Mother was in denial about my problems?

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Okay so today I phoned my mum and told her I was going to the doctors next week to explain that something wasn't quite right with me. Of course she freaked and assuemd I meant something physical, so I told her that I suspect I possibly might have aspergers or something.

I asked her if there was anything she could think of from my childhood that was...a little strange, oddities that perhaps other children didn't have. After 30 minutes of back and forth, reminisicing about my childhood here is a list of what she could think of 'for the time being';

I would not speak, only in a whisper or unless I suddenly decided I wanted to speak to that person, that included friends and relatives.

I had a very specific bedtime routine which was a bath followed by hot chocolate and then a spoonful of medicine, I would (in her words) flip out and not sleep if that routine was upset. Of course they couldn't give me real medicine so they substituted it for very syrupy squash in a thouroughly cleaned brown medicine bottle. She said I liked my routines and as I got older I would make schedules of things and get agitated if anything upset my schedule.

I would only wear odd socks if at all, I hated wearing socks and if forced to they had to be odd

All fruit had to be peeled including grapes and every last trace of pith had to be removed from oranges etc or I wouldn't eat it

I was far too open about everything, to the point that as a small child(3/4ish) I would pull my underwear down in public and proudly proclaim I had 'skids'. If I took a liking for people as a small child I would shout hello, if they ignored me I would scream obscenities at them. When riding on the bus if someone causally glanced our way I would stand up point and say what is he/she looking at? If someone smelt I would shout out about it whilst pointing at the person who did. I would tell everybody's secrets, as a child I had a knack of eavesdropping and then telling all, this resulted in many embarrassing moments for my parents.

I would obsessively pick my nose and wipe it on walls, particularly our downstairs toilet wall.

From the age of 4 I point blank refused to eat meat, saying it felt funny in my mouth and I would go on and on at people about eating meat and how they were eating dead animals and they were bad people.

All clothing tags had to be removed or I would scratch and cry claiming it felt funny and was upsetting me

From the age of 2-4 we lived next door to a boy a little older then me, his name was Jason, I became obsessed with Jason and I would not go anywhere without him. I asked my mum if she meant I'd sulk if he didn't come and her response "oh no you flat out refused to go anywhere unless he went too, so we had to pay for him to go on every day trip with us"

I always had a lack of friends and even the friends I did have I didn't seem to play with properly and would mostly ignore them

I often wouldn't make eye contact with anyone, particularly adults.

And that is just the list from today, she said there's lots of other things but she'd have to get back to me once she's had a good think. I'm honestly gobsmacked, how did she not realise something wasn't quite right with me? I wasn't her first child and she had plenty of siblings / friends with children how could she have missed that I was so different and in her words "strange compared to the others".

Was she in denial? Or perhaps hoping I'd grow out of it? I wanted to ask her but she's having a bad time right now with the anniversary of her mother's death, my childhood (but mainly hers) dog dying last week and a close family friend's son was killed in Afganhistan yesterday so I thought maybe I should keep my mouth shut for a few days.

I'm curious about those of you who were diagnosed as adults if your parents had completely ignored your 'strange' behaviour? And those that have been diagnosed what your parents thought after the diagnosis? If it was still denial or a little bit of "oh that explains it"

My Mother was a nurse, and actually ran the psych unit for a very long time, yet she didn't pick up on anything with me. To her, I was simply an "only child". She focused more on my food allergies and upper respiratory problems than anything else.

Frances

My parents wrote me off as "gifted" and decided that my many quirks (I sound a lot like you, actually) were just from intelligence. 20 or 30 years ago, even if they brought up concerns with the doctor, as long as you could communicate and talk and weren't delayed in that area, you were just normal with some unique oddities thrown in. My parents have always singled me out as being different from the rest of the family (good naturedly, it never hurt my feelings or anything) so they always knew I was different, and growing up my mother used to remind me that I "didn't have autism" which until about 3 or 4 weeks ago I took literally, then I realized maybe she was just trying to convince herself.

I think being in denial might be a strong phrase, kids go through phases and every kid is different. Unless there is some significant intellectual or developmental abnormality a parent is very likely to write it off as "well that's just my kid." And since you could talk and walk and perform OK in school, they probably just decided you were quirky. That's just how it was, remember - asperger's wasn't even a thing until 1994, and not widely known until just a decade ago.

