Is(Was) Your Father On The Autism Spectrum?

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If yes, what has it been like for you?

My father is of "normal" neurology.

He has a tendency to get overly sentimental about things, and to become depressed when he's in a sentimental mood.

He was in business. He was very popular with his colleagues.

He isn't an overly introspective sort--but he's okay.

We had a simple father-son type of relationship. There wasn't much depth to it.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 16 Sep 2016, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My father worked all day, then came home and napped until everyone went to bed, then stayed up late watching tv by himself. He did not really participate in parenting.

My father is probably where I inherited my nerdiness from, he planned to be an engineer before settling on becoming an accountant and he is very good with computers. He does seem to be in the broad autism phenotype.

Last edited by mikeman7918 on 16 Sep 2016, 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm pretty sure my father isn't on the spectrum, neither is my mother, for that matter.

So, I don't know how else I would've gotten it... Although, I've heard that there's some kind of connection between it and ADHD, (don't quote me on that, though).

I think, partly because my dad and I both have traits of autism, I have been able to connect with him well. I know that sounds weird to say, but you know what I mean.

He shows every sign of it, but, since high-functioning autistics weren't known to be disabled and unable to make good use of a real upbringing meant to make them fully functional and independent adults, he did get one. Unlike me, he isn't used to being a subhuman pariah or to undergoing any kind of "therapy" which serves no purpose but to perpetuate itself, since what it's supposed to "treat" is admittedly incurable. Instead, those resources were invested on giving him a great education for his time and improving his chances to do what he wanted to in life.

It's precisely his success as an independent adult what guarantees he'll never be considered "disabled", while my failure to stop depending on him and my mother dooms me never to get rid of that very same label, which they intently bestowed on me.

Not that I've been able to discern, but I'm extremely interested in the question and this discussion because I am the autistic father of an autistic son. He's getting to be old enough to start trying to understand this himself.

I'm fairly sure my father is.

My dad died back in the nineties, so Asperger's syndrome was still a pretty new thing in the US. When I got diagnosed last year, I realized that he had a lot of the symptoms too--
-- hypersensitive to touch, especially clothes
-- hyposensitive to taste and smell (loved spicy peppers, Limburger cheese, and frequently forgot to wash)
-- tended to be insensitive to other's feelings
-- rarely diplomatic
-- incredible memory for facts, especially science
-- liked to collect things but often never used them (carving tools, camera equipment, gems for jewelry making)
-- lectured us on his favorite topics (geology, paleontology, astronomy, Vikings)

He was a college professor (geology & paleontology) so his memory and love of learning and lecturing suited him well for it, but his lack of tact frequently harmed his career. He couldn't get a PhD because he offended his committee. I loved our family outings, with him giving impromptu lessons on rock formations and animals, but he could also be very cruel. He was abusive to all of us and really made life hell.

When I was diagnosed, I reached out to my aunt because I recalled that her daughter had some problems talking when she was little, and was very withdrawn. Sure enough, the daughter had classic (Kanner's) autism, plus two younger cousins had Asperger's. My aunt and uncle believed my dad and his dad had Asperger's, but didn't tell us that because dad had broken off ties with his brother.

My dad is in his mid 80s, but he and one of his siblings would likely be categorised as ASD today.
- I have never seen anyone who can perform monologues to the extent that my dad can. He simply does not stop, and completely ignores if anyone is listening or not.
- He always expects everyone to behave according to his hidden rules/expectations, and can completely lose it if someone has beliefs and perspectives that differ from his own. He assumes everyone knows "the" rules/expectations.
- He always speaks what's on his mind, and he does not mince his words. There is never a hidden agenda.
- He is hypersensitive to noise and temperature.
- He has had a very hard time in the workplace, and retired early in his 50s, I suspect due to his inability to cope with the social stress at work.
- He has a couple of special interests that have always kept him busy and that are essential for his sanity.
- He never asks others how they feel. He never noticed or understood the level of stress that he caused in his own family.
- What must make things really hard for him is that he is extroverted. For many years he wanted to connect to others, only to be pushed back again and again, leaving him very cynical and isolated.

I think I have avoided some of the issues he had because I am introverted and very comfortable in my own world when left alone. In a way my dad provided a negative example from which I have learned how not to behave.

