Parents say I am "NT"

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In my late 40s (female), I am considering an ASD diagnosis. My parents insist I didn't show any signs in my childhood (e.g. you were just so sensitive, anxious, dramatic, depressed), and that I'm fine now too (you have a great career, family, friends, you're just stressed). No matter that I have a 200-line and counting list of sensory, communication, social and executive function difficulties. Since having symptoms in CHILDHOOD is part of the diagnosis, what does it mean that my own parents say I was/am "normal" and am making something out of nothing (as they've told me my entire life)? I guess that's why a neuropsychologist would ask questions of them and not me.

BTW - My mom has Aspie/HSP traits and my dad is Anxious. I am considering that I am all three. The most confounding 'evidence' to ASD is that I am told I communicate very well (my internal experience is deer in headlights) and I am highly empathetic (my internal experience is overwhelmed or numb). Ironically my childhood special interest was: ACTING since age 5 (and cataloging model horses, coins, stamps...)

I'd say a diagnosis is worth checking out

If your family has a lot of Aspie traits or are undiagnosed Aspies these traits are normal personality in their minds.

Mental illness was heavily stigmatized when they were growing up. Only truly “batshit crazy” people saw professionals. If that happened not only was the individual stigmatized, but it was considered a “black mark” against the entire family.

You are well into adulthood. Part of being an adult involves making decisions that one’s parents disapprove of for one’s own good. This is painful but necessary for everyone involved.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 09 Aug 2019, 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It sucks your parents are not supportive and they are being invalidating. I notice my mom does the same thing too. She will say things like "You were so innocent" and blaming my problems on how I was still learning to communicate so I copied kids in my special ed class or saying I just didn't know how to interact with other kids so I needed to be taught and needed help with it. She also told me how if she had done the "you lost my trust, now you have to earn it back" wouldn't have worked because I wouldn't have cared and would have thought it was her issue and she needed to figure it out herself and I didn't understand feelings of others. To me that sounds very ASD. Same as when she told me I lived in the moment as a kid so anything that happened it was over and I had moved onto the next situation. To me that sounds like I had moved on so I didn't understand others didn't feel the same way about that situation as I did, TOM issues, so I didn't want to deal with previous situations when it was over.

But she has admitted to my clumsiness and tactile issues I had and getting overwhelmed by too much noise around me and auditory processing problems.

Are you an actress BTW?

@vermontsavant, what part of that post caught your attention as most ASD like?



@ASPartOfMe, my mom does keep saying "I felt that way..." "I thought that way..." and I'm not ASD, so those don't count. Ummm, isn't that circular non-proof? Teasing: She'd fail the logic part of the IQ test. If SOME parents that have ASD don't know it, and ALL children who wear purple on Tuesdays... then..."

Teasing again: I'm hoping that my emotionally immaturity keeps me young (and I have another 50+ years on me to grow up). Seriously: I know.



@League_Girl, I still have it in mind to be an actress one day, in the meantime I do puzzles (technical designs) and present them (performance!). I'm sensation seeking so love the energy of crowds, but I just don't like to be in them or near them, so up on the stage or up by the whiteboard suits me.

I wonder that my mom dismisses my concerns b/c she doesn't want to look at herself. When I was DX'd with a "mild mood disorder" in my 30s, she was nearly ecstatic --- "see, you are really messed up, it's not me." (She was emotionally abusive to me: moderate, maybe even severe.) I think this type of parent unconsciously wants to protect their self image and/or they want their child's difficulties to disappear and denial is the easiest way to do that.

I think any neuropsychologist worth their salt would not take your parents answer at face value , they would dig and ask questions that would make your parents think differently , especially if after interviewing you they thought you were on the spectrum.

Before I went for the initial assessment I told my father . His response was

My stepdaughter ,who has seen my father a few times , and was with me when I was being assessed, told the assessor that my father had quite a few similar traits to myself .

I think it can be a case with parents of not seeing anything out of the ordinary because one or the other of them is like you , and thus sees the things you do as being normal.

You should absolutely still try to get a diagnosis.
I got mine at age 25. And it’s changing my life, I am much more accepting of myself. (It’s a process and journey in and of itself)
The thing is, I am Korean, and quirks can be seen as normal in our culture, such as not talking 99% of the time, lol. My parents just accepted me completely for some reason.

