Has anyone, AS or NT had experience with cassandra syndrome?

You don't get more autistic - your ability to put up with the NT world diminishes until you just can't hide any more.    Your mask will start to crack and your 'quirks' will start to pop out at inopportune moments.    

It's normally when the older ones realise they are not like everyone else and find the need to get diagnosed..

Hoping not to take this off track but could autism get 'worse' as you grow older? I'm feeling more and more out of touch but that could be because we are in these strange times and also because I am just working out where my masking is. I have lots of thoughts running around but struggle to marshall them into a coherent post so will leave it here.

Lulu said:

No his parents won't speak to me, it seems like for them its anything for a quiet life.

That's terrible - are they not interested in their grandchild?  It should be a big thing in their lives.    It's why I suspect both are ASD.

Basically, high-functioning ASD blokes grow up with interests in their subject - model trains, airfix models etc, probably with few or no friends - and this is fine when they are young but as the get older, all the other kids start to change whereas we are still building our hobbies.

By puberty, our pocket money is such that we can get better trains and more models - but the other kids are looking at the opposite sex and clumsily testing relationships.

Bu University, we've got brilliant railways and D&D sets - all the other kids are having sex and slightly more stable relationships.

Around this time we start to notice girls but we're too shy to approach them and as we're so awkward, we get rejected if we try.   We've pretty much perfected our mask by now so we tend to get into relationships with people who spot our vulnerabilities and get used and abused because were so naive.   We try very hard to be 'normal' and to please others - we're a walking target.

It's usually through this time that the abusive 'girlfriend' demands 100% attention so all the hobbies are stopped dead and ridiculed for being childish - so we're under massive pressure to be 'grown up' and all our relaxation - de-fusing tools are gone -  maximum stress & vulnerability - things end very badly.    We learn to strengthen our mask to try to avoid it happening again.

Rinse & repeat for the next relationship.

We also enter employment - often in unsuitable jobs that require way too much social interaction and people playing politics so our brain is being thrashed all day trying to cope - but the stress won't go away - we go home knackered - brain fried - needing time to recover.

Rinse & repeat for the next day - for the rest of our lives.

Unfortunately, all this requires energy-  which is easy when we're young - but it becomes more of a drain as we get older and our ability to fulfil everyone's demands reduces until something gives out - autistic burn-out. 

Unfortunately, as we get older, our lives become more complex and more demands get loaded on - autistic burnout happens sooner.

Does this help you understand how he functions?

Plastic

No his parents won't speak to me, it seems like for them its anything for a quiet life. They don't seem to care how much this is impacting on me and baby, and don't seem to believe me wen I tell them what's been going on. They don't ask about me or about baby. 

Could autism impact his maturity level directly to this extent? Or do you think it's probably more down to him getting his own way all his life due to his parents trying to avoid the meltdowns?

The more I speak to people in here I feel that autism is not an excuse for some of his behaviours but do worry that it will be used as just that if the assessment comes back starting he is.

He hasn't always been this way, he used to help with the housework and insist on doing all the cooking, over time as the gaming has increased his attitude had changed and he he becomes angry if I even suggest he helps with this. 

I'm torn as to whether his issues are being caused by autism and an obsessive hobby or a separate gaming addiction perhaps coupled with autism. Is this possible? Can and at what point does an obsessove hobby become an addiction? 

From all the things you've said, he sounds like a bit of a man-child and adult life is something he's been playing at - and it's all got too real.    The fact his parents aren't kicking his bum and not supporting you says a lot.    

As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think you can build a life with him - you really need to concentrate on yourself and your child and making yourself happy.     I've no idea how much of a dad he'll be, but stability for your child is the most important thing now so I'd be planning to do things without him.    

At the moment, it's all about him - he may be under ridiculous stress internally, but his behaviour is unacceptable - and his parents are enabling it (they may not know what to do either - do you talk to them?)

If he suddenly grows a pair and starts to man-up, then you set the rules of the interactions to limit the damage if he flakes out on you again.   

Plastic

Hi Plastic,

You're probably right about his parents. His brother seems to be NT though.

Unfortunately, nothing seems more important to him than the games, nothing makes him want to put  the phone down, not his other hobbies, not me or even his future child it would seem. He refuses to see that it is a problem and refused to ask for help with it. 

I'm hoping that when he gets assessed and starts getting the support he needs that the therapist may pick up on it as an issue but I can't see it as he won't mention it to them as being a problem even though it has practically destroyed our marriage. 

