Your Dad

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i'm pretty sure he is on the spectrum also, but we're completely different people (i would say: Myers-Briggs ESFP vs INTJ). his interest is gardening & mine, while various, have all been intellectual pastimes.

i used to dislike him for his political opinions, but now i understand he just likes to repeat things he heard someone on talk radio say. he's really not that kind of bigot at all. in fact, he just about would give money to anyone who asked--whether or not they seemed (to anyone else) trustworthy.

now that he & my mother are in their late 80s, she is getting quite Alzheimery & unable to take care of a lot of the practical things she did for him most of his life, & this is difficult for him. fortunately my brother lives one block away; otherwise, i'm afraid, he would have trouble cooking or buying groceries or paying bills by himself.

i suppose there is a sort of lesson in this concerning autistics in the old days. he was basically handed off from one dependent situation (his large family) to another. he did work at the same job for a good many decades. (i am like that, too, but i've conscious tried to make myself more independent & adventurous from an early age.) retiring was a kind of flowering for him--he felt free to indulge in gardening for a large part of every day.

i also, having observed how little he tends to heed either my mother's wants or her needs, have tried to do better in my marriage; however, my wife--who is extremely perceptive--sees us as being very much alike.

My dad left before I was born, because he felt betrayed by my mother. She told him she couldn't have children, because her doctors had said the same...then she got pregnant. He gave her money for an abortion, but another doctor told Mom it was too dangerous (thank God!) Anyway, that's where things get a little confusing.

My mother says that my dad got sick around the time she decided to keep me, and she visited him in the hospital to let him know. He says he has no memory of that event, and didn't realize I existed until Mom called his old number 11 years later. My only explanation is that he may have been doped up in the hospital at the time of Mom's visit.

So, I first met him on my 12th birthday, and we spent a few hours together at a local mall. I don;t remember much, but there was a brief moment when all 3 of us walked down a crowded hallway, and I remember looking around at other families, thankful I finally had a "real" one of my own.

I visited Dad in his hometown of Pearland, TX (a suburb of Houston) for Christmas when I was 15, and he came up to Dallas once three years later. After that, we spent about ten years with very little contact, because neither of us knew what to say. He visited me again about 3 years ago, just for lunch, but we were quiet again until last Christmas, when my stepmother Dotty (his wife) told me Dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Apparently he'd been suffering memory lapses for years, and when i called him last week, he said he probably wouldn't recall our conversation very well. He's had to quit working and driving, but says he still wants to see me. I've been tempted to go see him on the bus, but there's so much depression in my heart, and I can't fix his condition. I pray for him sometimes, but a part of me is still so angry for him leaving Mom in the first place. She didn't deliberately deceive him; she just parroted what her doctors had said.

My dad is dead, as is my mummy.

I hated my dad. He was very abusive towards my mom and very strict towards me and my brother. He was also a very heavy drinker, which obviously made matters worse. Sometime after my parents' divorce when I was 10, he claims to have changed his ways, but I don't believe him, and I never trusted him to this day.

I get along much better with my stepfather. He is nice, caring, and has a good sense of humor. I do get frustrated with him sometimes when we don't agree on something, but we usually always come to a compromise.

He was a s**t and I got out as soon as possible. He was violent and it only stopped when I laid him out cold with a right hook. Left after that and never went back. Found out he died last year so went to the grave and left a nice 'tribute' all over his headstone. I'm glad he's dead.

I have a close relationship with my dad, l can talk to him about anything. Unfortunately, he is one of life's losers. When he was married to my mum has would work long hours and always put himself out for other people.

We have had our ups-and-downs and he has done things that have annoyed me but our relationship has remained strong. Now at retirement age he has no money or savings, no home of his own and a foot ulcer that refuses to go away.

I love him, but l don't want to end up like him.

My dad is brilliant (in terms of the kind of intelligence that can be measured with an IQ test) and kind-hearted but he;'s also irresponsible , immature and selfish. He wasn't the best dad in the world and he definitely had his problems ( ASD traits if not undiagnosed ASD). He was really obsessed with teaching me and having me eat the right foods and with me in general as a little kid.At the same time there were a few incidents where he would lose his temper and be borderline physically abusive. I was his little project, almost like a special interest. At about 6 years of age he lost interest in me and moved on to other projects (non-human ones) and wasn't around much. My parents got divorced when I was 2 years old. For awhile I was really angry with him but I eventually decided to forgive him partly because I think he and I are VERY alike in terms of our faults and I could see myself making the exact same mistakes he did as a parent! When I was born he was near 50 years old and and now he's almost 80 so I wouldn't have a LOT of time to make peace with him if I hadn't at this point anyway.

