Analyzing your parents

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My father died at a younger age that I am now, and somehow reconciled with me. My real problem, emotionally, was my mother who died at a very old age having me to take care of her long decline, which I did badheartedy, with huge effort, because she was not easy to handle. In the meantime my life had already run by. Now the only thing to do is to face “the remains of the day” with clearmindedness and anger. Not anger directed at my parents, whom I see now with detachment, but anger, anger: anger is sometime a salutary feeling. I couldn’t explain better.

I am also not sure how much my upbringing and environment contributed to my personality and it's something I think about often. I didn't have what would be described as an abusive childhood, but emotional stability is a concept I've never been too familiar with. From either parent I would not know what to expect, with one spontaneously unleashing torrents of anger at the most unpredictable times and the other oscillating between crying jags and very intense moods of sympathy and overprotection. When I look back at all the friendships I've had, all of which are now ended, it's always due to a combination of these things. Spontaneous anger combined with an obsessive need to connect with and understand a person thoroughly (I'm kind of an atypical aspie in that last aspect). On one hand, I don't like to read too much into my upbringing when it comes to this because I'm not sure how much it actually affected me and I would hate to make excuses for my behavior. I have to admit that sometimes I wonder I'm I really am not aspie and am just a really, really weird person.

I don’t think really weird persons exist. Each one has his history. his backgrond, his gifts or curses. What I see here often in these forums is perhaps too much thriving on labels. I am convinced that to know that there are genetic ingedients to take much in account, that we are first af all a bundle of “modules” or “pieces of brain” working with different efficay, is a great progress in understanding ourselves. But I think that there are various shadings in the “inefficacy” of these pieces (mindreading for example) and that the best thing is to find the right compensations that may be available.

Paolo, it sounds like whatever was up with your mother, it wasn't just you and it just was. I know you feel you wasted so many years with her, but don't waste your minutes on anger. It is a useless emotion that eats up your time and you don't get it back. So see your anger, experience it and put away. Don't let it steal your life. It isn't worth it. All it does it let your past continue to have control over you. You are free, it's time to take back your life.


Maldoror, I think we are all a combination of AS and our personality. I think they influence and affect each other. When you do what you are describing, you are just trying to resolve those issues of your youth. It's our nature to want a real conculsion. If you are still living that out, you didn't feel you reached one. NTs say that as well.

My Dad had some major aspie traits... the only way he knew how to socialize was if he was drunk. He also had a tendancy to scribble on everything that he came into contact with. It didn't matter if it was paper, wood, napkins, books- you name it he wrote on it. He knew a great deal about agriculture, animals, diseases, geography, mechanics and grammar. Quality time would include me and my Dad talking about cholera epidemics or picking out the grammar errors that weren't picked up by editors. When I collected bugs, he thought it was perfectly natural and helped me to find out what they ate, what their natural habitats were like and then dissecting them. I don't recall spending any time with him unless we were persuing a subject that seemed to fascinate both of us. Usually he'd see me doing something and then take the opportunity to 'teach' me.

Manic Depression runs on my Dad's side of the family too. But, I don't think he suffered from that. Mind you I only knew him in his later years since he was in his 50s when I was born. According to aunts and uncles, when he was younger he was a wild man.

On my Mother's side there is a long line of OCD. My Grandmother, uncle, aunts and my Mom, are all severely affected. My Mom would wake up at 4am just so she could start polishing the floor so that it would look just right before she left for work. Then breeze would blow and there'd be dust on the floor and she'd have to start all over again.
Imagine her disgust with me when I prefered to be off by myself, doing my own thing instead of cleaning the bathroom!
My Mom also had a lot of aspie traits, but no where near as close to my Dad. She had a lot of the stims though. I can still remember her biting inside her lip/cheek, and she'd always be 'playing piano' in the air. She'd be in her own world somewhere even though she'd physically be in the room.

3 of the 4 of my parents children together show aspie traits.
I seem to have inherited some areas of interest from my Dad including grammar and a certain amount of biology, while my brother is into mechanics. My sister is into biochemistry and music and really not much else.
We didn't spend much family time together- we were always in our own rooms and doing our own things.

Now, there are little things that my son will do that remind me of my Dad. The scribbling on everything, the subconsciously breaking things into little tiny pieces... even the way he stands or even falling off the bed. (My Dad for some reason still fell off the bed even into his 70s). My son is fascinated with trains- and when I told my Mom about that I got tonnes of stories about how my Dad used to be into trains too. There's a running joke that baby J is going to go into agriculture just like Grandpa.

Yeah. It's just I don't understand all these contradictions. When it comes right down to it, I don't think anyone really knows what the hell defines Asperger's. I have a need for interaction that manifests itself in radically different ways compared to most people, and yet, very, very intensely, like a drive that's crippled, or maybe super enhanced, or maybe perverted, and then neglected. But it's still there. Am I the only one who feels this way, or are most of us perfectly fine on our own?

