Getting mum to remember

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Hi,

I need my Mum to remember my childhood and I don't know want her to know why I am asking as I don't want to disturb her with my suspicions of Asperger's. I am going to a Dr this week and want to be informed about myself.

I love my Mum, I respect her and the sacrifices she made for me as a young adult. She had a very difficult time coping with social workers who were keen to remove me from her care due to my Dad's complex mental health issues.

People including a social worker used to tell her I may have special needs or that I was 'spastic', She took this as an unkind comments. In fact I remember one time at a family holiday camp she screamed at me for yet again carrying my hand and rubbing together my fingers in an unusual way, 'that's what kids with special needs do, that's why everyone calls you ret*d, you don't want people to think you are ret*d so stop doing it' she said.

On another occasion in 1993 she was forced to have me tested but apparently the concerns of the social worker were debunked as I was found to have good IQ and an excellent eye for tiny details, I was 9.

I want to know if she ever felt that I didn't respond to social cues as a child / teen
If I played with my toys in a strange ways
On the rare occasion I did talk what did I talk about and how much

Any suggestions how I can ask her these questions in a stealthy way?
Any other questions I could ask?

I am in favor of being honest about my intentions when I am asking anyone for their opinions and information. It saves a lot of trouble down the road.

Why not simply say that you are going to see a psychologist or a doctor and want to be accurate about things in your childhood? Tell her that you want to interview her and take notes.

I am in favour of being honest too I just feel I know my mum and can predict her reactions. I feel it is not an option.

Even thought I am an educated adult living with my partner she is still protective of me and worries about how naive and non confrontational she thinks I am.

She likes me to only talk to her about my problems, she once found out I was going to see a psychologist and she was very upset angry and unsupportive about this so I cancelled my appointments. I regret this now.
This is the situation, I can't change that.

You may not need your mom to get a diagnosis ...with the info you provided, with specific dates, that is probably enough to establish you had it from childhood. They didn't talk to my mom when they diagnosed me, because I remembered enough to be able to establish that from family stories and my own recollections. They will need to know when you started talking, to establish the no language delay criterion. That should be easy enough to ask without raising suspicion. They also didn't test my IQ based on my having been in the gifted program in school and knowing roughly what my IQ was then. your doctor will likely administer an ADOS or something and only ask for further info if they need it.

I had a similar problem when I went to get diagnosed. So I asked my sister, who was 20 yrs older than me and my aunt to give that information. As my mother even post diagnosis still denies anything is different with me.

If you really need more specific info from Mum and prefer to disguise a bit;

Tell her that you are following a self help format that relies, partially, on writing a log of your childhood development.

Or you're taking a course on memoir writing and that you want to get some accurate facts about your childhood from her. Or that you want reminisce with her as a part of memoir writing. Intersperse questions about events that don't necessarily point up your condition.
http://www-distance.syr.edu/journal1.html

Except, she doesn't want you confronting her?

Best of luck to you; I hope this is the beginning of a good journey.

Last edited by MountainLaurel on 17 Feb 2013, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What do you remember about your childhood? I agree that you may not need her input if you remember enough.

Thank you for the ideas, i would quite like to approach this subject with her anyway as I am interested even if I don't need her input.

Some good ideas and advice here

I just noticed you said you had a partner...I would take them along when you do the diagnosis. I took my boyfriend and he helped immensely, to get third party opinions of how you act in your day to day life so the doc has more to go on than what you are saying and what he can observe in his office in a short period of time. I know on some of the questions, I was having a hard time expressing myself in the answers or didn't understand them, and he was able to help.

I would just say "Mom tell me about me" "What was it like being my mom?"

Its not uncommon as a child matures to be inquisitive about what they were like as a kid. She probably wondered the same type of things about herself.

The key I think is asking the question for yourself. People can feel insincerity. So the trick is not fooling your mom. Its believing the truth. Which is you want to know for yourself. The evaluation is really just a footnote: not the reason.

I'm not a parent but I can relate to your issue although I think our mum's are approaching it from a slightly different point of view (or maybe i just mis interpreted what u said) - with my mum she just wants me to think that i'm alright, and also i think there may be a fear there that i will be upset at her about not picking it up sooner and then maybe she's feel like a failure or something.

So I came to this situation too when I first started learning about ASD and considering if I might have it. I know my dad always said I was really immature for my age (although he could be quite cruel and was possibly just saying this out of spite - i can't help but think that, looking back on myself, there was some truth to it though) anyways so I asked my mum if i had any developmental delays that she remembered. She said no that I was fine like my sister and brothers.

However I then went on to say how I went through a period when I was about 6-7 seeing a 'special ed teacher' at school for speech lessons (at least that's what i remember they were for), I asked mum how that came up, and what the teachers said to her about it at the time.. She claimed to have no memory of it at all ...and that perhaps the school never even told her (again trying to diminish the issue like she does with me) however I find it hard to believe, that a school would put a kid in a 'special ed' lesson whereby they get pulled out of their regular class once/twice a week for one on one teaching without telling the parents? This would have been late 1980;s? Perhaps some other parents can offer some insight on that?

edit: just had an idea - could u get a hold of any of your very early childhood school reports to see if they flagged anything out of the ordinary? If so you could use that as a premise to approach your mum about it?

I just noticed that was a question. No she doesn't want me confronting her, it would be pointless confronting someone that is always in the right anyway. That's a reason I don't live with her any more. Don't misunderstand she can be lovely in small doses.

I tend to get told that I was withdrawn allot as a child but its always because of something like I was an only child (at the time) or I'd had a traumatic upbringing. For the record I actually think my Mum and Dad were the ones having bad times in their lives, as for me I was largely fascinated by my own little world, so much of it washed over me.



Defiantly odd - or selective / protective memory. I don't think our mothers sound too far different in that way.



This is more of a first step not actual diagnosis day yet, I need to convince a Dr this could be a possibility first so they can then reffere me, he has offered to come about 5 times already, but thinking I might be better on my own for now as I just want to focus on one person, if I need him later I know he is good for it.