Raised by Aspergers parent

Post Reply New Topic

You've said that your mom kept you away from your father when you were a baby because your crying made him mad at her. You've also said that he wanted to give your baby anything she wanted to keep her happy. I have a hard time reconciling these two narratives. My impression is that, had your mother allowed your father to care for you in your infancy, he would have given you whatever you wanted to make you happy. Perhaps that would have been a bit "permissive", but it seems better than not engaging with your child at all. I question whether your mother kept you from your father for your sake, or for her own?

That is also a good point. Maybe, he was mad not because of sensory issues but because the OP as a baby was unhappy, and he and the Op's mom had differences in opinion on how permissive to be. I am the type to not really think you can spoil an infant; but I know that many people feel that you can, and they believe that it is a big problem to do this. (Again, not wanting to wade into the Mommy Wars, here) People are very opinionated about these things and it is possible that the OPs mother thought the potential spoiling was an issue or that he just to make the crying stop, as opposed to getting rid of the distress.

To the original poster: Empathy does express in weird ways, sometimes with autism, and it is possible that it was genuine distress at hearing a baby suffer. I know I felt this with mine, when my son was so colicky.

Yippy Skippy, You described my father in a nut shell. He is two extremes and no middle. At either extreme, getting angry at everyone in the room if the baby is crying (because it seemed to hurt him) or being a slave to the cry shoving anything and everything at the baby to make it stop crying (because it seemed to hurt him), the problem was still the same. It was all about him and his distress that he was wanting resolved. Not a bit of real caring for the baby. Or is that the Aspie part of him, where he did care for the baby and felt deep compassion, but had poor skills to advocate for the baby. In my baby years, because I was so calm and quiet, it was really easy to just have him leave the room and let my mom attend to me, because I stopped crying so quickly and was easily consoled. In my daughter's years, there was no consolation. She went on and on. I asked my mom for her magic to help me understand my own baby, help her be happy also, and wanted my moms intuition on how to anticipate my daughter's needs. But she baffled my mother also and my mother thanked God she had me as a child and didn't have one like my daughter right off the bat. It took the two of us mothering my daughter just to keep the house from blowing up (my dad), but still, because it was a 24/7 drama with her crying and fussing, my dad was in a tailspin of anger for years. It's very hard to calm down a crying baby when you are getting yelled at and hounded from behind your back as she cries. We both (mom and I) had never seen the side of my dad, where he shoved everything and anything at the baby just to stop the crying, I think, because it wasn't necessary for me. This was a new behavior that came out, just due to the quantity and opportunity to try this new thing. We all struggled with it.

I don't think my mom kept me to herself because she was selfish or a control freak. She wanted his help, but his anger preceded his presence. Who would want a yelling, angry, distressed person taking care of the baby. It's scary. He just seemed very incapable. My life was about protecting him from me.

I don't see these as two extremes, I see them as consistent. The baby is crying, therefore he wants to help the baby however he can. When he sees other adults not responding similarly, it makes him angry at them. I think the crying distresses him not because it is an annoying noise, but because he empathizes so strongly with the baby.



I think you are wrong. Look at the man on the couch. Did he struggle all his life, to the point where he is mentally and emotionally exhausted, because he doesn't give a crap about his family? Is that what someone does when they don't care?

Maybe you are right. I keep saying that the man confuses me. I wonder if we are both right, since he seems to be a mix if Aspergers triggers and reactions, as well as conscientious, purposeful, choices to be mean.

I can see why I would interpret his behavior as selfish. His reactions to her crying (and me crying when I was a baby), were so overt, aggressive, loud, scary, angry, and intimidating, that the focus would shift from the baby to the man acting like a big baby. It was like having a baby and temper throwing (adult size) toddler at the same time. Why he would choose to advocate for the baby's distress through an anger that was so explosive, it was too much, is beyond me??? But, it also seemed like his own anger exasperated himself. He would be in a tizzy over the baby's tizzy and then he'd be thriving off his own anger, spun out of control, upsetting himself further and taking over all of the attention.