It's... complicated. He can be a great guy, but then he can suddenly turn around and be very abusive in an opportunistic predatory style. This happened a great deal to me and my mom when I grew up. He's extremely skilled at making people feel like useless failures when he shows his bad side, either through sudden angry outbursts or through icy sarcasm. He can display remorse over being abusive, but it's almost always a long time after the fact, and he may give people material gifts or assistance as if purchasing indulgences, not realising that it's a rather small consolation.

That icy mode and the fact that he's brilliant in his field makes for a strong resemblance to Dr. House. I suspect he would be a shoo-in for an AS diagnosis, through it's highly unlikely he'd ever go for an assessment as he's very anti-psychiatry.

He seems to have an odd sort of reality filter. Everyone perceives the world according to their preconceptions, but for a non-psychotic he seems to be especially pronounced in that regard. He seems to be incapable of seeing me as me rather than something to be molded into his idea of an ideal son. When I deviate from that he gets nasty. When I go visit him (I'm very relieved that I don't live under his roof, and that it's far away) he never seems to acknowledge that I have interests apart from his own, so all activities that happen are about him.

His nasty side and the fact that he was unfaithful slowly destroyed my parents' marriage and they divorced when I was 15. I considered it a positive event.

There's no entry for:

He was an abusive psychopath who can't understand why I don't want to talk to him ever.

"He is annoying and has his problems but I still care about him"

The guy pays for my auto insurance, cooks free lunch, offers me to go on vacations with him, etc. so ofc I can't hate him. I would
never hate my dad for any reason because I owe him my life.

My mother and father broke up when she was pregnant with me. He only saw me one time when I was too young to remember. He died when I was 3.

The first one.
I have a very strong relationship with my father, both because I've been with him more than with my mother most of my childhood and because the way his brain is wired is way more similar to mine than that of my mother.

When I was a child, I was a daddy's girl. I'm very similar to my father in many ways, especially because we have always suspected that he was on the spectrum. I used to idolize my father - he was the fun parent who took us to the park and actually played on the swings with us. In his best moments, he was silly and playful. In his worst moments, he was a drunken, alcoholic, abusive, damaged wreck but chidlren always seem to see past all of that in their parents.

Then when I was 14, he left my mum and threatened to take the house from us. The moron signed over the house to mum, so there was no way he could get it back. He also stole my money and lied to his girlfriend that his daughters were awful to him. He also refused to play a part in our lives after the split, even though my mum never stopped him from seeing us. In fact, she encouraged him to come back to Glasgow. He only wanted to come back if he was allowed to live in the house. Apparently it's easier to cut all ties with your own flesh and blood than to be a decent person and try to be a good father for your children. He didn't even pay any child support, which is a sure sign that we meant nothing to him.

I haven't seen him since I was 14. He doesn't want anything to do with me and I don't want anything to do with him. I'm past feeling sad or betrayed. Now I just feel total apathy towards him. My grandfather was a much better father figure and raised me better than my father ever did, so I guess I'm lucky in that respect.

I have been incredibly fortunate to have such a truly blessed childhood. Both of my parents were always around and dedicated to their three kids. My mother was the disciplinarian, so she and I often butted heads, especially when I'd get in trouble at school for things she didn't understand about me... but my dad was good at calming me down. When I'd get stressed about something to the point where it wasn't constructive, he'd say, "hey, let's go for a quick bike ride, then you can sit down and do your work."

He also impressed upon me the importance of taking other people's opinions into consideration, as I tended to go off into my own world at times. He would say things like, "I was listening to someone the other day and I thought what they said was really smart..." then he'd go into some description of something he found fascinating, and would somehow relate it back to me.

My father is a quiet, gentle man, who loves a good laugh at a party, and who is always the first to call and ask how you've been doing lately. I'd like to grow up and be more like him someday.

My dad is dead.

Verdandi's post sums him up best.