Tuesday 25 April 2017

Growing up with autistic parents: my story

Guys, allow me to speak about a topic which is not easy for me to talk about, but I guess there must be others who are in the same position as me. So as hard as it is, let me talk about what it has been like growing up with autistic parents and how I have shown some signs of autism myself. I don't want this to turn into a huge pity party nor is this piece any kind of attack on my parents, so I assure you that this piece does carry a positive message at the end of the day.
It seems weird to start a story in the middle, but such is the way this story unraveled itself. The first time this became an issue for my family was when my nephew was diagnosed as autistic as a young child - now that was about 10 years ago already. He is a teenager today and his condition has improved a lot, thankfully. Obviously, being a concerned uncle, I dived into Google and read up a lot about what that diagnosis meant. I also spoke to a lot of people who have worked with autistic children, to see what I could learn from them. Being Asian grandparents, my parents doted on my nephew of course and they quite defiantly claimed, "this couldn't possibly have come from our side of the family, nobody in our family is autistic!" Well, that was when I had one of those moments when I stared back at my parents and thought, where do I even begin? It was so obvious to me that both my parents are autistic - quite specifically, they both have Asperger's syndrome, a condition that my nephew has as well. Autism does tend to run in the family.

My parents are in their 70s now and autism wasn't even a condition that people of their generation were aware of. I don't even recall any of my peers ever having had that kind of diagnosis - in my childhood, we had very little understanding of mental health issues or conditions such as Asperger's Syndrome. We used to talk about sending someone to Woodbridge Hospital as an insult, to imply that they were crazy. Back then, people were either sane or crazy - if you were crazy, you should be sent to a mental institution to be locked up in a padded cell. If you were sane, then you were held responsible for all your faults and weaknesses and there was nothing in between the two extremes. However, as I gained an academic understanding of what autism (quite specifically, Asperger's Syndrome) was, it dawned on me that my parents were classic cases of adults with undiagnosed autism. Did I ever confront them about it? No, I don't see the point - they are so old today and set in their ways. It is too late for them to try to seek any kind of treatment or therapy for their condition, it is kinder to simply go down the "ignorance is bliss" path for now.
Should autistic adults have children?

If you are not already familiar with the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome, then may I refer you to the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome on the TNAS website, gosh - my parents tick every single box and have displayed every single symptom over the years. I know there may be some of you reading this who may say that I don't have the right to play doctor and diagnose my parents based on a checklist like that. But please, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and behaves like a duck - then you're unlikely to be staring at a hippopotamus or a panda instead of a duck. My parents suck at social communication - this goes way beyond any kind of language barrier. They are the most tactless, insensitive people in the world and are incapable of making simple small talk that engages the other party. If placed in a social situation where they are forced to talk to the other person, they would usually just tell a story that is totally irrelevant to the other party. But they are also totally oblivious at how terrible their communication skills are - when someone reacts negatively to their tactless, brash nature, they would always place the blame on the other party. My nephew does the same thing, when he goes on and on about his computer games - oblivious to the fact that I have no clue what games he plays (nor do I take any interest in those games).

When they visited me recently, I tried to tell them what I did for a living - I work in corporate finance. My father then latched onto one word, that I worked in banking: then he went off on a long story about an Indian bank that has just opened a branch in Singapore and I was left wondering, what the hell does this have to do with my career? Clearly nothing, but that is what my father does. He has the social skills of a 6 year old child at times - now a 6 year old would blurt out any information that s/he deems vaguely relevant or interesting, in a desperate big to impress the adult that, "hey, I know stuff!" The 6 year old wouldn't be able to discern if the information s/he was offering was relevant or not and I've come to expect that from my nephew. But believe you me, my father does that all the time - it is impossible to have a conversation with him because he simply doesn't listen to a word you say and instead, wants to impress you with what he knows about one thing you have mentioned or show off some information about something vaguely related to what you were talking about. Like a 6 year old, he doesn't realize how badly he is misfiring when he does that - but like an autistic child, he is blissfully oblivious to his mistakes. You may say that senile elderly folks say silly things but the fact is he used to do this even when I was a child, age has nothing to do with this aspect of his autism.
How has autism affected my family?

Furthermore, this is further compounded by their fear of losing face - perhaps this is a rather Asian thing but people with Asperger's syndrome find it hard to communicate with others as they struggle to understand more subtle body language, tone of voice or more abstract concepts. Instead of asking for clarification when they don't understand me, they fear "losing face", being embarrassed by admitting they didn't understand what I said. Thus they either make a wild guess and jump to the wrong conclusion, or they simply ignore me. This really impedes any kind of communication because I have no idea whether or not they have understood what I have just said and even if I ask them if they understood me, they would just say "yes" even if they understood nothing. They have this knack of hearing everything but listening to nothing - they are not deaf, but they are simply mentally incapable of processing the words they are hearing and culturally unable to admit it. They ignore information that contradicts their point of views and are totally incapable of empathy - they find it impossible to see any issue from another person's point of view. Of course, as an adult, I can look back at this and it all makes sense - but that also rendered them pretty ineffective as parents and as a child growing up, none of this made sense at all to me. I was confused and was often told that I was a bad, naughty child each time I had difficulty with my parents. Growing up in a culture where your parents were always right didn't help either. I found their behaviour bewildering, illogical and downright frustrating at times.

My parents weren't so severely autistic that they were unable to function - very fortunately, they managed to get jobs which were well paid and accommodated their condition: as primary school teachers. Wait a minute, I hear you ask, aren't teachers supposed to be really good with people, having to handle so many difficult students everyday? Well, in theory yes, but in Singapore, back in the day when my parents were working, teachers ruled the classroom with an iron fist and dished out severe punishments for crimes like daring to talk during the lesson. I remember how I teacher once hit me in the head with a book when I was 12 years old - my crime? I dared to laugh out aloud in class. That is the kind of act that would land a teacher in jail or at least cost the teacher her job in this day and age, but back in the 1980s, that was completely normal. Teachers didn't need to be kind and understanding back in those days, they were to be feared and obeyed. My parents were the very worst kind of primary school teachers from those dark, old days - they set arbitrary rules for the students to obey and good luck to the child who dared to break any of those rules.
My parents worked as teachers all their lives.

Even though they taught different subjects, they both fussed over the same things, such as the neatness of the students' handwriting. Both my parents took great pride in the way they wrote very, very neatly. They even said that you could tell a lot about a person from their handwriting, that a person who had neat handwriting probably paid great attention to detail and was the kind of person you could trust. Both my sisters had equally neat and beautiful handwriting (both in English and Chinese) and I was the devil child who had the audacity to write untidily. I remember how confused I was when my parents got extremely upset with me when I showed them an exam paper when I scored extremely well - they couldn't get over the fact that my handwriting was not up to their standard. I tried to explain to them that it didn't matter. I was under pressure to answer all the questions in the exam within the time limit, so I couldn't take my time to write more neatly and clearly, the teacher who marked my exam didn't mind the fact that I had written in a somewhat untidy manner, as long as it was legible. Furthermore, in this day and age, the pen and paper is getting obsolete as we tend to write practically everything on the computer, But no, my parents were simply unable to see things from another point of view: a classic Asperger scenario of course. Well, it all makes sense to me now.

As primary school teachers, they could make up the rules about how they wanted their students to behave, how they wanted them to do their homework, even how they dressed in school. It seemed like an ideal kind of job for an autistic adult - now contrast that to what I have to do in my job, where I have to deal with so many different people from colleagues to clients to distribution partners - I don't get to tell them how to behave, or how to do their job! On the contrary, I have to make sure I please everyone from the important clients to my directors. I can't imagine putting my parents in this kind of position, oh my. They would behave like bulls in a china shop and then wonder why everyone is so annoyed with them. I remember how they used to struggle to get along with some of their colleagues as well, they just generally weren't that great when it came to handling relationships with other adults. But as a married couple, they didn't care much for their colleagues - they did their job and then came home to their kids, they barely knew anyone outside work. There were our neighbours (whom they didn't really get along with) and our relatives and that was kinda it. Their social circle was limited, but that didn't bother them at all, they just weren't interested at all in other people.
How shall we address the issue of autism in adults?