Another element to this is jealousy, I wonder. Typical daddies sometimes struggle with feeling jealous of the baby because they are no longer the women's sole focus. He'd had my mom's focus and care for some time before I was born (thank god I was an easy baby at least). But, there might be some resentment there (on his part) for my very life existence and that is why he didn't participate in my care as a baby. Her baby, her problem, just keep the thing quiet. ??? And due the his poor communication skills about what he's really feeling (admitting to a jealousy), instead it was just easier to be mean, aloof, and disconnected.

In my daughter's situation, perhaps he did care and he was trying to advocate for her. What I don't understand is the intensity of his anger in that??? How could he have been so angry with both my mom and I trying to attend to a baby that was unable to be soothed. It's wasn't like as if she was ignored. She cried continually without soothing, no matter how much we tried to "read" her cries. Even if we didn't understand her, we would do all that we could to help meet her needs. We were there, paying attention, trying to problem solve (is the diaper too tight, is the diaper too loose, is she hot, is she cold, does she need to be swaddled, does she hate swaddling, is she tired, does she need a massage, would a bath help, is she hungry, does she need a binki, rock her, don't rock her, undress her, leave her alone, Tylenol, too much Tylenol?, formula?, switch formula? = all fruitless, just continual crying a good portion of every day and night). She was something else, I tell ya! All I know is, whatever we did, she lived. She lived screaming and we lived amongst it, while he was mad at us.

I think we are getting off track with the permissiveness issue. Knowing myself, as an attachment parent and a very permissive and attentive parent, I am not at the end of the pendulum where I'd let my baby "scream it out". Not that type of parent at all. Under total attention and attentiveness to the baby, she cried horridly anyways. And that was difficult for my dad to tolerate.

I am beginning to realize that perhaps, he was frustrated with the crying and scared like the rest of us that she was in pain and couldn't be comforted. Because of his inability to communicate what he was really feeling (scared for her) he expressed it in anger and in defeat (just do anything to shut it up). She made us all feel defeated no matter how much we attended to her.

I still don't know exactly what the issue was when she was born and why she cried a good 90% of the day, seemed like for years. The only thing that I have guessed so far, is that something was wrong with my baby, but we must have done something right to keep her alive. And it set a demeanor and behavioral habit in her that was very difficult for all of us to cope with throughout her adolescence. My father's actions (giving her whatever she wants) didn't help the situation. It dragged problems out (such as her distress over being weaned from the binki for example) and it gave her more opportunity to practice the poor behaviors (screaming and tantruming to get what she wanted). For example: If she was allowed to go through the throws of distress over the absence of the binki for two days, and then began living without it, it would be two days of turmoil, distress, and struggle. But with him buying new binki's, sneaking them to her (just to shut her up), and yelling at me for not giving her own, it dragged the problem out for months and months longer than necessary. And the tantrum behavior was practiced for a longer duration of time in her life. It manifested as part of her personality and character, which I have always tried to put my foot down about. And she resents me to this day for it. I am a very giving, permissible, attentive parent, but I do not give in to bad behaviors. If she wanted something, she'd have to behave appropriately to get it. She hated that and she'd flip flop and struggle through testing both ways to see how things worked out. Uggh!

Regarding the cry: You mentioned this in another thread. Her cry was shrieking and disturbing. No one wanted to spend time with me around it because it never stopped. It wasn't fun. We could never figure it out. Even into her adolescent years she spent a good portion of her time, crying and I could never figure her out. I am still at a loss over a lot of things.

