If you are a woman diagnosed with autism, or have experience, please give me your opinion

[Parrotid]

Background is that ASD and ADHD run rampant through my family. I have ADHD (inattentive) as do some of my kids. I have two maternal uncles with ASD traits, and then there is my mum. She is in her seventies and v sprightly, still working etc. My family are v religious and also quite showy, she likes to be SEEN to be good etc.

We have fallen out on a grand scale. The gist of it is that I feel she has betrayed me repeatedly. I’m divorced and despite my ex husband’s shit behaviour she refused to see no wrong in him at all. She stayed in touch with him and would facilitate contact between him and the children when it was meant to be carefully managed. She also accused me of deliberately making his home life difficult in an effort to make him leave and that if I had been a better and more attractive wife then perhaps he wouldn’t have been so difficult. All delightful stuff.

we haven’t spoken for months now and she seems to have no real understanding of WHY it mattered to me when she would take his side. She would call it “keeping the peace” (she would do stuff like give him a lift to the pub or babysit if he wanted to go out and I wasn’t around, despite it being HIS responsibility.) She believed she was helping us to stay married, rather than supporting me.

Anyway, it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps this is all a manifestation of a lack of Theory of Mind. That in her head there are rules, eg “We don’t have divorce in this family. The wife must be pretty and a great cook. Husbands can go out when they like.” And that she was just sticking to that instead of actually seeing what was happening before her eyes - I was falling to bits and he was horribly cruel and abusive.

So, could this be a manifestation of the autistic traits which are so strong in the family? Or am I clutching at straws?

I’ve come back to this. Sitting with it more, her behaviour in the past has been particularly underhand and devious, to suit her own ends. And thinking about certainly my own experience of neurodivergent people, that’s not usually a trait.

By underhand, deliberately spoiling things she didn’t like, or wasn’t Centre of attention at. Getting someone sacked from work because they crossed her (she fitted them up for stealing). Sabotaging things she didn’t like. That sort of thing. All of which she admitted openly later, whilst lying straight faced at the time.

That definitely doesn't fit with neurodivergence, as far as I understand or have experienced it, as you say. Thoseare traits of someone with a personality disorder.

I'm autistic and hell would freeze over before I'd put my DD's ex above her.

People with neurodivergence generally get criticised for being brutally honest. They're not generally liars or manipulative. Those sort of things have nothing to do with being ND.

(Just for the ridiculous posters who don't seem to get that a lack of correlation doesn't mean exclusion of a trait from any person in that population of people, yes: SOME people on the spectrum will be manipulative or dishonest, just as SOME NT people are, but that's not one of the traits associated with autism or anything to do with the diagnostic criteria so it's no indicator of autism or ADHD or whatever. It is however, indicative that there may be a personality disorder.)

Sorry I had to add the caveat OP, not aimed at you, just that some of the comments on this thread were shocking.

It must be so hard for you to deal with. If I was you I would emotionally distance myself to prevent further hurt and set very clear boundaries. And stick to them. You have to protect yourself.

I am autistic and come from an autistic family. I think I can relate to the rigid rules thing, particularly where that intersects with age and generational norms. My grandma (never diagnosed but very definitely autistic!) was quite similar in her fixed thoughts about how men and women should be, gender roles, etc. She would say some things that were a bit insensitive and very out of touch. But it was never really personal or nasty in the same way as your DM, she would more just go on rants about “society these days” and say stuff to my dad like “in my day men wouldn’t have done the laundry, why are you doing that”. She could be a bit stubborn and has that autistic “I am right” thing, which I definitely have a streak of. I can get entrenched, particularly where my justice sensitivity gets involved, and I can be like a dog with a bone. I suppose what I can see is the rigid views, but I don’t recognise the pointed nastiness or deliberately putting someone else down as an autistic trait. If grandma was told that her comments were upsetting she usually would apologise and wind her neck in a bit.