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mysterious_misfit
Velociraptor
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Age: 27
Posts: 438
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 Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject: If you were dx'd as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
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| If you were diagnosed with an ASD (or self-dx'd) as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
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Io
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jan 22, 2008
Posts: 64
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes, and I was 25. |
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Triangular_Trees
What is right is sometimes found on the left.
Joined: Jul 18, 2007
Posts: 2053
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| yes - i mentioned it in the email where i detailed every reason why i hated my mom |
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Mikomi
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 25, 2008
Posts: 781
Location: On top of your TV, lookin' at you funny.
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah. Sadly it made my mother feel exhonerated of all wrongdoing, since that must mean everything that went wrong was MY fault.  Classic.
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Curiosity is not a mental illness. |
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sinsboldly
Free Range Aspie
Joined: Nov 22, 2006
Age: 57
Posts: 8059
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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I was half disappointed and half relieved that my parents were long since passed when I learned. At first I pined and fretted that they never knew. . but later, reading these pages on WP I came to know that . . given their other mind sets, they would have probably not seen the Dx as something positive at all, and feel quite exonerated by any of their attempts to curb my will, suppress my exuberance and annihilate my libido.
so, I will never know. Let it be
Merle |
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MsTriste
OTS
Joined: Dec 08, 2005
Age: 44
Posts: 3373
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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I can relate to both Mikomi and Triangular Trees.
My mother has never mentioned it, refuses to respond when I bring it up, despite that she has completely repressed the fact that I got it from her.
I hate my mother too. I'm 44, too old really to hate my mother, but it's a fact and I no longer feel guilty about it. Her denial of our AS makes me hate her even more. |
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sufi
Snowy Owl
Joined: Dec 16, 2007
Posts: 160
Location: mid-michigan
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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My father is dead. I have no intention of ever telling my mom, my brothers, my children or my husband. What would it accomplish? Nothing in my life would change. They would not change and I doubt they would understand me any better. What would I expect from them by telling them? Treat me nicer? use the AS as an excuse when I screw up? Forgive me for past transgresstions? We already have our scripts in front of us and my AS will not change thier behavior or level of understanding. I feel this is mine to understand, dealwith or improve upon. I may mention asperger's casually to my nephew as I think he is aspie and should probably be aware of it but he needs to come to that conclusion himself.
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If you have one option you have an obsession.
If you have two options you have a delema.
If you have three options you have a choice.
Look for three or more options.
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fathom73
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Sep 04, 2007
Posts: 43
Location: MOB
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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When I first began to suspect I was AS, my mother's the first one I told. Especially since I realized that my younger brother, 26yo, is also an Aspie. I wanted her to tell him. She is the only one who believed me, and the only who could look back and say "Well that answers some questions." Everyone sees me as normal, because I've done well to cover up my problems, so no one believes it. My husband thought I was being a hypochondriac. When I made an appt. to be tested, he told me I wasn't going to find what I'm looking for. Then he refused to discuss the issue at all until I got a diagnosis. I thought it would bring some release of pressure, finally knowing why I am the way I am, but now I just feel like I am less of a person that everyone else. Less capable. It's a passing idea which I am sure to exhaust and grow out of in the near future, but as of now, it's causing MAJOR panic attacks. I don't exactly know what to do with the diagnosis, because most of the therapists around here are MORONS.
My father passed a few years ago, and I would have told him. He was terminally ill for 13 years, but he was always sure he would get better. He would have had a positive attitude about the whole thing. |
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sinsboldly
Free Range Aspie
Joined: Nov 22, 2006
Age: 57
Posts: 8059
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| sufi wrote: | | My father is dead. I have no intention of ever telling my mom, my brothers, my children or my husband. What would it accomplish? Nothing in my life would change. They would not change and I doubt they would understand me any better. What would I expect from them by telling them? Treat me nicer? use the AS as an excuse when I screw up? Forgive me for past transgresstions? We already have our scripts in front of us and my AS will not change thier behavior or level of understanding. I feel this is mine to understand, dealwith or improve upon. I may mention asperger's casually to my nephew as I think he is aspie and should probably be aware of it but he needs to come to that conclusion himself. |
I thank you for your observations, sufi. You are absolutely right. It all resides within us. That is what all those people that don't have that social conduit into us want, is to be helpful (and hopefully less irritating) are trying to interact socially with us. Whether we care to be social and let people into our hearts is our own choice and my observation is that we are as happy in the end with one as for the other.
Those I trust, I tell, and those are few enough.
Merle |
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traveller011212
Velociraptor
Joined: May 27, 2008
Age: 28
Posts: 476
Location: Right here!!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| fathom73 wrote: |
I don't exactly know what to do with the diagnosis, because most of the therapists around here are MORONS. |
I know how you feel. I was fortunate enough to get a therapist who listened to me enough to find out that most of the AS and HFA research out there in the area of why and how we feel is complete BS. You need to find one who is willing to learn and knows computers (talking to me is like talking to a computer, literal).
