Please would you let me know what you think about whether my dad might have Aspergers. The following things point to it in my mind:
He is very unemotional and seems uncomfortable with people expressing emotion or talking about anything which might involve emotion. My mum tries not to express much in front of him and often when I've been having what I think of as a normal conversation with her she will suddenly look fearful and say "stop talking about it now as your dad is coming".
He talks to her so dismissively as though what she has said is utterly stupid or just makes no sense to him and she looks really upset, but he seems to not notice or care what effect it has on her. I've never seen him be affectionate towards her, or anyone. He used to leave for work and give her a hard cold peck on the cheek and she often used to say he had done it roughly. This was all the affection I saw. He didn't cuddle her or touch her at all or say anything sentimental etc.
He didn't say anything to any of us to show love or praise and neither did our mum but I get the impression she felt too uncomfortable to do it with him there, although she didn't do it when he wasn't there either.
He did express annoyance and irritation so he did feel something. He also likes music and ballet a lot. Do these things point to him NOT having Aspergers?
He is highly intelligent and intellectual. He is good at Chemistry, Physics and Maths. He has a very wide vocabulary and some of the time uses words the average person doesn't understand. If we asked him what he meant he said "There is a dictionary in the bookcase". He speaks very properly, always grammatically correct and is very "pedantic" (one of his favourite words) about speaking and writing. He has the attitude that "90% of the population are 'morons'" and doesn't want to be told anything by anyone else because he likes to think he knows everything and knows best all the time. He hates the feeling of not being the one in control.
He doesn't do 'small talk' and has admitted to having a difficulty with it. He just doesn't see the point of it. I used to feel hurt that he tried to get off the phone to me as quickly as possible because I didn't really care what we were talking about, I just wanted to feel a connection between us, but this didn't make sense to him. He said phonecalls are simply for "..exchanging useful information" then you put the phone down and save money. He prides himself on being "the master of the 2 minute phone call".
He doesn't really see the point of talking unless you are exchanging useful information or talking about something intellectual. Certain things he talks about animatedly and intensely for a long time and he seems to think people will find it as interesting as him but 'normal' people don't find it very interesting and are slightly puzzled as to why he is talking so much about something they think is boring. I spend ages pretending to be interested in what he is saying but I've actually switched off because it doesn't interest me at all. Because I don't really listen I can't really remember what he talks about but it often involves buildings, factories, companies, the history of these things etc. Maybe these things are interesting to some people, maybe it is ME who is boring for not understanding why it is interesting! He gets photos out to show people and often it is pictures of buildings and building sites and I wonder why he has photographed it.
He writes memoirs in several ringbound folders and reading them shows you what an amazing memory he has for details. Some details you wonder why he has bothered remembering, for example, he goes on about the make and name of every type of camera film he has ever used. He knows how much everyday things cost decades ago. He remembers the names of almost every child he has ever taught in his career as a teacher and deputy headteacher. His memoirs are full of facts but he does not talk about what feelings he had at different times or describe the atmosphere of places. Something I can't imagine him ever saying would be "I have had a really good day today and I feel great!" There are no exclamations of even the mildest sort of feelings. I remember him once talking about a nature programme on tv and remarking on "what glorious colours these tropical birds have" and it sticks in my mind because it was one of the very few times he said something that seemed to be expressing feeling. Another time I remember he sang one line of a song that came on the radio and I was taken aback because it was so unlike him to do this.
He was successful in his career and was a deputy headteacher. Does this point to him NOT having Aspergers?
I remember listening to conversations he had on the phone while he was still a deputy head. A teacher had phoned him to say she wasn't feeling very well and wouldn't be coming in the next day. He said something like "Oh dear, I hope you feel better soon". He said the right things but I just didn't get the feeling that he felt anything about what he was saying, it was as though he was reading the 'right' words from a card! At the time - and I hadn't even heard of Aspergers at the time - the thought came to me that it seemed as though he didn't feel what 'normal' people feel but had learnt what normal people would say in common everyday sort of situations and used what he had learnt to get along in the world. On another occassion my dad, my mum and I were watching a carnival procession and we were standing either side of him. Suddenly he put his arms around our shoulders. I felt very uncomfortable because this was not normal behaviour for him and something he had never done before. It felt like he was a bit tense and unnatural doing it and I had the feeling that he had seen someone else doing it so thought he would try doing it too so that he could look 'normal'.
