I think my mother is autistic - anyone else?

[rocketrabbit]

Not officially diagnosed (or seeking diagnosis) but my relationship with her is really difficult and has been for a long time. It's been suggested to me by a couple of people including a therapist and psychiatric nurse that she sounds autistic. I've been trying to read up on it and it does seem like it might explain a lot of things: she's always been oblivious to how I'm feeling/my emotions, she tends to take on the interests of the men she's married despite having shown no interest in those things before. Has her own special interest which she considers herself to be extremely knowledgeable about, holds very rigid views, struggles to ever consider something from someone else's POV. Struggles socially. Heavy alcohol use. She will quite often start a conversation about a particular topic seemingly out of the blue (the conversation hasn't naturally gone there, she just launches into a speech about it). She frequently says hurtful things but there doesn't seem to necessarily be malice behind it, just a complete lack of awareness of how they might land with other people.

As a child I often felt very alone and like she needed me to parent her. She was in a bad marriage for a very long time and leaned on me for emotional support. My father was horrendous, not a decent person at all (and TBH IMO should have gone to prison for his behaviour). He used to bully my mother about being 'weird.' I wonder now if he was picking up on what I guess you would call 'quirks' and using them against her, obviously in a totally unacceptable way.

Almost everything I've read is about parents of autistic children, but there doesn't seem to be much about adult children of autistic parents (and there must surely be quite a few of us).

Anyone else in the same boat?

I tend to think that NPD emerges as a series of maladaptive behaviours in adulthood as a result of neurodivergence. Autistic traits can present as very solipsistic and self-obsessed, because autistic people sometimes lack social imagination i.e. putting yourself in other’s shoes. When people talk about cluster B personality disorders, I just think of lots of undiagnosed older people whose overwhelming need for control isn’t being met.

DS1 is AuDHD and, looking at my wider family, both conditions are quite endemic. DH’s mum is undiagnosed autistic and presents with OCPD (not OCD, but a related personality disorder basically summed up by a ‘my way or the highway’ approach to life and relationships 🤣). She has lost the vast majority of any friends she made, she’s rude to people she ‘doesn’t like’, she’s racist, attributes negative intentions to people and makes everything about herself.

She also has this sort of grandiosity whereby she claims that consultants call her by her first name and that random men have crushes on her. She has also failed every exam she’s ever taken, because ‘my mind goes totally blank’ (she’s not unintelligent by any means). She’s exhausting and we find it hard to spend time with her.

My own mum just lacks social graces; she walks off mid-conversation, is abrupt with strangers and starts conversations in the middle of her thoughts. I suspect ADHD!

@newtvnewsofanewcomputer

Autistic people have higher rates of face blindness (DS1 has it). Perhaps your mum finds it impossible to differentiate between people she doesn’t know well? That might be why she finds it hard to remember people.

In mums case, I don’t think so.

She will often tell me that she sees certain people out and about, people who she doesn’t know very well.

She is very nosey about certain people / things and will be very observant.

But if somebody doesn’t interest her, she will either not remember them, or pretend not to notice them.

She needs to pigeonhole people as soon as she meets them. She needs to know where they live and what they work as so she knows how high up the pecking order they are.

But if she thinks she can deduce this just from looks, and it’s somebody she has no interest in, she won’t ask.

She also seems to have a mental block when it comes to me. Somebody that she may otherwise find quite interesting, she just writes off if she meets them through me. I think deep down she doesn’t like me very much.

I also hate to say it, but when it comes down to it, she panders to money. She fawns over people with money.

I was a huge animal lover when I was younger and used to muck out at stables in exchange for riding lessons. These fizzled out as I didn’t really have support from her as even with access to the free lessons, it’s an expensive hobby.

She didn’t support this, but when I was doing A levels and planning to study vet med at uni with a view to becoming an equine vet, she was really, really vocal about it, as she felt it held some prestige.

Before the end of the first year I knew I couldn’t do it and looked into switching to zoology and Vet nursing, and I don’t think she ever forgave me.

I limped on a bit, as she was very keen for me to be a vet, but it made me ill and I ended up dropping out and being quite lost for a year. She was very cruel and dismissive to me during this time. She even tried to push me into medicine or dentistry, which was just nonsensical.

