Are you the "squeaky wheel" in your family?

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I'm the only person in my entire extended family who is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, though:


My uncle Doug rocked back and forth and looked flat-faced and dead-eyed and otherwise autistic.
My uncle John rocked back and forth and banged his head off the walls.
My cousin Joey dropped out of school, stayed in his room for a year almost 24/7, cut himself off from his friends and refused to see them, got a relationship going online, haed school (whcih would make him sick), was too stressed and "lazy" and "stubborn" to do his schoolwork, took it personally and thought people thought he was weak if they called him sensitive or whatever, was a know-it-all but really didn't know a lot about life...
My parents both scored higher than me on this "Are you autistic?" quiz... I got exactly the normal score I think (so I guess I have borderline personality disorder, lol), my mother scored more autistic than me and my father scored the highest.
But my mother always used to tell every relative who would listen that I had AS, what traits I had, how it was getting in the way of this and that, how she didn't think Joey had anything wrong with him but I did, all that. But the others don't single me out or anything, they know everyone has problems... they all have problems!

I'm not exactly sure of what the term 'Squeaky Wheel' implies in this context, however, a more fitting term for me would be 'Black Sheep Of The Family'. --I don't fit in, I'm definately the strange, dysfunctional, f***ed up one.

As far as my birth family is concerned, just about everyone has AS as far as I know. I dont know much about them though :/
Everyone in my adoptive family are not, and none of them seem to understand

There have been family members that have died that were diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. This was a long time ago though, before I was born. I am now 16.

Anyway, I am the only person NOW in my family with an ASD. I suspect that my Father has Either HFA or AS, but he has not been diagnosed and nor does he live with me so I'm not sure how he is now.

I guess if you mean by "squeaky wheel" the problem of the family, I guess I'd be it. I was the youngest of the family and because I was clumsy, smaller, etc., my 4 older siblings often ridiculed me, tricked me on alot of things, etc., so I often ended up isolating myself in my room. Our parents would try to make us play together unfortunately, which didn't work out for anyone.

The one I'd often get compared to was my sister because she was closest in age to me. She was the kind of person who could read for hours on end everyday and not do much else. I wasn't like that at all, preferring more hands on action type activities. For some reason, my parents decided because I wasn't reading as much as she was, there was something wrong with me.

I rarely wanted to leave my room or the house, but my parents would force me to anyway instead of leaving me be. Then they got on their kick that I should like nothing else but swimming and began forcing that on me day in and day out as well.

When I was left alone, I could take just about anything from anyone and it was like water off a duck's back. When my parents started trying to force me to conform to something, I'm not sure what, the teasing and tormenting really started to have an effect on me. If I had been left alone to my own devices, I would have been fine.

By "squeaky wheel" I mean the noisiest problem of the family, not necessarily the worst.

I tend to think most of the trouble I had in the family was them trying to "fix me" and make me like everyone else, or at least to appear as everyone else.

LOL, Prisoner, which wheel in your avatar are you?

"Looking" normal has never been a problem for me. On numerous occasions I would have people say "well, he looks normal..." But I definetly know what you mean when you say they try to "fix" you or be a certain way. Took my parents the longest time to accept me for who I was, but they still have problems with it. They say they understand but they act and talk like they dont, so frustrating.

my familys pretty much f-up. and i dont care my mom married twice and completely left my real dad because she thought she knew it all. then married some bimbo mexican who beat the s**t out of us and molested one of my sisters. i did find my real dad when i was 18 and went to meet him only to find hes was a complete f-ing mess on drugs, and other sh-t. he was a complete loser and now i dont wonder why asmuch as before, i just dont give a f-ck

My life was probably the most problematic out of all of the kids that I grew up with, as I was an only child. Also I know of none of my extended family that had the problems that I had growing up, and no others in my extended family that went through family counciling and a bunch of differant Psych tests. So yes, I probably was the squeaky wheel in the family.