When he was a teacher, school children used to do impressions of the way he stood in the playground etc. He used to stand straight with his hands clasped behind his back and rock slowly onto his toes and back onto his heels over and over again.
He has to have his lunch at 12.30 and his tea at 5.30 and our mum blithers on in an anxious fashion about making sure it is done. He has to have a certain number of cups of tea. He likes his routines. He doesn't seem comfortable staying for long at events in other people's houses or things organised by other people in general. It seems like he doesn't like not being the one in charge. I had a phase of trying to organise for them to come to events we were doing with my husband's family so that we could get a big family group together. Sometimes I would feel a bit embarrassed by my dad not hiding his lack of enthusiasm for joining in with certain things. One time that sticks in my mind is when the people whose house we were at tried to get everyone involved in a 'charades' type game. He was looking unenthusiastic and someone 'nagged' him to join in and he got quite cross and said in an annoyed voice "I have no interest whatsoever in this" and then went and sat in another room as though he couldn't stand to be anywhere near the game. Sometimes he just falls asleep while sitting in a room with lots of people around him who are expecting everyone to socialise.
When I was a child living with my parents some bad things happened to me which I felt scared to talk to them about. They were ongoing things and I was very unhappy and quite withdrawn. I feel sure there must have been signs for a long time that things were wrong, I mean, how well can a child act over all her true feelings all the time? As an adult when I try to hide my feelings my husband always picks up on there being something wrong and makes me tell him what it is and he is not Mr New Man Sensitive type! I feel that my dad should have noticed how unhappy I was and how I reacted to certain people and should have tried to help me. I tried to tell my mum what was happening at the time and she seemed very fearful and annoyed that I had told her and didn't want me to cause a scene. She wanted me to keep quiet because she was extremely uncomfortable with the thought of me expressing the feelings involved in what I was telling her, as though it was really important to keep everything secret. She would not help me. I've confronted them as an adult about the things that happened and what they failed to do as parents. My dad says he simply didn't know about any of it and didn't see any signs to suggest anything was wrong. This is hard to believe UNLESS I consider that he might have Aspergers! This is why it is important to me to find out whether he has it. It might also explain why my mum was so fearful of me and my brother expressing anything, especially anything intense from the bad experiences we went through, because she was scared of how annoyed our dad would be by it.
My mum moans about lots of my dad's ways when he is out of earshot but would NEVER say any of it to him. She seems so controlled by him that she won't even talk about certain things in front of him or express many types of feelings in front of him because she is scared it will annoy him. A lot of the time his attitude towards her seems to be of dismissal and contempt. Sadly I feel similarly about her.
It would help me to understand just a bit more why our parents were the way they were and why our childhood was the way it was if I felt some confirmation that my dad does have Aspergers. Although it won't make the bad memories feel any better and I still have anger at the unfairness that we went through some bad things that other people didn't, understanding why people were the way they were does seem to make it feel a bit better and make me feel more forgiving towards my parents. So I would be very very grateful if anyone would give me their opinions on all this.
I once asked my dad in a tone of voice as though I was half joking, "Do you think you might have Aspergers Syndrome?" It was back when I first heard of it and I haven't thought about it too much again until now. He said "Quite possibly" and then went on to list famous people who had it, as if to make out that it is something that would make him special and eccentric rather than something to be ashamed of. His image is kind of eccentric and aloof and 'intense genius proffessor' like. I do feel that he got it right - that Aspergers is not something to be ashamed of - because it seems that some people are deficient in one part of their brain so that another part of their brain can really excel, right up to genius level in some cases. As though all the power is taken from the deficient area to put it all into the high powered area that excels. It does seem to come with some difficulties for the people around them though! (if this is what he has, going from my experience of having him as a dad).
He would never go and seek a diagnosis because he wouldn't want to behave as though he thought there was anything wrong with him. He is very arrogant. When something bad happened in his life (in the family's life) a few years ago I tried to persuade my parents to take up some counselling that we were offered. My dad was completely against it and wouldn't discuss it, with the attitude 'there is nothing wrong with me'. Mind you I refused it as well. It was an extreme and unusual situation which most people would accept that you might benefit from counselling for without making you look like a 'drip' for needing it, but he refused it.
I apologise for this being so long. Thank you for reading it.