He was noise sensitive and disliked some clothes like suits.
Talked about his special interests on and on not realizing others were bored.
Any type of change of plans flustered him for hours or days
Had no energy after work and often a headache
Had a small group of friends but hated parties, weddings, bar mitvah's
Could not multitask for s**t.
His special interest was trains and trolleys

Mine does not ignore it—he takes offence if you’re not listening intently, no matter how trivial what he’s saying is or how many times he’s repeated it.



Mine assumes every mature and sane person knows those rules, but he considers me mentally defective, so he’ll often go out of his way to explain the most trivial details of social interaction as if they were completely alien to me. Sometimes he does it in front of strangers, thus letting them know not to treat me like a sane grown-up. If I complain, he reminds me that, if I were so sane, I’d have succeeded in life and become independent long ago.



So does mine. In addition, he has a knack for coming up with colorful similes and metaphors noöne else I know would use.



Neither is there with mine, except he often keeps things he doesn’t like about me in his memory for months or years, without letting me suspect I did anything wrong, only to throw a burst of them at me when I annoy him the slightest bit in a completely unrelated way. Often I have no recollection of what he’s telling me off for.



Mine doesn’t like noise or too much heat, but he won’t easily complain about cold weather. He considers anyone not very cold-resistant to be spoiled, the exception being me. When I was sixteen, I decided to get my body used as much as possible to low temperatures, actually taking him as an example. I avoided wearing more than one layer of clothing (i.e., a shirt with nothing underneath) for as long as possible. Of course, my parents decided this stood out too much and therefore was a sign of my insanity. I had bitter arguments with them when we were all about to go outside and they wanted me to wear a coat for the sake of our public image.



Mine never really got along with most of his co-workers, though there were a few exceptions he was really fond of. For roughly the last two decades of his professional life, he was a teacher, and he always said he was much more at ease with his students than with co-workers. He seems to have been a good teacher, in fact. He often told me you should never dismiss a student as bad human material; however, he then proceeded to do just that with me. Whenever I had a problem with him, he usually pointed out how that never ever happened with his students as a sign of just how hopelessly defective I am. Also, his students generally came from a somewhat poorer socio-economic background than ours, and often juggled study and work, and had a rougher life than mine in other ways. My father usually praised them for that, but he never wanted me to do anything similar to achieve my goals, and, since I depended completely on him and my mother, I didn’t know how to get started without their permission or help, which kept me unable to do anything other than what they told me to for years and years, only to prove my father right when he told me how sh***y I was as a person compared with his students.



Mine has many scientific and technical interests, and I inherited this inclination, but he managed to cripple it in me anyway, because every time I want to understand something theoretically in depth, he counts it as another sign of my mental illness. He resents my wish to learn things that can’t readily be explained to lay people in terms they already know, and also my lack of manual practice, which I didn’t get for want of time and resources. He rather ascribes it to my mental illness, too.



I actually appreciate that. Getting asked about my feelings is at best an intrusion into my privacy, and otherwise also an exam about my ability to pretend to feel the way the other person wants me to so they won’t be offended, in addition to making me responsible for keeping the farce convincing to them.

My father usually assumes sane and mature people feel the way they “ought to”. When he sees a sign that I don’t, he takes offence and regards it as another sign of how mentally ill I am.



Oh, mine’s never had that problem—he’s fine letting people stay away and not inconveniencing him. He did recognize the fact that I failed to make proper social contact at school as a serious flaw of mine, one to bother me forever about, without actually doing anything to cure it, since it seems incurable. On the other hand, he also considered it a flaw that I wanted to visit a classmate when he phoned us in the middle of my extremely boring and lonely summer. He considered it a servile behavior on my part, to be so willing to please my classmate just because he wanted to meet me, rather than staying at home with no company but my immediate family and doing nothing but what they told me to, feeling perfectly happy that way as I doubtlessly ought to.

Last edited by Spiderpig on 18 Sep 2016, 7:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

At the end of the day, what matters is that, as a parent or any other authority figure, you can afford not to give a s**t about the feelings of those who depend on you or the stress you inflict on them. If they’re minors, they just have to suck it up; if they’re not and don’t like it, they’d better leave your property and not come back or ask anything from you ever again. Tough titty.

He has some traits but probably not enough for a diagnosis.

My father is "cold" towards his wife and children. He also could be harsh to them. But he appear to have normal social skills.