I told my mom I got diagnosed. She’s seen a lot of documentaries and she doesn’t think I have any severe autism, she sees me more high functioning autism. Which is aligned with what my doctor thinks.

Maybe they are in denial

If you are in your late 40's, then you grew up in a similar time period as me. Back then, unless symptoms were severe, no one even knew the signs.

Not teasing, there is a large genetic component to autism so the scenario of an undiagnosed parent(s) thinking aspie traits are normal is very plausible. It is not uncommon for a parent having their child assessed to look at a list of autism traits and say “they are describing me”, then get diagnosed themselves.

Do what I did. Get a diagnosis and leave them completely out of the process. They are in denial, it will not help you to have them involved and to get their opinion. I used Tony Attwood's book, The Complete Guide To Asperger's Syndrome. I read it twice and every time I saw anything in there that applied to me, I wrote the paragraph from the book and I wrote exactly how it applied to me in the present day and as far as I could remember with specific examples from present and from my childhood. I had so much evidence from childhood just from my own memories that no one needed to ask my parents anything. And because I had very detailed specific examples of everything, because I have a very strong long term memory, everyone knew that I was remembering and recalling accurately and not making things up. I ended up with six single spaced typed notes in small font. If you can do that it will really help. My neuropsyche told me that those notes were a huge help in him diagnosing me. I also had a full battery of testing done, it took nine hours all in one day. So after all that, there was no question about my Autism. I suggest you do something like that and just leave your parents out of it.

Generally I would say that the person who knows you the best is YOU.

I am in your age bracket, I was just assessed last year, and I didn't even tell my mother. (My father is deceased). I wrote my developmental history answers in the form of an autobiography with scanned photos, school reports, employer evaluations, home movie clips (links), and in total I wrote 188 pages of anecdotes and stories. Yes I'm known for overkill, but there were about 10 pages of questions and I expanded on each question with evidence. I'm certainly not saying you have to write that much. I'm embarrassed how much I wrote. I'm just saying that your parents don't need to be involved at all. I did have another relative do some of the questions about me as a reference person, but my mother is 80 and there's no way I would have involved her.

That is an impressive piece of work Isabella. I am like you in that I can also do the overkill thing but overkill is better than half baked. I had to fill out the application for SSDI benefits, still trying to get them after almost 5 years, and on the form, one of the questions was, how does my disability prevent me from being able to work? They gave me five lines (a total of 3 inches down) on an 8 by 11 paper to answer. My answer ended up being a 21 page single spaced 12 font treatise.

For my diagnosis notes I also included a lot of pictures from my childhood showing the tell tale Aspie stare. I was shocked at how many of my pictures had that zombie like lack of expression even from babyhood. I am amazed that no one wondered what was up with that. But back in the 60s I guess they didn't notice. In all of the old pics of my ancestors, even of my parents as kids, no one ever smiled or showed any kind of expression in pictures. They all just looked like they were angry to be dressed up and standing or sitting for a photo. So maybe that is why they did not notice.

skibum,
YES THE STARE! The glazed expression!! In my childhood photos I'm always VERY noticeably different from my playmates and female cousins. I'm always twisted in strange postures (e.g., legs twisted together even when standing, standing on one foot like yoga, hugging myself or twirled like a pretzel), my head tilted to one side, hands clenched in fists or stimming (noticeably), and either I don't smile at all or it's that frozen, forced grin. My clothes were different from the other girls because I was so picky. I stood apart from the group, physically at a distance. It's just painfully, painfully obvious ... even when I was like three years old.

My book was honestly 188 pages. I had it professionally bound. I sent it to the doctor a month ahead of time and told her that I didn't expect her to read it all, but I wrote it for myself with subheadings of all the developmental questions for her reference (and a Table of Contents). It was my special interest for 8 weeks of 24/7 writing.

SharonB, again I'm not suggesting you do the same. I'm just reinforcing that your parents don't need to be involved. Questions I couldn't answer on my own, I asked my mother casually but didn't tell her why. The doctors won't expect your parents to be involved when you are a middle-aged woman. The testing is double bind so that you can't BS your way through with false information, so trust yourself and what you will write or say as an independent woman.