December 2024 - but we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

New thread

They seethe with jealousy and covetousnous.

I showed ex sister a photo of a young couple's wedding. They looked so sweet and lovely and in love. To me all I could think was awwww how lovely.

She said 'shame about his shoes' 🤣

@AttilaTheMeerkat

ASD can present as a personality disorder, or become one due to maladaptive coping mechanisms. Often, women are diagnosed with personality disorders when there's a huge symptomatic overlap with ASD.

(My side of our family has lots of ASD but the empathetic type, on the whole. MIL's side is very personality-disordered).

Where is the peer reviewed papers or otherwise evidence for this?. Misinformation is harmful.

ASD is not a personality disorder nor is it listed as one.

Myself and daughter have ASD/ADHD. Basically we live in a world that causes us a lot of anxiety. All the noise, the spontaneity, issues with relationships, etc etc. We both receive information all at once and become overwhelmed. We are both highly empathetic to the point that we don’t know what to do with our feelings of empathy that overwhelm us also. a coping mechanism could be to reduce the time I spent around people because all the information all the time overwhelms me because I can’t deal with my own feelings on things let alone the other person. Definitely not a personality disorder.
Just piles and piles of info all the time in my own case and no tools to sort it out.

Not sure if helpful but ASD can appear as disconnected relationships around support. It’s taught in my family to be independent and need little support.

@AttilaTheMeerkat

Here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37983956/#:~:text=The%20relationship%20between%20Autism%20Spectrum,high%20grades%20of%20pervasiveness%2C%20a

@AttilaTheMeerkat

Also here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Goeran-Ryden-2/publication/228478050BorderlineepersonalitydisorderrandAutismmSpectrumDisorderrinfemaless-AAcross-sectional_study/links/0c960519dc1328610a000000/Borderline-personality-disorder-and-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder-in-females-A-cross-sectional-study.pdf

Current thinking around PDs is that they are misdiagnosis of autism in females. I can provide more peer-reviewed evidence to support this view, or it's freely available via Google scholar.

happyfarm omg that's me! The hyper independence. I can give support but really really struggle to receive it. Plus my two kids from different fathers have asd so 🤷🏼‍♂️

It is taught in my family. Go get your own money, your own jobs and possessions etc, don’t need for anything. What they neglect is the emotional need, this is missing completely. There is no talk of this, no one looks at if you are emotionally ready to be independent and fully grown or even taught that there is any need of this. So basically they push out children into adulthood who can do a job and move out be independent but emotionally immature or detached. That invisible attachment to your parents that I believe should always be present has shrivelled up and fell off. This behaviour of independence has caused havoc in my family. Hoarding disorders, mental health issues etc. All detached ways of feeling safe in a world because no one is emotionally safe.

@Dogaredabomb and @SamAndAnnie you are 100% right thanks for pointing it out.

I am trying to work out why and make sense of it. I’m driven to understand why she behaves the way she does. Then I might understand why I feel love is conditional, why I don’t think she proud of me, that she doesn’t actually love me. Why I feel she thinks my other sister is better than me. It’s all around trying to find a reason I can logically understand.

I know I just need to accept she is who she is but I think deep down I want her to change, if I can understand why then maybe she can change?

Hyper-independence is also a sign of being brought up with emotionally abusive/immature parents.

I think there is some overlap in behaviours between narcisstic parents and those with ASD.

The main key difference I'd suggest is that if a person with ASD has a behaviour concern raised to them (e.g. "I was upset by what you said to me"), they will apologise, take it on board and try to do better. A toxic person is more likely to dismiss it or claim that it's your fault or you're being too sensitive "I'm sorry you feel like that".

@Happyfarm yep hyper independent here, since a very young age. High functioning but I certainly know if I am behaving badly.

Criticism is very hard to deal with, I go into a downward spiral but I know someone with autism who goes into fight mode and becomes very aggressive. I think it depends on your personality and fight flight response. I’ve always been fawn and hide. I don’t behave badly intentionally to manipulate or get something, I’d rather suffer. I think only very disordered people could intentionally do this and care so little. I think people confuse ASD with having no ideas about good and bad etc, we all kind of know this. Some people just don’t care, they know it’s wrong.

That's a very good point about different reactions to criticism (even the well meant constructive kind). Two diagnosed asd people I know are the exact opposite to each other. One fights and one hides and is mortally wounded.

I see asd as more of a decoding and sensory issue than an emotions issue. It depends where the person is on the spectrum too I suppose.

My ex sister and I both have sound decoding issues ie we can hear a sound but can't easily identify the direction or immediately differentiate between a lawnmower and a motorbike. I don't think it affects very much.

Asd is such a broad condition, maybe it's like saying all dogs are friendly?

