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Having grown up (I am now 42) in what I thought was 'just' a dysfuntional home, I now realise that I am the product of an aspergers family. I seem to have married into a similar type family and am now the mother of an aspergers son, sister of an aspergers brother, aunt of an aspergers nephew and daughter of an aspergers father.

I am also an in law to people who fit the profile but on the female side, on my side it seems to be male dominated.

In all, it's quite complicated as no one except myself and my mother accept it, the aspies all think that there is NO problem on their side. They are rude, obnoxious, aggressive in speech and mannerisms, self righteous, and most of all pedantic and depreaciating of others, they dont seem to accept anything is wrong! People tolerate them ONLY through family or friend ties, most of the time they are avoided.

I am up against a brick wall here as people in the family are now threatening to cut them off completely unless they learn to be social or at the very least, polite, they wonder why they are so rude, obnoxious ect.


What to do? I cannot for one moment announce to them that they are not normal in their behaviour or their will be a complete family breakdown. What can I do?

Ah. You have hit the center question.

There are two schools of thought here....one says you would never expect deaf people to "just learn to talk" so why would you expect people with ASD to "just learn to behave?"

The other though recognizes that people with ASD are a minority. Whilst in the majority they must learn to mask their ASD. What the majority forgets is that that is not possible for all people and even for those who can do it, it can be a major task. All of one's energy can go to looking "normal."

Now, family is the place where all should be expected for who they are. Its unfortunity that you see your aspie family members as rude and obnoxious. I'm not ASD but I would see it as a blessing to be cut off from people who feel that way about me.

What can you do? Stay out of it is the only thing I can think of.

BeeBee

Thanks for replying, maybe I wasnt clear in my original post. I dont for one minute believe that they can learn to 'behave', it seems everyone is in denial in our family and tolerate if not cover up the 'unsocial errors of my family aspies. I was asking on advice on how to deal with it myself. I have already announced that I believe we have aspergers in the family BUT noone except my mother (who has lived with it for years, with my father and my brother, is willing to entertain the notion. I think they believe it easier to be in denial.

I worry for my son and my nephew, they dont seem to be able to discern that there is anything odd in their behaviour, I point it out to my son but 2 days later, he reverts to the same aggressive manner of speech. To put this in perspective, ie, perhaps he is asking where his shirt is ... he manages to make this question sound agressive and confrontational. Which gets peoples backs up straight away.

In effect, I dont know how to talk to my son, will I be best just directly saying "go and get tested for aspergers"

You seem to have read my post wrong and got yourself in to attack mode over nothing, please read again my original post without pre judging

thanks

minnie

I'm sorry if it seemed I attacked you. That was not my intent.

I am confused by your post but I'm very tired and readly admit I probably read it wrong.

Lets take as a given that there is Asperger's in your family. Lets assume people are open to getting an evalation. Lets assume your son's eval does come back as ASD. What will that do for you? Very little. The Dx will not change any behaviors and the relatives will be just as pissed as before. I have one sister who loves my son and one who would just as soon never see him again. The formal dx didn't change that at all.

I see a therapist. One of the things we discuss is how to respond to family who "don't get it." I hesistate to even discuss this further as how you respons is dependant on so many factors. What has worked for me may be a horrible solution for you.

As to how to talk to your son, that would depend on his age and temperment. The behavior that will cause him problems later in life (tone of voice, ect) can be molded by behavior modifaction. Again though, this is something I discuss with my therapist, not something the formal dx necessarily helped with. Sometimes I do get tired explaining to a 12 year old why some people respond to him as they do but its something I need to do. Natural consquences work.

Again, I am sorry I misread your post and hope this one is more on target.

BeeBee

I'm sorry.

Good luck.

It’s okay Bee Bee, I was just surprised at your reply, perhaps I rambled and wasn’t precise enough in my original post.


Lets take as a given that there is Asperger's in your family. Lets assume people are open to getting an evalation. Lets assume your son's eval does come back as ASD. What will that do for you? Very little.

On the contrary, it would explain a lot to me and I could learn more and feel better that my son would perhaps learn to modify things, as it is now, he just thinks everyone in the world is wrong about everything. He has no respect for anyone and is frequently rude because of this. He is 19 and steadily getting worse in his mannerisms, he also seems to have a complete lack of empathy and it is very apparent that he ‘over-acts’ emotions. Obviously I am worried about him and would love him to be able somehow to understand how others can be offended and see if he can build some sort of strategy. As it is now, when he is told he is being odd or rude, he can manage to stop it for 2 or 3 days, before slipping back to the same.

I suppose this all sounds pretty negative, it’s not, he is lovely, funny and a great guy. It’s just sometimes such hard work and his father and him come to words often over this. In short the strain is becoming too much really.