Did that bother them? No, ironically, they have a strange way of coping with it - they simply had their version of events which was 100% true in their heads, even if none of us ever saw it that way. Let me give you an example: I first made the national team in the year 1992 when I was in secondary school and the national coach for the men's gymnastics team then was a gymnastics coach called Mr Foo, who taught at the Chinese High School. Mr Foo was an excellent, very old school, super strict, Mandarin-speaking gymnastics coach who produced many champions in the 19970s, 1980s and 1990s in Singapore. Now my dad claimed that he was good friends with Mr Foo when they were in Chinese High School years ago, when they were both students and I thought, okay, I'll tell Mr Foo. Guess what he said? Mr Foo politely told me that he had no recollection of my father, He went as far as to suggest that maybe my father had confused him with someone else, otherwise he might have remembered my father. To be fair, Mr Foo also said that it was all an awfully long time ago and he couldn't remember the names of all his former classmates. I thought fine, I let the matter rest and didn't bring it up again. It wasn't that important to me whether Mr Foo remembered my father.

Did I tell my father that Mr Foo didn't remember him? Yes I did, but my father reacted by going to confront Mr Foo about it - yeah, talk about awkward. Mr Foo was very polite with my father, singing praises about how hardworking I was as a gymnast but all my father wanted to talk about was their school days. My father was saying things like, "do you remember so-and-so, he was in your class? What about so-and-so, he was in my class?" And it was clear that Mr Foo was smiling awkwardly, somewhat embarrassed because even though both him and my dad had been at the same school once upon a time, back in the 1950s, Mr Foo clearly could not remember my dad. Even if they had been at the same school at the same time, they were clearly not close friends (as my dad claimed) and my dad had clearly not left much of an impression on him. At no stage did Mr Foo acknowledge remembering him from back in the 1950s, Mr Foo had merely entertained my father as the parent of one of his gymnasts. Guess what my father said to the rest of my family when we got home? He claimed that Mr Foo remembers him fondly from the time they were great friends back in school. I was like, huh? That was not what he said at all, how could my father tells lies like that to my family?
My father lied about Mr Foo remembering him.

I suppose the comparison I would make is that of Walter Mitty, the fictitious character who is meek man with a vivid fantasy life that he cooks up in his head, in contrast to his mundane existence. Okay, it was embarassing for my dad when Mr Foo couldn't remember him from his school days. So he goes ahead and invents another version of the story where Mr Foo does remember him fondly and that's the version he has in his head - why? Because that's the version he likes better, that suits him better - never mind the fact that I was there and witnessed that conversation. Years later, he still claims that Mr Foo took good care of me because of their great friendship - which again, is one of those pathetic fantasies that he has cooked up in his head. Sigh. Mr Foo didn't remember him at all - I however, earned Mr Foo's trust the hard way by being the most hardworking gymnast in the national team and that was something Mr Foo liked, kids who were hardworking, determined and not afraid of 吃苦 ("enduring hardship"). It was shocking that my dad tried to claim credit for this, but that's my dad for you. That's just one instance of my dad inventing his own version of events - believe you me, this happened all the time, almost on a daily basis.  He was pretty much in a world of his own and it didn't bother him that nobody else agreed with him - autistic people can't see things from another person's point of view. My parents were always willfully oblivious to the opinions of others, so they were happy with themselves.
Here's the thing though, I know that some people do what my father does - they don't like what has happened, so they recreate what happened in their heads, come up with a version of events that they like and they convince themselves that was what really happened. He's not really lying to anyone, but rather he's lying to himself and he does a very good job of it. The only problem for him is that he's a terrible liar and bad actor, so whilst he convinces himself, he rarely ever convinces me. My father has told me loads of stories about his life, from his childhood, from before I was born - even about things that happened when I was not there. I no longer know what to believe anymore, given that he is at best, an unreliable witness. How do I know when he is telling the truth, how do I know when he is telling me his version of the story that has been altered? Just imagine the impact this has on the trust I have with my father if I don't know when I can believe what he says. In fact, I don't believe for a moment that my father is a liar who sets out to deceive those around him - I don't even think he is aware of what he is doing, this is just a sign of his autism.

My parents created routines to structure their lives around and if you dared to get in the way of their routine, good luck to you. This is something autistic people do, they indulge in repetitive routines and behaviour. For example, my mother was obsessed with the way she did her laundry - it was a routine which made no sense at all to me. My mother would insist on ironing everything, even sportswear, underwear and T-shirts and then everything has to be folded or hung up in a very specific manner. She didn't even trust my sister's maid to help her with some of these tasks - she had to do it all herself, using precisely the same routine every single time. #OCD Yet for all the effort my mother put into her complex laundry routine, my parents were totally oblivious of fashion trends. I hate to sound cruel as many older Singaporeans dress equally poorly, but my parents had no dress sense whatsoever. Their primary motivation was that they had to feel comfortable in what they wore (well, bear in mind the fact that Singapore is a hot, tropical country) and they really didn't seem to care what others thought of their appearances. Again, this is a classic trait displayed by those with Asperger's syndrome - being unwilling and unable to consider what others may think about you and being oblivious of the messages you are sending out to them. It makes my parents really hard to get along with.
Let's talk about autism.

Don't get me wrong - if you asked my parents today, they would tell you that they were convinced they were trying their best for me. But what I can tell you is that this effort was certainly affected by their condition: the same way a loving blind parent cannot see their son compete at the Olympics or a deaf parent cannot hearing their daughter perform the violin, well, my parents were unable to relate to me emotionally. It was painful growing up under those circumstances - without understanding what autism meant, I simply assumed that either I was such a rotten kid that I didn't deserve their love or they were neglectful because they were bad people. My parents were crazy strict with me when I was in primary school, but then they seemed to have lost interest in me since I went to secondary school. I remember how my parents used to scrutinize my homework when I was in primary school but they stopped taking an interest when I was in secondary school. I now realize in hindsight that they probably had no clue what I was studying in secondary school, hence they backed off to avoid embarrassment but there were other aspects as well, like they had no idea whom my friends were or what my kind of social interactions were with them. Now that's the kind of thing should be number one on any responsible parent's list - they simply took no interest whatsoever.

I was a former national champion gymnast and gymnastics was a huge part of my life growing up: I trained about 30 hours a week, it was like having a full time job on top of being a student. But my mother couldn't be less interested in what I did as a gymnast - she never showed up for my competitions and never asked me a thing about how my training went, not even when I got injured. Now that still hurts today, because I remember how there were parents of less talented, less successful gymnasts in my gym who were always there for their kids but my parents somehow couldn't show any interest. That was when I realized my friends in school knew more about what I was doing, what motivated me, what my ambitions were - my mother was more interested in the mundane, tedious routines that she had set up for herself, such as doing the laundry a certain way. The fact is people with Asperger's syndrome find it hard to take an interest in others who are quite different from them - my nephew has friends today, but they tend to be other guys who share an interest in computer games. By the same token, my mother was at least able to get along with other primary school teachers as they had something in common, but put her next to someone who has little in common with (oh, such as myself) and she plain refuses to take any interest (even in the case of her son).
My sisters suffered through the same kind of poor parenting - but I think their way to deal with it is to instantly proclaim that my parents were brilliant, had worked hard and were not to be blamed in anyway at all. Then scratch a bit deeper and yeah, you will realize that they weren't exactly happy with a lot of the things my parents did, but they just accepted it as part and parcel of our culture. It is just a Pandora's box they'd rather not open. For example, it irks me no end that I have one sister who thought that my parents favoured me as the only son and that I received preferential treatment. I had to point out to her that whilst that may have been the case, I wasn't exactly being treated well either and receiving any better parenting. We were both at the receiving end of poor parenting by autistic parents: my experience was awful and hers was worse than mine - but the fact that my experience was relatively better than hers didn't make my experience any less awful. By that token, according to her reasoning, because her experience was much worse than mine, I have no reason to complain today. Well I beg to differ. You see, my sister and I may be both in our 40s today, but she has fallen into a trap that so many people fall into - that is to revisit historical events with too much emotion. This is why I find blogging therapeutic - I am not just writing for my readers, but for myself as well.

When we remember a childhood memory decades later, we tend to recall the time, the place, what happened, who said what to whom, other little details like what we were wearing, what the weather was like, what we were eating etc may vividly bring that memory back to life even if the actual event took place an awfully long time ago. When we recalls an incident like a painful memory from years ago, the thoughts do not arrive in our heads in any kind of chronological order, instead the most important aspect of the incident arrives first: the painful emotions we experienced. When people recall a painful memory like that, they either dwell on the painful aspect of it and experience resentment, or they try to bury the memory deeper into their subconscious without first having to confront it or deal with it. As a result, many people simply do not deal with painful childhood memories and I know my sister has plenty of those. Sometimes the pain is just too raw for them to deal with, that's why the moment those painful memories resurface, they just bury them deep down in their subconscious instead of dealing with those demons. My sister will never admit it though.
How do you deal with painful memories?

