Three aspies in one family

Post Reply New Topic

Daughter was dx'd last year. The better-half & myself just took the aspie self-tests and we both scored well into the ASD spectrum.

And our daughter ... she's going through heck right now ... she's 11 & hitting brick walls at the public school. The kids, the curricula, the teachers, the administration ... everyone except the school counselor, bless her heart.

I'm having a hard time too, partly b/c I'm looking back at 47 years of life where many past experiences, the bad ones, are taking on a new perspective. As a child I didn't start talking until I was 4 YO, hypersensitive, obsessive, withdrawn.

Now looking at the entire big picture I can see my own father was likely ASD, my mom (still living) shows the traits as well. The better0.5 has sisters and brothers on the spectrum. How my spouse & I were drawn together is something comical & as a marriage it's been a rough ride now & then (she also suffers from minor symptoms of multiple sclerosis however long remitting).

This is still all new to me & my wife. She has suspected her own ASD for the past year, it's a bit of an ego hit. It's been just a month for me, so I'm feeling pretty rough about all this. I haven't talked to my mom or brother in a month, too much emotion right now, too much. So many things happened... things that led to pointless suffering. Waking up in the middle of the night, that damned "hour of the wolf" 3:00 AM, anger, regret, the whole gamut of sensitive bullsh** (doncha just love it?).

So we are helping our daughter as best we can. We're almost on top of it and she gets absolutely showered with encouragement and love even when the sh** hits the fan. She absolutely hates school, esp. her NT peers. As if that weren't enough, the school administration is adding insult to injury while the school counseling side is trying to make sense of the situation (talk about schizoid...).

Metta,

Pseudomodo

I think most of my family are aspie. My Mum took the test, and she's now talking to her GP about diagnosis. It made things interesting growing up. I used to blame my mother and father for not properly 'equipping' me for life, until I discovered AS, realised I had it, and then realised that they both probably have it. I think most of my childhood was composed of my family all setting each other off into meltdowns. I stayed in my room a lot, reading.

My personal feeling is that there's definitely a genetic link. I also have a theory that aspies attract each other. My dad married one, and then he went out with another, post divorce. My brother is married to an aspie, I'm pretty certain of it. I'm looking out for the signs in my niece, I hope that I can help her as much as possible if she does turn out to be on the spectrum.

Sorry to hear about your daughter's struggles. I hated school as well. I pretty much saw it as a kind of internment camp where I was subjected alternately to massive levels of boredom and stress.

Buddhist are you? Much metta right back. May you find ways to make yours and your family's suffering diminish.

I agree there's a genetic link. I didn't have any speech delay per se (just difficulty communicating emotion) but the hypersensitive, obsessive, withdrawn...yeah, that was me. And it's my 12 year old. We both have been diagnosed with ADHD but not AS at ths point. I also have a 16 year old who has ADHD and was pretty obsessive when he was younger although that seems to be improving as he gets older (never did with me). My mother suffered depression, was introverted, withdrawn, didn't marry till she was 30, and tended toward being obsessive so I think it's inherited from her (my dad was very social and didn't get why others weren't). My husband has ADHD but can't stand my aspie traits. My youngest daughter, to me anyway, seems to be NT.

~Kate

Myself, both my brothers and my dad are aspies. It does tend to run in families, but at least theres more known about in now. They locked my brother in a psych hospital at 5 and threw random meds at him.