? Deviation from Aspieness?

[Aspieistj]

When I was in my early 60s I learned that I am an Aspie. Almost immediately, I realized that my deceased father was very much an Aspie, though all anyone ever considered him to be was unpleasant, someone who talked too much, who was always disagreeable, and never fit in anywhere. It recently occurred to me that he did something that was very un-Aspie. He couldn't stand to be alone even though most people tried to avoid him. My mother often snarled at him that he could never work alone. No matter what task he was working on, he demanded that someone be with him to "help." I can remember being forced to stick around simply to hand him tools. The thing I hated most was that if he ever needed to go to store he forced me to go with him. He would sit in the car and make me go in to make his purchases. Way back then a child could be sent into the store to buy cigarettes and I was forced to leave whatever I was doing so I could make the purchase. He never gave a reasonable excuse for insisting that I go with him. He used to lecture me and say I was lucky he drove me to the store and that he should have simply forced me to walk there and back alone so he could stay home. This doesn't seem like Aspie behavior unless he found it easier to make me go along so he didn't have to enter the store.

 

[Ereth]

I don't think we're set to engage in what is considered "Aspie behavior" all the time and in all things. I don't consider your father's case a deviation at all. It's just how we are. We don't have to have all the boxes checked, so to speak.

 

[Sander]

If I'm alone for too long, let's say more than a day, without any social contact whatsoever I'll get really depressed. I like being around people, I need them to fulfill my social needs.
Maybe he did too, but didn't like the noise and the amount of people in the store?

 

[Aspieistj]

After he and my mother divorced he saw a psychiatrist for a while. I could notice ways in which he was trying not to be so annoying. He would occasionally stop talking and ask if he was being a bore. Mental health issues weren't discussed openly back then and I never asked about his sessions with the doctor. I don't know how long he kept going to the sessions. That would have been between 1966 and 1969 and I don't know if the psychiatrist told him anything about AS.