Parents remembering things differently than reality

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Just wondered whether any of you who went for an assessment as an adult, had issues where your parents were either in denial, or saw your childhood through rose-coloured spectacles and underplayed things, or it would damage their ego to think they could possibly have a child with 'something wrong', maybe they were a narcissistic/neglectful parent who didn't notice what was in front of them, or perhaps there was divorce and one parent blamed the parent with custody for 'causing' your traits?

EDITED to add another possible scenario: Perhaps your parent(s) are simple people, a bit clueless (this applies to my mother, although some of the combinations above also apply!) who doesn't understand conditions like this and just doesn't see anything being wrong for that reason.

Did your parents with any of the above issues input their recollections of your childhood and make your assessment more difficult? How did the clinician deal with the input? Did your parent(s) derail your assessment/diagnosis?

Last edited by whirlingmind on 10 Mar 2013, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yup. That's my dear old Granny to a T.

I was a perfect child. Everyone else had a problem.

Then I showed up with paperwork. "Oh, it must have been something on the Tennant side."

"No, actually honey, they think it's an X-linked recessive trait. That means for a girl to display symptoms, it has to be on both sides."

She didn't have a comeback for that one.

My parents are like this. Everyone else who's been around me for a significant length of time reacts like "Oh, yeah.. I can totally see that, that makes sense now" when I brought up possibility of AS. Thinking back to my childhood, it's also very blatant. But, my parents react with total obliviousness and did blame others all the time whenever I showed distress as a kid. I think part of the issue is that they were raised in a time period and culture that didn't "do" psychology. I was always just "going through a phase" that I will grow out of if left to my own devices. I've been "going through a phase" for over thirty years.

My mother is like this. My long term struggle with anorexia was just my "losing baby fat". My chronic PTSD was simple stress. The list of her excuses is just as lengthy as that of my conditions, and while I know she cares deeply for me, her denial has not been beneficial in the past.

my mother kind of does the opposite, like my life is one giant s**tbag or something. I wish my history of anger and hate towards inanimate objects (because you can fix a TV but not a person's face) could be swept under the rug and she could pretend I'm not messed in the head for even 5 minutes. like my mom knew there was something off with me as a kid and once she got a proper diagnosis she got a freakin' bumper sticker advertising it. I was 12 and even I was embarrassed.

Yes, I totally relate to that OP. My parents have their own aspie traits and are so out of touch with normality that they don't think there was a problem with me.

They still deny it, admitting that maybe I have social phobia, but to be honest, they don't really know me enough to be able to comment. Too caught up in their own lives and didn't really pay much attention to me.

I guess they just don't want to feel guilty or admit that they never noticed any problems, so are all deny deny deny

Not told my parents yet.. not sure if I will.. still undecided but I related totally from a different perspective..

I think my parents may have known something was wrong with me as they would sign me and my brother up for every local club there was... I was even forced to attend ballroom dance classes.. I hated these clubs with all my soul and after much distress and refusal to go she would relent and stop taking me to that club, sure enough there would be another club idea round the corner !
I guess she was either forcing me to face my social issues or just wanted us kids out the hiuse for other reasons

Stu

Most things in my life were blamed on my Dad's issues who happened to have schizotypal personality disorder, OCD and paranoid personality disorder. In fact the way my mum describes him he was very AS like I just never got a chance to properly meet him. Makes me wonder.

It never occurred to my mother there was a reason that I never had friends at all right through school or even notice for that matter, I was just shy and depressed blah blah blah and otherwise the pefect child.

Everyone is prone to false memories, and most of the time, the false memories just happen to paint the person in a better light.

I can't speak for other Aspies, but my memory is exceptionally verbatim and accurate. I don't make this claim lightly. I do have a photographic type of memory and I have been tested as having superior memory as well. It has been commented on by people, including employers, how accurately I recall things. Like most, if not all Aspies, I also do not embellish or exaggerate so my memory does not remember things in the way it would like them to have happened or for additional effect, it is factual.

This is one of my biggest frustrations, when I realised that other people don't have the same type of memory and they can't recall things I can recall vividly. I don't believe I am alone in this trait.

For instance, I vividly recall particular instances of me having food issues as a child, and my mother cannot recall any issues with food at all. I remember being made to sit for hours at the table because I didn't want to eat stuff. I remember violently throwing up at age 7 at having to eat spaghetti with slithery onions in it.

My mother claims not to recall my special interest of reading, however she admits without realising that she's saying the same thing in another way, that I loved reading and loved my books. She claimed I played well with other children, but then in another sentence claims that I was always playing with my brother only and didn't have any friends that she can recall. She tries to deny any signs of Asperger's but accidentally lets slip things when she doesn't realise they are relevant behaviours. She claims overall that there were no problems, because she either had low awareness of things that were problems, or has a delightfully selective memory (there are other issues causing her to believe everything was OK I could name too).

whirlingmind, I have been running into the exact same scenario as you. I remember so vividly so many details of my childhood that my mother glosses over or fails to see any significance in, despite how she used to complain I made her life a living hell. I had many stims but my mother was very good at slapping them out of me so that I resorted to stims that were only perceptible to me. She used to tell me that I was crazy and that "they" were going to come and lock me up, but I failed to see what I was doing that she would say that, except that she simply wanted to be mean and abusive to me. In retrospect I think I really did drive her nuts because I was very angry, stubborn, oppositional, unaffectionate, impulsive, "self absorbed", clumsy, immature, OCD and on.. but she also had a predisposition to be abusive and wacky, and later an alcoholic, so all her memories have basically disintegrated into an ocean of booze.

My mother was like this. She likes to think that my childhood was all fine. I was angry my mother was even allowed to be involved in my assessment as she had barely spoken to me for years and acted like i did not exist when i was younger, and still does. My parents are also NT's so that makes it impossible for them to really understand how i have felt all my life.

bump.

Hi, what does it mean when you go "bump"?

It's just putting another post on the thread to get it back to the top of the forum so that more people get a chance to see it and put more replies on. So you are "bumping it up".

Oh I see! Thanks for explaining!