What makes me different is the fact that I share my memories on my blog: I have to describe incidents to my readers in a clear way, so they can understand what is going on. In providing this kind of detailed description, I almost take a detached, third party perspective, revisiting the incidents that happened in a very rational way. Sure I remember the way I was made to feel as a child, but in retelling the story as an adult, I am able to come up with a totally different emotional response today as an older, wiser and more understanding adult. Admittedly, some people are better at handling their emotions than others - I don't profess to be great at this, that is why I have started writing things down to force myself to make sense of past events in a far more rational, analytical manner rather than just give in to my first emotional response. These are coping mechanisms that people can do to help deal with their emotions - these are the very kind of things that my parents should have been taught given their condition, but it just wasn't available then.

This begs the question: am I autistic? I think the answer is yes, there's definitely an element to it. Two of my favourite activities are classically suited to people with autism: gymnastics and learning foreign languages. When I am at work, I can get very frustrated with people whom I just can't control (such as a difficult client), but when I am learning a foreign language, I get to retreat into my own peaceful world where it is just me vs the grammar. Likewise, gymnastics is not a team sport - gymnasts usually train on their own and I was the kind of gymnast who was so obsessed with doing a certain set of skills, a certain way, for the same number of repetitions each training and I'll keep doing it till I get it right. I still keep a training diary today where I meticulously log down every single skill I train - my coaches loved it because my OCD meant I was an absolute perfectionist at training and that led to great results at the competitions. My fellow gymnasts used to take one look at my training log book and rolled their eyes at the extent of my OCD. Yeah, my OCD in the gym could rival my mother's laundry routine. I was lucky enough to channel that aspect of my autism in a way that led to me becoming a three-time national champion gymnast, whilst my mother's repetitive laundry routine simply gave her a sense of comfort in indulging in such familiar routines. Yes, you can see the OCD running in the family.
My OCD turned me into a great gymnast.

As for the social aspect, circumstances forced me to adapt and learn how to get along with different kinds of people and adapt to my new environments. My parents found a safe environment in their primary school where they got to dictate how their students had to adapt their behaviour to their needs - but I got quite the opposite: I was thrown in the deep end in the army during my NS days where I had to basically sink or swim. I chose to swim by adapting quickly - now if I was severely autistic, I would have sunk but I suppose I learnt quickly because I am intelligent enough to do so. Figuring out complex human relationships for me is like solving a difficult maths problem: It involves being able to see things from another person's point of view - but that does demystify that whole aspect of soft skills that seems to be elusive for many. Some people make claims like, "I'm a real people person", as if they have some gift to relate to others and make friends. The way I see it, this exercise shouldn't be any more complex than a secondary school English literature exam. A intelligent autistic person can figure out solutions to problems like anyone else.

In English literature, we have to understand the complex relationships between the characters who are often flawed individuals who make unwise, irrational decisions, such as in Romeo and Juliet. So in an exam, you will get questions like, "analyse how Shakespeare presents Capulet's attitudes towards his daughter, Juliet. How does he portray their relationship?"You are then trained to look for hints and clues from the text to pick up vital pieces of information about how these characters relate to each other. Well, learning to deal with people in your life basically relies on the same principle - you pay attention to what they say and do, you pick up important pieces of information about what they are like as characters and you learn to deal with them, based on those pieces of information. At school, those who did really well at English literature were those who studied the hardest and they weren't reliant on some kind of mystical gift to feel empathy for Romeo and Juliet upon seeing the film - hell no, they relied on good old fashioned studying, paying great attention to detail and memorizing a lot of quotes. As a somewhat autistic person with OCD, I knew I could do all that and thus use that technique to figure out complex human relationships to make my life easier.
What I have described above is merely a simple coping mechanism that anyone - autistic or not - could use to deal with complex social interactions. Part of the reason why my nephew is coping remarkably well today is because of his early diagnosis: he was given a lot of therapy and taught coping mechanisms from a young age. That does give me hope. Now my parents and I never had that benefit, but I learnt to cope nonetheless - mostly out of sheer necessity and I give myself credit for being smart enough to figure a lot of things out for myself. What I have observed is that when you remove the need to adapt and use coping mechanisms, well, people with Asperger's syndrome simply do things their way and I'm not sure simply pandering to them actually helps them. I remember my parents when they were working - at least they were in an environment which did challenge them somewhat, even if it was within the context of a primary school. They had to interact with many people every day at the school. Now that they are retired, well, their behaviour can be extremely irrational and the autism is really apparent in the way they have developed so many routines that they refuse to break. They are unable and unwilling to justify why they are so fixed in their ways - they just want to be left to their own devices and be as unreasonable/weird as they like.

You can imagine what it was like to grow up in a household like that with my parents in charge - they favoured familiarity and routine over everything else, even trying to get them to try to eat something new was always a huge challenge. My father always got his way - he used to say that when I started earning I could then make the decisions when it came to things like that. I guess I was so used to the very routine nature of life growing up with my parents. You'll be amazed how I got used to the way they were - I can't say I enjoyed any part of it, but I learnt how to mitigate the situation. I used to watch the happy families on TV and wonder why my family couldn't be more normal like those. I didn't complain but at the back of my head, I knew things just weren't quite right in my family. There was a lot of envy when I looked at friends who had good relationships with their parents. I was extremely fortunate that my two great sisters are not autistic like my parents and they did step in to do a lot of the parenting that I didn't get as a child.
I am trying to make sense of the past.

I suppose the only regret I have is that my parents never really took any interest in me the moment I turned from a child into a teenager and then into an adult. I don't even know if I could chalk this up to their autism, but the things that defined me as an adult are completely foreign to my parents. Autistic people find it hard to embrace things that they are not already familiar with - it always felt extremely frustrating that I was expected to be the understanding one to have to bridge the divide, that I had to always make the effort to inform them of what is happening in my life despite the fact that they would usually not take any interest in anything I tell them. When they came to visit me last year, they didn't once ask me what I did for a living and my guess is if I tried to explain to them what I did, they wouldn't understand the complexity of it and they would be embarrassed by the situation. Or perhaps they just can't be asked to take an interest in something that doesn't concerned them - I don't know. I then see other people with parents who take an interest in what they do and I feel so jealous that they have that kind of relationship with their parents.

The last point I want to make was that my parents were extremely violent and physically abusive when I was young. I accept that hitting a naughty child was acceptable in Chinese culture and I'm sure there were times when I was naughty enough to have deserved a beating or two. Did I do some horrible things when I was a child? Of course I did. However, looking back at what happened all those years ago, I got away with a lot of things and was punished for some pretty odd things. My parents' autism rendered them quite irrational when it came to judging what I ought to have been punished for - for example, I drove my father nuts by not observing the proper stroke order when writing Chinese characters. Now in my opinion, it really doesn't matter if the student gets the word order wrong as long as the student is able to write the character in question - but no, in my father's autistic mind, it was a crime that warranted a beating. On the other hand, I got away with a lot of things far worse, far more serious than getting the stroke order wrong! I got sucked into the vicious cycle of bullying at school where I started off as a victim then matured into a nasty bully myself.  Now anyone who knows anything about parenting would realize which was the more serious offence, yet my autism parents were completely irrational about what they deemed was a serious enough offence for a beating.
My parents were at best irrational when it came to parenting.

So what can I conclude from my experience? Well, the first important lesson is that people with autism can learn so many useful coping strategies to help them fit into mainstream society - there's so much professional help available these days. However, if left undiagnosed, unchecked and ignored, many adults with autism can get from bad to worse - those with mild autism could hopefully eventually figure things out and learn to adapt (as in was my case), but those who are more severely autistic such as my parents will simply remain very socially awkward for all of their lives, totally oblivious to their situation and the impact of their behaviour on others. I suppose it is like the situation with the weeds in my garden: I know it is something I have to deal with but when I make a conscious effort to deal with the situation, it can be brought under control and mitigated. But if I ignore it, then weeds are simply going to take over my garden. It is a condition that if left untreated, can lead to terrible consequences. Do not assume that autistic children will somehow "grow out of it" once they become adults - some lucky ones do figure out how to cope with it, others fail and suffer the consequences. It is too late for my parents, but I am glad that my nephew is getting the help he needs.

