Autism and my mother: the penny drops

I heard a BBC radio 4 documentary tonight about autism and there was a story about a woman who was incredibly frustrated with her husband. She was so close to getting a divorce and then she realized, he is autistic with Asperger syndrome. He isn't a total bastard, he just doesn't know how to read my emotions and he needs help to address this . She talked about going online to try a questionnaire about autism and Asperger syndrome and that was the point I thought: hang on, maybe my mother wasn't a terrible mother, maybe like the man in the story, she is autistic and has Asperger syndrome. Now such online tests can never ever deliver a definitive result (you should still seek the advice of a professional), but they can give you a very good idea about whether an individual is likely to be autistic or not.

So I found the website and tried the test both for myself and for my mother: now for me, the results were clear, I clearly did not have Asperger syndrome and I should no signs of autism at all. But for my mother, okay - I had to guess some of the answers as she didn't take the test herself and whenever I wasn't sure, I would give her the benefit of the doubt; but trust me, I know my mother well enough to do this test on her behalf. The result? She was totally off the scale in terms of autism and Asperger syndrome. And then there was this moment for me when the penny just dropped: that explains so much about her behaviour for the last few decades. It was probably why she was hopeless at reading my emotions and took very little interest in what I got up to. She just couldn't relate to people very well, not even her own children and now it seems pretty obvious why this was the case.

Now my regular readers will know that my nephew has been diagnosed as autistic with Asperger syndrome. The science about how autism is passed from one generation to another isn't clear but most researchers agree that it is a trait that can be passed on from one generation to another. Like all genes, sometimes it can skip a generation: I don't have any sign of Aspeger syndrome and neither do my two sisters. I don't know enough about my brother in law's family to speculate whether or not the genes causing my nephew's autism may have been passed on from that side of the family - but it seems clear to me that if my mother is indeed autistic and has Asperger syndrome, then my nephew's condition could be traced back to my mother. And as I contemplate that possibility, it becomes more and more clear that this is probably the case. Heck, they even share many similar personality traits and I can totally see my mother in my nephew - clearly, this is something that runs in my family (even if it doesn't affect me personally).

My mother was never good with people, oh no. It was ironic that she was a teacher - but she was one of those very old school Singaporean teachers: she expected her students to do as they were told and if they didn't she would shout at them or punish them. So imagine if she has a student in her class who would not do as he is told when she is trying to get the class to read a passage from a book. "Jimmy, I want you to read page 43 now," If the child still doesn't do as he is told, she would raise her voice. "Jimmy, did you not hear me?! Turn to page 43 now and read it!!" And if the child still did not comply, she would threaten to hit him. "Jimmy, are you listening? Do you want to caned? If you don't turn to page 43 and read it now, I will send you to the principal's office for a caning!"

Now that sounds like a very convenient solution for someone who had Asperger syndrome, no other profession would give you that luxury to 'force' the other party to comply. Imagine if I shouted at a colleague or threatened him/her with a beating if s/he didn't do as I demanded, I would not only be sacked from my job on the spot but probably be arrested for making threats like that! My mother was obsessed with the way household chores had to be done - clothes had to be washed and folded away in a certain way and if you did not do it correctly, there would be hell to pay. Dishes had to be cleaned and put away a certain way and again, if you did not do it her way, there would be hell to pay. Even now, she is obsessed about keeping my nephew on a very strict schedule and controlling every aspect of his time table: when he should study, when he can play etc and if you dared to disrupt her pattern, there would be hell to pay.

Thus my mother had a complete inability to relate to me, communicate with me or even try to understand her own son - when I was young, she simply resorted to violence to get me to do as I was told. She didn't have the ability to communicate with words, but it was a lot easier for her to simply hit me. And as I got older, she could no longer hit me as I could outrun her and fight back - so she just totally lost interest in me and we just drifted further and further apart. In that context, it makes complete sense that she has some form of autism which impeded her ability to relate to me all these years. Sometimes when I see other who have a close relationship with their parents, I can't help but feel painfully jealous. They have parents who actually take an interest in what they do - how cool is that?

It is all so obvious now that I am writing all of this down. Why didn't anyone see this earlier? Why didn't I see this the moment my nephew was diagnosed years ago? I guess it was because we didn't know what Asperger's syndrome or autism was back in the 1980s. Will I confront my mother with my findings? No, I don't think it's worth it - she's rather old now and I don't see the point, it may just upset her. I am saying this now on my blog as it just makes so much sense to me now, it explains a lot to me and whilst it doesn't change anything - it just helps me make sense of the past. I still have a mother whom I have a very distant relationship with but now at least I realize why she has trouble relating to me all these years and why she has never taken an interest in what I do with my life: she is an adult with Asperger syndrome, one who has lived with it for nearly seven decades. I had just gotten used to believing that my mother hated me - now I have to get used to a different theory and I will need some time to come to terms with it.

What took me so long to realize this?

Sigh, when I look back on my childhood, I think about the times I was punished and beaten up for seemingly minor mistakes - like not folding the clothes in the right way or if I had mixed one spoon up with the forks. I was treated as if I was such an evil, horrible child who caused her such grief and was beaten up for it - but the fact is, she was an autistic person who was obsessed with keeping things like that in her life a certain way. There was a time when she had arranged the fruits in the fridge very neatly and I had taken an apple from the fridge to eat - she flew into a complete rage because I had not taken the apple that was at the front but I had reached for an apple at the back of the shelf. I tried to explain that the apple still had a leaf attached to the stalk and I wanted to see the apple leaf - it was not as if I had made a mess of the fridge at all; but that was enough to send her apeshit because I had upset an order she had created. It all makes sense to me now that I realize she is probably autistic, but imagine how confusing it was for me as a child to have the shit kicked out of me simply for eating the wrong apple from the fridge. Back then, her rage seemed to make no sense to me whatsoever and I had always just assumed that either she was just venting her anger on me or that she just plain hated me and was looking for any excuse to hit me. That's why I grew up feeling such resentment towards my mother and even today, we have a very distant relationship.

Don't get me wrong, I am not about to gush about how I now understand my mother and love her etc - this realization explains a lot but resolves absolutely nothing, I'm afraid. It also changes nothing - the damage has been done and all I can do is try to make sense of the past so I can come to terms with it, on my terms. I do wonder if people who are autistic or Asperger syndrome should even become parents in the first place, given their inability to relate to anyone emotionally: how are they going to function as parents then? Is anyone else who may have realized that their parents may be autistic or have Asperger syndrome as well? Do leave me a comment below - many thanks for reading.