I wouldn't say my parents were in denial per say, but I can relate a little bit! I actually saw a psychologist when I was much younger and was diagnosed with Asperger's, but my parents didn't trust the diagnosis at all and thought that my social issues were just due to shyness, and that I'd grow out of it (they actually never told me I was diagnosed with it). They kind of wrote the doctor off as "cooky" and that was that. Recently however (~10 years later) I saw another therapist to try and work on improving my socialization, and was actually diagnosed with Asperger's again (my parents told me about the previous time when I mentioned it to them) In my case at least, my parents realized that I did have some issues, but sometimes admitting that your child does have these difficult issues to deal with can be hard I think. I'm sure its not too far off from your case, but of course I can speak for only myself lol.

When I look back on my behavior as a child, I think it might have been possible for me to be diagnosed back then but I haven't had significant impairment with adult life to warrant a diagnosis now.

My mom, I guess, is just more open to out-of-the-ordinary behavior than many people who run to the doctor when something is different because different = wrong. I was always different from my sister but that was never seen as a bad thing.


Here's a synopsis of my behavior as a child: I never spoke to anyone outside of my immediate family to the point where I wouldn't even order my own food from a restaurant but had to whisper it to my mom to order for me. I usually played by myself even though I had a sister near my age and even as a toddler would go off to bed by myself when we had company in the house because I didn't see any reason to stay there with them and I was tired (From what I'm given to understand, most children will fight with their parents to stay up and be part of the socializing). I often zoned out or "disengaged" when I wasn't being directly spoken to and I'd go into an unmoving, unblinking trance-like state, but if I wasn't zoning out I was rambling on and on about something no one cared about and no one was listening to. I was never very interested in making friends. I had difficulty with as they call it "imaginitive play" or improvising off of others; when my sister played "house" I'd always be the dog since it required little interaction. I never, ever made eye contact. I'd burst into tears at innapropriate times or get upset about random things like objects being moved or altered. I carried my pillow around with me literally everywhere and constantly rubbed my fingers on it (I do that to this day). It was impossible for me to figure out how to do anything that wasn't explicitly explained to me in a step-by-step order.


But no one ever thought there was anything wrong with me.

my mother was a teacher (retired now) and my father who shows strong autistic characteristics himself was a professor in college. they have no idea there's something different about me up to this day and i'm 45 years old.
i used to pace back and forth as a child, flapping my fingers with the speed of lightning. i used to wave a handkerchief very fast and stare at it for hours. never made friends and stare at treetops moving in the wind and working fans for long periods of time. i can't read expressions. don't know when someone is joking or serious. tried in vain to ride a bicycle, can barely put a thread through a sewing needle's hole. even my parents always commented that i talk as if i "swallowed an encyclopedia" and yelled at me to make friends and be like everyone else.
my niece says when she was twleve she thought i have asperger but didnt want to say anything. that after she read that book the curious case of the dog at midnight (not sure i got the name right).
my parents, especially my mother, have an uncanny ability to see what they want. they wanted to buy me an apartment and went there and there was this horrible noise and they had to scream to be heard. i yelled, "Can't buy an apartment here because of the noise." my mother signaled she couldnt hear and i roared it over the noise and she screeched, "What noise? i dont hear anything."
did i mention the fact that i had and still have ocds? that i can hardly smell anything but my sense of taste is hyper sensitive and many other things...
my parents believe in sweeping things under the rug. they told me not to flap my fingers in public and keep my 'weirdness' to myself.
so... you're not alone. don't feel bad about it.

I was viewed as gifted and odd because of that.

When I got my diagnosis it was very 'Yeah, that's Tuttle' when they described me, then gave the label for that description.

My mom is an occupational therapist who has worked with autistic children. She was still in denial. You aren't the only one...

I also was viewed as gifted at school, and weird because of that. I was diagnosed a couple of months ago and my mum (and dad) are still in denial that I have Aspergers and have some problems associated with it. It's frustrating because they expect me to be like NTs and be able to cope with and do things NTs do and have no trouble with - e.g. go to big socials with many people and socialise, be able to take trains, crowded Tubes etc., when I can't. I mention it's to do with having Aspergers and they just act like I don't have it.

