Autism or narcissism mother

And my mother too, she was born in 1946.

Book: Finding Your Superpower

Has 4 long questionnaires that help narrow down if it is autism/ADHD/ BiPolar… you might add that diagnosis to your list to consider. 

Had a narcissistic/autistic / seemingly irrational dad. Know how you feel.  People can be autistic/bipolar and narcissistic. 
Good luck!

Also: read Boundaries by Dr. Cloud.   Very helpful!!!!!

One way is to think back and assess if the mother acted differently in public than in private. there is also an excellent book

https://www.amazon.com/Covert-Passive-Aggressive-Narcissist-Recognizing-Psychological/dp/099862134X

This reminds me a lot of my mother, she was diagnosed with autism a few years ago and has basically everything you've just said on the dot. She also tends to say that it's her autism in order to excuse herself from blame, I've thought about her having a pathological demand avoidance profile too. I love her a lot but it can be really draining sometimes, especially since I suspect that I'm neurodivergent too but haven't seeked a formal diagnosis yet

I'm not sure where you're getting this information.

All individuals will experience difficult times in life, that's life. In the wild, animals nurture their kids without hesitation and then kids leave and live on instinct. We know from observation the Wild is a dangerous place. 

But humans can use reason to modify and understand or control instinct. Sometimes there exists something else which keeps us from following instinct or even being vulnerable enough to sense it and sometimes we blatantly ignore it, maybe fear of judgement, maybe misunderstanding a complex problem or maybe our instinct is contrary to what is useful or even good.

According to new understandings in genetics all humans have "autistic" potential. I very much doubt we've ever called it that. For instance, much of what is Actually autistic is more right brained thinking. A different wiring which means a potential for one thing at the expense of executive function. Some might say it's a more ancient brain, that the ability to tie a shoe or read is new comparatively to how long humans have existed. 

It's important to differentiate Autism from Trauma and I think this is the crucial key many are missing. 

Your mother may have traumatised you, and due to being autistic, you learn and grow and understand the world from a vastly different perspective than the majority. You needed help into life and she couldn't give you that. I feel with you here. I went through a similar thing with mine.

These people failed us but it doesn't meant life stops here. It means we can do something different. Find mentorships, find our own community. Learn, grow, become. They may have been traumatised in their own way and unable to see us because they were unable to understand who they are as human beings - autistic or not.

Focus on what is possible. What do you want? I didn't grow into my self until around 30. Then I started integrating my words, actions and intent. There will always be something to discover, and shifting away from how we were failed to who we can become can really change our entire trajectory. 

Hi thanks for the reply. I don’t know my refrigerator mum probably caused my autism because I remember at one point being a happy boy and then I switched to an unhappy sad boy. Some people claim that that transformation was caused by vaccines or viruses but I don’t know what if it really is caused by the parent(s). I was thinking if I had a normal happy loving mum would I have turned out autistic with anxiety and emotional problems? I am not sure who knows? They claim genetics cause autism yet they have only found a genetic cause for 4% of autistic people I seen in a study. So what explains the other 96%? These are all interesting questions to think about but I know I definetly became autistic as a young child I wasn’t autistic from birth that’s for sure. 

Here is a recent book that might help you pinpoint the trouble, perhaps?

"Dangerous Personalities"

by Joe Navarro. He has other interesting books as well.

It saddens me to hear this. 

I've done a lot of work to understand the Autistic / ADHD brain and how we're affected by society. What this means is we're left unsupported and treated rather horribly and can end up in Survival Mode, a really depleted state of being (or not really being). This in turn ends up ruining relationships and blocks us further from even being able get help when we don't realise we're asking for it. It's trauma compounding trauma - and that's the only sort of mother who would unintentionally externalise cruelty on her child. 

We all need mentors and community, connectedness and to make sense of the world. 

