Anyone else with an Aspergers parent or sibling?

[Fennel]

I was wondering how common this is - my father and brother both fit the AS diagnostic criteria very closely (though have never been diagnosed officially) and my sister's partner has an AS brother (diagnosed) and father (undiagnosed).

Does anyone else have this sort of family and if so does it affect you now, especially as a parent?

Well I have a theory.....

AS seems to run through families far more than full blown autism does. At least that's been my experience- although of course there are always exceptions. However in general it seems that a lot of AS kids have AS father or grandfathers or Uncles (usually male line but not always). It seems much less common for full blown what I call poo-smearing autism to pass down the family- although fairly common to have autistic siblings in this generation at least. However a lot of the families I know with full blown autism have some sort of weird immunity thing going on in their family.

Very mass generalisation. But certianly true that AS can run within families. There was a discussion about this recently.

Also depends where you're inclined to put the cut off though. Plenty of people have AS type traits- my old PhD supervisor for one. However he was also succesful, married, ahd kids, could maintain realtionships of all types. He certainly would have no need of an AS diagnosis- as he was perfectly able to function and indeed be successful. So is that AS or just a type of personality.

I have a friend who sounds just like your Phd supervisor. He is also higly sucessful, happily married and has 3 boys who are all on the spectrum (high functioning Autistic end). My friend was taken to the doctor by his mother because his auti behaviour was so odd. She was told to take him away and try harder As an adult he still had these traits....used to eat his food in order when we were at collage.
BTW, one of his sons has gone from no meaningful speech to talking in 18 months.

my brother (36) really fits the AS description and we went through years of family therapy when he was a teenager because he used to drive my father nuts... He's divorced now but in a happy relationship with a social worker. My parents and I secretely joke about the fact that the only woman willing to put up with him is one who is professionally trained. He is a professor of mathematics - he did his first degree with the open university and finished it before he was even done with school.
We're not close but we get on ok. I am quite sensitive sometimes and his 'say it how it is' approach can be hurtful. He also does this odd thing on the phone - never says 'bye' or anything but just hangs up when he's done.
I remember finding him very odd when I was little (he's 9 years older than me) - for instance, all thoughout his teenage years he used to mainly eat granny smith apples, bread rolled up into little balls (what's that all about?!) and tap water with a dash of artficial sweetener (mmmh!).
On the plus side, he always took great delight in showing me the workings of his computer and by the age of 9 I was a whizz at programming in BASIC.
I must admit, he still seems a bit weird to me - like someone who toes the borders of social norms at times and oversteps the line a bit rather frequently.

my dad was a mathematician married to a social worker.
my brother a mathematician (actuary) married to a nurse!

I agree Jimjams it's a spectrum without a clear cut-off, I'd put the cut-off at the point where ability to hold down a job, relationship or general social interaction is significantly affected.

Just because someone is married with kids does not mean they can actually maintain good relationships.

that's true Fennel- and there is a book about it- called an Asperger's marriage or something like that. When I mentioned relationships in my post I was thinking of non partner type relationships- having friends and getting on with colleagues etc. I think I'd agree with you about the cut off.

Not on my immediate side of the family - my parents and siblings are definitely not AS.

However you could put up a good case for DH's father and one of his brothers being on the spectrum.

I also have a female cousin, same age as me, on my mother's side and the more I think about her and what she was like as a child, the more I think "autism" (not Asperger's, somehow). She was diagnosed as schizophrenic in her teens, but I think this is a common misdiagnosis for people who are on the spectrum. My mum also tells me stories about what this girl's father (ie mum's brohter) was like as a boy - he had a really bad temper, he couldn't stand having his hair cut, he hardly talked (and still doesn't) and I wonder whether he too is on the spectrum.

However I did once ask my mum about myu cousin and she became really distraught about the implication that the autism might be on her side. Very helpful.

Isn't it sad that people don't feel that they can be honest about things like autism? Why is it that any illness/syndrome to do with the mind is seen as 'weakness'? No-one would be ashamed to admit to a family history of, say, high blood pressure.

Oh hmb, you don't know my family! In the community I come from originally people are very close-mouthed about any illness - none of us were allowed to mention to anyone that my grandmother had cancer, for example.

Now that is what I call crazy behaviour!

My families madness was based upon not going to the doctor because you were not ill unless he had told you so!!

Thinking about it my mum was ashamed to admit that her father had dies of TB.

I certainly think that attitudes to illness in that part of the world can't have helped my cousin at all

Fortunately we moved to the UK when I was 10.

Where did your cousin live? (sorry being nosy)

I have a (slightly) older sister with Aspergers. I think its a bit dangerous to go down the route of the cut off being blurred and therefore possibly lots of people are "nearly" AS because, believe me, there really IS a big difference between someone genuinely fitting the dx and someone not, even if not quite. One of my cousins also has an autistic son, very like my own, therefore they are both "kanner's", non-verbal, poo smearing in the past etc The scary thing is that this cousin and I are the only 2 in our generation to have boys. My sisters, his brother and our other cousins all have girls, the ONLY two boys in the whole generation have autism! THat is why I was so scared of having another boy (but took the risk)..... even though its one of my sisters with AS.

Donegal.

Ah, I come from Wales. Do you think that it is a celtic thing??

Maybe!! Certainly an unofficial family motto for our lot would be "Whatever you say, say nothing"!

We are sisters in spirit . In our family the only thing that mattered was what other people thought!

I didn't change my name when I married, and my mother was worried sick that people would think I was living in sin! And she was at the wedding for goodness sake!

Oh yes, I have never changed mine and it throws all the extended family into complete confusion! Most of them still write to me as "Mrs [DH's name]" though - grrrrrr!

Or the very worst, Mrs dhs first name/ second name! The only people to use my 'married name' were my family. DH never has, and neither have his family. My mother was worried sick that I could give my kids my surname, and then everyone would think that they were illigitimate. What other people though was always a big thing in our house

Best line from my mother 'We could all have a nervous breakdown , if we wanted'

ROFL hmb, I don't know about us, but sounds like our mums are definitely cut from the same cloth!

My mum had improved a lot - she's been out of Ireland for a long time and been subject to regular lectures from her Guardianista elder daughter and son - but unfortunately she now spends a lot of time on the phone to her sister back in Donegal who is a born-again Christian - typical view: "Yoga is evil. It is a heathen religion and should be banned from all church halls".

Now this is the acid test, did your mother treat al dente veg as the work of Satan? I once timed my mother cooking cauliflower florets....45 minutes! In salted water with bicarbonate of soda added to stop the colour from being lost!

I would say that my eldest brother, my dad, and my grandad were/are all Aspies. My db drives my mother up the wall with his tendency to take things literally . Part of the reason my parents divorced was because my dad had absolutely no idea about people and was 'socially inept'. My grandad was the same and saw absolutely nothing wrong with accompanying my parents on their honeymoon (which they spent in a small caravan by the sea!).

That is scary davros- and agree totally about the world of difference between being autistic/AS and being nearly autistic/AS

It IS a celtic thing- my MIL (Northern Ireland) are exactly the same. SIL says worrying about what the neighbours will think is very common.

And yes I'm always Mrs "dh's first name" which pisses me off as she never uses Dr and I'm sure she's doing it on purpose!

But SIL who is a dentist a and FIL are ALWAYS addressed as Dr. Grrrr

But they are 'real', understand -able Drs Jimjams

Don't you understand that?

Much more 'acceptable' than something difficult like a DPhil! (and you couldn't even get a proper PhD for goodness sake!)