The other question is I suppose whether autistic people can function as adults: quite specifically, can they hold down jobs and can they form relationships, get married, have children. Let's deal with the easier of the two - they can definitely hold down jobs, it is just a question of finding them suitable jobs where their autism would not pose a major problem. Ironically, somehow my parents probably ended up in the most suitable job for them, given their condition and it was a job that were able to do competently enough until retirement. I have no doubt that my nephew will be able to find a job that will suit him in about 10 years' time when he has to enter the workforce and I'll be there to help steer him in the right direction when the time comes. But as for whether autistic people should become parents, I am not convinced. You can scream from the rooftops that it is their human right to get married, start families and have children, even if they may be totally unable to perform their roles as parents given their autism. I'm sure you'll be able to find some people who were brought up by autistic parents and wouldn't say a bad thing about them and by the same token, Likewise, I'm sure you can find non-autistic parents out there who have totally failed their children. Thus I wouldn't want to come to any conclusions based on my own bad experiences and that is why I want to hear from you.
I suppose the other awkward question I will address is how autistic people can get into romantic relationships in the first place, given how they lack the social skills to woo a partner. Gosh, I remember this fat guy in my class in VJC (let's call him Chong) - he was clearly autistic and a loner with no friends. He was subjected to a lot of teasing and bullying because of not just his awkward behaviour but his awkward demeanor and appearance. If Chong was unable to even make friends with his classmates, how was he ever going to get into a romantic relationship I thought? Well, I guess the answer lies in something I witnessed when I was in Orlando last year - I saw a father with an extremely fat kid in a restaurant and I didn't say anything, but I couldn't help noticing just how much food there was on the table. Then the wife/mother comes and joins them at the table and sure enough, she was even fatter than the father. I guess if a fat man wants to get a bride, he simply marries an even fatter woman so he looks relatively thinner. Likewise, my father is probably slightly less autistic than my mother, the same way that fat man in the Orlando restaurant was slightly thinner than his wife. Hey, everything is relative. I suppose Chong could always find a bride who was even more socially awkward (and fatter) than him. Such is the harsh reality of this world for you - I'm calling a spade a spade.

I would class myself as someone who is autistic but has learnt to cope very well over the last 25 years - not all autistic children need to be sent for expensive therapies. Children who are smart enough will figure out how to cope one way or another - that's not the same as 'growing out of it'. That  is unfortunately one of the biggest misconceptions of autism! Implying that autistic children will somehow just grow out of their autism means that the problem will just go away by itself - it doesn't work like that: if the autistic child is intelligent, then s/he will come up with solutions to the problems that the autism presents, much the way I did. There are of course, autistic people who are stupid and they are the ones who need more help, they need to be told how to cope - they are not the kind who will be able to figure out solutions for themselves. However, few people would readily identify themselves as autistic because of the social stigma attached to it - if they can't even begin to acknowledge that there is a problem there in the fist place, how are they going to start solving it? How many autistic people out there are so terrified of being associated with that label? 
This is not a problem that should be swept under the carpet.

I shall just end by saying this - I wrote this because I wanted to offer a bit of hope, a bit of comfort to others like me who have grown up with autistic parents. Perhaps you may disagree with me when I say, "whatever dumb mistakes they made, it wasn't their fault as they are autistic and didn't get any help." Dismissing their faults on the account of their autism may be simplistic, but it allows me to put the past behind me and move on with my life. However, I am no closer to them today and I suppose I am so frustrated by the fact that I can see exactly what is going on - I want to be a bigger part of my parents' life but only on the basis whereby they allow me to rescue them from their own stupidity and autism. They however, would only involve me in their lives if I accept that they are faultless and are always right. You can see why I will never back down on this and that's probably the status quo that will remain for the foreseeable future. I don't blame them - there's no anger in my heart, I just want to move on and perhaps offer a little comfort to others who have autistic parents too. Please let me know what you think about this issue. Many thanks for reading.

47 comments:

  1. Hey LIFT,

    This is really overwhelming thank you thank you thank you. Reading this made me:

    1. Gain awareness. I realized that I'm dating a guy with Asperger's Syndrome. As an engineer he loves machines and coding but when it comes to social situations that are not tech related he shuts down. At first I thought it was just a guy thing but I think i was really just ignoring the signs. Let me give you a recent example. I shared with him my job/study dilemma and his response can be summarized as "what 2.5k?! Do you know if you work in Europe you work less and you can't even get paid such a measly amount? Ok follow your heart do what you want " (Yes we are in LDR) but the point was that he was completely unable to relate to my SITUATION AT ALL. You're a complete stranger and when I told you about my plight, your response was to say the very least appropriate and NORMAL (at best super helpful and kind) with him I just cried after talking about it. Seriously like your dad example about how he latched on the thing he knows and told me how good is it working in Sweden with no OT minimum wage but how's this helpful to me?!

    2. Gain acceptance. Ok I don't know about your mum but after realizing this, I am adopting the "if the mountain cannot move, I move" mentality. It's impossible to expect so much so I just try to understand that communications for him is hard. Empathy is a mystery. I do think he is trying very hard (in one of our quarrels he said " I don't know what you're fishing for me to say but I'm not trying to hurt you on purpose and I'm really trying to understand your emotions" so I felt kinda touched lah and also Asperger is high functioning autism instead of the lower spectrum kinds so I think he isnt as difficult to deal with as perhaps others' situation) and I still love him so I don't want to break up at least for now. I focus on his pros instead (honest, driven, shared sports interests etc). Maybe you can try that with your parents before you get too frustrated with them? Keyword here is "too".

    3. Reflections. Sometimes I wonder if I'm attracted to him because of my own failed relationship with my mum (too many similarities to yours I can't even- sigh) I wonder if it's because of our desires to fix the past, "make it right this time" that we still let it pervade into our present reality. Just like your writing, because once you know that this kind of people exist you can't just ignore the problem. I'm sorry I'm not of any help to you at all now that I re-read what I wrote but if youre interested google the term "neurotypical" it offers a lot of indepth psychological help to others who are affected by their closed ones being autistic. (https://www.different-together.co.uk/neurotypical)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oops sorry I wanted to request if its possible are you able to make my previous comment private? Much appreciated if you can but if not its ok I'll probably remove it later on here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is no "private option" - listen this is like any other social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. I don't construct the website, I merely use blogger and thus I am limited by how Blogger structures the comments section. I have to either publish or delete your previous comment.

      I give you three choices: I can respond here without divulging details of whom you're most frustrated with (I can appreciate why you don't want that person stumbling upon your rant here) - or I can just delete it and not respond at all, which is a shame as I have some things to share as I wanna help. Or I can publish it - it is not something you should sweep under the carpet (remember what I said about my sister refusing to deal with painful memories? You're like her in that aspect.

      Delete
    2. I wish you will interview your sister one day...maybe you can see how she makes sense too in her own way haha? ah ok publish it I like to hear your response!

      Delete
    3. Well for what it is worth, here's my response to what you have said.

      1. When in a relationship with an autistic person, you have to lower your expectations lah. You cannot expect the other person to realize that they have to learn to cope better with the emotional aspects of the relationship, learn to communicate better, make a greater effort with empathy. That's like screaming at a blind person, "why can't you try harder to SEE!!?"?" The blind person's eyes just don't work - it is not their fault, by the same token, you have to accept that the autistic people in your life (clearly there's more than one) are incapable of meeting your emotional needs. I believe that if they could change and learnt how to cope better with their situation (like Weiping and I, see the comments below) they probably would've already and that change would usually come in one's teenage years. If not, well, you have to either accept them as they are (and the limits it places on your relationship) or just accept that you have a limited relationship with them whereby you will never be that emotionally close to them as you can't build that kind of emotional bond in the absence of empathy. Such emotional relationships cannot be a one-way system - you cannot make up for the fact that the other party is incapable of empathy. My sister does that with my parents - she accepts their limitations and builds a relationship within the confines of those limitations. I do the opposite, I accept their limitations and choose to have a very limited relationship with them instead, because I don't see the point of one party making all the effort whilst the other party is incapable of reciprocation. The choice is yours at the end of the day.