My anger is directed at some people, or better, to some condition of our culture that still stands in the road. In France and in Italy the suffocating pressure of the psychoanalitic garbage is still huge and if I can direct my anger at it with some effect, well I will do it.

But I am also against many other things, like, for example war, also if I can't do anything about it. The day before yesterday I have seen Eastwood's second film on WW2. I think it is a good film, but I recalled Milestones's "All quiet on the Western front". Same situations, same senseless orders given and (what is worst) obeyed. Only 90 years have elapsed.

Like in "DrStrangelove" that I have seen for the 15th time yesterday. The idea of these arsenals existing somewhere, these people placidly flying with envelopes containing orders they don't know. They don't know what and they don'know why: they are simply trained to obey. People all over the world is trained to obey to something they don't know why and what.

This is something I would like to direct my anger at. But I (we) can't do anything about it. But why not be angry at that?

My point is that it's always this, or waaaaay over here at the other end, this. It's hard to define.

maldoror

answering to your question: i'm perfectly fine on my own, but i miss people.
can you understand this? it's real!! !

I have been "analyzing " my adopted parents for years.They are both incapable of showing emotional closeness(to me) but have a strong sense of taking care of "responsibilities" of parenting.That is how they "show" love,family vacations,providing money and transport for "lessons",making sure we have all basic physical needs met.I was never possitive if they couldnt "transmit"love or if I was lacking a "receiver" to pick up the signals.Maybe both,but I did pick up their basic "dislike" of me, for who I am.I think I wanted that more then "obligatory responsibility" of being a parent.I dont think either is AS but they dont seem psychologically "healthy" either.

I have only recently met my bio-parents and both are alcoholics.My mom has major social phobia,love of animals more then people and "collecting/hording".She also seems to have some compassion for people but little interest in being around them.
She may have AS but I dont think my Dad did(deceised),he was small-time wrestler,raised dogs,bartended and had many "odd" jobs but couldnt handle "real work" for long.He did like to socialize in bars and had a few friends.2 of my 5 sibs have some aspie traits but all have "obsessions",few or no friends,depression,Bi-polar and some chemical dependency.Most of them are also obese and have a lot of physical problems that effect their ability to socialize.I think they are nice people and get along with them much more then my "adopted" sibs,which seem to be either totally indifferent or actively dislike me.

Wow... Where do I even start?
History of Autism in my family. BIG one.
My uncle, now deceased, was high functioning Autism, but the gene just really showed up in our family in this generation.
My 19yr old brother is profoundly autistic and also has ADHD.
My twin 15yr old brother is severe autism and has had real problems with depression.
I'm lucky I'm not full blown autism myself, but being Aspie is something to be proud of for me.
My Mum seems to have trouble reading emotions and with empathy, but socially there seems to be no trouble. Other than that she never really listened and that she says she hates me, there's no real problem there.
And my Dad's the kindest person I know. So nothing really big there.

A lot of our family histories have links to alcoholism and addiction. I've been pondering if relationships between AS and NT family members (or AS to AS, given mindblindness and trying to avoid meltdowns) mirror that of codependence, or if it is a new demension of it?

This is hard to answer, because nobody of my family has an official diagnosis. Weirdness of all kind just runs in our blood.

I will only write about my grandfather for now. I adore this man.

My grandfather... I only had the pleasure of knowing him for a few years. He died one month after my seventh birthday and I didn't see him during that last year he spent at the hospital.

He was a very intelligent man and at the same time that I admired him, I was terribly scared of him. I thought he was very wise, but although he loved me dearly (my mom said so), he had big, big trouble showing any of it. I was sometimes very confused, because he got loud and I was so afraid of any noise. At other times, he was the only person I could stand. In my very early years, I only liked my mom and my grandfather.
He was calm and he thought my grandmother was too loud and busy sometimes too. He could tell me really interesting things that were often hard to understand for me. He didn't have this feel that tells adults what children get and what not, but I liked him for being... well, normal.
He had rigid routines, I don't think he had stims though, but I may just not remember any. He had a great sense of justice and I think he had interests, but I don't remember any of it.

He was pretty sick in the end too. He was 75 when he died, so who knows what he was like in his childhood?

All in all, the similarities to me make me think that he had been autistic or had a similar condition that did not prevent him from being a great man nonetheless! As I said, I consider him a great man.

Sora, My Dad wasn't affectionate either and he never said to any of us that he was proud of us. After he died we found newspaper clippings about us that he kept with his personal things. He also kept a valentine card that I had written up when I was too young to remember. He only had about 5 shirts that he would wear and a few pairs of pants. He gave away almost everything that we'd give him to his brothers and sisters... so it was quite amazing to find the clippings and cards because we NEVER thought he was the sentimental type.