Does My Dad Have Asperger's?
My dad keeps saying he has Asperger's, and I've always denied it because he has an excellent intuition and seems to get people very well. However, lately I've started thinking that maybe he's right. Here's why:
1) He hates social interaction with anyone but family. When he was young, he had lots of friends, but now he's perfectly content with no friends.
2) He has really weird obsessions, e.g. memorizing names of fish, recording absolutely everything on audio cassettes (yep, he still uses a Walkman ), and blabs to us about them whether we care or not.
3) He says rude things to others, and acts like it's perfectly polite. For example, in Russian there's a formal and an informal way to say "you", and when somebody uses the informal one with him, he acts like a jerk to them. But I don't know if that's because he's ignorant of these conventions, or because he likes being rude.
4) He has a really strong aversion to some smells, like butter and cinnamon. If we fry something with butter, he gets nauseous. He also hates man-made fabric and only wears cotton, silk, and wool.
5) He seems to have no empathy, and acts way too happy when the rest of us are clearly upset about something. But, as I said before, it could be that he doesn't notice we're in a bad mood.
6) His thinking is very rigid, e.g. one time, I was getting out of our car and the door slightly touched the car next to it. He immediately called it an "accident" because it touched the car.
On the other hand, he can be very good with people, if he wants to. He was never bullied or ostracized, and always fit in great with the rest of the group. This leads me to believe that he could be an NT, who educated himself about Asperger's and decided to use that as an excuse for getting his own way. Thoughts?
Based on the symptoms you described, I reckon your dad could have Asperger Syndrome, but has developed many coping mechanisms so he seems to be very high functioning.
If you want to fully confirm whether he as AS or not, I think it's best for him to see a Psychiatrist or Psychologist for a professional evaluation.
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