      As for my parents, I'm sorry - there are no 'pros' for me to focus on. Maybe it's just the pain of me having to bear the brunt, always having to be the understanding grown up in the relationship whilst they give in to their crazy autistic ways, I'm sick and tired of having to be the adult, the parent when I'm the freaking child for crying out aloud. I hate to say this, but my parents are the kind of autistic adults who do not have enough intelligence to figure out coping mechanisms, so they give in to their autistic tendencies which make them extremely hard to get along with. If we weren't related by blood, I would avoid them totally as they are just plain weird, crazy and fucking impossible to deal with and I am not exaggerating when I say this: I can't think of any redeeming features when I talk about them, NONE whatsoever. Not a single one. The best emotion I can offer is sympathy, now that I understand it is not their fault, it is their autism. But put yourselves in my shoes, imagine what I had to deal with as a young child growing up. Now you know why I am bitter.

      Delete
    4. Like OMFG, do you know how many times my parents have come up with childish bullshit when I was a child/teenager and I have to be the adult to help them cope with the situation? Whilst other people had parents who were able to offer parenting, the tables were turned pretty early in my life when I realized how much my two older sisters went out of their way to help my parents cope with difficult social relationships - listen, our family was not normal at all, the traditional roles of parent and child didn't apply. I swear, my father has the social skills of a 6-year old. In fact with the whole Mr Foo story, this is what I think happened. I am guessing that they were probably at the same school at the same time in the 1950s. My father has no social skills to speak of, so I can't imagine him befriending a popular guy in school (ie. Mr Foo) who was excellent in sports. So Mr Foo doesn't remember him, maybe at best they were acquaintances, but not 'friends' by any stretch of the imagination. Yet my father doesn't know how to differentiate between a close friend and an acquaintance and having started with this story that he was good friends with Mr Foo, well that's the story in his head and he's sticking with it no matter what, even if he has to lie to everyone and himself. That's the kind of man I had with my father - can you imagine what it was like for me to have to cope with that kind of bullshit growing up, knowing that you can't really believe what your father tells you? I had no idea when what he said was real or made up and the worst part was, he's not even deliberately lying to me, it is the autism that causes him to act like that as he can't bloody understand social relationships, social interactions or concepts like making friends. He clearly didn't understand his 'friendship' with Mr Foo.

      Sorry, I am ranting again.

      Delete
    5. Your bitterness is justified. My mum is exactly like that and just her alone is not easy to interact with and I tried to imagine it x2 for you. I think therein lies the difference in our stories, your parents are really stubborn and does not try + you also have given up (please correct me if im wrong) this is like that for my mum as well (she is really stubborn + i have also given up) whereas for my bf I like to think we can still work things out because, he tries plus I am also trying lah. Whether it works though I'll let you know in the future but your post at least made me aware of the limitations (which I think I always knew but repressed).

      Delete
    6. Well, I have given up an awfully long time ago. I live 8 time zones away from my parents - I've not even talked with my dad this year (it is end of April thus far) and what's the point? Even when I skype my sister, she is sitting there, in the living room with her iPad and I know my father is sitting there watching TV or reading the newspaper just meters away - can he even be asked to join in the conversation? No. Not interested. It takes two hands to clap and you know what? I've seen exactly what happens when one hand tries to clap: I have two sisters who drive themselves NUTS going out of their way to please my parents out of some filial piety thing they have in their heads that you must be nice to your parents regardless of whatever they do or whether you get anything in return. My sister would take them out for dinner and they'll complain the food is not nice. My mother would buy a gift for my mother (like a new blouse) and my mother would bitch that the colour is not nice. You get the idea - my sisters give, give, give and my parents seem to go out of their way to be as mean and nasty as possible to throw whatever kindness they get from my sisters and reciprocate with just a level of nastiness that is beyond comprehension. My brother in law, bless him, took them on a holiday in Macau and all they did was bitch about every aspect of the trip and I'm like, hello? Free holiday, my bro-in-law paid for everything, yet you wanna complain non-stop? Unreal. You wanna be treated like royalty, yet you treat your own family members like crap with such nastiness? Unreal.

      That's why I turn around and say, if that's the way they wanna behave, I'm moving 8 time zones away and not talking to them. I've seen the rest of my family endure my parents' autistic behaviour and I'm not interested. No thank you. Besides, I've got PLENTY of nice people in my life today who are nice to me. I don't know why some people insist on trying to make things work with family members when the evidence is showing you that no matter how much effort you invest in the relationship, you get nothing in return. Nothing.

      Delete
    7. All I can say is that autistic elderly folks have no idea how to interact with others and form meaningful social relationships - I know my parents want attention, yet they have zero social skills. I know they are afraid of loneliness, so they do this "old folks complaining routine" to get my sisters to drop everything and give them attention. It's fucking pathetic, if you ask me, it is so pathetic it is pitiful. You want attention, you make friends for crying out aloud, you don't play the victim when you are not the victim just to be able to complain. What makes things 100 times worse is that my parents often convince themselves that they are genuinely being victimized by one person or another, so they can moan to my sisters about how "ke lian" they are because so-and-so is attacking them. I refer you to the way my dad is a fantasist and liar (ref: the Mr Foo story) - I don't mind that he creates a nicer version of a story to replace a painful memory so he is happier. But nowadays, he's creating stories which paints him as a victim, so that others will feel sorry for him. Most people fall for it because they don't realize his inability to tell the truth or distinguish truth from fantasy, but good grief. It is such a nasty, tangled mess of bullshit once you realize they are autistic elderly folks totally incapable for forming normal human relationships. I am so sorry for ranting, I know I am breaking a big taboo in complaining about my own parents but you have no idea the extent of their nastiness and the way they treat my two sisters so badly. I know I may seem like a monster who lives 8 time zones away from my parents, quite happy to have little or no interaction with them - but ask yourself this, if they were normal adults, do you think I'd at least wanna talk to them? I can't bring myself to do what my two sisters do. Let them be the angels, I'll gladly be the devil.

      Delete
    8. In this case, I wonder if your sisters are worsening their condition by giving into them. Do you think it would have made any difference if they acted like you and your parents realized that they ran out of people to bully and thus are forced to mellow down a little?

      Delete
    9. Yes, but I know what they will say - my sisters would point out that my parents are so old, my dad will be 80 next year. People who are so old can never, ever change. They are too old to change. Perhaps you should think about your grandparents and compare - or if you have elderly relatives who are around 80 or so, do you think they can be forced to change? Do I approve of what I sisters do? Not really, but I don't disapprove either - I just respect their choice to do things differently. There is a distinct possibility that if my sisters acted like me, my parents would just ignore all of us and life would get a LOT harder for them - my sisters do a LOT of things for them, thing which they don't know how to do for themselves. So like I said, my sisters are being very kind and ignoring whatever price they have to pay. Personally, I'd say my parents could simply be nice about it - smile, say thank you, show gratitude - like it is not rocket science. Why do they need to be so nasty to their own daughters? Sorry if i am striking a raw nerve, I imagine your relationship with your mother is going to be quite similar.

      Delete
  3. I shall admit to being autistic (Asperger Syndrome). How I deal with it is similar to what most people would do is set up a routine lifestyle to what I can control. But I do not go to the point of denying what I do not know or understand. I acknowledge the fact that my view of the world is different from others'. So I try to fit my routine life in such a way that minimally impacts others (minimal social interaction). So other than the shop attendants/owners of the shops that I frequent and the people I usually interact at my workplace, I practically have no social lifestyle and it does not really bother me. In fact, I find it confusing how do socially active people manage their schedules balancing work and having a socially-active lifestyle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Weiping. I think my key point is that one can be autistic AND intelligent at the same time, it is the intelligence we use to figure things out, find solutions and ways to cope, so we can get on with life in the real world, overcome challenges, get along with people and lead a fruitful, happy life. We do not simply 'grow out of it'. That is such a misconception. I also challenge the simplistic division between high and low functioning autistic people without taking into account the function of INTELLIGENCE. Gosh, that is such a vital piece of the puzzle. Why is that such a dirty word, like are people so afraid to acknowledge that some people are more intelligent than others and this intelligence can be used for a variety of purposes - such as overcoming problems posed by autism? I think we live in a society where we are so afraid to condemn those who are stupid - no no give them a chance, let's be kind not cruel etc. I get that, but how can one have a sensible discussion about autism without looking at the role intelligence plays? I suppose you and I are not so much 'high functioning' autistic people, but highly intelligent autistic people, which means we are able to overcome our autism-related problems with little or no help because of our intelligence. Low functioning ones are those who don't have the mental resources/capacity to do so, hence they need a lot more help. Is it such a taboo to be calling a spade a spade?

