dysfunctional families & AS

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I don't have serious difficulties understanding any children. It's the grown up people that perplex me. So in my case you are quite mistaken. My son and I are thick as thieves and have love, kindness, compassion, understanding and lots of other good stuff between us. We are both on the spectrum. As far as being self-centred, I don't think that's the "very nature of our disability". I am very self-absorbed (not in a completely negative way, either), but have changed my behaviours profoundly since having a child. In fact today my life centres around my child in just about every way, because I love him with all my heart. I'm not saying it's easy, it isn't easy for any parent to be selfless, but LOGIC dictates kids are more important than adults.

I guess it bears saying again and over and over. (I don't know if I'll be here for long as I'm quite a bit older and have a hugely different perspective than many here.) Whilst being egocentric might be part of autism (as it involves theory of mind), theory of mind CAN be developed over time and autistic people can seek out assistance to become successful at whatever we wish to do (parenting included, thank you very much).

Autism is not an excuse to be a crappy parent who is so self-absorbed you fail to put your children first. "Oh sorry I didn't raise you properly or love you because I was so self-centred due to my autism. I was more involved in my interests than you but that's natural for me." Autism is not an excuse to be an @$$, autism is not an excuse to be vacant from the world and autism isn't an excuse to not be everything we want to be in life. Autism is most certainly NOT an excuse to be a crappy parent, that's a load of bollocks with all due respect.

All that said, I do realise there are people on the spectrum who do not feel capable of having children or raising them. I totally respect that. I just hate to see autistic people painted with these broad brushes. I find it offensive personally as a person who is parenting, as well as facing a lot of other challenges in the world at large head on.

If there is anything to where my thinking is going these days, Dysfunctional family stresses those of us with sensory issues [Mi mama apparently told everybody ELSE I was the sensitive one] to propel us over the border into spectral territory. Son had a strongly supportive family, is much lower on Aspie quotients than I am. My dysfubctional siblings had as dysfunctional an environment as I had, are MORER dysfunctional themselves - but all pretty much NT.

This is true, and there are also people on the spectrum who feel capable of having and raising children when they are not. My mother is one of them. She has also felt that she and I had a close relationship, when we did not. She has also felt that her life, when I was a young child, centred around me. There was a lot of truth in that, she had to change an awful lot of what she was doing with her life because of me. As I grew older however, she increasingly tried to make me fit around her, and she became less and less able to understand me. So, maybe there is some sense in saying that people on the autism spectrum find children easier to understand than adults. Having said that, lack of empathy is a core feature of autism spectrum disorders, and I can't see how someone could be on the spectrum and "not have any difficulties understanding any children". Of course, you realize that your child is going to become a grown-up one day, don't you? What is going to happen to your relationship with him then, if grown-ups perplex you?



Some parents on the autistic spectrum can become good parents with assistance. Some can't. If you don't like to see autistic people painted with broad brushes, how about refraining from doing just that?



It's not about autism being an excuse. It's about the fact that many people on the spectrum can't help being and behaving like you are describing here, or don't realize they need to for the sake of their children.



I am not trying to say that you are a bad mother. I would need to know you and your family environment very well in order to know that, and even then, my own autism would make me quite likely to be mistaken in my judgment. What I am saying however, is that, when a parent on the spectrum claims to be a good parent, I like to hear the child's side of the story as well before I accept it. In the meantime, I keep an open mind.




I can understand that you are finding life difficult, and I can understand your strong emotions about the parenting issue. If I had a child, I would probably feel like you do. However, I come from the other side of the fence, and I have strong emotions about the issue to.

Finally - thank you for being respectful in your post. Sorry if you find anything offensive in my response, but I had to say it.

Really done here now. Peace out, Wrong Planet. This is the Wrong Planet for me. Not every two people on the spectrum are the same and maybe I'm not on the spectrum at all. IF I am, I am most certainly not quite a few of the things I see here. Maybe because I'm older, maybe because I've lived a long life on my own and changed behaviours because I just did, I don't know. Can't much deal with this place anymore or the profoundly self-involved responses I've received from a number of posters. It's too distressing for me and not at all helpful to be here.

Good luck all. If moderators could possibly deactivate my account I'd appreciate that. If there is a way I can clear all of my posts here first that would be good. If not, ah well live and learn again about the internet.

I think it's to be expected that at a message board for those with autism and Asperger's there will often be posts where people come across as self-involved, even profoundly self-involved.