I have reflected and apologised to him for my nagging actions that I'm now starting to believe are motivated by the symptoms of cassandra syndrome. However, he doesn't seem to have looked at himself and at how his actions have contributed to me feeling that way.

I'm starting to think he will only come back if he is able to continue to ignore me. 

Will be ever get bored of the games and start to miss me once I'm no longer there? 

Let's look at the evidence - ASD people cannot cope with unknowns - the parents out in the country - away form the randomness of people - going to a villa - hotels are out of control - a villa is under their control - living together individually - never showing emotions?

I'm not a betting man but I'd be willing to put money on probably both are ASD  

We get bullied at school so we develop a mask to protect us from bullies - it helps us survive the social environment.    It's incredibly risky to let someone see the real 'us' because odds are they will use and abuse us - he's lowered his mask and been badly affected - it will be very, very difficult to allow someone else to do the same - you are getting behind his mask and he's probably at the stage of panic - he's let you in but might be regretting that he's let himself get too involved - but has no functional mechanism to be completely open and honest after years of masking.   His brain is probably just waiting for you to do the same thing to him so he's run away to avoid the risk - it gives control to him.

If he's used drugs, that would always worry me - if it's been his coping method once, you don't know where the stress-threshold is for him to revert back to it.

We are very much into collecting data about our special interests - but he's using the phone as a drug - the games are designed to reward playing behaviours and are scientifically optimised to almost create a high from the way the brain works.    What else does he like that can get him to *want* to put the phone down?

Plastic

Hi Plastic,

Neither of his parents are diagnosed, and I wouldn't  like to guess which if any is autistic, although I do know they never really show emotions or talk about their problems, so it could be that this has had an impact. Also his dad works away all week and only returns home on the weekend so I think although his parents are together, they also spend a lot of time apart. So again this could be a learned behaviour. His parents don't like populated areas and live out in the countryside and even when on holiday will go to a villa rather than a hotel to avoid other people. So I could see how my hubby could have been emotionally/socially stunted even if his folks are not autistic. 

I know he's been through a traumatic experience at the hands of a woman, and used drugs as a coping mechanism at the time. He has been clean for a long time now but does seem to get hooked on different things in an obsessive manner, gaming being the main hobby that interferes with him socialising or spending time with me. Maybe this past traumatic experience has damaged his experience of women as you suggest? 

Hi - I might say some things here that others disagree with.

Through our childhoods, our worlds gets more and more complex.    We don't have the coping mechanisms do we retreat into things we can control and lose ourselves in - model trains, dinky toys etc.   

Our eventual personality depends a lot of how much time we spend avoiding the world and how much parental input we've had.    Often, one of our parents is AS too so if it's the working parent, we get a lot of input from the NT at home.      If the caring parent is AS, we can end up quite emotionally  and socially stunted.   (mine was)

If your husband is the latter type, he won't have witnessed much closeness or thinking about others - so it's either not in his program or it's of low value..  

Has he had previous relationships?      If they ended badly, it will have damaged his image of women so he might be more careful and selfish in future.

The concept of love is difficult - it's unmeasurable so demonstrating it is a logic-fail.    It's likely he feels it's more like pair-bonding - like swans - a mutual need for safe company.

To get your needs met, you need to literally tell him what you expect from him - almost a menu of 'doing this pleases me' and he'll happily do that - it gives him a safe list of guaranteed successes.      If you want flowers, tell him - and which types you like and why - colours, smells, how often etc.

You need to understand and accept his shortcomings and work out a way to work together to make you both happy - how to make yourself the focus of his life - make yourself visible again.

Have a long chat with him about both of your future goals in life - retirement plans etc. and work together to decide what you're going to do to achieve it.      We work best when we are comfortable that we're doing something good and worthwhile and that our partner has our back.

If you can manage his stress levels, he'll have brain-power left to do all of the nice things.  Working out a long list of things that de-stress him and you will pay dividends for you - it might even be little things like sitting in the woods in peace & quiet - take a picnic.     It might be going around museums or making things together - the more active you are in things that de-stress him, the more he'll drop the phone and spend time with you..   Make yourself into the primary de-stress route - that might be letting him tell you about his day - venting - or just giving him a coffee and leaving him alone.

There is a balance though - you need to be smart to get the balance right so you end up as a close couple and you don't end up as his mother or slave.

The question is do you think he can do it - and can you really be bothered with all that noise?