Which of your parents do you believe is/was/might be/could have been autistic?

Since my daughter was diagnosed and I was told there could be a genetic element, which led to a much better understanding of myself, I have occasionally wondered about my own parents. I think I see some behaviours and patterns in both of them, but they also might have so much life experience now that they just carry on as normal, perhaps not even realising themselves there could be anything there.

I always thought I was most like my mum because we were both the quiet, bookish ones in the family, whereas my dad was the sporty, sociable one, we didn't share a lot of interests together. I've now realised I'm more like my dad than I thought - we both don't want to give up on a problem until it is solved, we're both really skilled in our fields of work and want a job done properly.

One thing I do find funny now (more embarrassing growing up) is that my dad LOVES to talk about all the construction projects he's worked on in his life. He will even pull out his phone and show photos to people of all the buildings he's helped complete. I find it funny now because he's completely oblivious to whether the other person is actually interested too or just being polite! He's just proud of his work, but I can definitely see something in that too 

Apologies for the cynicism expressed in that poem.

It is only partly shared by myself.

Thank you everyone for your replies, which I am reading.

It reminds me of a poem by Philip Larkin:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse

Since my daughter was diagnosed and I was told there could be a genetic element, which led to a much better understanding of myself, I have occasionally wondered about my own parents. I think I see some behaviours and patterns in both of them, but they also might have so much life experience now that they just carry on as normal, perhaps not even realising themselves there could be anything there.

I always thought I was most like my mum because we were both the quiet, bookish ones in the family, whereas as my dad was the sporty, sociable one, we didn't share a lot of interests together. I've now realised I'm more like my dad than I thought - we both don't want to give up on a problem until it is solved, we're both really skilled in our fields of work and want a job done properly.

One thing I do find funny now (more embarrassing growing up) is that my dad LOVES to talk about all the construction projects he's worked on in his life. He will even pull out his phone and show photos to people of all the buildings he's helped complete. I find it funny now because he's completely oblivious to whether the other person is actually interested too or just being polite! He's just proud of his work, but I can definitely see something in that too 

Thank you Martin.

I think both. I know my mom well but don’t talk to my father for years. From what I recall I could say they both might be. 

I think my dad was like me - high functioning and relatively low support needs. He died 15 years ago and I miss him all the time.

He worked in the armed forces, and then once retired from that, for the armed forcces as a civilian. Both provided him with the structure and consistency he needed I suppose.

He was very empathetic, like me, and was very tidy and had a place for everything, like me.

I believe my mother to be a narcissist - we have had zero contact barring one brief phone call in nearly twenty years. She upset and angered everyone in the family and played us all off against each other. So effective was she in her manipulations that I have no contact with my remaining sibling or any biological family. She isolated us all.

I have thought about this question over and over for a long time. My mum is a people pleaser and socially awkward as am I but my dad is dyslexic (undiagnosed) and I think he had some form of learning difficulty. Jury’s out on that one still. 

When sex cells are created each cell gets one chromosome derived from the two paired chromosomes of the parent. But this chromosome is a random mixture of the parental chromosomes, due to chiasma (crossing over of stretches of DNA between chromosomes) during meiosis. This is why non-identical twin siblings do not have the same traits. For example, take  my two children, one has brown eyes, the other blue eyes, though they have the same parents. This is due to them getting different mixtures of both my paired chromosomes and my wife's paired chromosomes. Chiasma is essentially a random process.

Traits skipping generations is fairly common. Eye colour is an easy example, though in fact the inheritance of eye colour is more complex than it might seem. Both my wife and I have brown eyes, but in both cases we have recessive blue-eye alleles, from both of our blue-eyed mothers. We have a blue-eyed child, blue eyes in my family skipped a generation.

I am pretty sure it was first my maternal grand-father, passed it on to my mother, then to me and now my daughter x

Martin said:

In terms of inheritance, the genetic 'bag of tricks' is shaken up for every generation.

Is 'shaken up' diluted or is it just random?

Or something else?

Could I for example inherit something from a couple of generations back?

In terms of inheritance, the genetic 'bag of tricks' is shaken up for every generation.

Both (and probably beyond into history).

Lotus said:

But after I got married and moved out, I started to realise how manipulative they had both been.

Once in my 30s I was standing in the kitchen doorway and my mum was in the kitchen with my dad, having a go at him and 'being upset'.

She happened to turn around then to face the other side of the kitchen.

She didn't know I was watching but I saw her smile.

It was a mega lightbulb moment for me.

My mum's death was the release for me, truth to tell.

Lotus said:

Sorry that you also suffered because of a parent's behaviour Debbie

Thank you.

I strongly believe that it’s my mum, but I’m so similar to my dad characteristics wise I couldn’t be too sure. He’s the one that taught me to mask from a very young age, however I’ve come to realise that it’s something he might have learned too. I’m not sure. My mum believes I’m autistic but my dad does not. I don’t know what to think.

On thing I'm finding particularly interesting (and useful) in this thread is that people go back beyond their parents (or sideways) in thinking about genes.

I hadn't done this but now my mind is ticking over in all directions ....

Thanks.

My dad has obvious sensory issues and intense interests, and does have meltdowns. He has an OCD diagnosis. He doesn't seem to have autistic issues with socialising though, but nor is he socially normal either. He's definitely got something going on, but I don't know what. It could fit BPD quite well. I have often wondered if he could be on the spectrum.

One of my aunts (mother's sister) I suspect might have autism. She lived a solitary life, never married, had very intense and restrictive interests which she wouldn't shut up about. She would talk someone's ear off about something like ornithology, oblivious to the signs that nobody is interested. She collected stamps and other things, and catalogued stuff and loved showing it to people and explaining it all.

I'm basing this off memories though so who knows, she could have just been a quirky person. But it seems like her mind worked similarly to mine. I got on very well with her as a kid.

Sorry that you also suffered because of a parent's behaviour Debbie.

For me it was more complicated - my "father" was one of the most unpleasant people I've had the misfortune to meet, and my mother trained me to take her side from an early age, as she claimed she had to seek comfort with other men due to an uncaring husband who was emotionally detached and wouldn't take her out, as she liked to socialise. I actually became more attached to the boyfriend she had in my teens than my so called "dad". But after I got married and moved out, I started to realise how manipulative they had both been. Not surprising that when I was young I wondered if I was actually adopted.

Still, that's many years in the past now (I cut ties around 30 years ago for self protection) - it can't harm me any more. We survive x

Lotus said:

Hi Debbie, I "upvoted" your comment because I empathise with you, not because I like it that your mother had affairs too.

Thankyou.

I have a very painful memory of my mother taking me out for a daytrip with one of them.

I'm sorry you suffered this too 

For me empathy for my father and his suffering is probably the worst of the emotional memories.

My father was much more like me in temperament than my mother. My paternal grandfather was an engineer and amateur inventor (some of his inventions were manufactured commercially on a large scale), he was considered rather eccentric in the family. I suspect that he was the major player, genetically, in my autism. My paternal grandmother's family had some history of mental disorders, described as melancholia at the time. My mother was a highly sociable person, having said that, she had some mild eccentricities of her own, so she may also have played some part in passing on autism traits to me.