My years as a childcare provider were very healing for me though. I now have experience with many babies with different issues and communication cries. I could read all of them easily and I could meet their needs. The only baby that came close to my daughter was one baby that would not sleep and would cry the whole time her mommy was at work. She was a breast feed baby, who refused the bottle of breast milk, and refused the binky; very smart. And she never compromised on this for 6 months. She cried all day long as she chose to starve herself and be hungry. But she didn't die of starvation because she was attached to the boob all evening and all night long. Mommy and I knew she'd somehow survive until she grew big enough for table foods. She went from boob to plate and also rejected the sippy cup. Funny character. She learned how to sip out of a Dixie cup before she was 1 year old. At least her issue was known, understood, and survived. My daughter cried as if "air" were hurting her.

There were more issues with her besides the crying, like the way she looked through me and not at me and rejected hugs unless she wanted to give a quick one..... but that's a whole different thread.

I am trying to understand my dads issue (dwelling in the past) because I really am a totally confused and baffled adult over this, and I don't want to be that way. There is no peace in confusion. I really want to understand him, understand what was the deal, and let it settle in me.

Do you know how very few people care to talk about this kind of stuff? And give me the time and patience to indulge in these descriptions? Most people (especially over the internet) are very mean!! ! And they try to insight judgment and fighting. I just want you all to know that I appreciate your challenging feedback, so if I seem defensive, I apologize. I don't mean to argue to dismiss you. All of this is very hard for me to wrap my mind around.

No worries. I get that it is a difficult thing to parse through. A certain amount of defensiveness is going to be natural when you bare things to an outside world who challenges your assumptions.

A tangent, I know (We tend to do that, as well) but I wonder if your daughter might not have some spectrum in her. There is a genetic element, after all. It isn't that an NT baby can't have colic, but a few things struck me about what you said. Babies are actually pretty resilient in many ways, and if you think that indulgences and inconsistent parenting (meaning the differences between your dad's and yours) set a tone at that age, that would be very unusual I think. Meaning, once she got past the intense crying stage, it should have been possible to correct.

My son is diagnosed autistic, and we have made some short-run choices that we knew we would have to fix, but we did them, anyway because we felt the alternative was worse. In other words we got him, knowingly into a habit, we knew was not sustainable and the would have to fix it.

An example: When he was younger, we were working on getting him to tolerate eating in a restaurant. (he is still picky about it, but that is another matter) so we would take him to very family-friendly places to build up a tolerance. Now, in the beginning, most of the time one of us would have to take him out when he cried, so as not to disturb people, and we would literally alternate eating, and being outside with him, so we both would get a turn. Now we knew darn well, we were rewarding his crying with doing what he wanted, but we viewed it #1 as he was reacting to something---maybe lighting--maybe something else---and we were relieving that discomfort, and #2 We were acclimating him to something new--which for an autistic child is hard, and important to do delicately --- so as to desensitize but not traumatize. Anyway, to this day he does think he has more input than he probably ought to on restaurants, but we really have gotten most of that resolved, and in the long run it was worth it.

Why did I tell you this long boring story? I am showing that "bad habits" can be overcome and that baby/toddler inconsistencies in caring should not carry into adolescence. So I think either this was going on longer than I inferred, or something else was going on.

Circling back to topic, here how maybe it relates to your dad. Sometimes autistic people can have something like autistic radar, where maybe we don't know we or a certain person is autistic or autistic-like, but we can tell someone is like us in a profound way. Looking back on people I was friends with in the past, I can see this now. Is it possible he noticed something about your daughter that he recognized, on a level he did not maybe understand consciously. Do they similar in those kinds of ways? I ask this because it could be a reason why he was extra-protective of your daughter. He might have thought he knew something you and your mom did not about how to parent her.

All of my daughter's life, I've been telling people, "something is wrong with my baby." She's 24 now. And I'd get typical advice, suggestions, and feedback, but it was if no one ever really understood what I was trying to describe. If she is on the spectrum, she barely is or she's developed coping/masking skills that have kept her off the radar in school and work. I wouldn't doubt it if it's the same for me.

