Did your parents not pick up you had AS even though they

Post Reply New Topic

knew someone with it?

My mom worked in the special ed room as an aid when I was in 5th grade. There was a student in there who got diagnosed with AS and it surprised me my mom never picked up I may have it. Though I had already been tested for it when I was 10 and the doctor said I didn't have it. Then I realized maybe because the kid was totally different than me and more effected by it, we were both two different people, of course my mom wouldn't see it.

Since my diagnoses, my mom has picked out who may have it. She said these two boys in our old neighborhood may have had it and they happened to be jerks. But she said one of them may have been a sociopath. My brothers were friends with them but they were mean to me.
She even picked out my grandma has it too and said her sister might also. She thinks my uncle may have it too.

So did anyone here ever had parents who had met other kids with autism/AS but not even picked up you may have it?

My entire family of blood relatives show "symptoms" of the autistic spectrum but nobody would agree to wear that label even if they DID know. It's a big spectrum so anybody could land on it at any particular place. There is even a disorder called "Wilson's Disorder" which makes a person TOO social. So, we're going from people who are severly affected to where they need to be taken care of by others all the way to Wilson's disorder and all of the millions of people who are in the middle. I feel it pays not to diagnose others but to just be with those people with whom you are capable and safe to be with. It's all about how other treat you and not really about what they have. Also, spectrum-type disorders are DNA related.

I remember tagging along with my Den Mother mother when my brother was in Boy Scouts. We would all sit in groups of troops and across the circle was a guy that had a loud braying laugh of 'huuulllk huuullllk' when he talked and my mother would continually tell his mother to 'shut that kid up! he sounds like a dummy!" The other mother would defend her son saying he is 'special' and needed more encouragement than discipline. ( I remember watching him trying to socialize and being accepted by his troop mates, but being ignored and laughed at and tricked by the other troops)

But my mother insisted that being 'special' (my mother made it clear that calling someone special when they were 'not right' didn't make them OK ) was no excuse and why did she have to bring him to the monthly councils, anyway?? I remember very vividly the 'special guys' mom just blowing up at my mom and told her she was one to talk with her child and mom laughed and said her son was just fine and the other mother leaned down and held me by the shoulders and turned me to my mother and said "No! Not him, HER!".

I was busy being mortified and confused and embarrassed and everything sorta went white noise so I am not sure what happened after that, but my mother denied it forever after that, and I never went to group troop gatherings again. But this was in the 1950's and not much was known about our condition, then.

you can imagine what it was like growing up Aspie with a mom like that, eh?

Merle

Merle, your story gave me chills. Yikes.

We didn't know about AS when I was growing up - my mom has just always called me 'funny'. Since she learned about it though she seems to see my whole childhood through a different lens. She and my sister accepted it right away, like, "oh! there's a word for how you are! Great!" And my husband's the one who brought it up to me originally. He told me he thought I was "just a touch autistic". Then he explained what Asperger's was. So began my journey.

My mom is probably an Aspie as well, she never thought about mentioning it to me, because she didn't realize it herself. She just recognized a kindred spirit in me, and vice versa.

We were always a bit odd though, and unsurprisingly all of the friends I've been close to, love my mom.

My parents always just said I "marched to a different drummer". I don't know if my mother is in any way familiar with autism. I wasn't professionally diagnosed until I was 28. I still haven't informed my family.

my father knows of two people with AS, my step-brother and a co-worker. My step-brother presents with significantly more traits than I do, as does the co-worker. I have difficulty believing that my father would accept my AS diagnosis when in comparison.

Yes. My mom is an occupational therapist and some of her clients were autistic children in special education. The problem was that these kids were generally disabled enough to need the very basic services that the schools would pay for--things like being shown how to use a spoon or put on a shirt. My mom saw these kids, and figured that this was the only way autism could show up. So she figured I couldn't be autistic because I could put on shirts and use a spoon, and was "smart" besides (whatever that means). She was dead wrong, of course; I'm a textbook case in most respects. You'd think having an OT for a mom would mean you got an early diagnosis and lots of specialized instruction; but it didn't work out that way for me. Go figure.

I grew up in the 50's and 60's. Almost no one had even heard of AS or autism. As I recall, the only possible diagnoses if a child was "different" enough, was ret*d. Anything else was considered simply a behavior problem, which I was.

The focus of parents back then, therefore, was in keeping their kids behavior in check ... keeping them out of trouble. Of course, the "trouble" we could get into back then was considerably more benign than it is today.

Well, anyway, to answer the question ... no, my parents had no idea about AS.

my mother works in healthcare and there are relatives who are on the spectrum but she didn't pick up anything.

And this is that thing which was always foreign to me - the concept (which I find expressed on AS boards so often - even if for an average person from a country better developed than mine it wouldn't be that often at all, for me the frequency of its occuring goes far beyond I would ever have a chance to meet on the Polish AS board) that you could encounter ordinary people not having anything to do with mental health medicine who have experiences with people with AS. I happen to read here from time to time that someone for example shared their suspicions that they had it with others and that other person's reply was like "no, you don't have it, I know one guy with AS and you are nothing like him".

It's not about their not believing that their acquintance could be affected by this condition but about the fact they could ever have heard about AS before and it wasn't a secluded case about which I read here because there were much more of them. I don't imagine such an average aspie/hypothetical aspie talking about their suspicions as for their condition with a friend for the first time and hearing from them, regardless of what their opinion on AS or its lack in this person would be, that they know what it is

Cm'on, you're an Aspie; you've had way worse embarrassment than misspelling a word.

I dunno; I don't think I'd want Williams syndrome. I mean, if I had to pick which one my kid got, I'd probably pick autism, because Williams syndrome is even more likely than autism to make you naive and thus vulnerable--if I were a mom I'd be scared silly that someone would take advantage of my kid. At least with autism there's a good chance you'll get someone who's not dangerously trusting.

And you know, it's kind of a sad world where your big wish for your kid is, "I hope they're safe"...

People often overlook, justify or excuse their own characteristics and behaviors. When those same characteristics and behaviors are found in others, they are often similarly overlooked, justified and excused. Parents often do the same things with their kids.

My parents could never see anything wrong with themselves, me or my siblings--no matter how blatantly the message smacked them across the head.