ASD and Narcissistic Abuse?

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I've never been officially diagnosed with an ASD but strongly suspect that I am on the spectrum. Other people in this community agree with this as well. Has anyone else noticed a correlation (not necessarily causation) between ASD and being raised by Narcissists? I'm not saying parents cause the ASD, but I definitely believe that this can make symptoms worse and stall progress. My mother was a malignant narcissist and I currently have very minimal contact. I grew up an only child so I would have been targeted no matter what, but I feel like the traits of my undiagnosed ASD were a major factor in the scapegoating as this made me somewhat of a disgrace and embarrassment when I failed to be the perfect extension of my mother and her narcissistic supply. My parents are divorced and my Dad has struggled with substance abuse all of his adult life. After doing extensive research, I suspect he may also be on the spectrum. I've also always sensed that I was a bit of a "skeleton in the closet" for my entire extended family who are all very image and status obsessed. I have actually been very involved in YouTube communities relating to narcissistic abuse and make my own videos as well.

Has anyone else noticed anything similar? Does our ASD make us more likely to be targeted by family members with personality disorders? Is it because we're odd or "an embarrassment"? Do you agree that prolonged narcissistic abuse can make our symptoms even worse than they otherwise would have been?

Thanks

I agree that there is no causation of autism by Narcissistic mothers ( refrigerator Mom ) but I wholeheartedly agree that having a narcissistic mother is about the worst possible outcome for an autistic person . They sense our anxiety and feed off it . The constant blame does nothing for our self esteem and the ' covert ' part drives us absolutely nuts . People like us have a very hard time defending ourselves , especially against a malignant narc , we're easy targets . You say that you have minimal contact with your mother which is a good thing , you don't need a crazy making narc in your life , ASD id frustrating and confusing enough .

We have lots of autism (Asperger's type) in our family. We also have a fair bit of narcissism. My theory is that a narc PD can arise in the development of a personality for someone with autism. All of us on the spectrum have a tendency to turn to ourselves for coping, and I believe this is the source of the "low empathy" commonly mentioned as an autistic trait. The developing narc PD person comes to attend to their own grandiosity and needs to the exclusion of other people's. Other ways of developing may lead to low self-esteem or social anxiety. I did not have a malignant narcissist for a mother, but she did have some psychologically abusive behaviors. My sister, who committed suicide recently, was in fact, in my view, a malignant narcissist whose children suffered and still suffer greatly with mental and behavioral problems. It's all related somehow.

My. Titties. That is all.

My mom and sister....NP types. Now we just treat each other as acquaintances.

Most of my encounters with narcissists were in workplaces. I observed that they seemed to target anyone who was honest and outspoken - two characteristics that often travel with ASDs. If the honest person was highly competent as well, and the narcissist held more power than the honest person, that was the kiss of death AFAICS. I saw it happen to others, and experienced it more often myself than I care to remember.

On the flip side, narcs love loyalty; they all want to be the center of their own little personality cults. A lot of folks with ASDs are also very loyal - to the point where we overlook minor slights, being taken for granted, etc. etc. until the evidence becomes overwhelming. This will make us VERY attractive narcissist food.

When we begin to notice that we have been/are being taken advantage of, that things are really not reciprocal, that this is a feature and not a bug, this can really enrage an abuser. Especially if our response to that is to try to reach them on an adult level, as equals, and request that it stop.

The problem is, pretty much all the professionals give the same useless advice: avoid them. Well, that's nice, but they don't actually go away, and merely leaving does nothing to moderate or constrain them. So before long, especially if a workplace attracts them, coddles them, and lets them drive all the decent people away, they're too abundant to avoid, and too disruptive to ignore.

Edit in: I really like Bob Sutton's book "The No A$$hole Rule", and anyplace that genuinely applies that standard is going to be far more functional than most. But again, he doesn't address the fact that @$$holes don't magically disintegrate when you refuse to engage with them. They're merely accumulating. Somewhere else.

I think contemporary society really did itself great harm by rejecting the social tool of "shame" without any qualifiers, because it is a useful tool for outing and shutting down narcissists and other abusers. Look at the positive results from *finally* socially stigmatizing child abuse and spousal battery, and bigotry. I haven't seen much else, other than direct and unrelenting constraint, that seems to shut this stuff down. And very few people have either the ability or the desire to impose effective constraints, from what I've seen.

My 2 cents; YMMV.

