Just a funny anecdote about family members with traits.

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We waited to tell my mother in law about our son until we had some diagnosis. I know she wouldn't have accepted 'our' diagnosis. What's funny about it though is that she noticed some things with H. Like, he's super tidy, always puts his socks in his shoes, puts his shoes away, straightens the chairs at the table, etc. I look at his rigid, "must be perfect, must do the same thing, the same way, everyday" as uh-oh, we need to tame that. My mother in law (still, even with knowing the diagnosis) is so proud at home tidy H. is and how he has to have everything perfect. She'll say, "Oh, he is just like me." with a smile. For her, that's a super positive trait. She can't see it's a bit too much - like she's a bit too much.

If a person feels physically ill if in a room that is a bit dirty (we're not talking sty here, just normal living stuff with kids), if you can't go to bed at night without the pens all being straight, and the papers all stacked tidily. if you line things up in the refrigerator in tidy little rows, and HAVE to unpack and put everything away, even after being awake for 23 hours, that's not healthy or normal. But, she can get away with it because people think clean is best. So, it's better to be perfect... Um, maybe not. She loves the reign of terror she had on the cleaning stuff and nurses she worked with. They would say, "Uh-oh - Dr. H. is coming back from vacation today, everyone clean extra well." And since it's in a hospital setting, it's seen as it's OK to be super anal, but LIVING with someone like that is pure he$$ for everyone else. She's even said it about herself - about the only reflective thing I've noticed her say, "I think I'm too perfect to live with anyone else." (She's been divorced 3 times - with her choosing to leave).

Anyway, that was a tangent, but it's funny in a weird way pinpointing traits in other people.

ETA: she has other traits as well - she's socially odd, does inappropriate things and can't see it. Yet, she's a SUPER DUPER flirt. She is extremely rigid. Now, she has a healthy diet and eats almost all foods, but only if prepared as how she grew up. She definitely has a texture thing going on and she is a "schedule" freak. She hates eating outside the home. Even when married, she would stop by her home to eat with her mother and grandmother instead of eating at home with her IL's and husband. When we go out to a meeting or gathering, she'll only eat the thing I prepared, nothing else. And, she won't go to the bathroom outside the home unless it's an emergency. If she has to go to the bathroom when at our nearby mall, she'll come home to do it. She also said she never says "I love you" because why? They know it, why say it? And as a child, she would get punished A LOT for not apologizing or saying she was sorry. She says, "I couldn't say I was sorry if I wasn't." "I couldn't say I would never do it again, because how could I know for sure I wouldn't".

As we explore DS's diagnosis of AS, I am brought to mind (now, don't anybody get upset - I'm NOT implying AS is a mental illness, it's just the phrase strikes me) of Cary Grant's quote in Arsenic and Old Lace "Well, I don't quite know, Elaine. Look, I probably should have told you this before, but you see, well, Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops!"

My mother is exactly as you describe your MIL above, has also driven any number of cleaning ladies to distraction. I've finally realized that one way I can make her happy is by buying Christmas presents that feed into her AS/OCD tendencies: a UV sanitizing light, a jacket hanger for her car that keeps it from wrinkling. As a kid, she explained my social difficulties as all other childrens' bad upbringing. My father is more like me: solidly bipolar, prone to meltdowns and rages, disorganized and always working on some crazy project that rarely comes to completion. We don't really have a good relationship with them, as I'm not able to separate my own stuff from their stuff - I was the "identified patient" in that family (you can imagine what it must be like to be called out as crazy in that environment.)

I also realized that our most precious family story is suspect: my grandfather, blind at birth at the turn of the century, managed to graduate from college because he could remember an entire textbook after having it read to him once.

That's not even getting in to my in-laws, who I don't know as well. If you apply Occam's Razor to our family, you have a pretty good case for autism being a genetic trait. I am very grateful to have resources my parents didn't have.

Boy, this is so true. It's definitely everywhere EVERYWHERE in my husband's family and pretty high in my family too. No wonder both my boys have issues!

I get some hoarding genes from my grandmother. She's also very "must be this way" and avoids social situations. I love her dearly and I think I'm the only one who understands her.

I'm certain one of my aunts is bipolar and another one is on the schitzophrenic spectrum.

Other than that, most of my family either keeps it well hidden or hasn't got anything odd.
Other than a cousin with an eating disorder. And a father with control issues.

I thought all fathers had control issues. Sorry probably a topic for a different thread on a different board somehwere!

I know what you mean. My MIL is 82 yrs old, and she is the only one that all along thought everything was fine with my son. It was so frustrating, my son did not walk until he was 21 mos old, and she kept saying, he is gonna be fine. I remember once when he was 2, he had a fit that lasted about 30 minutes about a red crayon breaking. I just knew that this couldn't be normal, but she thought I was overreacting. Even when my son will walk around just saying nonsense stuff or making up words or saying random stuff, she still thinks he is fine.

Well, she raised 4 boys, and from what I can gather, at least 2 of them seem pretty Aspergery, and another one has kids that seemed to have some things going on. I never thought too much about her, but recently when I analyze it, she seems to have some things going on too.

I never saw her shed a tear when one of her son's passed away in his 40's, or when her husband of 54 yrs passed away. Maybe she cried in private, but I never saw it, and I was with her for awhile after it happened. Recently, when she visited for my son's 5th b-day, she stayed upstairs while his party was going on. I thought well, is it because she is 82 and doesn't want to be around the kids???

Oh well, what can you do? At least I am glad that she accepts my DS for who he is! Whenever we are around her, I just play along like everything is just fine..........