How did your parents put you down for your symptoms?

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i never knew where i stood with my parents. one week they were understanding and supportive, fully acknowledging my illness and trying to get me help; however, at any point--and i never knew when--they'd decide that certain shortcoming of mine were a result of my innate qualities of laziness and inconsideration. it was an emotional roller-coaster. as soon as i'd feel at ease and comfortable that they "got it," i'd do something "irresponsible." usually it would be something like forgetting to pay my car payment, overdrafting my bank account, or something akin to those examples--almost always the infraction would involve some decision or task that they deemed as relating somehow to "common sense." that would usually be followed by something along this track: you can't just do whatever you want and not live up to your responsibilities and then blame all of your careless mistakes on forgetfulness or on having asperger's syndrome.

so it was a bipolar existence, bouncing between a feeling of security and a feeling of shame/inadequacy/vulnerability.

Mom: told me she regretted having me.
I ruined her life.
(when asked why I was going to another test at doctors) "to see if your ret*d"
generally ashamed
and then ten years of no communication

Dad: idiot (stupid, dummy,etc)
won't shut his mouth
too quiet (:?)
will never accomplish much
homo and worse (despite evidence to the contrary)
lazy
would never make it as a photographer or artist (really?)
...and physically abusive.

Hi all,

I'm on my lunchbreak so haven't had time to read past page 2, but I think this is really a relevant question. Some thoughts from an NT point of view:

If parents who treated you badly had your diagnosis or otherwise knew about your ASD, then their behaviour is completely unforgiveable, as knowing about the ASD should have given them the key to being able to find out how to look after you properly and help them understand you better (as well as them helping you understand them better).

If however, parents didn't know about your ASD, then appalling though their behaviour sounds with the hindsight of diagnosis, it is easy to see their frustrations and desperation to work out why you didn't behave "as expected", and that if they believed there was no particular reason for your "unusual" behaviour, that they would try and teach you and bring you up according to their NT ideas, not realising that this might be inappropriate.

Whilst hitting or beating is NEVER appropriate, and yelling & name calling is seldom appropriate, one can see how NT parents would try and explain "selfish" behaviour to an NT kid to get them to realise what "selfish" is and that it is not very nice. It's like teaching right from wrong, which is something every good parent needs to do.

If the child didn't respond to that (and the parents have no idea why, because they are unaware of AS), then the parents would keep repeating their efforts to make the child understand and this could quite easily result in "labelling" children as selfish - because the child isn't changing their behaviour, and the parents aren't aware of the reason for the child not changing their behaviour.

Horrible though it is to have had to grow up under the circumstances a lot of you have described, the parents who were unaware of your AS and labelled you selfish or antisocial etc, were probably just trying to show you the areas where they wanted you to change, and thus have a better life (believing that you were NT and therefore that you could change).

It's very hard to see someone you care about, especially your child, (and it was hard enough for me growing up with my then-undiagnosed AS brother), become or appear isolated, rude, frustrated, angry, have no or few friends, struggle at school, and have poor job prospects, and if there is no apparent reason (ie they are unaware of the AS) then loving family will try and do everything to make that person see how they can change all those things for the better and remove all that frustration from that person's life.

Of course if you have AS then you see no reason why you should change because you may not see the effect your behaviour has on others or see why it should matter, and you do not mean harm by it, or behave in those ways on purpose. But NTs without the relevant information wouldn't understand that either. It's like neurological stalemate. Without information about the other type of "neuro-wiring", there is no way of understanding or modifying behaviour so it is more acceptable (for both NTs and ASDs)


Just for info we have only very recently realised my brother has AS (as an adult) and my brother, mum and I have now all discussed it and actually we are all really excited about the fact we now have all this extra information and that we can now work on understanding each other better with a real prospect of it working, rather than banging our heads against a brick wall all the time and not knowing why the other behaves the way they do.

It's not always obvious though (of course everyone's different, some may have more obvious traits than others). They may have known something was "wrong", but it's a different matter for laypersons to be able to identify what. It's taken us 30 years to work it out (and my bro realised first, about a year before I did). I can't believe I didn't realise sooner, it seems so obvious now I know, but that's the beauty of hindsight.