I appreciate your "boring examples". I have shared a few and I will probably share more. Here's one: Because I was raised in such a quiet environment (although overcompensated later on as a childcare provider by letting the kids get really loud at times in ways that no human being should be able to endure), I also still need quite a bit of quiet time. Maybe, my need for peace and quiet is a "mom" thing. But I tend to like my alone time a bit too much. The bickering of the kids, random, starling noises while I'm driving, my youngest daughter's whistling habit, all increase my stress level to the point where it literally becomes hard for me to breath or concentrate (and I begin talking robotically- weird, lol). Brain overload. It's at those points where I wonder, if I am within reason or if I have a hard time in a loud, busy environment.

Your restaurant example is helpful. It helps me see how some behaviors were changed in her and others were like a stone that I threw myself against until I was a bloody mess. She was kind of hyper and loud as a kiddo, so we did the same thing in restaurants. We walked her around for an "explore" to the bathroom or waiting area for the duration of the meal. We took turns too. That was the permissive part of my parenting. Had we not supported her in this way, she would have been reeling in her seat. But she doesn't do that now. Somewhere along the line, with enough exposure, she learned to sit up in her seat, not under the table, not laying down in the booth, not climbing over the back, and behave like the rest of us. But trust me, we rarely ate out because sheesh!, it was a challenge and a lot of work.

There are things about her that kind of "trained" me as a parent, that other parents didn't seem to have to do for their children. She would have melt downs when exposed to new environments (such as restaurants and grocery stores). In order to take her anywhere, I learned to pre-adventure with a ritualistic routine. The more she was prepared for the environment and knew what to expect (or be reminded of) the more focused she was. This required a lot of descriptive talk with her. For example if we were going to go to the grocery store: I had to talk about it before we left, guide her to look for landmark buildings along the way (McDs), tell her that she'd be sitting in the cart (for the millionth time), she can put her own buckle on in the cart, she will hold onto my wallet but not open it, our first stop is the deli to get a corndog, she can pick one box of crackers but not ask for anything more, hands stay in the cart and not tugging on mommy's hair. I think you get where I'm going. Breaking things down in detail helped her behave. My two younger kids don't require any prep at all. I can take them anywhere, unaware of what's appropriate behaviorally and they will clue in. If we walk into a Dr. office, a library, church, the grocery store, they know it's not monkey around time. And if they push it, a little verbal correction with a strong tone, and they know to get in line. Addy seemed stubborn and a total mess, if we didn't have a specific, reliable, predictable, routine. Different kids.... kids are different. But can you see how when I describe things, it almost just seems very "normal" and wise as a parent? So, we figured out ways to stay off the radar and I apparently lack the ability to really describe what the problem was to the professionals. Things seem simply solved with simple tricks like preparatory talk. However, amplify that into quirky techniques over everything to help her be successful and it starts to look like something else is going on.

With no diagnosis for her, no formal training or professional advice and direction for me, the supports I put in place for her were genius (lol, I think). But, I know exactly where this intuition came from. With her as my daughter, I was finally not in a powerless position. I was able to make things happen for her and apply solutions for her, that I had wished I could have done to my dad. His issues are big, overwhelming, and scary, almost paralyzing to me, because he's my dad and a grown man. But, when a kid does the exact same thing, I am intuitively able to know exactly what's up (besides her crying as a baby) and what will help.

That identifying technique you mentioned, where people on the spectrum can sense each other, I totally have that with kids. Not so much with adults but with kids. I think you are onto something about my dad feeling protective over her because maybe there was something about her cry or distress that he felt he understood. But, even still with that, even he didn't know what to do for her. We were all at a loss.

This sounds like a mild autistic shutdown. I get them, too. My thinking, speech, and motor skills slow down and resemble a drunk person. Fortunately, I can recover with an hour or two of peace. Some people are affected more profoundly and require days to bounce back. I guess I would call my issue a "brownout" rather than a full shutdown.

