Raised by Aspergers parent

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BuyerBeware - I think you're mostly right...

I've seen a couple of kids lives destroyed because of over-liberal parenting which did not help kids set appropriate boundaries for themselves or instil a sense of self-discipline. But...in general, yes the embarrassing mom or dad is but a temporary agony and frankly kids will be embarrassed by you even if you weren't embarrassing.

The shouting and swearing and head banging is frightening. Meltdowns are distressing.

But yes, the full bore critic is what absolutely eats away at children and spouses. Disinterest and disengagement isn't too helpful either.

Hey.

Just joined, because I find there's nowhere to talk and get support for kids who have autistic/Aspergers parents. My dad is a high functioning autistic, (more AS than aspie) but also is an aggressive, verbally abusive, acoholic man who has no self control and a very short temper. Today is just another day where he found something (neither my mother or I know what it was) that set him off and went on a long, loud, angry rant about just about anything he could think of. The main subject was on veterinarian experiences, because I made a comment to my mom about how I think our elderly cat should get a senior checkup at the vet. Never once was I able to finish a sentence, or explain to him that I wasn't trying to bring him into the conversation about the cat, simply that I was just making a comment. It then progressed to him bringing up several things I had apparently done wrong today, like not going to school (I had abdominal surgery less than a week ago and am not able to do much other than walk around the house) or picking up my stuff when I was done using it (Should I mention my dad is a bit of a hoarder? There's boxes upon boxes of stuff everywhere). He recently has made it clear that I am not allowed to have opinions that differ from his, simply because I'm his daughter and therefore I need to do everything he tells me to. This also means he is allowed to interrupt me, dismiss any of my thoughts, and patronize me for anything I do. The patronizing often results in screaming, and violent outbursts. There is very little I or my mom can do to de-escalate my dad once he is on a fit.
Because I'm not able to move out on my own and am still in school, I feel trapped with someone that I cannot live with. Sometimes he tries his best, but his best is ignoring me and occasionally feeling guilty and buying things I don't need. I appreciate when he does have moments of "normalcy", but those are becoming less and less rare. Are there ways to cope with any of this while I still need to stay where I am? Any "tricks" that might help keep things rage-free without having to completely alter what little bit of "me" I have? I feel like I sound really selfish but am at a breaking point...

Hello Kringe

I can relate. I had a similar experience with my mother as I was growing up. I was never sure what would set her off into a rage. I now wonder if that is not so much down to autism, but may have more to do with borderline personality disorder. Either way it was very difficult to live with someone who would fly off the handle for seemingly no reason what-so-ever. One day something would be okay to do, nor not do, then the next it would be the end of the world for her. I had to walk on eggshells all of the time and I was very stressed, I still am.

I have learned that there are subjects I should never discuss with my Dad because he can't get his head round the idea that other people have different opinions to him. Actually my Mum finds it difficult to. I just can't reason with either of them. I keep them at arms length now. I check in with them every so often to make sure they are ok, but for the sake of my own sanity I live an hour's drive away from them and keep myself to myself.

All I can say is you have to grit your teeth and bear it until you are old enough to move out. I managed to move out when I was 21, some people say that is a young age to leave home, but I couldn't afford to until I was that age.

It helps to have friends you can confide in so that you don't have to carry the load all by yourself. You can pm me any time you want.

Hi Kringe,

I am sorry that you are going through this. It sounds really tough to bear. I hope you can carve out an independent situation soon and find some room to be yourself.

It made me really sad to see your words "I feel like I sound really selfish" -- you don't! Not at all!

That you would feel this way is a sign that you have internalized responsibility for your dad in an unhealthy way and this is something you need to free yourself from.

I wish I could offer some good advice about how to mitigate things while you are still living in that situation, but it sounds like he is unpredictable and has no sense of boundaries, so I can't think of any good advice.

But I hope you can take some strength and comfort from knowing that people who know your story see what you are going through and are wishing you well and hoping you find the freedom and respect you deserve soon.

Stay strong! One day all this will be behind you.

Absolutely: Autism is not an excuse to be acting the way your dad's acting, Kringe.

I'm sorry you have to "kringe" when you think of how your dad treats you.

Your dad has the cognitive awareness to be able to benefit from changing his behavior. This stubbornness is just stubbornness, found in people whether ASD, NT, or whatever.