Basically I feel she put minimum effort into raising me, and is pissed off that I didn’t turn out better, despite giving me no help or guidance along the way. She is always comparing me to friends kids. Some of whom I’ve ended up meeting and they are doing no better than me. She just likes to make me feel guilty that I’m not more successful.

@newtvnewsofanewcomputer

This is so sad. Her behaviour must make you feel so invalidated. I hope you are okay, and that you don’t need her validation in order to feel happy.

Thank you.

I’m fine. I mostly just feel bad for her. She’s very unhappy. But she won’t change. It is very sad

This is interesting reading. I have wondered about my own but think NPD is a better match. However @ProfessorRizz point about trauma in childhood also rings true.

As does the idea that children with autism experience trauma as a result. It’s a bit of a perfect storm isn’t it?

What therapist and psychiatrist nurse told you they thought your DM has autism??? was it a therapist your dm was seeing? if so that is breech of confidence. How did the psychiatric nurse come about? have you considered your DM can be perfectly nasty all on her own with her perfectly neurotypical brain? She doesn't have to have a diagnosis, and 'neuro diverse' doesn't equal 'nasty'.

I've been diagnosed with autism and ADHD in the last few years. My brother also thinks he has both. His DC has an autism diagnosis. My DC2 also has ADHD and autism.

I'm totally convinced my DM has ADHD and probably also autism. I had a good childhood, as did my DCs (who were 99% brought up by autistic me because their dad couldn't be bothered to get involved).

It is impossible to talk to DM about any worries because if I say something like "I'm really upset about what X did" for example, she'll say "There's nothing can do about that." What she says is literally true but what she doesn't understand is that I want to talk it through with her and share the worry or even possibly gain a better understanding of the situation or maybe even come up with a plan for the future. I have given up trying to explain why I want to talk to her, even though she talks through all of her worries with me and when my dad died, I had to listen to her crying down the phone constantly. Obviously I understood her distress but I found it incredibly difficult to pick up the phone to a crying person constantly for the best part of a year. Her literalness and lack of ability in social back and forth makes me think she is probably autistic. Also she seems to struggle with friendships.

She has an absolutely outstanding sense of smell. Mine is better than most people's too but hers is absolutely next level. Heightened senses are very common with ND people.

DM drives in an incredibly unfocused and distractted drivee and is one of the main reasons why I think she probably has ADHD. She will drive along commenting on birds and flowers at the side of the road constantly. I want to yell at her "watch the road not the verges!!!"

She blurts out stuff as it comes into her head and doesn't have a filter. Despite being in her 80s is incredibly busy busy busy. She is only really happy when she is busy .

I also suspect she is mildly dyslexic.

Nothing in your original post OP suggests autism - what @AttilaTheMeerkat said is much nearer the mark!

Autism is a lifelong developmental difference, and can look different in women and older people. I think OP describes her mother’s autism presentation really clearly.

ASD is a triad of social impairments

ASD is neither a mental health condition nor a personality disorder. Nothing the op writes of her mother suggests ASD at all but rather an untreated and untreatable personality disorder like NPD.

My father had (I am pretty certain) diagnosed NPD and massive mental health challenges, so I know what that looks like, and my mother is different. There were definitely times when she displayed some of the same behaviours but it often felt like she was copying him. I'm open minded about it as obviously I don't know and this is something I'm trying to make sense of for myself.

This thread is deeply offensive to those of us with ASD - full of erroneous stereotypes and descriptions of people who have been emotionally cruel, callous, highly unpleasant and physically neglectful of their children, relations and friends - none of which equates to having autism in the slightest! Yes, SOME autistic people can have these traits and characteristics, just as SOME allistic and neurotypical people do, but to use them as a sign or indicator of autism is wrong, wrong wrong!

@DracunculusVulgaris no one has said all autistic people are horrible but it’s perfectly possible to be autistic and a bad parent. People who had great relationships with possibly autistic parents aren’t driven to analyse and share their bad experiences on threads like this!

I am pretty sure my father had ASPD (as well as autism) , so yes, these coexist, he showed very little empathy

My mother is seeking an autism diagnosis. very childlike, not much parenting, obsessed with her special interest, walked out on her family to pursue this when we were teenagers, not interested in her grand children, lives a solitary life, riddled with anxiety, over empathetic towards animals and very little towards people.

Is she autistic, without a doubt. Is she narcissistic, not sure, she doesn't get involved in family dramas as she simply isn't interested in us. - what does that make her?

