to find a haven where you won't be nit-picked for every damn thing you type [like many nt forums] or you are a person trying to understand the illness better.

back a long time ago all mental disorders were lumped together [i don't know the actual date because for my own sanity i don't look into it] and people were locked up in asylums and drugged some times to death among other tortures that i would rather not know about.

and because they treated every illness as the same illness they weren't helping anyone.

the reason we have these labels is so doctors can treat each person for that specific condition. giving someone who has hyperactivity the same meds a manic depression patient takes might not help and even hurt them in the long run.

if anything the labels are there in large part to keep things organized, and so that everyone one is treated for their symptoms and not someone elses.

so far all i see in you is a person who came here to hate on us, and because you attack everyone left and right i'm amazed the mods and admins have tolerated you this long. you should have been banned long time ago from what i'm seeing here.

You should report him then if you feel he is breaking the rules. The mods here don't see everything.

If you are concerned about everything you type being nit-picked, a forum full of Aspies is the last place you want to be.

I am here, first and foremost, because I have Asperger's. Although, to the point of this thread, I fit the profile of just about every personality disorder as well.



You have it absolutely backwards.

The trend in modern mental health science is to move AWAY from the "build more boxes" route and toward a spectrum-based system of classification. From the same old post of mine I quoted previously:



In reality, the handful of profiles represented by the traditional personality disorder system are what forces doctors to homogenize their approach to their patients. A "spectrum"-based (more general) system forces doctors to address their patients as individuals.



ALERT!! ! ALERT!! ! POKE HAS REMOVED HIS ROSE-COLORED GLASSES!! ! WORSE STILL, HE DOESN'T SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY!! ! ALERT!! !

this is the only place that i am not afraid to speak my mind, every other forum i've been to the people have been harsh. i don't mind healthy debate and swaping ideas, but i'm talking about getting picked on for everything, the way you describe things, liking certain things, finding help for my symptoms, or when you just need to get something off your mind.

i'm not saying everyone here is perfect, or any forum is perfect, but this is the only one that i feel the most comfortable in.

as for the asylums, i am right there, but if you need proof i will give you proof, it will probably scar me for life but so be it.

http://www.asylum.com/2010/02/02/famous ... e-asylums/

there isn't much info but this site is the best i could find, they use these buildings in horror movies all the time, and know i know why.

reading all that may have scarred me, but i'll see in time.

i'll just quote myself here "if anything the labels are there in large part to keep things organized, and so that everyone one is treated for their symptoms and not someone elses." in other words what we have now is away better then before.

Women are overdiagnosed with BPD, and it is practically a junk diagnosis for this reason. It is real, and people do have it. But not everyone diagnosed with it has it, and are diagnosed with it because it is the easy answer. And it seems a lot of women who should be diagnosed with an ASD are misdiagnosed with this instead (as in, they do not also have BPD, but are interpreted as having BPD).

Since you seem to place such store in my diagnosis, I probably should point out that I was diagnosed with BPD after a one hour evaluation to determine if I was disabled enough to receive state benefits. The conclusion was "Yes, I am disabled enough." However, in what is now eight months of therapy, my therapist says she sees no signs of BPD symptoms or behavior. On the other hand, she has mentioned things that point to the autism.

Aside from that, basically no one I know (except those acquaintances I mentioned who did not know me that well) believe I have BPD. I am not sure how I could hide such a condition from everyone around me at all times, especially given that I would not have been aware of it until explicitly told.

Unfortunately, being diagnosed with a cluster B disorder means, for many ignorant people, that any denial of the disorder is proof of the disorder. Of course, anyone who is knowledgeable would understand that the symptoms and behavior would also have to be present for the diagnosis to be valid.

As for the rest of your response, it's a waste of time to clarify every single instance that you attempt to assign opinions to me and then argue at me as if I actually made such arguments - such as "autistic people are always victims and people with cluster B disorders are always victimizers." This is something I have never - and would never - say, and yet you based so much of your response on the assumption that I had made any such claim at all. You read a lot into my post that simply wasn't there, and it leads me to conclude that my earlier "do not engage" strategy was a much better choice.