Aspergers Parent

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I was raised by a dad with Aspergers. To this day I have not been able to hold any sort of meaningful conversation with him. We can only occasionally briefly talk about his hobbies. Basically, he is mute most of the time.

I am now discovering that I am Aspie. I have come a long way through the years by throwing myself into uncomfortable situations to learn to cope and not be like my dad. I am now at a point where I almost feel NT.

I am looking for others on here that were raised by an Aspie parent as I am trying to conclude whether I am Aspie by conditioning or by dna. What was it like being raised by an Aspie and how do you think it effected you? Do you feel that your Aspie traits are learned?

Stating my disclaimer first that I am not yet diagnosed formally, but only had my suspicions confirmed by a qualified psychologist who urged me to get the formal evaluation -- I do think my both my father and my mother showed traits that, at the time, I did not know were spectrum issues as I myself was ignorant about the spectrum too.

My dad was a very reserved, inward person, but yet was "famous" among friends and family for never stopping talking if you got him started on a subject that meant something to him. He did "Aspie rambling" when talking about a favorite subject. I loved him and he loved me and he was a good dad, but it was always very hard to feel like I'd made a connection with him on a deep level.

My mum too showed traits now that I look back with more knowledge. She too was a very inward person, was comfortable being alone with her thoughts, besides other factors. I had a closer relationship with her and we did talk a lot, and we shared a lot of thing in common -- we both used to observe how we had such a rich "inner life" with out own thoughts and interests that it felt like a lot had "happened" that was interesting to us respectively, yet if someone were to say "What's new, what have you been up to lately?" expecting to hear very NT news about places I'd gone, activities I'd done and socializing I'd done, I had nothing to report, yet I felt like a LOT of interesting things had been taking place right inside my mind, or because I'd been reading a fascinating non-fiction book from which I'd learned a lot. My mum was the same. Her mother too was someone I now suspect to have been on the spectrum. That's just the start. There is just a whole list of traits and characteristics to both of these women that I wont' go into detail with but to say, yes, it's strongly occurred to me.

I can't of course say definitively that "My parents were on the spectrum." I could be entirely wrong, as I'm not a qualified professional. It's just that, since recognizing myself that I may be on the spectrum, and then trying to educate myself more about what it is and what that means and what diagnosis means, the things I learned "rang a bell" not only with my own life full of traits and incidents, but with aspects of my parents, my grandmother, one or two of my cousins on one side, and even one or two of my siblings.

I've wondered the same thing. If you were raised just by your dad, perhaps as we all copy who raises us. But if you had another parent involved in raising you who was neurotypical, you'd think you'd pick up what you needed if you could. Have you thought about seeing a professional if this is bothering you to clarify?

From a personal perspective, I don't think these kind of things can be learned. They are part of the fibers of your being.

Most of the people twitch one way, and you twitch another. You may spend years battling to suppress or minimize some of this and it barely makes a difference--or you make great strides, but you are still notably, noticeably different. Every place that you go, you are apart.

The sensory issues are related and impossible to learn.

But you can go beyond opinion and experience and look at data.
There was a piece in the New York Times recently that has good data for this discussion, presented in an excellent infographic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opini ... .html?_r=0

As I understand it, from obsessively reading stories on the subject, the current research indicates that there is a complex genetic basis underlying the various clusters of symptoms that define the autism spectrum. While there are a few single nucleotide polymorphisms that are closely correlated with autism, epigenetics, the interaction of the genes and the molecular environment maintained by the mother's body and placenta, seem to play very important roles in how the many implicated genes behave.

There is a piece with a good, simple overview of the genetic issues over at SFARI--the piece is about a false claim by an Australian research team that they found a 70% accurate means of testing for autism by looking for selected SNPs in a genetic sample, but in discussing that disproven claim, the writers bring up and link to a lot of useful background:
http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/blog/ ... ppery-snps

There are surely learned behaviors that is more or less helpful as ways of coping with the underlying neurology, but you won't end up on the spectrum because you were trained to be that way. If your biological parent gave you the genes and your birth mother maintained the right prenatal epigenetic conditions, then you will have that neurology, otherwise you might be neurotypical but poorly socialized. If you were raised by your biological parents and one of them was on the spectrum, I would think that any autistic traits you have are the result of that genetic heritage.

An ongoing problem with all this is that the precise causal mechanisms are not yet known. I suspect that as they become known the question will shift from "what causes it?" to "why are some people with these genes subclinical?" and "how can we help people with these genes to lead the best possible lives?" Until the researchers thoroughly explore and untangle the very complex interactions that result in the spectrum, and probably even after, we'll just have to find our own answers to that question.

My mum and dad never talked much so it always made me wonder if that's why I'm no good at general conversation.

but my sister is the total opposite of me so I doubt there's any correlation.

dad is classic aspie and is in his sixties;he was informaly diagnosed by specialists of mine.
am severely classic autistic;low functioning,the truth is had never liked him growing up he was a brutal vicious man who tried to beat the autism and intelectual disability out of self as he was a hardcore christian at the time and believed was possesed by a devil,was in absolute fear for life every day because of him as didnt have the mental capacity to understand what he was doing,and he was greatly detached from self as a parent,but he acted like a caring parent to sister which did not understand, had developed severe reactive attachment disorder which have still got today.

never thought of him as a dad,in fact it was like he didnt exist despite the beatings had got off him every day.
he understands now because the specialists of mine have helped him to come to terms with it, though mum still feels its her fault am this way as thats what the doctors told her,they had told her the 'refrigerator mother theory' without naming the term.

am getting on better with dad now,as he tries very hard to understand and interact but he is also the most stubborn man have ever known and he has pretty obvious routines every day which used to clash with mine alot when had stayed at theirs every weekend.

Both of my parents are probably (undiagnosed) aspies, but my sister is the complete opposite of us and more or less NT. (She has mild ADHD)

So no, I don't think you can be raised to be an aspie. It's mostly genetic.

Neither of my parents, nor my only sibling have any autistic traits whatsoever. My grandmother on my Dad's side I believe did and I have one cousin on that side who's DXd with AS. My sibling has one child (out of 3) diagnosed PDD-NOS.

My parents (and I) recognized very early that I was not like them. They spent the first ten years of my life trying to force me to become "normal." Then my NT sibling came along and they just gave up and let me hide in my room.