      Delete
    2. Hi I want to add on another point on top of intelligence which is Money/Resources. In the case of my bf, he showed problems in school at a very young age ie he didnt want to do his homework/did not listen in class. It wasn't that he was being "naughty" per say but he didn't realized it then...somehow things that are obvious to us might not be for him? He couldnt recognize that his teacher was angry/giving an instruction. His parents detected this problem and sent him for speech and ear therapy (TOMATIS method google Singapore Brain Centre) but the cost for this treatment is NOT CHEAP. But it helped him associate people's tone/pitch with emotions when theyre talking something normal people like us take for granted in all social situations. On top of this, he was fairly intelligent meaning although he couldn't grasp social situations, he MIMICKED others' responses which he thought was appropriate. So I imagine his brain having a folder called "appropriate responses to XXX" which he just followed suit. Is he almost normal I say yes. But the keyword here is almost. Sometimes the folder does not have enough information to deal with things and the responses feel cliche like "im so sorry to hear this." so the vibe you get is ...erm ok.
      Interestingly enough, I think his personality is an extrovert for he likes being in social situations whether he excels in it is another question.

      Delete
    3. @madhatter One characteristic of asperger suffers is that they tend to talk very loud about things that interest them with no regards to how other feel or even if they show disinterest. They sometimes interrupt other peoples' conversation with something totally non-related.
      To the casual observer this might seem like a sign of extroversion but somehow talking to an asperger's suffer seems just off.

      Delete
    4. @Madhatter - you're right, people like your bf and I learn how to respond to people. We are aware that we cannot simply see things from our own perspective and we train ourselves to respond appropriately. I was just dealing with a woman this lunchtime at work - her company made a mistake, I complained about what happened and she called up to apologize and she did everything right. She listened to me, allowed me to get it all off my chest, she then acknowledged what happened and agreed with everything I said, then she apologized on behalf of the company (but it was like, "I'm terribly sorry my colleague messed up, we will deal with her internally I promise you as this is not acceptable." In short, she knew exactly what I wanted and gave it to me, she didn't once get defensive about her colleague's mistake and told me what I wanted to hear (ie. "that colleague who made the mistake is in trouble." Boom - jackpot.) But I could also tell from her very corporate approach that she had been trained to handle unhappy customers like myself. Autistic or not, we all can learn to deal with difficult social situations, even in this case, when I was the angry customer making a complaint. Whether or not she is sincere, I don't know - I doubt it. It wasn't her who fucked up, it was her colleague. So it's so easy for her to apologize for something that clearly wasn't her fault, "I'm so sorry my colleague is such a fucking idiot. I hate her too and I assure you she's one step from getting fired over this." Yeah, easy. But she was almost programmed to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear, so I would let the matter rest and to her credit, she succeeded. I give her credit for that - and you should give your bf credit for responding appropriately when he does.

      @Choaniki - you're totally describing my father. It is very kelian you know, very pitiful to see an old man with such poor social skills make a total utter fool of himself every time he opens his mouth and the worst part is that he is totally OBLIVIOUS to it all. Sigh. And that's why I don't really talk to him anymore - he doesn't know how to talk to people. I just feel sorry for him that's all, but that's not enough of a basis to build any kind of emotional rapport when there is clearly none whatsoever. Pity, charity, kindness is no substitute for rapport.

      Delete
    5. Oh and @Madhatter - my nephew has received a LOT of help and it has worked wonders. Yes, it can make a huge difference.

      Delete
    6. @choaniki the extroversion I was referring to in this sense is liking to attend social events or engaging with big groups of people :)

      Delete
    7. @Madhatter - Choaniki did hit the nail on the head with his point. He is 100% right. But to your credit, I think it is silly to try to split people into two simple, convenient categories of extrovert/introvert.

      Delete
  4. I'm wondering now if my dad is also autistic. But my elder brother and myself are rather estranged from him. My younger brother is definitely autistic (clinically diagnosed with asperger) so not sure if my dad and maybe myself could be slightly autistic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From what you've told me thus far, I think your dad is not just autistic but severely autistic, extremely autistic, overwhelmingly 100% autistic. Either that, or he's just a baaaaad person. Now which label would you prefer?

      Delete
  5. Hi Limpeh,
    I am very happy to hear that your nephew is doing better. From what you have shared on your blog, I am hopeful that he will begin and continue to find his niche where he can develop meaningful friendships and interests and grow as a person.

    Regarding your parents, I think it is very insightful that you said "However, I am no closer to them today and I suppose I am so frustrated by the fact that I can see exactly what is going on - I want to be a bigger part of my parents' life but only on the basis whereby they allow me to rescue them from their own stupidity and autism. They however, would only involve me in their lives if I accept that they are faultless and are always right."
    Here is my view of the situation your shared. You will have to make a choice of what you want to do. Having a relationship with your parents, or insisting on playing a role of rescuing them from what you see as their stupidity and autism? As much as they think they are always right, you have a strong opinion too on the family situation that you believe to be absolutely correct. I am not in any way disagreeing with your view of the situation, just saying that practically speaking it seems extremely unlikely that they will capitulate to your view at the moment.

    Best of luck to you as you consider how much and in what manner to interact with them to bring about the most beneficial outcome. Thanks for allowing me to share.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Stargazr,

      Well the situation with my nephew is improving - autistic children are always going to be a few years behind their peers in terms of their mental age/social skills. So my nephew is 14 today, his social skills are probably that of a 10-12 year old. It doesn't seem that bad, especially when you compare it to when he was 10 and he had the social skills of a 6-8 year old, oh back then it was a lot more apparent that there was a problem. Fast forward to when he is in his 20s, well, he may have the social skills of a late teen then, but you see what I mean about it being less apparent as he gets older. Also, the therapies did make a lot of difference. He has found friends amongst fellow computer game enthusiasts which is fine - at least he has his niche. But what about people beyond his niche? When he serves NS, he will be challenged to mingle with people from a huge range of social backgrounds, including those very different from his. He will struggle then. I had a long meeting today with two very important clients whom I probably share nothing in common with - yet because they are VIP clients, I had to establish rapport with them and get them to trust me, like me, wanna do business with me etc. Will my nephew ever be able to do a job like that? I doubt it - there are limits to what he will be able to achieve and I think it's just a question of playing to his strengths whilst steering clear of anything that involves an area of weakness.

      My parents and I are both equally stubborn, neither of us will budge from our positions and thus, I'm willing to accept the status quo (ie. we don't have a relationship). Such are the constraints. Let me give you an example, when my father talked about his good friend Mr Foo, I would jump in and correct him and point out that Mr Foo was never his friend at all, that Mr Foo doesn't even remember him - and my sister would be like, aiyah, you liddat hen bu gei ta mianzi, you know he is lying but what's the point in exposing his lies? Just let it go and keep your mouth shut lah. Don't go picking a fight with him. My sister just accepts whatever shit they throw at her unconditionally because she is the perfect filial Chinese daughter. I can't do that shit, no fucking way. Like just no fucking way.

      So we're back to our status quo. My parents will die before they capitulate, mostly because of their autism. Do you realize that many autistic people are in denial about their autism? This is what I have to live with.

      Delete
    2. OK Stargazr, let me give you a simple example of how difficult the situation is okay? Take a simple matter that ought not be complex at all: nutrition. I am very careful with what I eat, I do a lot of reading about health and nutrition and I have a lot of useful knowledge about healthy eating. My mother on the other hand, is limited to articles she may stumble across in the ST - she has a lot of misconceptions about health & nutrition and she is quite overweight (sorry but it is true, she is fat) mostly because she has a very unhealthy diet. She cooks her vegetables to death, destroying any nutrition in them and adds a ridiculous amount of sugar to her tea and coffee - she comes up with the most ridiculous justifications about why sugar is healthy and I'm like, did you just cook up that story in your head because you have a sweet tooth and like to eat sweet deserts? Like my father, she is a bit of a fantasist too - I tell her no you must cut down on your sugary drinks and sweet deserts if you want to lose weight. But oh no, that's not good news - so she ignores me, comes up with a different story in her head that WHITE SUGAR IS HEALTHY (i kid you not) and that it sugar doesn't make her fat. (Hello? What do you think has been making you fat all this time?) Can you imagine? I want to be of help, but like I said you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. You cannot help someone who doesn't want to be helped. My sister's response is to simply make my mother happy by feeding her a lot of sugary, unhealthy food - whilst it may seem like the path of least resistance, "aiyah she is so old just let her eat/drink whatever she wants lah" - you can just imagine the damaging impact it is having on my mother's health and weight problem. I just wanted to point that example out to you, to demonstrate that simply giving in to my parents' wishes can sometimes be downright detrimental to their well-being, as in the case of the sugar dilemma.