I genuinely feel your pain. My mother didn't drink, but that didn't mean she didn't act like an Adult child of an Alcoholic. ADHD'rs have difficulty with emotional regulation - she was diagnosed bipolar and literally offended at it, she threw it out. And that's because she wasn't. ADHD is different. And when it's undiagnosed, it makes it even worse. From a young age ADHD and Au females are told they're too much. They're repellant. They unpleasant. But being Autistic, I found I can seize control - in fact, I can be intensely grounded - I'm not actually impacted by social shame and social judgement, but still socially weird. I don't even really connect and learned it doesn't bother me.  However, ADHD women have far worse anxiety as they DO understand the social constructs and can find themselves completely powerless to fix anything. I can just exit and voila! Solitude for the win, but it's not like that for them, it's a mountain they can get out from under.

Being female, I can let go of not having a mother easier - I think - than if I were her son it would be different. 

I did get help, but with parents it can be overwhelming. They're supposed to be this responsible, reliable source and when they fail at that, it does a great deal of damage. I know my son, now older, still visits his grandmother and she cares about what he has to say, so maybe when she's 70 she'll get tested and things might actually get a little better.

I genuinely hope you are able to succeed in some significant ways (even our small wins matter) and find a kind of healing. It may not get better with that relationship, but it doesn't mean it has ruined the life you have ahead of you. 

I’m like you and all the other autistic people I have spoke to. My mum was an un loving, un compassionate, un caring, manipulative drunk. All she did was shout at me and abuse me I am convinced she caused my autism because I remember being a normal happy boy before my mum and her family members came and ruined my childhood. Then I became a depressed shy inhibited boy. It’s all her fault. I’m 23 now and I’ve had to rebuild my life because of the damage she did to me. I don’t know if I will ever want to speak to her again. I wanted her love my whole life and she never gave me it. Now I don’t speak to her and blocked her years ago. I hope she feels guilty for abusing me and failing to be a proper parent. I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for her actions. I now have to take heavy medication to block out my emotions because if I wasn’t on medication I would be crying and angry every single day like I was before going on meds. The meds numb me. I’d rather be numb and emotionless than depressed all the time because of the destruction she and her father caused to me.

I want to bring this thread back up as I've been thinking about it lately.

There's a good link in the thread on how to tell the difference btw Autistic and Narcissistic. But what about ADHD vs Narc? As I've learned more about ADHD and impulsiveness, Adrenaline, emotional regulation, while also have the Au Monotropic Brain and our same Salience Network (hyper-sensory difference), yet also communicate NT and pick up those seemingly invisible signals they communicate with, it's becoming more clear THIS could be a signifiant past issue: Undiagnosed ADHD in women. They weren't Hysteric or Melancholic. They weren't BPD. They appear without patience, hyper-intelligent to some degree, with more anxiety. And when one is continually misrepresented or marginalised, not afforded their being and also has all of this "chaos", it will come across as unstable, reckless and potentially always trying to renegotiate the self into the world. Always shocked others cannot achieve at their level - not knowing their own potential or capacity.

10 years ago when I discovered my son was potentially dyslexic (at College!)  my mother's immediate reactionary response was that video games were responsible. Now, I literally ignored her having a potentially "Aspie" to-the-T father (they're divorced) who plays 2-3 characters in his WoW after spending all day working on a robot to collect uranium. All the males in our family play video games and went into either working at a lab like CERN, in neurology or Maths at levels they entrain magic numbers and multiple dimensions. Doubtful, video games are a problem, because they were the ONLY thing which helped my son actually want to read when he was young.

Now my son is older, and given she's always had little respect for her daughters but will carry the world for her sons, he's able to drop in the smallest doses, ideas of a difference in neurology. I suspect in about 10 years it will all make sense. But a refusal to even entertain these ideas which, appears like gaslighting and might be a form of RSD creating a PDA. 

Were men ever diagnosed Hysteric? I'm still looking into this. But I have a feeling this might be the answer for most of us.

Abuse in any form is not ok. My mother ghosted me so many years ago I stopped counting. She may be able to speak NT and use their selfish tactics, but Narcissism IS actually rare. Immature, absent insight compounding complex trauma is potentially what most of us are dealing with. Remember, women really weren't allowed to mature to a certain level unless they had fathers supporting their sense of growth and becoming. This is true now in many cultures and sub-cultures. So I imagine it would be even that more difficult for divergent women prior to 1980.

