Asking your parents about ASD?

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This will probably get me flamed, but I'm trying to get to the truth of the matter and if anyone has had a similar experience.

I bit the bullet and talked to my mother about any autistic symptoms I had as a kid (my mother is a very defensive person; I knew the whole conversation would NOT go well). I first mentioned sensory integration issues. My mother first told me that all my sensory issues I talked about were perfectly normal. They aren't. Then she made jokes. Then everything I mentioned, she had, too. Including face blindness (my mother's eyesight has been steadily getting worse her whole life, and she is now legally blind and should NOT even be driving). I was getting frustrated because the things I would describe and then the things she would describe were not really the same things. Then she persisted in saying that she's always been a sensitive person and even so sensitive to the point where she can read body langauge and know things about people that they don't even tell her. I ignored the comment and told her that I am not like that. And when people have these sort of sensory issues and are not socially sophisticated (understatement), it's an indicator that they may be on the autistic spectrum.

She then kept saying that I was a "perfect" baby. I never cried or made a fuss. I slept through anything, and never had problems sleeping. I ran to get hugs. Yadda yadda yadda. She said that the first time she heard about any sleeping problems that I had, I was in collge. This is NOT accurate. I know I had them as early as 12 because I remember the program I'd watch when I couldn't sleep, but I don't know about before that. Her response: Well, you never told me. I was horribly depressed from age 9 on. I didn't say anything about that, but she obviously didn't see it.

She is a middle school teacher and should be able to spot abnormalities in children's behavior. She said that I didn't have any. But then again, I also had an eating disorder right under her nose from 14 until I left for college. I spoke to her about the eating disorder when I was around 20. I even told her when it started. She acted like she didn't know that at all though in the phone converation. In any case, I DROPPED 25 POUNDS RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE in six months! Geesh woman! But it wasn't the point of the conversation, so I steered it away and didn't get into it. There would be nothing to gain in talking about it anyway.

So anyway according to her, I was a perfect baby with nothing wrong with me. I was not weird or abnormal in ANY way. When I reached puberty I became private, but that's not weird either. And then I went to college and went nuts.

I called my best friend who has known me since I was 19 (met him six months after I came to college). He can confirm that I was a little weird when he met me. Such as, I never made eye contact or looked in anyone's faces (he trained me to look in people's faces because he was so annoyed by it, by grabbing my face and making me look at him when I talked...that was really hard and I'm still not great at it). Also, I never talked to anyone unless I had to. I was uncomfortable at parties, I never went to concerts (sensory issues). He said I had some face blindness that he could tell. He also knew that I had sensory weirdness before I did. I was also really rigid and into routines. I was also stupid when he asked for my number and had no idea why he wanted (we then dated for about two years off and on). In a related note, he also knew I liked girls before I told him. He told me last night that I have never talked about my day (which I responded to saying, why would I do that? and we got into a discussion of how I abhor small talk). He's read the description of Asperger's and thinks that I fit it, although barely. My therapist also thinks I'm barely Aspergers. My shrink mentioned PDD-NOS. I trust my best friend's memory a lot more than my mom's (since hers is extremely selective anyway).

So...how can my mother not have seen anything as a kid? Although she didn't see my depression (starting in middle school), my eating disorder (starting in jr high), my sensory issues (that were present at least since I can remember, at least since I was in middle school), my sleeping problems (at least in middle school), my face blindness. How can she not have seen these issues? Can I even trust her memory of how I was when I was a baby/infant if she doesn't even know these, since I know for a fact I had these issues? I mean, let's say she's right. And I was a perfectly normal baby. How do I suddenly have all these Asperger like traits, that were confirmed by the person that has known me the longest as at least occurring when I was 19? I'm pretty sure that I had them at least in middle school, but let's say my memory is screwy, and my mom is right. Then how would I not have them at 18, but go away to college for a few months, and suddenly have them? And you don't get suddenly depressed at around age 9 unless there is a REASON. Okay, so say I'm not Aspergers. Why did I get depressed then? What was the trigger? A 9 year old doesn't get depressed for no reason at all. I'm so confused.

Of course, my best friend knows how my mother is, and couldn't even see why I would bother going to her. But, I thought...she would be the best person to ask. I'm going to call my brother tonight, just to see if he remembers anything weird about how I was, but...I'm just really confused. I don't know if I can trust her memory to be "accurate" at all, and I don't know what else to do if I don't just ask my brother. He's only four years older than me though, but I haven't had an actual conversation with him in fifteen years (I'm 27), so this is going to be really weird and uncomfortable.

Has anyone had this happen to them? What did you do? There's no one else in my family to ask!

And also, if I was a perfectly normal baby, then why have I never felt love, felt sexual attraction towards anyone, felt anything at all towards anyone, felt lonely, missed anyone, have zero empathy as described in the wiki...yadda yadda yadda. And how would she not realize that???

Every mother's baby is perfect. That's how she wants it to be, so that's how it is. Your mother may be blinded by this. Or it may just be that she doesn't understand your situation.

