How many autistic people have caring parents?

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Actually, I have a good relationship with my father,who shows Tourette's symptoms and even the symptoms of mild AS.

There is no doubt in my mind that my parents did the absolute best they knew how. I also have no doubt that they would have done better if they'd had the information I have now.

during most of my childhood, Mom was my official best friend -- we did lots of crafty stuff together. She is the one who taught me how to do embroidery, gardening and cooking. These became special interests for me, and I quickly went well past her lessons into obscure esoteric paths.

Dad usually came home from work drained, and had little reserves left. We had some rocky times, often with each feeling disliked by the other. Mom often told me that our problem was that we were just too much alike.

Last edited by CuriousKitten on 10 Dec 2012, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't often agree with them, but they do the best they can, and they mean well.

My parents divorced when I was eleven years old.

relationship with father is detached, poor. i resent him for many of the things that happened during my childhood. He has panic disorder and agoraphobia. Refused to seek qualified treatment for it until well after the divorce.

relationship with mother has had difficult times in the past but is fairly amicable now.

My childhood was difficult. While my parents would both deny the label if asked, they were Christian fundamentalists. They have both relaxed a bit on the zealotry with age but when I was a child their belief system made everything a guilt ridden horror.

My parents were very hard on me, mentally and emotionally. I'm a child of the 80s and there wasn't much known about autism in those days. They knew about all the traits that I had. They just didn't give a damn. They got very impatient with me for going on about my special interests. I remember the December of 1985, when my mum showed me a red, white and blue bag of some sort and asked me what I thought of it. I told her, "I think it's real neat!" My mum yelled, "THE ONLY REASON YOU LIKE IT, IS BECAUSE IT REMINDS YOU OF SOMETHING!" I was obsessed with the USA at the time. I was also feeling very suicidal as well. It was the first year that I was punished with a period that I had to deal with on top of that. I was 11 at the time. A very unhappy 11. My parents were on my case until I was 21 and they realized that they couldn't try to mold me into an NT.

I have loving, caring and empathic parents, who still support me in everything I do.

I love my mom, she is amazing.
She is very caring and supportive.

I think I've been lucky with my parents. Though they came from abusive families themselves, they did their best to take good care of me. My behavior must have baffled them often, though. Screaming meltdowns in public...

We're now living several hundreds of kms apart, due to my job, but we're regularly in contact by mail, and I will go to visit them over Christmas. I hope they will be around for a long time more, they're still in quite good health for their age, thankfully.

Both parents are [most likely] on the spectrum. Alcoholic father, narcissistic (among other things) mother.

I don't have much contact with either of them as an adult. I told them that I got diagnosed with AS and that my son has special needs (probably autism), and they pretty much dropped off the face of the earth since then. I haven't really heard from them in months. This is for the better though, any "help" they would give would likely just make my life more difficult.

I have a strong positive relationship with my father. Overall, I think he was a good parent to me in many ways even though he never had the best hygiene in the world while he was raising me. I am definitely convinced that the autism gene lies on my father's side of the family given that my paternal uncle is an a**h*** who only cares about money and materialistic things, both my father and my uncle got married and divorced 2 times with the marriages lasting no longer than 5 years each , and my paternal uncle's children never got married (even though they now would be in their 40's).
I barely even have a relationship with my mother. Overall, I think she was an overall bad parent to me in terms of expressing affection and caring about me. She was self-absorbed to the point that she stole $700 from me as well as some of my ADHD medications (dexedrine) a little over seven years ago. If you met my mother, you could probably tell that she has had a history of clinical depression. That would actually explain why she was stealing my dexedrine medication from me. I found out on this site (http://www.dailystrength.org/treatments/dexedrine) that all 8 people with histories of clinical depression (at the time that this very post was made) felt that taking dexedrine has helped them in terms of the symptoms of clinical depression that they have/had been exhibiting.

Both of my parents were very compassionate, accepting, and never treated me as "impaired", even when I was a little kid. My sister has an intellectual disability with very high needs, so all of the attention was (and continues to be) focused on her. I was very good at entertaining myself with my quirky activities while they fought with her almost daily. They saw some of my behaviors as odd and a little frustrating, but they mainly saw them as adorably quirky, and didn't think that anything was obviously "wrong" with me. They saw me as very intelligent, as noted by video after video they recorded of me reading fluently at the age of 3-4.

On my assessment for AS, my teachers rated me as much more severely impaired then my parents did, simply because they had much less acceptance for my odd behaviors. I also had huge behavioral issues at school because I had to follow what everyone in the class was doing instead of taking part in activities that I chose, which my parents let me do. I hated that, and for a few years retreated to imaginary worlds I created as a response to my inability to express myself.

In contrast, I know many people on the spectrum whose parents just do not get it. These parents either have emotional issues themselves or are very controlling and harp at their kids for every little thing they do. Through my sister, my parents have learned the important skill of picking their battles, as my sister tends to get frustrated and defiant very easily.

Last edited by anneurysm on 10 Dec 2012, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My mother has always been a huge problem in my life. She has been verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive. As a child, she often berated me for my shyness. She told me I was rude and uncaring because I rarely looked at people or spoke to them. The predominant emotion in my childhood was definitely shame. My mom constantly made me feel ashamed of myself.

My dad was more supportive- as long as he was not around my mother. But she is very pushy, and no matter what, my father always gave in.

To my mom's credit, I guess she did have a childhood which was tough. Her mother, my grandmother, was and is, a total hypochondriac and addict. Alcohol used to be her drug of choice, but shortly before I was born she went to rehab and got dried out. Then she just switched to prescription drugs. She takes morphine and hydrocodone (sp?) as well as a myriad of other other crap that she gets from multiple doctors. She has done this for years, and I have witnessed some of this myself.

I know that this is has been going on for longer than I've been alive. I have a close relationship with my mom's older sister, and she does confirm that my grandmother was often wasted during their childhood. But my aunt also confirms that my mom was basically treated like a princess (or at least the best that her parents could do) during her childhood. My mom has a very overbearing personality, and she has always been able to push her parents. She has been able to do this even as a child.

But... anyway, my Asperger's can't be completely contributed to my upbringing. I have an older brother who has always been very social. He was popular in high school and always had this ability to let my mom's crap roll off his shoulders.

At this point, I am independent, live alone, and I have a pretty good relationship with my parents. We get along better than we ever have now. I'm not happy about my childhood, but I'm mostly at peace with it. I think that some of my anxious and self-loathing tendencies could have been prevented with a more supportive environment.

But again, not all of this was nurture. I have a very loving and supportive fiance, and he has a great family. This hasn't solved all of my problems. So I realize that some of this is just simply who I am. If I'd been born with perfect parents, I have a feeling I would still struggle with some of these issues. But I'm okay. That's just life- everybody has one thing or another that they have to struggle with, and this is mine.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. My parents had nothing but good intentions and were supportive and caring. And yet, they decided to ignore my problems and write it off as me being a bit quirky. They still don't understand the first thing about me as a result and don't have a clue of what I actually need, so we don't particularly get along.

I have no parents.

Both my parents are very caring and supportive.

I have very caring parents that love me despite my AS. I'm very trusting with my parents and I do show more emotions with them compared to other people.