ASD traits that run in your family - is it emotionally easier if they are on your side?

[linglette]

Just wondering about this. My boys' traits clearly run through me (I find children who talk before they can sing most peculiar).

I tried describing some of my kindergarten experiences to DS2's teachers and realised yet again that I was not "normal" as a child.Oops!

But if I was more squarely neurotypical, I would probably find my boys odd.

The downside of it running on my side is that I see my dad suffering in later life. He is an engineer/musician and an extreme visual learner so is suffering perhaps more than others would as a result of new eyesight problems. I fear DS2 has similar problems in store for him in later life.

My dad is ASD I am sure, though he has never been diagnosed and would never in a million years accept it! My dad is a well liked man but has got much more reluctant to try new things, preferring to eat at the same places, go on holiday to the same places, has become more obsessed with money (or lack of!) and his need to seek out people to talk to has become much more obvious (bores the pants of them with his normal topics of conversation).

I am sure my DS has picked this up through my side of the family and I guess because its my side I don't hold any resentment iykwim. My DS is so obviously my side, looks, build, mannerisms, everything! DD is definately her daddy through and through.

I think what amazes me though is that for over 30 years it never dawned on me that dad was anything other than dad! ASD never passed our thoughts until DS came along and I started looking into it more, then the penny dropped .

If my DS turns out anything like my dad then I shall be pleased but I am determined he will eat in more than one restaurant and go on holiday to more than one destination lol!!

ASD/AS definitely is from my side of the family. There is LOTS of it! But I don't think I have any myself. So, apart from DH being able to say "its your lot", it doesn't affect us one way or the other. Apart, I suppose, from knowing that the younger members of the family on my side are at higher risk of having children with ASD of some sort.

For me it's a bit of both, my great-gran seemed to have asd traits, from what nan and my mum have said about her, seemed very much AS. Thinking back of my childhood, i too was a 'peculiar' child and heard my mum saying to relatives 'something isn't right with her!' so many times.
My sister has a dx of bi-polar and OCD,...although i see an awful lot of AS in her (never told her though).
We also have other conditions on my side schizophrenia, and severe depression.

But on DH'side, two of his sister's boys have ADHD and one of them also has fairly obvious ASD traits, but unsure if he has also asd dx.
And his cousin's little boy has a dx of HFA.

For me it makes no difference at all knowing it could come from my side. It doesn't help.
I felt misunderstood and frankly quite lonely as a child.
I hate to think DS will feel that way too.

I'm pretty sure it's on my husbands side.
Yes i found it hard in the early years. Because i was hankering after a certain type of connection that ds (12, AS) couldn't give(despite the fact that he began to talk at 6 months) It distressed me that i didn't 'get' my child.Lol.. now i'm beginning to think ds,dh and his family have got it right and the rest of us 'nt folk' have got it all wrong.I'd take dh's family over mine any day...they are just so straight forward and utterly kind..i don't think any of them have a bad bone in their bodies.

Now i totally get him ...he's pretty clear cut tbh.He's an absolute star atm (although we have teenage years to navigate yet)...don't know what i'd do without him..he keeps us all afloat and is the voice of sanity in our family.
Now dd (nt) is another story...she really tries me

Starlight, i had a bit of that too from both sides, my mum saying 'there's none of that on our side! Just because your sis has ocd it doesn't mean nothing' ... i beg to differ!
And i heard that too from MIL , bluntly she said 'nobody is backwards in our family!'... and with the word 'backwards'.

That was back in the spring when they were both told so i suppose denial at the time had a part to play in this.

Now we get from MIL 'B is such a handsome boy, that will shine through his problems'.
Equally pathetic comment!

Starlight, I have a very close, very intelligent friend (a teacher!) who does exactly that.
I'm pretty sure she does it because she thinks the whole problem is my anxiety. Once I described the fact that he was three and couldn't understand "yes or no" questions. She paused and then said "well...... I suppose at that age I was very laid back...."

This is someone I respect and admire in every other respect!

I confess, my family know nothing, absolutely nothing, about DS2's issues as they (particularly my mother) cannot be trusted not to turn it all into a drama with my mother as the central character. I would have spent all my precious time worrying about what to tell my mother and how she would react rather than getting on with the job.

starlight... "And I am soooooo fed up of family members saying things like:

'wow, he's very clever', 'well I just saw him communicate', 'he doesn't have a problem with eye contact', 'that's imaginative', 'he just did x by himself'

it drives me insane. Why does every single thing that he does have to be picked apart by people and commented on as if it is a)some kind of miracle or b)evidence that he doesn't have ASD?"

Very well said!
It is true for me too , when relatives or friends do that kind of thing it drive me up the wall! Arggggh!!!!