If squeaky wheel means the one that wasn't like the rest, then yes. I grew up in a family of NTs, with a mother who basically left me to my own devices and a father who was never home as to avoid mother. My extended family (aunts, cousins, grandmother, uncles) picked on me MERCILESSLY for many of my sensory issues (like I had a big problem with water I wasn't expecting, getting sprayed or splashed or pushed into a pool would unhinge me). They would tease, "Oh Siuan, you better not go outside, it might rain and you could melt!" Or when they took me to Disney and some of the rides were like log rides where you'd get sprinkled or splashed, "Oh Siuan, you better not go on ANY rides, I think they ALL have some water on them. You should sit with grandma while we go without you."

Ah, the support and love I felt...

Squeaky squeaky squeaky. Squeak squeak. Squeak? Squeaky squeak. Squeaky squawk.

(Sorry, I'm a bit low on sleep (and sanity), and the word squeaky looks cool to me.)

My social anxiety is the most noticeable in the family, as well as sensory issues, but the rest I keep away from them. My father is probably AS as well - is social skills are roughly parallel with mine (ie, missing for the most part) - but he doesn't want to know about it. I'm the only one who makes an issue of it, and I make it a quiet issue.

My father is a classic redneck-wannabe who really just comes off looking silly from the pretense. My mother is a school-teacher who is obsessed with cooking. My brother is a whigger punk whose speech is annoyingly infested with racist jokes, although I've never seen any indication that he actually holds any such views. My sister was always extremely socially active and had several boyfriends before she finally settled on a heavy-set guy whose appearance she has lately adopted for herself (she'll make a good mother someday, I suppose).

However, these are among a dramatic minority in my entire extended family who don't show at least a few characteristics of AS. Both my paternal grandfather and his brother were both very HFA-gifted, and my grandmother (who frequently went into rages when piqued and, in spite of having a gentle and loving disposition, had no tact whatsoever) started teasing my grandfather relentlessly when I was diagnosed (incorrectly, but there's nothing that can change the past) with Tourette's due to his own propensity for showing characteristics of the disorder (he was DEFINITELY high-functioning autistic, though. He was forced to take classes in Latin to compensate for his delayed and impoverished speech, but he was arguably a genius in the mathematics. He worked as an electrical engineer, and he died soon after he was no longer able to make a pretense of continuing his work). Unsurprisingly, his brother was diagnosed dyslexic. My mother's maternal grandparents, the Parkers, were very HFA in their behavior, including being socially distant and not placing too much emphasis on formalities or birthdays. Her uncle is remarkably schizoid, and he's the type of person who can just sit in a chair quietly all day staring off into empty space (presumably wandering about in his internal thoughts) without saying or doing anything other than the bare minimum required for his survival. He's never shown any propensity for anxiety around people or social awkwardness, but my grandmother was astonished that, when I went down to his place to meet him once, I actually got the guy to make conversation. He is extremely gifted, and he played an important role in the early success of the IBM Corporation. I have one aunt on my father's side who was artistically gifted and has put many beautiful pictures on the walls of our homes, but the peculiar thing about them is that her tastes in color seem to be drab and bluish in hue. It's actually characteristic of my father's side of the family to have a passion for ocean or lake scenes, and this may be why they were early settlers of Lake Waccamaw (we still comfortably share this large and beautiful homestead as I polish off my college education). I can't think of any further examples, but I'm sure they're present.

In any case, I'm definitely the squeaky wheel in my immediate family. I am also quite brilliant, though, and my thinking tends to be beautiful and bizzare. My folks, although they love me, have trouble understanding me most of the time because I'm really the only one in the household who isn't "normal." I'm still welcome around here, though, because 1) my lack of social connections makes getting a job in this area all but impossible, and 2) as my mother puts it, "you're the only person I can at least half-ass rely on around here." Eventually, I will settle into a college-educated career that requires little physical presence, and I will probably be the one who cares for my parents in their old-age. When my parents have passed away, I intend to attempt to buy the rights to the land from my siblings somehow instead of letting it be broken up. After all, this is my ancestral home. I belong here, no matter how far I may travel from it. It's that sense of loyalty and sentimentality that has most made me the stranger of the house.

I don't mind being the "squeaky wheel," though. I find it...pleasant.

Nope that would be my cousin. Drugs, jail, ect. My whole family is pretty dysfunctional though.