My mom doesn't understand Asperger's (among other things) at all and makes no attempt to understand anything she doesn't already know (or think she knows). Needless to say, I'll never ask her about my symptoms. She at least acknowledges my condition, because it was diagnosed when I was in 4th grade, so she's had the doctor's word since then. She insists that she knew something was "wrong" before that, but I'm not sure what made her think that. She's certainly never noticed very much since then besides occasional stimming, which she's always strongly discouraged.

I guess I'm different though. I'm not unnoticed so much as misunderstood. To her, I have autism, which means that I'm "very brainy with no common sense." I do have common sense. Except for the social stuff, that is, and my poor working memory makes it seem worse. I must have told her "I forgot" thousands of times, and she's come to think I'm lying to her. If she asks me to do something and I get distracted and forget, I'll ask her what it was so I can do it. But in an attempt to force me to admit my lie, she usually refuses to tell me. So I just tell her I can't do something if I don't know what was requested of me, and I walk away.

True. You do have a point there.

And I can relate about memory. Mine sucks, that's why I was trying to get verification from her. Maybe my brother will be able to confirm or deny.

I haven't even bothered telling my mother, my memory for details is far greater then hers. And I assume she would insist that I was perfectly normal all the way, when I know damn well I wasn't.

She was really defensive on the phone. First all my sensory defensive issues were perfectly normal. Then she made jokes (like when I said I used to eat the same thing every day, for years...she goes, well I ate the same thing for a week and a half last week...does that count? ). Then she suddenly had all the same sensory issues. Then she said I was perfectly normal and didn't have any of those sensory issues as a baby. Then she told me not only was I normal, but that I'd sleep through anything as a baby, and I never got upset about anything. I was an easy baby. I ran towards hugs. Yadda yadda yadda.

She also told me I wasn't picky. Then I told her...wait a minute, I was very picky as a kid (they used to tell me I was going to dry up and blow away because I was so skinny and picky...then they made me start eating everything on my plate which made me chubby...which is how my whole damn eating disorder started in the first place ). Then she says, oh all kids are picky and you weren't any more picky than anyone else. What the hell? You aren't being consistant and I know some of the things you are saying aren't right.

But I can't just discount what she says. I hate this. I just want to know. It sounds like I might not be Asperger's after all, but I don't know if I can trust my mom's memory.

I worry about getting the same types of responses if I were to try to discuss my (most likely) AS symptoms with my mother.

Because my mom thinks she is some sort of god, she believes autism is a sin, so I rarely talk about autism with her, knowing she will use her biblical routine against me.

My mom was the one who pushed for an AS diagnosis... she later got historically dx'ed. Needless to say, while I was in my house, I was much more comfortable than while in school. Being that she was AS, she never tried to acknowledge "perfection" in her "little baby", and was quick to accept that I was becoming an adult (and treated me as such). Being free from those common "mother's illusions" made my life so much easier than it could have been...

Being that she is an aspie parent of both myself (aspie), as well as a LFA, she also has compiled a bunch of materials concerning parenting autistic children, and she has become a local resource for many other parents of autistics, making it much easier for both parents and children in such situations...

Many people know virtually nothing about autism in any form, let alone AS. She may have some very wrong idea about what people with Aspergers are like and think that you "just aren't like that".

If she thinks that AS is a very bad thing, she may not believe it because she doesn't want to believe it. I don't know if Aspies are like this or not, but NT can believe some truly bizarre things when they want to badly enough. It's also true that NT often have truly terrible long term memories, particularly for details.

Well, she's a fifth grade teacher and told me she would have recognized it in me. That she studied Educational Psychology and is trained to recognize that in kids ever since I was in first grade. That she knows what is normal and what isn't.

But then again...she started teaching fifth grade when I was a fifth grader. And she didn't recognize depression, an eating disorder, and...oh yeah, the fact that I'm a flaming homosexual. The bit about sinning made me remember that. I haven't bothered to come out, since there is nothing to be gained by it. It's not like we have an actual relationship. You can probably see why.

Discussing my AS with my parents has done nothing for me other than brought into stark focus how utterly oblivious they were to how unpleasant my teenage years were. 7 1/2 stone, 5'8" teenage male, into cutting, horrible bullying (which they noticed but once, after it had been going on for some 5 years), spent hours in my room painting models, few friends... I'm not sure it would necessarily have screamed AS, but the possibility shouldn't be alien to them, and for years bad things were going on which someone ought to have noticed. Heck, I had to buy laundry detergent I kept in my closet to wash the blood out of my shirts. How do you not notice that?
Well, in my case I think the answer is my sister: she took all the parenting skills they had because she was loud, obnoxious and obstructive. I was always quiet and incredibly withdrawn. I guess in some ways it's understandable they never noticed what was going on with me.

Well, as a parent I can tell you that it's pretty much impossible to look objectively at your own kids. No matter how good you are at seeing [Whatever] in other children, you may miss it entirely in your own kids -- especially if you think that [Whatever] is bad. My mother was a clinical psychologist, and she couldn't even spot my severe depression when I was a teenager (and it was obvious to everyone else).

my mom tryed selling me to science as soon as she found out i was aspergers. obviously i objected, and was never sold

Ummm, that's messed up.