Never heard of pathological demand avoidance but it fits my mother to a T. Thank you! I am struggling to understand my childhood and we have very similar experiences from what you wrote and all the other people too. Wish you much luck on your healing journey too! 

I think there are psychological issues that have yet to be discovered and labeled, and, in my experience, autism symptoms and narcissism symptoms CAN overlap because of childhood trauma and complex PTSD. My mother is definitely narcissistic in SOME situations but is also dealing with neurodivergent, possibly autistic, traits as well. If she had been brought up in a loving home that accepted her as she was, with no emotional and physical abuse, I believe she would have been able to develop true self-esteem and self-acceptance as opposed to a rigid, emotionally stunted, self-hating personality and, yes, sometimes the downright evil tactics she uses to keep the illusion of control and that she is always right, etc. It is complex. She was born in the 1930s.

Hi me too ..I won't say what she did as don't want to take away from your post but let's just say narcissistic abuse is actually profound and damages at a soul level and in fact can basicaly ruin your whole life to point you never recover..and it's funny you wrote autism/narcissistic? as I had wondered the same myself about (she doesnt even deserve title of mother ) so I reference her as the person that brought me or dragged me up .but then.my son is autistic and he is the most beautiful soul ive ever known a very gentle loving caring soul and not mean nasty and abusive ..also mother or person who dragged up her mother for sure 100% autistic BUT again the most gentle beautiful soul so I don't know like you am confused but have wondered ..I think back then there is a lot of very dark messed up people as there wasn't the level of awareness like we are having now with these types of things.

Very few individuals would actually ever be diagnosed narcissistic. 

Perhaps sociopathic, which is a more self-serving state of neuroticism (the clinical version of NeuroTypical). By definition, narcissism is an extreme hatred of the self, possibly how a particular personality type becomes (rather than suicidal or sadist). 

There is so much indoctrinating from culture even for the Autist who might accidentally pick up a piece but not the whole. Combine any unresolved trauma with all the complexities we have to just get on with, and humans become a bit more fascinating or scary.

The problem with parents is they aren't always given the rules just swept into their Role and Responsibly without really understanding the terms of the agreement. I think there's also a generation of women who didn't have the values of the war generation, and then got a taste for the seduction of an era that promised to make them feel a sense of liberation (the 80s) but were too deep into responsibility they didn't feel allowed to escape. 

All this said, I don't have a relationship with my mother (who's near 70) as she had a habit of ghosting me or using silence to emotionally manipulate me and - jokes on her, I suppose - I had never really noticed until I was much older. And then I found myself tolerating her cruelties until she demanded we should be 'friends' and I'd just had enough and she hasn't spoken to me since. Honestly, I wish I didn't feel relieved, but sadly I do. I can see her issues and trauma and things which only a therapist can help with, AND I have my own responsibilities, which I could've used help with 20 years ago.  

I think at some point she was told she was bipolar. But she was also the child of an alcoholic. Was the instability autistic based? Or from severe trauma? I often wonder if she's ADHD. She seems quite good at manipulation which is where we part ways. And she seems to REALLY dislike my analytical, pragmatic desire to reason through everything.

Though I've been reading philosophy and psychoanalytical thought for years, I'm not a therapist. My half sister had added disabilities that were glaringly obvious to me, but apparently my mother thought she could just 'overcome' them. How she couldn't see the much greater difficulty with executive function than I'd struggled with was beyond me. I think a lot of this is a product of bad values from a society that teaches a level of hostile selfishness. As a pathology, maybe 'Narcissism' shouldn't really be thrown around the way it is today. 

Just like this thread, I've seen quite a few posts perplexed on mothers from that generation, so I do think there's something more to it all. Same with the Karens out there who are made, not born and marginalised and defeated until they are a shell of themselves. BUT We've all broken down and hit crosscoads. We're all human and just trying to get along. And while some of us need a great deal of help tying shoes or with laundry, most of us are fortunate enough to consciously decide on Kindness or Cruelty.

At this point, I am no longer confused, trying to resolve a situation that isn't mine to control. And if I'm honest, the silence is much less stressful. 