Thanks for your reply Bee Bee

I'm not sure if this will help much, but it may. I cannot offer you much advice on dealing with the situation, but I may be able to help you better understand where your son is coming from, as your description of him reminds me of myself to no small degree. Also, please, please understand that I am not attacking you, despite that it may seem that way at times; I have trouble figuring out how to phrase things I see as simply informative in such a manner as to avoid the likelihood of their being offensive.

If I were your son, this is how I would explain the behaviors you are experiencing:

Rudeness - this tends to occur from me simply because I tend toward raw, almost machine-like logic. I tend to see pleasantries and politeness as being a waste of energy. I become frustrated when people are offended, because from my perspective, what I say is what matters, not how I say it.
Obnoxiousness - Unfortunately, I'd have to have examples of actual behavior to understand what is meant by this.
Lack of empathy - I often seem cold or distant to people, lacking in empathy, while nothing could be further from the truth. I hate hurting people, and seeing other people suffer, and I often try to act in ways to make them feel better, when I feel I am able. However, when I was younger, I was far less likely to try and help people and otherwise show I have empathy due to the fact that I was terrified of screwing up and making matters worse. Another thing to note: I have trouble understanding the concept of 'grieving.' I feel compassion for people who are grieving, but I do not grieve myself, and the lack of being able to commiserate sometimes causes people to see me as cold or distant. Most of the time, if I seem cold or distant, it is because I am unaware that anyone feels hurt, sad, or otherwise in need of compassion.
Over-acting emotions - unfortunately, if your son is like me, it's not over-acting. My emotions are apparently a lot stronger than those of most other people--especially when I feel hurt, afraid, or angry--and this often results in my dramatically ranting about whatever it was that caused the emotion. At one point I became able to mostly keep this in check, so there _is_ hope, but a stress-breakdown some time ago caused me to relapse into amplified-emotions worse than they were before. I wish it were in my experience to tell you something you could give to your son to help him learn to control it, but I am unfortunately unable.
Returning to the same mannerisms - I'm not sure if this applies to NTs, but I'm under the impression it does: it is difficult for someone to go against their biological nature. It is doable, but it requires a constant effort. A conscious effort for a long enough period may make it an unconscious one, but it is unlikely that it will ever truly be 'fixed' from my experience.

I think there may be some advice I can offer, actually, as I hope I have done at least moderately well at learning to function moderately well in normal society. I did this by thoroughly studying, analyzing, and trying to understand other people from a logical standpoint. Drilling cause-and-effect into my head, and learning to utilize patterns to my advantage. Basically, you might wish to advise your son to approach dealing with other people the way he would approach solving a problem. Learn the 'right answers' and avoid the 'wrong answers' by detecting the patterns in how NTs communicate. Also, he will likely be able to learn my own fallback, which is apologizing and attempting to make amends in the event of a social blunder, though this is possibly more difficult than it sounds. (I did it by logically deducing that offending others is not conducive to social interaction, therefore it is, in fact, an error on my part when I make a social blunder.)

For the most part, I would hazard the key element is to perhaps try and find ways to explain the mechanics of things you want your son to change, as at least for me, it becomes far easier to deal with things when they can be logically taken apart, analyzed, and understood.

minnie, the place where you have the most control is over your son. Whether or not he is diagnosed, it might be a good idea to try to get him into some kind of behavioral therapy to help him work with these issues so he is not making people defensive when that isn't his intention. Or maybe even some kind of social skills training. Such things are offered.

As BeeBee was saying, we are certainly in a minority and one doesn't want to focus on "changing" as opposed to "adapting". Adaptive behavior will only end up making it easier on him. Though valuing his pleasurable eccentricities is necessary, too. To not make him feel as though he should alter his entire person; only those things which will end up helping him to make life and person-to-person interaction easier for him.

You as his mother can help him through the therapies I mentioned before as well as maybe getting some Behavioral Modification Training yourself so that his learning doesn't stop when he gets home. I'm sure you do some of these things without even realizing it. Behavioral therapy isn't "talk therapy" but a type of learning which helps with modifying ones behavior. And social skills training could no doubt be invaluable to help him become more aware of his behavior.

Both could certainly be viable options for your son.

As for the rest of the family, there I am at a loss as to what to do. I guess, since even though they're Aspies, they are adults and are essentially making these decisions. The best is just to prepare yourself for whatever happens. And take care of yourself, too. You sound stressed.

I agree with Sophist. Your son's behavior and your own are really the only things you have control over.
We got a formal DX for my daughter, because our parents kept saying we were wrong, she didn't have it and we were just bad parents. Having the formal DX seemed to help that area a little, but they still argue with us over what to do with her.
We are working with her mostly in the context of making her aware of good vs. bad behaviors. For example when she says "I can't find my shirt!" in an angry tone, we tell her that it didn't sound very nice and make her try again until she says it politely. Mostly we are trying to equip her to function in the NT world without making everyone around her mad.