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Hi

I have a son who I always suspected of aspie traits. I didn't say anything out of fear of offending him. Two years ago I discovered a practice of his which was way outside my range of comprehension, and put the question to him. I am now alienataed from his life and he has now turned to his aspie father. Isn't that empathy and can I expect any to come my way ever?. Or do I have to somehow get on with life and and always ask if I could have done better?

helps if we know what set this off

The previous poster is right, we need to know more.

Some specific considerations:

- What makes you say the father is AS? Is he diagnosed, or is this another hunch?
- What prompted you to share your suspicion? Did you feel your son would want to know? Or did you offer it because it satisfied a need of your own?

It gets tricky with adults, discovering they may be AS. For some, it explains their entire life and is a relief. For others, it rocks the foundation of who they believe they are. For the first group, it is a good thing to know. For the later, something better left undiscussed.

Once my son was diagnosed, I realized that my father most likely was AS, too. But I never, ever, mentioned that thought to him. It is something I will never know, but the idea allowed me to have a new understanding of my father, and answered questions I had. It made me more forgiving of his faults, and more proud of his gifts. But sharing the thought with him would have been devastating for him; why would I ever do that? There would be absolutely no possible positive point. I saw that clearly.

But my son knows. He needed to. He knew he was different, and he knew we were sending him to specialists in pursuit of answers about certain educational issues he was having. The answer made him feel less alone. But, then, he was only 7 when we did all this. He will grow up with AS as an integral part of his self-image.

For my dad, if there were years like that, they were water so far under the bridge and the answer would have been a few decades late and a million dollars short. His reaction to my son's diagnosis was telling; he was not in support of it. I know he had always seen his grandson as being very much like him; putting a "disorder" label on the picture was something his self image wasn't going to allow. I honored that for him; focusing instead on how the label was getting my son help with his writing, an issue my dad didn't have.

Which goes back to the first question. What drew you to look into this for your son and what drew you to share it? Most of us here have reached conclusions about who on the family tree is AS, but few of us have shared that with those family members. Is it possible that your son was angry about what he perceived as your reason for sharing the information more than the actual content?