I think my mom decided that a defective child was just too bad, so it couldn't be and everything was therefore my fault.

I was written off as "gifted" as well. I taught myself to program in elementary school, but I could not express how I felt most of the time (could not understand the word "love" even), found social interaction horrifying (still do), and had problems with many rudimentary tasks, especially physical ones. I could not remember the most basic things at times, but I learned to play music in a snap, to write it in two. The result? My father beat the s**t out of me all the time, demanded things of me I simply was not capable of, and did his best to abuse me emotionally, citing that I was faking everything as his excuse for hurting me. s**t still sickens me, and I cannot get it out of my head for even a day going into my mid twenties.

Yes, exactly--it's like they just repress the idea that you might have a disability, because it scares them too much. And then they have to find somebody to blame it on...

It's like if they admit it, it'll become "real" or something. Like, if they pretend your autism doesn't exist, they can wish it away.

Thank you all for your replies. I think she's probably in the category of pretending I was just a bit gifted / a little odd / 'OMG she's not defective, she's fine' denial.

My parents are both very unemotional and when faced with 'problems' before my mother had turned away from them. Example being when I wrote her a letter when I was 19 to tell her how I'd been sexually attacked by my boyfriend when I was 16 and how I self harmed, etc. Rather then really talking to me about it, she came up to my room an hour or so after reading it, her eyes a little teary, she awkwardly stood in my doorway and said "You know you could have told me, don't feel like you can't tell me things" and that was it. She went back downstairs and it was never mentioned again, she never asked if I still cut myself or anything. Same thing when I tried to O.D, rather then speak to me about it she asked my father too, that was the most awkward hour of my life. Driving around in his car just waiting for him to say something before we stopped in a car park and he casually asked why I did it, I said I didn't know (the reasons were far too complex and were also related to the attack and I knew if I told him he'd flip out and track down my ex and kill him) he was very much like my mother in the "well don't do it again / you can tell me if your upset" and then we went back and it was never mentioned again.


So yeah she's probably very much in denial and if I told my dad he'd probably be the same too or would just say "nah your fine". The more I think about it the more I think my parents are stranger then I am It'd be interesting to see what they would score on an aspie test, particularly my dad, I don't really know him very well (we've never been close and he left my mom when I was little) but his behaviour is a little like mine, particularly the social aspect. My mother has dozens of friends, doesn't find social situations hard and apart from being emotionally flat she seems NT. My dad is a whole other story, I think I might send him a link to the tests once I actually tell him, see what he scores.

My mum spent so much time watching soap opera's that she didn't even notice I was in the same room most of the time...I told her a while ago of my suspicions and to this she went straight into denial mode...

My parents took me to behavioral doctors (for doing complex full-body gyrations when having a meltdown, reacting in extremes to loud music playing, etc.) but this was before 1994, and thus before Aspergers was formally recognized as a diagnosis, so nothing came of it and I only found out about having AS recently.

Despite that, when I told them about my diagnosis recently my dad didn't seem to believe I have it, because he said I don't lack empathy (meaning it as sympathy). So tired of that myth that AS people are categorically uncaring, cold, and selfish!

I am a mother of an Aspie child. My daughter is only child and I never had experience with kids before. I never really thought there was "something wrong" about her. She showed a lot of the behaviors you describe and a couple more, like the fixation with a particular scene of a movie that she "needed" to watch over, and over, and over again, the problems with high-pitch sounds, the problems with food (she "refused" to take the bottle when I had to stop breastfeeding her by doctor's recommendation st 1 year old), the problems to follow orders, etc. I knew she was different from other kids, but I never thought it was a bad thing. I always thought she was "peculiar". We only looked for advise because she had problems at school and then she developed an dangerous stim. I do not think it is denial. Kids with AS are so intelligent and so bright in all the other aspects of their lives we do not see anyting wrong. Actually, the first psychologist that attended our child said our kid was allright, she was just "too smart and smart people tend to be peculiar".