I remember saying to my youngest dc (asd) 'will you miss me while I'm away?' he looked like a rabbit in the headlights and said 'do you want me to miss you?' I said 'no, I want you not to miss me and to have a nice time. I'm checking to see if you will be ok' so he said 'no, I won't miss you at all, I'll enjoy the peace and quiet' 🤣

I am confrontational/aggressive by nature. If someone says the wrong thing on the wrong day looks out. However with my family I found a lot of the unsaid stuff, unacknowledged, rewriting history really hurtful. My mother was a compulsive liar and it is impossible to deal with. If she had said stuff directly to me I would have gone for her. It was all the lies, backstabbing, devious shit that really got my back up. When confronted she would just lie and blame someone else, so it was pointless.

ASD can't turn into a personality disorder, it's not correct to say that.

Someone with ASD could have a personality disorder as well though.

Having ASD isn't some kind of shield against developing other problems, same as anyone could develop them.

I suppose if someone has both ASD and PD it's difficult trying to separate out what is symptoms of what. But to us on this thread that's unnecessary nitpicking.

The issue for us is that the behaviour causes harm, regardless of whether it comes from someone with ASD, someone with a PD or someone who has nothing medically wrong with them but is just an abusive arsehole.

People also have a personality, as well as any medical conditions they have. None of us are perfect in this world, we all have personality flaws. These people's personality flaws are causing us on this thread harm, that's why we're here.

So trying to figure out if they ought to be diagnosed with something is a misdirection of energy IMO. That's energy we could be using to sort out our own behaviours, lives and futures, all of which is entirely under our own control.

Lots of us on this thread say our relatives are narcissists, but it's just shorthand TBH, we don't know it's true, they haven't been diagnosed with NPD and likely never will be. But they're displaying behaviour that's commonly displayed by narcissists. Whether that's just a narcissistic person with some negative personality traits or someone with actual Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So it's far easier to type "narc" and have everyone understand what you mean, than it is to type "nasty person who may or may not have a medical problem" each time we talk about them. Calling them a narc is just a useful shorthand for communication purposes. There's no need to get bogged down in the details of what they may or may not qualify for a diagnosis of, it's totally pointless.

samandannie brilliant post

Well said @SamAndAnnie !

I don’t know it has really helped me figuring out the history of my parents and I’ve learned a lot about myself. For some reason understanding in my personal circumstances that my mum is very likely ASD (undiagnosed but it’s now so obvious, dropped out of school at 12, no friends but really tries, socially awkward, hardly read and write etc) has made it feel more understandable and relatable. The way my auntie spoke about her, how awkward and she would say embarrassing she was as a child made me feel sorry for her. Yes she couldn’t control her emotions well and was very controlling I realise this could easily be me but I’ve had support with my own ND. I’m not saying it makes her behaviour acceptable but it’s more understandable. I’ve found personally I can step away from it because I know it’s not about me, she had an undiagnosed condition.
For some of us “just because” isn’t enough.

I wonder how many previous generations have been ND and missed because it wasn’t something back then. I have an 8 year old who says relentlessly “what about me, what about me” she has no ability to see outside of herself or consider others feelings. She would push someone over and hurt them (not intentionally) or say very mean things and she would then say what about me, they took my pencil, there will be no sorry. I wonder without support whether she would grow to be very narcissistic appearing. Her very large feelings always come first at the moment.

I guess my point is that - when dealing with difficult people - it's kinder on ourselves if we can see that these people are struggling too. Yes, they externalise and lash out and can't consider the feelings of others, but they're probably unable to.

Framing it this way has made it easier for me to understand the actions of MIL, who is completely inflexible, totally grandiose and unable to meet anyone on their terms. It's frankly exhausting, but it's also understandable in the context of ND.

That’s a good point. I am struggling to know how to deal with my elderly mother who could be described exactly like that. She is rude, grandiose, lacking in empathy and has no self awareness. She just hurts me over and over again, but she’s old, frightened and doesn’t have the capacity to understand things from my point of view. It’s so hard.

@BarkLife I agree it has helped me immensely. I see it as a personal disability (as it is really) and one that is unconnected to others but one if you don’t understand you could bend yourself too much to try and effect change. The change will always be from us and never them. I have to change to be accepted was my learned behaviour in childhood because my mum couldn’t widen her views to include mine. It was freeing when I gained this understanding.

@Nothingtosayhere It has helped me to view my mum as the person she is, with a disability in her thinking and interactions. I wouldn’t be hurt if she needed a
wheelchair so I try and view it the same and learn to not take it personally (which is hard). She isn’t the mum I thought, she is a struggling human who is getting many things wrong.

Nothingtosayhere

All people struggle and or otherwise get things wrong yet they do not all go around acting like your mother does towards you. She's made you her scapegoat for all her personal ills. You have to let go of any and or residual hope that she will change; all you can control is change how you react to her.

its also not your fault she is the ways she is and you did not make her that way. If anything you've received the Special Training from childhood onwards to put her needs first with your own dead last.

Your mother has likely not changed since your childhood; she was once young and abusive and now she is old and just as abusive. She does this because she can and has learnt this works for her. So many people fall down rabbit holes making pitiful excuses for such unacceptable behaviour or trying to accept the unacceptable by telling themselves they're struggling.

I would suggest you grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got and address all the fear obligation and guilt in therapy.

Would you tolerate this behaviour from a friend?. If not why not?. Your mother is no different.