I have AuDHD and am going out of my way to show my children they are loved, it's hard.

My parents were/are not nice people, but I like to think it was a personality disorder rather than their autism

Quite, DH's mother was obviously autistic, but her family were loved and cherished. She would do anything for them

@YourTruthorMine same with mine, often at the expense of her own health and wellbeing.

I believe that my Dad is autistic and I understand now (50+ years later) perhaps why he parents the way he did/does. He had a complete lack of empathy, disengagement and can only see the world through his ideas/map of the world. But this could be due to many other factors.

I found reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents (Audio Download): Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD, Marguerite Gavin, Tantor Audio: https://Amazon.co.ukAdult : Books Lindsay Gibson's book on emotionally immature parents and the accompanying workbook really helpful in coming to terms with my disappointment that he was emotionally unavailable, and sadly that he is very unlikely to change despite my best efforts or me telling him how his actions/words impacted me.

It is a grieving process - to mourn for the parent you should have had, rather than the Mum you had.

It also takes a lot of emotional graft to maintain a relationship with them and still protect your own wellbeing. It's OK if you need to step back a bit and give yourself space.

So much of this resonates with me about my mother. newtvnewsofanewcomputer in particular, I could have written most of your post except I'm a failed solicitor. Once she said to me [completely out of the blue, no context to justify suddenly coming out with it] 'Don't feel bad that you didn't do as well as you should've done, I sent you to private school for my own satisfaction'. She's a monumental snob which I find hilarious considering how ordinary we are. Eg she'll say sniffily that she can't believe builders are living in houses like hers - it's a 2-bed chalet bungalow! She gets all excited if she so much as exchanges pleasantries with someone she considers 'smart' (as in posh). It's very sad really.
Also ProfessorRizz, 'I tend to think that NPD emerges as a series of maladaptive behaviours in adulthood as a result of neurodivergence.' is so true. Someone like my mother spends her younger years thinking, why am I so rubbish at A, B or C, why can't I cope with X, Y or Z. They develop low self-esteem which is so intolerable that they have to construct an I am a saintly martyr narrative to counteract it. The venom they hurl at anyone who, even unwittingly, challenges the narrative is off the chart. Once she decided she wanted oil portraits done of my children. When she changed her mind she couldn't just say, oops, bit embarrassing when I've wasted so much of [the artist's] time. Instead she had to insist that the artist was evil incarnate. She can't feel happy so she has to try and get somone to feel as unhappy as she is because then she can call it normal. It has to be me because a random person would move away sharpish if she started up her you should feel bad for buying your child a ready meal etc guilt trips.

I don’t know if I think my mum is autistic but certainly there’s something not quite right, she’s only ever had one friend at a time and sort of gets obsessed with them then falls out with them over something quite petty and never sees them again, they’re not what I’d call proper friendships, usually they’re using her for something and she’s more friends with them than they are with her.

She can’t see things from other people’s point of view and is quite self-centred. She’s very rigid, I remember when I was at school she absolutely refused to let me have whatever the fashionable clothes were (shell suits anyone?) or shave my legs or use conditioner (in my thick frizzy hair) or basically do anything that normal teenagers do, even though the other girls were bullying me over it and I was in tears about the bullying every week for years, she would just say ‘you don't need to do x’ and now as an adult I look back and think they were all such a silly petty little things to let your daughter be bullied over.

This really resonates with me. In particular the mourning process. My DM was a narcissist and my DF is autistic. As an only child it’s incredibly lonely and frustrating but it’s made me very self sufficient!

My mother had come to the conclusion she is after my sister being diagnosed. I'm certain MIL is too, but she's not so happy at DH being diagnosed and I don't think sees it in herself. They were both great mothers although both a bit neurotic at times. They are both surprisingly flexible but do need time to come round to things and get stressed easily. Both had terrible relationships with their parents. I think for our parents in the 80s, they were wealthy, educated and made an active decision to have children and chose to do the best they could, and society was getting flexible enough then that there was a choice of parenting models. Their mothers didn't have the option of education. Marriage and female social spheres were their only option for which they were fundamentally unqualified and struggled a lot. They were presumably always viewed as quirky and didn't have the support or knowledge to parent in a way that suited their quirks in the 50s. As a result there are no healthy sibling relationships for at least 3 generations.