For me, I told my parents and they have yet to get past the whole 'are you calling us bad parents' thing. They were, and still are, but that is not what I said at all. |
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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
Phoenix
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Joined: Jun 19, 2008
Posts: 1762
Location: US, midmap
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:30 am Post subject: |
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If you are older I don't see the problem discussing it with your family. I did some unusual things as a child. I was "unusual" anyway and didn't fit in anywhere. Your mother must have noticed some of your eccentricities?
I was tested at age four and was found to be "educable" to attend a regular school, regular classes and my mother was all set to pretend I was just like everyone else and all I needed was to just be allowed to be a "kid" and I would learn like all the other kids and she was very out of touch with my reality.
I did suffer a lot but I think it was more because of the people around me than because of me. I learned a lot about human nature. People like playing these hierarchy games and often they will take someone who doesn't fit in and use them to bond with each other over. I was that person in my peer group.
But I don't discount my gifts because I had them and I impressed the administrators who tested my educability. They thought I was wonderful and wanted the residents to witness my abilities, my mother told me.
So there I was with all this potential and then my mother puts me in this school with all these kids and somehow things went downhill from there. I believe that I had a lot of potential and then my mother ruined it with her short sightedness and denial. She wanted to pretend everything was fine and I was doing things that were creating a hostile environment. Even if I was doing things, I think it was neurologically based. I had a diagnosis of ADHD, AS was not yet an official diagnosis and I was too talkative to be diagnosed with anything but AS.
I was talkative, obsessive, and I did things like spin, draw for hours, jump on the bed, swings, anything that caused to move in a pattern I impulsively did.
So everyone thought I was different but there was no name for why I was and people acted like I was more in control than I actually was. It was always a battle between my mother and a teacher who wanted me out of her class. That is the one outstanding feature of my early education and it left me feeling like I didn't belong and didn't have what it took to make it in school. I just think my mother didn't have what it took to make sure I had a decent early education.
Just wanted to add that I am greatful that I have Asperger's I think it's the only reason I can write this today, respond to this forum and have the quality of life that I have. If I didn't have the higher IQ Aspies are known to have, I would have never learned anything in the class room. The teachers I had sure didn't take the time to teach me, that is certain!
Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:13 am; edited 2 times in total |
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spudnik
Ain't I a Stinker
Joined: Feb 20, 2008
Posts: 3775
Location: Calgary, Alberta Canada
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:47 am Post subject: |
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I am self Dx back in February, then was confirmed by my doctor, I would have liked to tell my parents, that I had
AS but they have both passed on, my dad may have also been an aspie, as he had alot of the same traits I have.
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Belfast
Vast Ambivalence
Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Age: 35
Posts: 1716
Location: New England
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: Re: If you were dx'd as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
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| mysterious_misfit wrote: | | If you were diagnosed with an ASD (or self-dx'd) as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
Was dx'd in 2004, age 31.
My mother had already died a few years before I got the dx. She would have been supportive of any idea I had about why I felt so messed up, as she had her own problems (bipolar). I wish she had lived longer (despite my having a lot of anger towards her), for this reason.
My father didn't really get it when I told him, though he admitted to having some symptoms in common. He was unable to tolerate complaints I had (even before this dx) about how he (and my stepmother) treated me throughout my life-he would get angry and/or sad, and then focus of conversation would shift to his reaction, rather than my attempt to be heard. He died a few years later & we never were able to properly/openly discuss this-he was generally dismissive of psychology, therapy, and things like that.
Have little to no contact or relationship with remainder of my family, we don't get along-and that was true even before I got this dx-so I chalk it up to personality conflict/incompatibility. They don't really know me, I'm not really interested in them, and these are unlikely to change.
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*"You cannot administer a wicked law impartially-it destroys everyone it touches, its violators as well as its upholders."* |
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drybones
Toucan
Joined: May 15, 2008
Age: 39
Posts: 254
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:05 am Post subject: Re: If you were dx'd as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
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| mysterious_misfit wrote: | | If you were diagnosed with an ASD (or self-dx'd) as an adult, did you tell your parents? |
currently i have no intention of discussing it with either parent.
i doubt my father would understand or accept it and we havent had contact for years so its not going to happen. im closer to my mother so there might be a possibility there but not in the near future. |
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Anemone
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 18, 2008
Age: 43
Posts: 790
Location: Vancouver, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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I told my mother and she said "So that's what it was. And here you thought you'd been sexually abused." Both, mom, both.
And then she said "But what do you want us to do?" in the tone of voice of someone who's never done anything in her life and can't figure out why she should have to. I had been on welfare for some years at that point. My parents are pretty rich. Also pretty clueless when it comes to parenting.
On the other hand, I told a women I knew who was not a family member and who was about ten years older. She said "Oh, that's why you're like --" In other words, she got it, even though she'd never thought about it before.
If your parents could figure it out, they probably already would have but might be missing the name for it. By the time you're an adult, family social roles are pretty much stuck in place already, and aren't likely to change. Unless someone dies . . . |
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