Fair enough and I get that. I just don't have time to navigate it in my own life. I really do have a lot on being a parent and everything else I'm doing. Right now the main people I need to worry about understanding are in my immediate family and friends. So far so good.

While I doubt a dysfunctional family would cause or worsen ASD, I do believe that the level of functionality directly impacts the effectiveness of parental coaching and support.

In my case, with both my brother and father on the spectrum, and both lower functioning than me, after about age 4 I essentially raised my self. That was good in a few ways - building confidence, learning coping skills out in the NT world, etc. But there are many small things I ought to have been coached on that never happened. My NT mom was consumed by dealing with my brother and my dad, and my dad was only partially effective at coaching me - most of the little coaching he could render went to my brother.

Blessed are ASDers who get raised up right and in an intact, non toxic family.

I agree with what's been said so far a dysfunctional family can't cause AS, but I do think it can cause AS-type traits and it can make it more difficult to learn how to deal with AS for a person who does have it.

My parents are both on the spectrum and both thought they were normal and that the rest of the world is wrong. They are also arrogant opinionated people, both very sheldony and look down on people who are mainstream. Being brought up to think that nts are stupid and beneath me certainly didn't help me make any friends.
I look back and cringe, I used to be so arrogant.

It has taken me years to mellow and to start seeing that my family perspective of the world is not the only one.

My parents don't have friends, do I didn't learn about social rules from them. I think if I had parents who liked other humans then I would have higher self esteem and would get on better with other people.

I have become more open minded as I get older and I am finding it increasingly difficult to deal with my parent's very black and white way of thinking.

I'd second (fifteenth??) the thought that dysfunctional families don't cause AS, but they certainly do exacerbate the situation.

And, if it's not dealt with, AS can cause dysfunctional families.

All my family relations were dysfunctional in some way-- that with my AS father and suspected AS grandfather probably the least so.

My maternal grandma was never rejecting-- she is, in fact, a subscriber to the school of fatuous, even insincere, praise. But it was always clear she wished I was different-- more feminine, more ladylike, more inclined to be friends with the "right kids." Embarrassed that all my friends were "from the wrong side of the tracks." About the only thing she really, truly liked was my academic prowess.

My birth mother and I did the best we could for a few years in between her growing up enough to take care of me and getting too sick to, but we just plain flat out never got along. I reminded her too much of Daddy. All the reasons why she left-- and most of the reasons why she regretted doing so.

The NT's on Daddy's side of the family-- other than my paternal grandmother-- made it clear that Daddy and I were second-class citizens. We were "stupid," there was something wrong with us, we were inherently less worthy. We bought our place in the family with "gifts," with explicit hedgemony, with constant ass-kissing. And it was still always made clear that we were lesser individuals-- that all this was simply how we purchased their generous tolerance despite that fact.

That was probably the most dysfunctional and damaging aspect of AS in my family-- the NTs openly and blatantly treating the Aspies as lesser beings. To this day, the root cause of a lot of my problems in life is not AS but the bone-deep belief that having AS makes me inherently less worthy of life, acceptance, et cetera than NT individuals.

Then again, maybe that belief is what makes me a "good Aspie--" careful to be considerate, always conscious of my idiosyncrasy, always believing I should put myself, my wants, my needs last on the list.

*shrug*

I'm happier than I was a year ago, but something still needs to change. Whether it's rejection of the idea of myself as lesser or total, unresisting acceptance of it.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family. In my opinion, growing up in a dysfunctional family doesn't cause Autism, but it can make things worse. For me it was worse because I was clueless on how to interact with the world, but mostly everyone at home was crazy and so I didn't learn much from them. School was hell, my home life was hell, and so I was one miserable f**cking kid. I might have had a chance at having an ounce of self-esteem if I had supportive parents and siblings, but they all had their heads so far up their asses to notice that there was something wrong with me. A couple of teachers tried telling my mother that there was something odd about me and she took offense to it. Everyone thought I was just "shy". I used to be angry at my mother for this but I got over it. Sounds messed up but I'm glad I struggled and went through all of that crap because I love where I am today.

Dysfunctional families, Dysfunctional friends can create other types of people. These people should of thought about it before they treated someone the way they did.

You can have autism but be brought up in an unstable environment. It isn't that unstable environment however that caused your autism.
Just like it's common to be bullied for having autism. That bullying did not cause your autism. You were bullied for already being autistic.