Hey I am going through the same issues with my mother, she was born 47 in the rural south and has PTSD and either autism or covert narcissism, she had the same kind of meltdowns, breakdowns, raging screaming, spankings and whippings, she also as empathy issues, and I also can't tell if her silent treatment is an actual verbal skill deficiency because she does have speech issues also and she has tactile issues, but sometimes it's like she switches between two masks a kind of childlike one and then her normal self, they aren't different personalities tho, it's hard to explain. She seems to also have issues of learned helplessness my dad wasn't abusive Soni think this maybe have been from childhood trauma but she doesn't talk about it, she doesn't really talk about anything that doesn't interest her or benefit her she is very self occupied and sometimes I can't tell if she's is being manipulative kn purpose or if she doesn't even realize she also lies about stuff dumb stuff like if she showered that day or drank water that day not just with chores tho cause I guess that could be the depression symptoms, I feel like that age group especially in rural areas never had access to help and was shamed for needing it, it's still that way really. 

I have ADHD and I also can't tell if my mom has Parkinson's or not but I feel like it's also related to autism and ADHD all of them are low dopamine problems. 

Your situation seemed kind of similar, I hope it has improved, would like to touch base with you, because I'm kinda at my wits end with it all 

I think only you would know. You have to decide if someone gives more benefit or hurt to your life on the weighing of it, irrespective of the reasons behind it.

I'm autistic and had a narc mother. I think she was ASD but used the NPD as a masking method and a way to live life. She had no idea she was ASD, on reflection she definitely is. However she is also definitely a covert narc. So after years of abuse and damage, I feel no sympathy for her and nor should any person who'd been put through abuse by another. I'd say to ignore any other co-morbities - if someone is NPD, get away. I've met NPD people with physical disabilities and mental. Doesn't matter. An abuser is an abuser. 

HI! Well, i'm on my 40's and i'm afraid i caused my 20's daughter some damage because of my undiagnosed autism, meltdowns, shutdowns and inflexibility. I didn't mean to hurt her. It's hard for a NT to deal with autistic meltdowns, it's very scaring for them. What could I do? I could avoid my meltdowns, my anxiety, my depression... she left, she barely talk to me, she avoids me. I told her i'm on the AS, i tried to explain but she doesn't want to deal with my autism. I know I lost her. If you haver Aspergers yourself, perhaps you can understand your mother, and forgive her because it is so hard for an autistic woman to educate and protect a child in a NT world. If possible, tell her you love her. I would like to hear that from my daughter.

Hi ILOVEDOGS

'Mood swings, difficulties with empathy, meltdowns, yelling, blame shifting, really hurtful lnsensitive comments, raging if criticised or perceived to be being criticised, different masks or persons, etc etc how would one ever know?'

You could be describing my mum too!! She was diagnosed at age 62 with autism and I've also had a lot of therapy to deal with my childhood experiences with her. I spent many years believing her to be narcissistic until I met my now husband who after spending some time with her suggested that she could be autistic and she decided to get a diagnosis so she can now say 'Its not my fault, it's because I'm autistic, you have to let me off etc etc' .. Lol

I've sometimes wondered if she has a pathological demand avoidance profile but I don't believe it is currently diagnosed outside of autism. 

ILOVEDOGS said:

My pa is a very overt narcissist. 

Do you mean by 'pa' your 'father' perchance?

Deepthought said:

we are Self-centric as being more personally oriented, whilst Narcissists are Ego-centric as being more socially oriented.

I will think about this further

Deepthought said:

Emotional blackmail basically

Yes, I just don't know if it is, I cannot tell or surmise at all, could be either intentional or not. 

Deepthought said:

It could also or else be a projection based on other’s behaviour as such in the past

Yes, I always thought it was this rather than coming from in internal projection. My pa is a very overt narcissist. 

Deepthought said:

It may depend on if or how she uses the silent treatment as a control drama.

Yes, I just cannot work it out, does she or is she genuinely upset? I don't know because her emotional expression is quite strange. It could be aspergers masking to look normal but not quite managing, or it could be faking emotions for control and a reaction. I cannot work it out. Either way she comes across as faking something, but I just don't know if she's acting out an elaborate power play or if she's trying to look neuritypical while struggling to cope, this coming across vaguely unbelievable in some way.