As my mother slips in to vascular dementia and Alzheimers she has become a sweet little old lady. Her self centred to the point of being greedy trait is now acceptable and she forgets to keep what was the life force of her relationship with my father going - the constant bickering.
Now that her personality is occluded by her conditions, I am reflecting on that personality - I suppose people with NT parents would call it being sad that the parent they knew is receding. I am wondering how my mother's life would have been improved if he had had a diagnosis, if she had known that she had Aspergers ( I am adopting the immensely arrogant position of the diagnoser here, I know). Probably not, although she would have found it a relief not to have put so much energy in to pretending she understood people's emotions.
But, and this is why I 'm offloading here, it would have been useful for me as a child. I could never understand why every single interaction, was very likely to end with someone getting anxious, upset or angry, with a row or a hurt feeling or a feeling of guilt, then fifteen minutes later everything was perfectly all right and would we like a nice cup of tea? (we are English).
I could not understand why the same patterns happened, even during my visits as a young adult and a mother with my own children - the same pattern, and the constant background bickering over minute details and perceived slights and unfairness between my parents.
My mother did love me, and she did show affection, however, she wasn't really interested in the details of quality of my life, just a long as she could summarise by saying "Oh that's marvellous, Darling". She used to say very hurtful things and would never stop talking, she always had the last word and was absolutely delighted if she could be right and demonstrate her cleverness and would poke at the embers of a row or an upset without having learned that it was time to stop sharing the contents of her head.
I suspected she may be Aspergers when I told her about my miscarriage in a phone call. She told me that she knew about my miscarriage because she had dreamed that she was visiting a museum and she noticed a baby hanging on a fascia board ( you know what a fascia board is, don't you Darling?) and as she had walked past it had let go its grip and slid to the floor. "So you see, I knew about the miscarriage".
At that point I figured that either my mother was a monster or that she had no idea what she was doing and how she made people fee. That was 18 years ago. I emigrated to Australia with my husband and kids and never looked back.
My sister copes much better with her because she has been a psychiatric nurse for 35 years.
Anyway, thank you for the links, and the therapy session. It is so useful to know we are not the reason we feel these varying levels of neglect from our Asperger parents.
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As my mother slips in to vascular dementia and Alzheimers she has become a sweet little old lady. Her self centred to the point of being greedy trait is now acceptable and she forgets to keep what was the life force of her relationship with my father going - the constant bickering.
Now that her personality is occluded by her conditions, I am reflecting on that personality - I suppose people with NT parents would call it being sad that the parent they knew is receding. I am wondering how my mother's life would have been improved if he had had a diagnosis, if she had known that she had Aspergers ( I am adopting the immensely arrogant position of the diagnoser here, I know). Probably not, although she would have found it a relief not to have put so much energy in to pretending she understood people's emotions.
But, and this is why I 'm offloading here, it would have been useful for me as a child. I could never understand why every single interaction, was very likely to end with someone getting anxious, upset or angry, with a row or a hurt feeling or a feeling of guilt, then fifteen minutes later everything was perfectly all right and would we like a nice cup of tea? (we are English).
I could not understand why the same patterns happened, even during my visits as a young adult and a mother with my own children - the same pattern, and the constant background bickering over minute details and perceived slights and unfairness between my parents.
My mother did love me, and she did show affection, however, she wasn't really interested in the details of quality of my life, just a long as she could summarise by saying "Oh that's marvellous, Darling". She used to say very hurtful things and would never stop talking, she always had the last word and was absolutely delighted if she could be right and demonstrate her cleverness and would poke at the embers of a row or an upset without having learned that it was time to stop sharing the contents of her head.
I suspected she may be Aspergers when I told her about my miscarriage in a phone call. She told me that she knew about my miscarriage because she had dreamed that she was visiting a museum and she noticed a baby hanging on a fascia board ( you know what a fascia board is, don't you Darling?) and as she had walked past it had let go its grip and slid to the floor. "So you see, I knew about the miscarriage".
At that point I figured that either my mother was a monster or that she had no idea what she was doing and how she made people fee. That was 18 years ago. I emigrated to Australia with my husband and kids and never looked back.
My sister copes much better with her because she has been a psychiatric nurse for 35 years.
Anyway, thank you for the links, and the therapy session. It is so useful to know we are not the reason we feel these varying levels of neglect from our Asperger parents.
March 17, 2018 - 7:26pmThis Comment
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