When you are so close to the situation, that's just "the way things are", and it is hard to see things objectively, and also very hard to put into words what is "wrong", which makes it harder to go to a medical professional and say "erm - my son's a bit erm - different. Can you tell me what's wrong and make everything better please?"

A sad & frustrating fact. I guess only raising awareness of ASDs will help improve the situation.

Very true, both ways round

My whole family never understood why I had poor motor skills. My dad and brother are mechanics and they can't figure out why I'm not like them.

I never explained what AS is, they wouldn't get it. They'd think it is a psychiatric/psychosomatic thing.

They still say that I can't do any manual work, even though I fixed a lot of my home by myself and play well a lot of musical instruments.

I guess prejudice is not something that can be easily erased.

Did I say that I don't like my family that much?

I was a selfish, manipulative brat usually... worthless b***h, on special occasions. I also made my mom's life a "living hell".

The worst thing was that when I got depressed and wanted to kill myself, my parents would make fun of me. I remember my mom chanting "self-pity, self-pity", as though she were a little girl on the playground...

My mom and I have mended our relationship. My stepfather left my mom a few years ago, and good riddance.

My parents called me lazy and immature but at the same token they knew I had the brains and that is what frustrated them more.. and kept telling me to get motivated once and for all with things. They also told me to get out of my "trances". Well, since they kept telling me how lazy and what a slob I was, and in time I believed it so I went through a period when I just stopped giving a damn about things. Too bad nothing about ASD was known back in those days, I may have gotten a bit of a break. Now that they know I am under the spectrum they feel guilty about giving me a hard time. But now, I have a lot of responsibilities, 2 kids to take care of, even a husband to take care of since he can't do half the things he should.... I guess now I am getting paid back for being so lazy And to make it even worse most of the time I feel like I am not appreciated for any effort that I do put in, not to mention for all that I do, I should be paid mega bucks for the jobs that I do fat chance of that happening.

He probably doesn't even know to appreciate you... it's kind of part of the environment for him, you know?

Seems like "smart" kids get their character attacked a lot more--people assume if you can do algebra, you can clean your room in a half hour instead of six... It's so insidious because there's no strategy to work on "lazy"; it's an accusation that you're not trying and don't care. You start to believe it yourself, so when you're staring at a job and can't figure out where to start, you think you're being lazy, when in reality, "trying harder" won't help a bit. The expectation that "smart" means you can do anything is quite destructive.

You are so right, my husband in somewhat spoiled by me, also because his mother never cared for him properly either. Never cooked him a meal and she is one selfish b****. He has been more helpful lately but overall I still find myself doing more. I guess thats the story of being a mom and a wife I guess no matter how much he does. And yes, the "smart" kids are the ones that are picked on. Because if it is apparent they have the brains, then they are "lazy" because they don't clean up their messes or whatever. I also have ADHD so that adds more of an explanation. But I never make my PDD-NOS and ADHD as an excuse and I am as far from lazy as anyone can come. But its nice to know if I unintentionally forget to pay a bill or something, I do get cut some slack for it.

Took me ages to learn that. You can't be blamed for honest mistakes, especially if you're working on figuring out ways to make them happen less often.

I can't say what my family did to me. It's beyond the scope of normal and might be considered too graphic!

My dad would yell at me -like grab me by the arm and yell in my face because I was 'rude' but I didn't understand why what I did was bad. I was kinda scared and really resented that all my socialworkers I told about it said that if I had behaved maybe dad wouldn't have been so mad.

My mom would tell me to suck it up when I was scared, until I had my first panic attack and was diagnosed with panic disorder. Now that I'm older, though, it kinda feels like she doesn't care as much or doesn't have as much patients with me anymore. It's kinda frustrating because I want her support but she doesn't seem to care anymore.

Mostly my parents told me to act my age and quit doing dumb things -the also complained about my clothes because I didn't iron anything and really didn't care about my apearance, now they're not as bad.

Over all my folks weren't all that bad.

Reciently my dad freaked out about me being really bad with change. When I tried to exspress how change makes me feel he got all indignent and pissed off and I really felt like I couldn't talk to him about autism or my feelings.

Last edited by 1Oryx2 on 05 Sep 2008, 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Please don't blame religion for this. I live in a religious household and my parents never once accused me of being possessed.

I used to get called "funny faces" because of my facial and hand stims. I also got punished for echolalia.

1 week after my 19th birthday