Another interesting thing about the spectrum is that professionals are way less likely to identify girls than boys. Girls tend to go under the radar because they can usually appear more social than boys. Also, because there is a history of boys being more likely to have autism, they tend to dismiss the symptoms in girls. Yet girls tend to have greater social obligations, and other girls have greater expectations for their peers than boys.

I wish we had the ability to just hit a "like" on some of the posts here. I like the last two posts from both of you.

We have taken a bit of a rabbit trail on my daughters issues and I really appreciate your attention and feedback on that. Over the course of our conversation, a few things are becoming clear to me about what it's been like for me to raised by Aspergers (the topic of this forum).

1.) A person can both have Aspergers and also choose to be mean. One does not absolve the other.
2.) There are legitimate confusions, frustrations, and traumas having been raised by a man with Aspergers who also chose to be mean.
3.) This formed me but I don't have to remain baffled and confused. Due to being raised in an environment where things were awkward, had "peculiars", and some socially/relationally unacceptable behavior was demonstrated, it is my responsibility to wade through these habits and determine for myself what may be a learned behavioral trait and what might be part of my genetics (perhaps the stress from noise).

I haven't seen my daughter or my dad in 7 years, due to a big family fight. And I have been praying for reconciliation. That can't be done in a healthy way if I return to the situation baffled and confused. I have been praying for clarity, answers, and peace. And I am learning a lot here. Thank you very much

Bumping the thread in hopes of moving a new member's conversation.

My mother never wanted to take anyone's word for anything, always being suspect of what she could not see for herself. When I said that my father had Aspergers, an understanding I came to after a nephew was diagnosed as being on the spectrum and I did the research, she assumed I was just blowing smoke. She told my sister this after she saw a show on TLC profiling a man with Aspergers and was astounded to find that he was just like her husband! Maybe I wasn't wrong after all, though she would never tell me.

I had no doubts. And when I said the word to the staff in the hospital, they just nodded their heads, the pattern coming clear to them.

What my mother never understood was that she too had Aspergers. To her, life was just a massive disappointment, a place where nobody made her happy, instead annoying her with their stupid insistence on doing things their own way. Everyone was out to hurt her, from her mother to her children. She could never make new friends, so she was just isolated, hurt and angry in ways that she could never really understand, instead just spraying her pain over her family.

At the table she could never seem to find the end of a story, instead having it waver on into dust. She was unable to pay attention to the stories of others, often just breaking in with her story or even walking away. When her children were hurt or angry she just cared that they were making her look bad. I didn't stay home sick from school even one day after second grade; I knew that things would always be worse at home where I would be seen as a whining intrusion.

She was not physically engaged with her children, unable to play with them as she was not coordinated or athletic at all. She didn't touch us except until she decided to surrogate spouse us in our teens.

Everything was all about her and her emotions, emotions that she had no way to understand, own or manage.

I took care of them in the last decade of their life, a crushing job. My mother was still angry at her mother, but the more I understood her as Aspergers, the more I felt for her mother who had a wilful and disconnected child growing up in the late 1920s and 30s, even before Dr. Asperger had identified the pattern.

I never saw myself as taking care of my mother but rather as helping my father take care of my mother. He was incredibly sweet and loving in his own crackpot engineer manner, always avoiding emotional conflict but willing to explain why those experts were idiots and why he had to publish another technical paper even though they always blocked him, one calling him a "sociopath." He was a man who could not take yes for an answer, having to explain over and over and over again what we had already agreed with.

I knew that I had to be there to protect him or my mothers demands would crush him.

The impossible part of this was how it shaped me. I never learned to be grounded, confident that others would engage and understand me rather than making it all about them. I always felt unsafe at home and unsafe at school, where no one could understand the struggles in my home life. The strategies I modelled after the ones I saw my parents use were isolating and impossible, leaving me acting like I had Aspergers without the insulation that brings.