In that instance, I can tell you what I THINK is happening (he feels threatened by the idea of hauling the cat to the vet because past experiences may re-materialize). Knowing that might ease things a little bit, but it doesn't help much, and it doesn't make what he's doing OK AT ALL.

I'm really sorry he's being an autocratic dick. That HURTS, and it's NOT YOUR FAULT.

Kringe - if you have any other family members nearby, you can try that, though they might be reluctant to get involved. Similarly, if you have a same-sex friend with a cool mom.

Other than that, what you need is a haven -- but keep in mind that there are predatory adults who will see you as vulnerable because unchaperoned and trying to avoid going home. How long is it before you figure you can move out?

If you can't find a flesh-and-blood hominid to talk to, there's always us. You're welcome here.

We clean up after our rogue tribesmembers, or try to anyway.

We might see things through your dad's eyes...

...but a lot of us can see through your eyes too, having spent a lifetime getting yelled at for being ourselves.

Whatever you do, PLEASE DON'T INTERNALIZE THE CRITICISM. Please know that it comes from a deep place of fear, anger, and insecurity in your father (been there, done that, still in therapy), and absolutely is not the truth, is not something you should take on board and build your life around.

Hey all this is my first post here glad to be aboard. My father was a classic and pretty hardcore ASP with all the trimmings. Now all these years later, and understanding finally that he did not do all that crazy and often abusive stuff to me out of malice, i still struggle to forgive him. In some ways it was easier for me to just hate him as a cold, self-involved, sometimes explosively violent SOB. Now i know i must readjust my considerations to include his non-optional mental organization. Its a real project. Wonder if anyone can relate.

Asperger's is so confusing to me because the symptoms can be so varied, yet there is a commonality.

Most people who meet my dad just think he's weird, awkward, nerdy, or the rudest, biggest, jerk they ever met. Others, just feel disturbed around him and a little scared of him. I grew up in this and I think all of it, all at once. But, I want to learn more. I want to understand more. Maybe my dad is just a diabolical ass that refuses to understand how his behavior impacts those around him. Maybe he can't and will never understand because his brain can't think that way, due to Aspergers. Regardless, I experienced the trauma. I experienced the reality of it.

Here's my question: Are Aspergers adults responsible for their behavior? Or are they absolved? Because they can't control their frustration, is it OK for them to be mean and angry? Or are there Aspie's who are so intelligent that they "play" that and they really are just flat out mean people? I personally, believe that whether a person is ret*d (as per medical diagnosis, still legit) or not, meanness is not acceptable. People can have disabilities and not be mean. People with disabilities are very capable of being mean, hateful, and horrid on purpose.

My father is hateful, angry, bitter, and mean to the bone, so much so that my mother understands that no one can come around anymore and he can't go out in public anymore (due to his rude, anger insighting comments deliberately directed at Hispanics and others ~ does he really think that eventually someone won't give a crap that he's autistic and just punch him in the face?).

She tells me that he wants to be able to love people but doesn't know how, so it's easier for him to be hateful. He just can't comprehend things, process information, or get past stuff. I can't be around it. I can't stand it. And I won't subject my children to it. The Aspergers has reinforced itself with hate; quite convenient to establish isolation. Uggh!

If anyone has a book written by a child of an Aspergers parent that doesn't glamorize it or make it seem embraced by political correctness, but rather opens up a discussion about how very abusive, difficult, challenging it really is for kids, I would appreciate a referral to it. Perhaps, a You Tube video link, or article. I am doing as much research on this as I can to come to conclusions on this very confusing issue.

So far I have concluded that I, personally, have an Aspie father that is also chooses to be mean. Maybe I am in denial about the "choice" part of it, but that's where I am at right now.

Thank you League Girl and ASD Mommy for the replies. I want to respond but I don't have much time right now. I have more comments and questions. Please, check in later in the day so that we can continue to talk. It will be a few hours from now, but I don't want to ignore or drop the ball on this. Your answers were very helpful. Thank you

OK, I can do this quickly right now with a copy and paste. This is a comment that I posted on another discussion board. And I haven't gotten any insight as to what the heck was going on with this "tickle monster" issue. It totally confuses me. I'll copy and paste here (I know kind of awkward) but, it's quite descriptive:



I was raised by Asperger's and I am traumatized by it. Do you know of any information out there from the kids perspective, having been raised by an Aspie. I feel so alone. For example: He had patterned behaviors for interacting with me (as a kid) that seemed acceptable to society. Tickling was one of the specific ways that he'd make a deliberate attempt to connect with me and "play" with me. Me enjoying it, wanting to be tickled, or me even being interested in playing that way in that moment, didn't matter. If he wanted to tickle me, there was no stopping him. He would tickle me to the point where I was gasping for air, fighting him off, trying to bite him, kick him, screaming for help (from my mom), all along with a gigglish, freaked out, desperate cry, were signals, behaviors, indicators that he didn't (wasn't able to) clue into. He couldn't read me so he'd tickle me until I was bruised under my arm pits, on my ribs, on my legs, and sore for days. My mom would come to my assistance whenever this happened and she would physically help him stop. When she'd try to capture his attention and snap him out of his own little world, he would look at her like as if he'd been in a dream land and he obviously could barely comprehend what was going on when she'd try to tell him that crying means "stop", screaming means that child doesn't like it. He was fairly easily re-directed by her to focus on another thing, like TV shows. Even though, he was in his own world, trying to attempt to play with me, and doing what seemed appropriate, I experienced the trauma of restraint, powerlessness, and pain. He even tried to interact with me in this way sometimes at the dinner table, or in a movie theatre, etc. when the situation did not call for running around, being a tickle monster, and being loud. He was like a child. My mom, would have to supervise him closely, intervene, tell him "not now, sit down", and she'd help him behave appropriately for the environment. This was embarrassing to me and scary to me (the thought of her not being there to help keep him under control). So, this is just an example (one of many other types). I know that many Aspies would never even want to touch another person and make them scream (noise issues), but there is a spectrum and he's somewhere on that spectrum where screaming didn't register to him. He didn't seem to acknowledge it. Or could he just be an ass?? I ask myself this all the time. Could he have been manipulating a passive aggressive way of disciplining me, under the guise of tickling, because I had pissed him off in some kind of way? He didn't have normal communication skills. He didn't communicate rules, boundaries, what I should do and shouldn't do. So, I have a sneaking suspicion that, perhaps, because he couldn't verbally communicate, "honey don't do that, it's bugging me", he'd rather attack me as the "tickle monster" and inflict pain on me rather than being the "real" dad and spanking me. Sometimes he seems so smart, he's diabolical. Other times, he's clueless. Either way, it was weird. Weird to be raised by Aspergers. Any info. that you may have stumbled across would be helpful to help me understand what the hell was going on. My email address is: [email protected]

End

OK so that was it. It was weird. It's like as if at times my dad had enough awareness, after behaving inappropriately, to say or do things that made me think he did it on purpose to be mean. How can that be Aspergers? Unless, he is Aspergers but has discovered diabolical ways to be mean, or he has discovered phrases to say that make him seem conscious. I don't know...

I don't have links but I know I have read that this tickling "game" is a real form of actual bullying and can be really sadistic in nature. I can see why you are parsing it through AS to see if you can attribute this to a lack of awareness as opposed to bullying. I don't think AS is even close to being the major issue you had, at least not from this example.

AS is as you have probably read is a spectrum. I have no way of knowing if any of this has to do with a lack of awareness of physical boundaries or appropriateness vs the NT answer which would be clear-cut bullying.

Did your father use a diagnosis as an excuse or did your mother do so in order to excuse him. To me, if your mother enabled him, that is a big part of the problem, here. Her trying to rescue you while she happened to be there is not sufficient anymore than it would be OK if one parent prevented child sexual abuse while she happened to be there, but allowed the other parent access knowing that it was going on.

I tend to be curious about why so many people with bad parents where (one or both) are aspies latch on specifically to the AS. I am asking that respectfully b/c as someone who is informally diagnosed and also a parent, it is a puzzlement to me. Does it provide some kind of relief to think bad treatment is the result of a disorder as opposed to just meanness or bad parenting?

It is not that I don't think AS can affect parenting---it does---in cases like noise tolerance for bickering children--and the ability to make playdates---you know that kind of thing. It doesn't make someone cruel. Generally speaking, a lot of us are capable of making adjustments when something is pointed out to us; if we come off in a way we don't intend or something like that. Some are not. it depends on where on the spectrum on sits; what ones specific strengths and weaknesses are, and honestly rigidity is a huge factor. If someone is very rigid, it is obvioulsy hard to make adjustments both in thought and mind.

AS does not have a correlation to bullying or sadism. People with AS are far more likely to be the victim of bullying than the perpetrator.

I don't how all of this fits in with the rest of your childhood.