Sorry you were so heavily attacked for your first article, but it comes with the territory. I've just been through a year of therapy with my father with limited success, but I've learned some interesting things. He thinks of himself as loving, but that love is not communicated with what the therapist calls "mirroring". To say that Aspies lack empathy can be misconstrued as saying that they are cruel, but in the psychological context is simply means that they don't read the emotions of others and therefore do not communicate in the realm of feelings. My father thought that because he felt love it was obvious. The flip side of not being able to put himself in the shoes of another person is that he thinks that his perspective is the same as everyone else's. My father's disconnects had to be carefully and gently explained to him. Getting him to understand that other people experience his actions differently than he intends was a struggle. Like other Aspies described in the comments of your other article, he is extremely defensive and never wrong. I suspect that many of those angry Aspie responses stating that there are good Aspie parents out there do "protest too much", because they are afraid to face their own shortcomings. Many of them probably think they are good parents because they know that they mean well and are unable to see their own failings. With coaching my father has improved his behavior and is less frequently inadvertently rude, but it is like he has memorized something out of a book that he doesn't really understand. He can imitate normal behavior but it is just a mask. His inability to fully "grok" another person hasn't changed. I'm sure that most Aspie parents are good people with good intentions, but unless the other parent is NT and can compensate well for the Aspie's shortcomings, the kids are going to be confused at the very least, and possibly severely damaged depending on other factors in their childhoods.
Children of Aspergers parents my find more value in looking up "Developmental Trauma Disorder" than in looking for specific help about Asperger's parents. The specifics around why you were not seen, supported and protected as a child is less important than the resulting trauma and the treatment.
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Sorry you were so heavily attacked for your first article, but it comes with the territory. I've just been through a year of therapy with my father with limited success, but I've learned some interesting things. He thinks of himself as loving, but that love is not communicated with what the therapist calls "mirroring". To say that Aspies lack empathy can be misconstrued as saying that they are cruel, but in the psychological context is simply means that they don't read the emotions of others and therefore do not communicate in the realm of feelings. My father thought that because he felt love it was obvious. The flip side of not being able to put himself in the shoes of another person is that he thinks that his perspective is the same as everyone else's. My father's disconnects had to be carefully and gently explained to him. Getting him to understand that other people experience his actions differently than he intends was a struggle. Like other Aspies described in the comments of your other article, he is extremely defensive and never wrong. I suspect that many of those angry Aspie responses stating that there are good Aspie parents out there do "protest too much", because they are afraid to face their own shortcomings. Many of them probably think they are good parents because they know that they mean well and are unable to see their own failings. With coaching my father has improved his behavior and is less frequently inadvertently rude, but it is like he has memorized something out of a book that he doesn't really understand. He can imitate normal behavior but it is just a mask. His inability to fully "grok" another person hasn't changed. I'm sure that most Aspie parents are good people with good intentions, but unless the other parent is NT and can compensate well for the Aspie's shortcomings, the kids are going to be confused at the very least, and possibly severely damaged depending on other factors in their childhoods.
Children of Aspergers parents my find more value in looking up "Developmental Trauma Disorder" than in looking for specific help about Asperger's parents. The specifics around why you were not seen, supported and protected as a child is less important than the resulting trauma and the treatment.
October 23, 2015 - 9:17amThis Comment
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