Other Aspies in the Family

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Hi everyone. I've done quite a bit of lurking on Aspie forums and have never seen this topic mentioned. Am I the only one who has other Aspies in their family? A neurologist told my father he probably had Asperger's when my father was in his forties. This was just a thing I knew about my dad without remembering exactly when I learned it and I had never made a big deal about it because he was pretty high functioning, just a little odd. It wasn't until two years ago, a year after my dad had passed, that one day I started wondering if the same diagnosis could be applied to me. I suspect my brother could also have Asperger's, but I tried talking to him about it one time and he didn't seem particularly interested in learning more or seeing a professional. I also have a ten year old cousin on my father's side who has been diagnosed with Asperger's.

I feel like the more common theme is people being misunderstood by their NT families. Am I the only one with a family like this? And does anyone happen to know what the research says on the inheritability of Asperger's?

Thanks!

greetings all,

thank you for sharing. i suspect that my father, his mother and my uncle all are. they all seem to exhibit the common traits. however, my uncle seems a bit more on the paranoid schizophrenia side... i know without a doubt that my aunt on the same side of the family is! so i guess i get my situation honestly!! no, you are not the only one with a family history of these "issues". not sure if it is inherited or not... seems that way though!! !

with peace,

JanusOne

No other Aspies in my family. Alllll alone and misunderstood. Nobody to connect with.

I mean, I don't have anyone to connect with either. I didn't figure out that I'm probably an Aspie until after my dad died and I'm sad we never realized we had this thing in common while he was alive. My brother doesn't really talk to me and definitely doesn't talk about Aspie issues. My very NT mother isn't misunderstanding in a rude way, but she disbelieves me about being Aspie while not explicitly coming out and saying it. Luckily, though, my Aspieness hasn't caused many problems in the family. My family has always known I'm odd and are pretty accepting of it. It's people outside of my family who give me grief for my behaviors and inability to understand certain things.

in my family, everyone know and accepts the fact that i am different. we don't talk about it nor do i approach others in my family with the same traits... they are not open to i guess being open about it. i have a loving partner who listens and i am so lucky to have found this site. it helps me a lot....

with peace,

JanusOne

There is a history of autism in my my mom's side of the family. My grandmother is probably an aspie and my uncle might have been too, they haven't been diagnosed though. My mom has a lot of autistic traits although she likely doesn't qualify for a diagnosis, and I have a cousin with more severe autism (level 2).

Lots. (Have you heard of "assortative mating"? Basically it means like mating with like)

In my grandparents generation, only my maternal grandmother stands out clearly as probably on the spectrum. She was an artist and violinist, born in the 19th century, unconventional for a woman then. She did marry (an engineer) and had one child (my mother). However my paternal grandfather was an engineer also, so I wonder...)

My mother (artist, AS) married my father (probably BAP) and had me = AS. They both remarried. My mother had one more child (male, frankly AS) and my father had two more children (female, both ?BAP - one is a math teacher, the other a chemistry researcher). (My father's academic speciality was also chemistry, a subject choice that does seem to attract people on the spectrum).

On my father's side I have five paternal first cousins: one (female) is AS, one male is AS (neither severe) and the others are all NT.

My children: One BAP (male) one NT (female) and one AS (female).

My son has three children: one BAP (female) one AS (female) one very-much autistic (male).
My NT daughter married an AS man, an academic specialising in engineering, (whose father is clearly on the spectrum) and they have male twins who are both AS. My AS daughter has never married and is a journalist in a specialist field.

The first to be diagnosed was my autistic grandson, about 20 years ago. At that time, we were all so used to being ourselves that Asperger's Syndrome and BAP didn't cross our minds: we didn't know about it and our concept of autism was based on that one child's experience: a profoundly visual learner, rocking and other overt stims that we did not connect with our own more subtle features.

My two paternal half sisters seem somewhere on the edge of the spectrum if not right on it. My maternal half brother had one son who is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (my nephew).

