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Anonymous

I am 45 years old and after years of increasing estrangement from my father, I am just beginning to realise that, in fact, he has Aspergers.

It was my cousin's wife who first said the word to me less than a year ago. Her eldest child has Aspergers and she is reaching out to the rest of the family in an effort to understand his condition. She asked me if there was anything about my father's behaviour which I found bizarre or difficult to deal with - my answer was "pretty much everything."

I can hardly articulate what an immense relief it is to finally have an explanation for his behaviour. For years, he has pretty much blamed me for all our problems, telling me I am ungrateful, that I invent things, that I set "emotional traps" for him - oh, so many crazy crazy things.

All my life, he has had a maximum of two subjects of conversation at any one time - whatever his current obsessions are. At present, they are psychotherapy and rollerblading. Previously, they have been his "designing" (he spends hours, days, months working on inventions which he never completes) and the breakdown of his two marriages, the first of which was to my mother, yet he never sees how inappropriate it is to discuss their sexual problems with me, which he began doing when I was just 13. I have spent a full hour on the phone to him without speaking at all while he talks continually about himself. I even began putting down the receiver during these endless boring monologues and picking it up again only when it stopped squeaking - he was utterly oblivious to the fact.

However, the damage to both myself and my family is, I think, beyond repair. My sister and I are completely estranged, she supports him and believes his view of me, although my mother tells me that she (my sister) also finds his behaviour difficult. She is also very estranged from my mother and from my mother's family and I believe this is because of my father.

Talking to his former partner, I have discovered that she has said to him that he has the syndrome and he has angrily denied it, telling her that she was "victimising him in exactly the same way as his ex-wife." Apparently his ex-wife also told him the same thing (both women work with special needs children!) However, he self-diagnosed with ADD some years ago and then also decided that all his offspring also had this - that was a very difficult time. My sister accepted that she did but I think it's nuts.

For years, I have been in utter turmoil and, finally, to have an explanation that makes sense is such a blessed relief.

My question is, how do I even begin to cope with this knowledge and is there anything I can do to try to heal some of the damage that has been done. I am particularly worried about my sister, although she refuses to have any contact with me. Do I voice my concerns? I am fairly sure my father will be furiously angry if I do this and will energetically oppose me. Or do I just stick to trying to heal myself? And how do I even begin to do that?

January 8, 2011 - 1:26pm

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