I became a caretaker very, very early. I stood up against them, earning me the nickname "Stupid" in the family, the target patient who called out the problem so must be silenced. The enmeshment with my parents was intense, and having no healthy models and support for owning my own life past the limits of their vision. I took care of them even in the face of people who thought I was a fool, for surely they were adults and didn't need the kind of attention and protection I gave them.

It was tough to the end. My mother would complain that my father had hurt her when he sometimes put the children first and I would scream inside, knowing that I was one of those children and that we needed and deserved to be protected. She complained to a health care aide so much that they blamed me for abuse and refused to come back. My sister spent time trying to placate my mother by deciding to leverage me to do the things I refused to let my mother manipulate me into doing, often leaving me crushed and alone even as I protected her, also somewhere on the spectrum.

And the absolute worst part of all of this (and the much, much more that occurred) was how little of it I could explain to anyone else in the world. If you don't know Aspergers, you can't imagine what this was like. A very few people understand what having one parent was like, but with two, it is relentless and isolating. I would reach out to others, mostly getting the response of parents who just want their spectrum kids to be fixed, beyond any comprehensions.

My immersion in a Aspergers world has shaped me in powerful ways. I am a master of the meta and the literal, a natural outcome of years of being the translator, helping them negotiate hospitals and systems and such, but my own dreams and emotions are stunted, never having the moments of childhood to return to. I was adultified early and it very much made me who I am.

I suspect this all is baffling and overwhelming, but that is just the expectation I have been trained for.

Callan I relate to a lot of what you've written. Although I've come to realise that my mother must have some sort of personality disorder as well, borderline maybe. Everything always seems to revolve around her. I gave up looking out for my Dad, who has his own problems, he's not always easy to deal with, but he has been suppressed by her over-the-topness.

I left and decided that I needed to look after myself.

However, when they do something bewildering I always think to myself, "would I be angry if a 15 year old did this?" And remind myself that they have developmental issues and they are only doing the best that they can do.

Conversations with them are always slightly surreal, even the more ordinary ones can take an odd turn. My mother suffers from paranoid delusions (yes I know that's got nothing to do with autism) but I have to be careful to avoid any triggers or she'll start down a path connecting dots that aren't there and creating some scenario that isn't really there.

It's difficult when you have to be the adult one your whole life. I am not really sure how to rely on other people. I took a trip by myself this weekend and people asked me if I went with anyone and when I told them no I didn't, they were like, you're so brave, I don't know how you do it. But I've always been alone, it would be more difficult for me to organise taking someone with me on the trip, it's more difficult to imagine that someone would want to go with me.

I could make a list of all of the personality issues I claimed about my mother over the years, including her profound narcissism and immense self-pity, but as I came to see her life as centred around the struggle with not being neuro-typical, it seemed to me that much of her challenges while not directly related to her Aspergers were very much connected to the frustration, hurt and separation that not being able to fit in, to feel seen, understood and valued caused over the years.

There is no doubt that trying to hold my parents to any criteria of how people "should" act would be futile and offensive. They very much did the best they could even if that left their kids battered. I am more distressed by a society that had no way to reach them, to help them. They had no effective support for learning to manage their own way of mind.

When I was sent to a therapist in eighth grade (the one who told them to stop calling me "stupid") I only agreed to go if someone would help my parents. Of course, as a kid I had no clout to get them help, because I was the problem, right?

The ability to both be hurt & angry while also being loving & caring is crucial in tending to parents. It was very important that I be understanding and compassionate, but that didn't mean that I wasn't also frustrated and pained while engaging them.

If we don't learn to trust other people with our tender heart when we are young can we ever really make up that ground? My sister spoke today of how a friend saw that if she was locked in her studio for days she would never be bored or desperate, only finding new projects to engage her. I laughed and noted how a friend when I was in college for education asked me if I played alone a lot as a child. "Is there any other way?" I answered.