      What can I do? There is no easy option.

      Delete
    3. Oh and so many people in my family have DIABETES. Yet my mother ignores all the evidence before her and binges on a ridiculous amount of sugar everyday whilst on the road to diabetes capital - can you see why I wanna save her from her own stupidity and autism? And why my sister's approach is not always the best? But I can't help someone who can't doesn't wan to accept my help.

      Delete
    4. How does your nephew do at school where he is forced to mingle with others? What is his health like? Easier said than done probably, but trying to force him to do things out of his comfort zone now would probably help break his habits. Sounds like your family errs on the side of mollycoddling him which is probably contributes to the problem. Need to stop catering to him and worrying about him, let him figure things out on his own without adults hovering and he will develop into his own person.

      Regarding your mother's health issues: It is human nature that people are far more open to listen to advice from sources they perceive to be friendly and positive, everyone is like that without exception. So you need to weigh your desire to influence your mother's eating habits against your stubbornness when dealing with them. I suspect they shut down when you talk to them because they know you think they are stupid and autistic and have said as much to them. If you knew someone had a contemptuous attitude towards you and thought you were stupid and autistic you probably wouldn't want to listen to their advice either. If you want your parents to take your advice more seriously you would also have to work on establishing rapport with them (which I know you can do, since you've successfully built rapport with a lot of other people even those you don't have much in common with). Otherwise the vicious cycle will continue where you butt heads with them and they refuse to listen to your advice and you get frustrated and the cycle starts again. That's my 2 cents.

      Also, older individuals having unhealthy eating habits is pretty common - even among non-autistic/stupid people living in countries outside of Singapore. I would also say that the issues you are facing with your parents are not at all uncommon, although the stupidity/autism probably exacerbates it much, much worse. All parents have the tendency to see their adult children as kids, since they raised them and still have that mental connection with them like that.

      Family and relationships are hard

      Delete
    5. Also, what is/was your parents relationship with their own parents? I suspect it is the traditional Chinese relationship where the offspring respect their parents no matter how old they are and dissent is not tolerated. They don't have any mechanism to understand the concept of parents and adult children being friends on a equal level. That is a very Western and modern concept to them. The world has changed a lot since they were our age and it is very, very hard for them.

      Someone also told me that in the traditional culture, you don't say "thanks" which might be why they don't say or show thanks to your sisters for looking after them. Not defending their behavior, just saying they don't have any ability in their brain to process the concept.

      Delete
    6. You have opened a real can of worms there my friend. Here's the problematic situation - I am an ultra-liberal, atheist, extremely westernized person who rejects my parents' culture. My parents on the other hand, are totally traditional Chinese. So in short, we don't have a relationship because we can't agree on the terms of this relationship. They want, demand and expect unconditional respect and I'm like, yeah right my fat ass, as if. If you say something stupid, I'm going to tell you that you're being fucking stupid and I don't give a shit if that upsets your feelings. My sister thinks that I am being antagonistic and I cannot treat them like my peers - I'm like, look sis, I'm so freaking Westernized after having lived 2 decades in Europe, I can't possibly respond in a Chinese way because I don't know how to. So there is a huge gulf between how they view their relationship to me and how I am prepared to treat them - given how big this gulf is, well, the result is simple: we barely talk. If we do, it's via my sisters. Which is why when they came to visit last November, it was so freaking weird because they would get upset every time i corrected them in a "that's bullshit, you're stupid, you don't know what you're talking about, shut up and listen to me." Yeah, you can see why my sister thinks I'm making the situation far worse. As for the way they treat my sisters, I don't judge my sisters for their choices - I just refuse to let them treat me like that.

      Delete
    7. As for my nephew, I am aware that he has had a lot of problems at school - it has only gotten worse in secondary school. You see at home, he's the only grandson in my family and he has so many adults giving him anything he wants. My other sister just showers him with so many expensive gifts because she doesn't have children of her own. And my parents? They are literally throwing money at him every moment they can, he is their only grandson. Now contrast that kind of treatment to the harsh secondary school environment where the other kids see him as nothing short of a freak with strange behaviour - he is brought up to snap his fingers and all the adults give him whatever he desires, contrast that to the secondary school environment where he is an outcast who is struggling at best to figure out how the social game works. Gosh. I won't go into details but sec 1 was hell for him, I only hope that sec 2 gets a bit better. Like I said, he is improving, by a lot more than I thought he would, but he still has a long way to go. Heck, secondary school was harsh even for me and my nephew is facing an equally tough environment. I know I said he has improved a lot and that's true - but everything is relative, he still has an awfully long way to go. Like his grandmother, my nephew is also overweight - and that's a lot to do with my parents just buying him whatever food he wants to eat, paying no heed whatsoever to nutrition. When we try to suggest they make healthier choices, they place his pleasure before his health - "but he enjoys eating fried chicken! But it tastes good!" I'm sorry but my parents are so fucknig retarded they have no concept of what calories are or what leads to obesity.

      You are right - I do think my parents are fucking stupid and severely autistic and I am extremely contemptuous when I do talk to them, but I can't change that. Nor am I prepared to change that. I'll give you a good reason why: my sisters are like their doormats, my sisters go out of their way to please my parents, do everything they say, do a lot of their shit for them, take them out to dinner, buy them extremely nice and expensive gifts, all in the name of being a filial daughter - like we're talking textbook 100% PERFECT Chinese daughters, ok? Have they established any rapport? Not that I can see evidence of, nor do they have any influence over my parents. You wanna know why?

      Cos you can't establish rapport with severely autistic people. It's a medical impossibility. It's just like expecting a deaf person to hear or a blind person to see - a severely autistic person with asperger's syndrome find it virtually impossible to establish rapport even with their own children. So I look at my sisters and think, fucking hell, even if my 100% PERFECT Chinese daughter two sisters can't influence my parents despite everything they have done, what is the point of me even bothering to try? The least I can do is spare myself their bullshit and minimize contact.

      You see, I look at what my perfect sisters go through and I take it as a warning to not waste my energy on my parents. My sisters give, give, give so much and they get nothing in return.

      Delete
    8. Sorry if I sounded a bit angry, I guess there are a lot of things I'll never say to my parents in person but it's all coming out here.

      But allow me to explain why the rapport thing just won't work with my parents. You see, establishing rapport is a two way street. You get to know the other party better and they reciprocate by getting to know you better. What my sisters have with my parents is a one-way street - my sisters know my parents extremely well, but my parents barely know my sisters. I don't call that rapport.

      The people I have established rapport with at work - they are not autistic, they don't have Asperger's syndrome. They respond to me. I am not a social worker, nor a clinical expert with autism, I don't know how to deal with cases like my parents - like, they need professional help. The only people my parents have any true rapport with are each other - which leaves me scared at that realization, cos when one dies eventually, the other is going to suddenly feel very, very isolated.

      You think my sisters don't realize that my mother's poor diet is a problem? Of course they know that - but I think at some level, my sisters also think, what's the point, I can't change my parents because of the way they are. Oh by that token, my dad eats very unhealthily as well, neither of them have any basic concept of a healthy diet.

      But the bottom line is this: there's nothing I can do in this world to establish rapport with my parents because they are just so severely autistic. I have learnt loads of people skills to use on normal people, but I think I'd need to turn to medical experts for help in this case. This is waaaay beyond my expertise, call in a doctor, a professional, a shrink please.

      Delete
    9. I think I get it now. No matter what you do, neither you nor your sisters will be able to influence your parents behavior. In my opinion, the best thing you can do at this point is to let go. You have already moved to another country, and minimized contact with them, which reduces the toxic effect they have on your life.

      I can see that you still have feelings and concerns for your parents, as everyone does. They are your parents after all. I don't know how possible it is for you to let go, especially seeing as they are getting older and not in the best of health and have self destructive habits. But if you have concluded that there truly is nothing you can do about the situation, your only option is to accept that it is their choice how they want to live their life. They are grown adults with their own free will. Let them/your sisters know that if hell ever freezes over and they do want to take steps to make changes either to your relationship with them or in other aspects of their life, you will be there for them too.

