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Making sense of tragic events

Brix

I’m clutching at straws here. I’m 66. I had 3 siblings. My mother is 90. She has lived with us for around 4 years. My father died aged 84 in 2016 and for years before I thought he was definitely high functioning autistic. I arranged an autism assessment for my slightly older brother, when he was 60 when I realised that understanding of his issues and support for him were inadequate and that my mother was not able to do this for him.  At that time he was assessed as level 2 ASD. My youngest brother took his own life in 1995 when he was 28 and my sister, 2 years younger than me, took her own life last year. 
My partner and I have a neurotypical 30 year old daughter and a 22 year old adopted son who has diagnoses of ADHD and ASD. 

So we have some experience of autism traits and assessment and too much unexplained loss.  

We have become slowly aware through living with her as adults that my mother’s strange and sometimes hurtful behaviour could also possibly be explained as autistic. Could I possibly have 2 autistic parents? It would make sense of the whole unconscionably sad experience of my family.

Has anyone any experience of autism assessment with such an elderly person? I would be doing it for selfish reasons, to make sense of my experiences. I doubt it would make any difference to her or how we care for her. 

  • Brix said:
    Could I possibly have 2 autistic parents? It would make sense of the whole unconscionably sad experience of my family.

    Yes, it is possible.With about 1 in 50 of people being autistic then the odds of two meeting are not particularly rare.

    Another possibility is that your mother had traumas in her life, including living with an autist (we are not typically easy to live with long term), losing two children an losing her husband.

    Traumas, without effective therapy can lead to a person developing coping mechanisms that may seem odd or even be harmful and most of your mothers life was lived before therapy became as commonly available as it is today.

    Brix said:
    Has anyone any experience of autism assessment with such an elderly person? I would be doing it for selfish reasons

    Has she expressed any interest in doing this? Without her consent it is unethical to push her into it and if she is like most people of her age I know (my mother is nearly 90 and lives in sheltered housing and I know lots of the neighbours as she has been there for nearly 20 years now) then they have told stories of their life and childhood often enough that the stories have evolved to be more than they were.

    I can recall hearing my parents tell stories when I was younger of the conditions they grew up in and have noticed how these evolved over the years to downplay their failures, make the things they endured harder, their successes grander etc.

    In essence I think their childhood recallections - a key part of the assessment - are likely to be unreliable in most cases.

    Have you considered what may happen if she is diagnosed as autistic? Will it make her feel broken, defective, more of a failure (eg why didn't I see this earlier and would it have stopped me losing my children) etc - this can bring a lot of anguish, especially when she has a lot of time to think it over now.

    My approach would be to leave it be, leave her with an image of her normalicy without looking to explain her failures. Spend the money on your own therapy instead as I find this brings the best results.

    Just my thoughts on the matter.