Haha you can't avoid them unless you are in a position to get a different job.

Don't show unwavering loyalty. Don't get caught up in their s**t. Just do your job.

^^ oh, I did that, for 30+ years, but I was good at what I did and wouldn't do substandard work merely to appease the local monsters; so things were often fraught. In some places, if I was appreciated in any way, this was taken as deliberate provocation.

(Just to be clear, I didn't do good work "at" them, either. I did it because that was the only way to assure that it *stayed done* so I could get on with the next thing.)

Anyway, retirement has spared me most of that. But avoidance isn't solving, and I'm not sure what real solutions are available for those who can't just leave. (Becoming One With The Thugs is too self destructive.)

I have to go wash one side of my house while it's shaded and cool, but I would genuinely like to discuss this further, because it nags at me that there aren't any obvious, non-sellout solutions. I have to have overlooked something!

An alternative, when "just avoid" or "just leave" are not options, is to strategize relationships and build alliances. I realize this is just the very sort of thing that people with autism are not good at. But it's not impossible. Any of us can make the effort to say hello and smile. These alliances don't have to be close friendships, but just feeling like you have reached out a bit can make you feel less alone when the office bully starts to rage.

Like Esmerelda, I have noticed the biggest problem is when a highly competent subordinate has a narcissistic supervisor or manager. The "smart" thing for those managers to do would be take some of the credit for your work (and they often do) or for nurturing your talent. But often the manager feels threatened by someone else's spotlight and tries to discredit you.

As to narcissism within the family - that is one of the most destructive patterns I have ever seen, anywhere.

I know about strategic alliances. Easier said than done. I use the strategy and execution of it is probably a C grade....

^^ Alliances are definitely one of the best defenses.

Here's where it gets peculiar. What follows is not cheerful, and isn't meant to be argumentative; it's my own experience and perspective, which may differ greatly from others'. But it's what I lived, and in my case, it's all true.

For some bizarre reason, pretty much wherever I worked, and I *know* I didn't cause this, one bad thing kept happening.

Sometimes I was hired by a really good person and excellent manager; sometimes I was hired by a decent manager who had really good peers, and I developed solid working relationships with them all; sometimes I was hired by, or ended up working for, a bullying or predatory manager, but that manager had a decent supervisor, or decent peers, or both, who recognized my worth.

In pretty much every case, the decent people would leave, be transferred elsewhere, or be driven away or fired, within two years max. Sometimes this followed a merger, sometimes it followed a reorganization, sometimes it followed the hiring of a new top level executive, but it just kept happening.

It was really creepy once I began to realize that this seemed to be a recurring pattern. Even creepier that somehow the incompetent or bullying managers never seemed to be the ones to leave or be terminated - in fact they were often promoted.

I finally decided that there was just some kind of fundamental toxicity in the way my particular profession was managed, and that it was structural and possibly universal, which is why even my most drastic job changes and relocations made no difference. Unfortunately, like many Aspies, I'm really really good at certain things, and ONLY good at certain things, which kept me in a limited range of professional options. Self-employment wasn't one of them.

Early in my career I was able to talk with people nearing retirement age (I was late 20s early 30s, they were 60+), and many of them seemed to think that our allied professions were becoming increasingly corrupt. Bull$h!+ was becoming more valuable than genuine expertise and experience, fast talkers with slick lines were preferred to honest ones, stuff like that. Over time I observed the same, and it seemed to pick up speed.

I held out as long as I could by doing what I was best at and being *really* good at it. Even a very corrupt organization needs enough competent people to make it work - until the rot has set in so thoroughly that "making it work" ceases to be a goal for any part of management.

Eventually, though, it became overwhelming, and the amount of hours I had to work in order to deal with task overload was endangering my health. At that point, pretty much the entire management structure seemed to prefer playing with shiny objects, rather than doing their actual jobs. But by then I could retire, so I did, and survived.

(My poor father experienced something similar, but did not live to retire. I didn't want to emulate him, much as I loved him.)

Since I've retired I've seen similar stories from many different industries and professions, way beyond the area I worked in. Finance, print and broadcast journalism, healthcare, insurance, light industry, IT, education... Which is very distressing, but also tells me that I was, in fact, seeing some kind of systemic decline, and it was real.

Sorry, I know this is a downer, but I've got that Aspie compulsion to tell the truth, especially when it might help someone else realize that *they* might not be the problem - it might really be *the situation*.