      Delete
    10. Thank you. You are most kind and I truly appreciate your understanding, empathy and help. You've taken the time to listen to me pour out my heart & soul and that has been so therapeutic. Yeah, there's nothing my sisters nor I could do to influence my parents' behaviour - our approaches couldn't be more different but the results are the same, ie. we're ignored. It is incredibly frustrating whenever the topic comes up - even simple things like my mother's diet, sigh. You think I wanna bully my mother by making her feel bad about her poor diet? No, I am only concerned about her health as I don't want her to suffer in her old age, having seen my own grandmother suffer from battling diabetes in her final years. And now my mother is going down the same path - how can I help but feel this intense frustration about the whole diabetes situation?

      Everything you say is right stargazr. Thanks again.

      Delete
    11. You are welcome. Anytime. Best wishes to you. Let me know if there is anything else I can do.

      Delete
    12. It is an honour to have readers like you on my blog :)

      Delete
  6. @LIFT there is this: https://nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html?_r=0&referer=

    I'm not surprised if the article in ST or policies set by our gahmen came about as a result with consultation from "industry experts". The old food pyramid by HPB was just so wrong. They recommended to take the most wheat, grain, flour or bread with butter and fats on the top. Maybe the hawker association had a hand in it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This would have been a valid argument if you were dealing with a normal human being. But you're dealing with my mother here.

      Here's the thing about trying to convince an autistic person and getting them to change their minds - well, you can't. Once my parents believe in something, even if there is evidence to the contrary, they won't change their minds. Let me give you a classic example:

      My dad: Mr Foo and I were great friends back at school together!
      Mr Foo: I'm sorry, I don't remember who you are?
      (2 hours later) My dad: Mr Foo said he was my best friend when we were at school together.
      Me: WTF?!?!?!?

      I am only too aware of the sugar vs fats debate having written about this last year: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/florida-notes-part-3-obesity-and-america.html But my mother had some really strange ideas which had no medical/scientific basis: for example, she believed that one should drink water when eating food, you should only drink water or eat food but never both at the same time as it is bad for digestion. Now no doctor in the world has ever said that, indeed, it is almost inevitable when you have say, a bowl of noodle soup - there are solids (noodles, taugey, fish cake etc) and there are liquids there (in the form of the soup) so you are already mixing the two up already. And if you eat watermelon, well that's 92% water already. Does my mother have the scientific knowledge to back up her crazy believes? Nope. She is not educated. She can't justify it - but she is so autistic that she refuses to break her rules. I remember once she was eating a spicy curry and she started coughing as it was so spicy, we offered her water and she refused because she didn't want to break her own rules.

      I'm afraid that's the thing with autistic people. Believe you me, my nephew has a long list of habits (which I shan't name here) which make absolutely no sense whatsoever but he sticks to those "rules" that he's made for himself. So I'm afraid it's one set of rules for the normal folks, another set of rules for autistic people.

      Delete
    2. In fact some of the more bizarre rituals that my nephew gets up to worries me only because he's not going to get away with doing things his way once he goes into NS. In my family, we just let him do what he wants and I've see family members try to talk him out of break his habits but to no avail. If he tried any of those 'rituals' in NS, I guarantee you he'll kena bully like xiao. I don't have a solution to that, all I can say is that it runs in the family.

      In any case, my sisters are intelligent enough to help my mum adjust her diet away from the path to diabetes, but they are so afraid of upsetting my mother they just allow her to eat whatever she wants, no matter how unhealthy. Can you see how this situation demonstrates the challenges autism poses to normal family life?

      Delete
    3. My younger brother is currently in NS. But he holes up in his room all the time and seldom talks to strangers so i don't know how he deals with it.
      I'm considered a stranger to him since i moved out while he was still a young kid so he probably doesn't remember me.

      Delete
  7. I sent your a message on Messanger, please check :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I feel every bit of your struggle with your parents. Your pain aside, Pls above all have COMPASSION for them. They are how they are because they know no better. You have a brilliant mind, reach out to them to change their lives for the better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi J&E, it's not a question of not reaching out but I've seen my sisters do more than reach out. I have an older sister who is single - no children, no boyfriend - she dedicates every free moment to be a good daughter and please my parents yet she has zero influence over them. They just take her for granted, their attitude is, "of course she is going to be nice to me, to do nice things for us, she's my daughter" - they can't get over the mindset of "I'm the parent, she's my daughter, hence I am always right."

      The urgent issues are my parents' health - yet short of taking a very heavy handed approach, my parents are IMPOSSIBLE to deal with. Look, my mother has a combination of low IQ + autism = impossible to reason with. I'll give you a simple example.

      Me: Mum, you shouldn't put so much sugar in your tea, it is bad for your health.

      Mother: But sweet tea is nicer to drink. Tea without sugar is not as nice.

      Me: (Gives detailed explanation about sugar, calories, diabetes etc)

      Mother: But sweet tea is nicer to drink. Tea without sugar is not as nice.

      Me: Did you hear a word I said? Clearly not. (Resigns myself to the fact that my mother is a total idiot who cannot reason/understand basic stuff.)

      My sister: Just leave it, let her eat what she wants.

      Me: But she's going to make herself so ill if no one watches her diet.

      My sister: Leave it. you're just going to upset her if you don't let her eat what she wants.

      What do I do then? When my mother's IQ is so freaking low she can't be reasoned with even over an issue like sugar?

      Delete
    2. This situation is eerily similar to mine but LIFT i know you are a kind person! Now you need to say and express that clearly when you are telling them to do something for their own good. I feel like Asian parenting in general is all about tough love but thats why you must change that and start by rubbing it in their face "I love you and im telling you this for your own good. Dont keep consuming so much sugar etc..". Logical facts have no impact on my mum as well, I want to hear a happy ending to your relationship with your family :) all the best.

      Delete
    3. Madhatter - please lah, in real life there are no happy endings, just compromises. My parents came and visited me last November and we argued so much - it just led to me thinking, you guys are impossible to deal with, you are so bloody autistic and stupid, that's why I left Singapore 20 years ago to get the hell away from you.

      You realize that after 20 years apart, it is impossible to reconcile those differences. Even my two sisters who have lived in Singapore all this time - there is no 'happy ending'. Don't you get it? Happy endings only happen in Hollywood feel-good movies and fairy tales, in real life, the best I can take away from it is my sister saying, "you are lucky, you have washed your hands of your parents and are free from their nonsense. I live in Singapore and this is the crap I have to deal with everyday."

      Now I don't want to be too harsh on you as I know you mean well - I think that people like you just feel compelled by social convention to say something nice regardless of how awful the situation is but sometimes, it can come across as downright ridiculous like, "what? you've gone blind? No worries, you'll grow a new pair of eyes." Like seriously, if you have actually read what I've written, you'll realize that there simply isn't the possibility of any kind of happy ending with my parents, they will die soon and I will do a post about how I feel bad about not feeling too sad about their death and being unable to cry.

      And that is real life madhatter. Welcome to the real world.

      Delete
    4. By the same token, I know that you'll never have a 'happy ending' with your family either. The best case scenario is that you'll have a successful career, marry someone wonderful, start a family of your own so the role your parents play in your life will become so small it will become insignificant till you can cut them off the way I've effectively done so with my own parents.

      #therealworld #nohappyending

      Delete
    5. I agree with what you said but I feel like from your writings it shows that you are trying to be open to new strategies to cope with this issue? Maybe i'm hopeful and also a bit younger so i feel like if I dont try I wont know but i get that in your case, you probably tried so hard and its like now you know. Happy endings can also be some kind of closure I just wanted to wish you happiness because you don't deserve to be plagued by the skeletons in your family closet anymore yet your rants well...idk.

      I'm sorry if i sounded like trivialising the issue thats NOT my intention at all. Take care. #hashtaggamestrong #noted

      Delete
    6. It's okay, I know you mean well, I just wanted to caution you against this kind of "being optimistic for the sake of saying something nice" comment. Sometimes, all you need to do is to express empathy and that's enough - I had the same problem with my mother in law. My nephew is disabled and she has said some really baseless - nay, make that ridiculous (what drugs are you on woman) optimistic statements about his condition, no not based on any medical knowledge or personal contact with my nephew, but simply out of a compulsion to say something nice for the sake of ... what? Saying something nice? I then look at her and think, I know you mean well but you're really talking rubbish woman.

      You see what I mean?

      Thanks.

      Delete
  9. By that token, according to her reasoning, because her experience was much worse than mine, I have no reason to complain today. - Oh man... I hate this reasoning so much. Everyone or at least those I know love to use this argument in discussions.

    ReplyDelete