Interestingly I did not grow up with my own family but was fostered by an unrelated family in which the "father" and his father were both gifted musicians, very AS, as is the son of that father's family; so perhaps you can see how AS was always "just something normal" to me, for most of my life. It was a great surprise to realise the wider truth of the matter and be able to name it, and see it in greater perspective.

For the AS members of the family, it's a bit like being bilingual: we learned to speak NT-ese at an early age from the NTs we grew up with though our "own language" was spoken too. We straddled both worlds for so long not knowing anything more that it was just how it was.

My brother is dead now though he was more affected than me, though he was also successful in his own specialist field (though pretty hopeless out of it).

So at least in my family there are significant signs of high heritability and genetic linkage re the spectrum. Being nearly 70 now myself, I have the advantage of being able to see across the five generations - the two before mine and the two after mine - a vantage point that makes it easier to discern the familial patterns more clearly.

My father was very likely an Aspie, and I suspect that his father was as well. My partner seems to have a bit of ASD at least, and her father strikes us as being well on the spectrum, her daughter is diagnosed with severe ASD, and her son seems to have got it too. Naturally I'm convinced it runs in families.

I suspected my dad and his dad when they were alive. Two cousins on my fathers side of the family are Aspie-Autistic.

Funny you should mention that, because that's the case on my dad's side of the family.

My paternal grandfather is a garage tinkerer who likes working on cars, and every single one of his male decedents love engineering (while all his female decedents generally don't care about such things and many of them love art). Seriously, all of them are garage tinkerers.

My dad was going to be an engineer before he decided to be an accountant, one of my uncles is a science teacher who designs and builds a lot of cool stuff in his garage, I have 3 cousins who love working on cars, one cousin who loves building crazy contraptions out of Legos, a brother who builds crazy stuff in his room out of salvaged electric components, another brother who loves to work on cars and build things in a machine shop, and I plan on majoring in aerospace engineering in college. Seriously, it's kind of crazy. I wouldn't be supprised if my dad were BAP.

As I mentioned before I got autism from my mom's side and that's where I got my ADD too (my mom has ADD and one of my brothers has ADHD), that side if the family is kind of a mess mentally, my biological maternal grandfather was an abusive alcoholic (fortunately my grandmother eventually ditched him) and my grandmother is a probable aspie.

My dad was the weird one in his family and he was was quite nerdy, while my mom came from a weird and sort of messed up family. Genetically I drew a few short straws and ended up with my trio of disorders, I am now the weird one in my family which is really saying something. I have an introverted brother who will graduate college at age 16, I have a brother who has too many friends for me to keep track of, and my sister is actually pretty normal.

I have a half brother with it (confirmed), but we have never met and probably never will. my biological grandfather may have it. but again, not on speaking terms with him, he did a lot of bad things which now result in me having a step-grandfather instead. other then that, no, im alone really.

My son and my sister's son, which means it came down through one of my parents. My mom has suspicions about her brother and one of her uncles.

It's scary how alike my son and I are but at least someone finally gets my jokes.

One of my brothers youngest sons has Aspergers. So does my other brothers daughter. My oldest son most likely does but has never been diagnosed. My mom, her dad and one of her brothers also most likely have it as well though they will also most likely never get a diagnoses.

My dad's an aspie even though he would never admit to it. I slowly found out that I have asperger's from talking about my dad, and having a friend explain my similarities to my dad as well as the sensory issues that plague me. My dad's sister also has something and it's low functioning, although it never gets talked about. I heard my niece has sensitive hearing and I see some similarities to me as a child there, but I am not close to my half sister so I don't bring it up. All of this only on my father's side of the family.

AS clearly runs in families. My son is diagnosed, and both his parents (including me ) have plenty of Aspie traits and could not survive in an NT household. In my generation there is an Aspie sibling in denial, and my dad and one of his brothers would also very likely qualify.