Aspies For Freedom

First, I'd like to say thanks ahead of time, and, man, I'm going to feel really bad if it turns out my mother-in-law has Aspergers.

Since I'm sure you all would know a lot more about this than I, hopefully, you can offer some guidance or ideas.

At first I thought maybe she was just annoying, and severely narcissistic.

Symptoms I've Observed

1.  Never takes the same route to ANYWHERE consecutively.  She would rather take random streets/ways to get to similar destinations regardless if it's more or less efficient.

2.  She seemingly thinks only of herself, she rarely ever seems to act in consideration for others.  Which severely angers me when her daughter, my to-be wife is involved.  She constantly puts herself ahead of her daughter.  Thats just not what a mother is supposed to do.  

3.  She thinks everyone is odd, and doesn't understand why people say the things they do.  On top of this, she has absolutely no accountability.  She never thinks she's wrong, or understands why she's wrong, or why people get upset at her for the things she says/does that hurt others or are unfair to them.

4.  Has a severe intolerance and tolerance to things.  She claims she hates eating the same kind of food, yet can eat a sandwich for her lunch (Made the same way) every single day.  She can't stand horns in jazz, but loves loud rock, or certain voices.  When I hate some music, I simply go "Wow I don't like this" but she will complain and complain, and mock the music to the point she gets upset if I don't shut it off, despite her doing the same thing to me, all the time.

5.  She ritualistically calls my fiance on the way home from work, to explain how shitty her day was.  She never misses this.  And day after day, despite any protest, she doesn't seem to understand that this is boring, and my fiance doesn't even care anymore.

6.  Her interests are incredibly limited.  She loves watching the same movies over and over again (She has seen the pirates of the Caribbean movies, at least 10 times each, and periodically watches the same movies over again.)  Albeit the pirates movies are great but seriously, sometimes she watches the same movie RIGHT after watching it.

7.  She does not seem to notice (or care) about anyone's feelings.  If you are in pain and I mention to my fiance "Yeah my foot really hurts" (I broke it recently) the mother-in-law will chime in "Oh I'm sorry sweety... yeah my back aches, and my foot hurts too, I know what you mean."  Well, no, she doesn't, pain from standing too much and a broken bone are completely different, in fact, it's rather insulting to compare them in such a way, and try to get attention.

Not to be sexist, but is this just woman stuff?  Or is this geniune Asperger's behavior?  I used to think she was just being a horrible person, but if it turns out she can't help it, it's really not her fault and I'd like to help her...But I have no idea how to tell her to get checked out.  What am I supposed to say to her, you know? "Hey, you've been really bitchy, and dont seem to think about anyone else but yourself, go see if you have aspergers" lol... Maybe it's a mix of aspergers, and her personality.  She's not really bright either - and is awfully forgetful.

Any help or suggestions you guys might have, I will be immensely appreciative of.  

Thank you,
Zach

She sounds kind of like a pain in the butt.
I'm sorry.

You and your fiance may have to think about how to set boundaries--make some decisions about what behaviors you're willing to tolerate, how much time you're willing to spend engaging with her, stuff like that, in order to keep your sanity.

Doesn't sound like "woman stuff" to me.

I'm no expert, but your mention of narcissistic traits caught my eye.  I left my husband last year, and I reckon he has AS traits, which have been compounded and distorted by a really bad childhood and resulting in a narcissistic personality disorder.  The result is someone with no empathy; who puts themselves first all the time, to the extent that everyone else in the family has to mould their lives round him; no self-awareness; irrational, sudden and hurtful rages; is always more stressed, in more pain etc than anyone else; and sees all this in everyone else, but never in themselves.  Always is the expert, even if they clearly don't know what they're talking about, and can start a fight in an empty room!  There is a lot more to it than that, but aaaaargh I wouldn't want to go through it all.  Suffice to say, the aspie in him is overtaken by the narcissist, sadly.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Even if it does, I've no idea how you can tackle it.  A few years ago, I spoke to my husband's GP (with his consent) and he was referred to a psychologist.  He had six sessions, and nothing changed.

Does anyone else in your fiancee's family have AS or aspie traits?  My husband's sister reckons her son is aspie, as do I.  If there is, then maybe that would be a way to raise it with her, in a round about way??

Others here will no doubt be able to offer better and more advice than this.

You have my sympathy!

Energeia's points about boundaries are good.  

Some of it sounds like AS is a possibility, but most of it sounds like she's a garden-variety inconsiderate person.

And absolutely none of it sounds like "Woman Stuff".

She doesn't sound like she's AS.

The only part of what was written that strikes me as autistic-like is the watching movies over and over. Of course, I may have missed something, and everybody is different anyway.

Of couse, Asperger's or not, rudeness is rudeness. True, if she is autistic, then she may appear rude without realizing it, and she should be explained gently that it's rude, and why, and that she should respect other people's points of view.

I would explain why I'm perceiving it as rudeness, and ask that she take other people into consideration more. Even if she is autistic, she may be just rude as well, but you can't really find out if she's just being inconsiderate or if she's not understanding that it may be perceived as such.

Ah, thanks for the replies.  I'm just having difficulty in how I should deal with it.  I don't want to ruin the relationship between my fiance and her, thats why I'm trying to explore all options before I made a definitive judgment.

Yeah, that's the plan.  Time to stop babying her, and take off the kid gloves.  We just wanted to make sure that we weren't being cold-hearted.  It would be tremendously screwed up if we were cruel back, and she wasn't even aware of what she was doing.  I appreciate the info though definitely =).

Holy... sure does.  Everything seems to fit exactly.  How dreadful you had to experience that too.  It's seriously screwing with my life, I've never had so much anger on a day-to-day basis.  I don't want it to influence my relationship with my fiance, but if this continues it would.

Not Aspie, but her daughter (My fiance) does have OCD.  A moderate/mild case, but definitely diagnosed.

Yep, we'll be taking the initiative now, slowly at first.  We'll begin to call her on the stuff she pulls, in the least demeaning way possible.

Also, I didn't mean to insult anyone with 'woman stuff'.  Just, she went through menopause and I know it's an 'interesting' time in a woman's life to say the least.  I just don't want to be insensitive to any possible problem she might have.

Really?  Even with the taking different routes, ritualistic behavior, weird food preferences, lack of empathy, severe disdain for certain sounds/music?  I read that the odd food preferences are symptoms too.

Could you tell me why you think she doesn't?

Thanks again for all the opinions.  I guess so far the only real way to get around it, is to stop babying her (Which just provokes this behavior) and start treating her like an adult, and force her to be accountable.

I take the SAME route every day.  Change my routine? What for?
For some aspies, variety is NOT the spice of life

Re: menopause--well, what was she like before?
The one symptom that has clearly and reliably been directly attributed to menopause is hot flashes/night sweats.

Other associated symptoms could be caused by discomfort (icky sensations) or fatigue (it's hard to sleep if you have frequent night sweats) or depression (e.g. loss of youth).

I like the suggestion of getting the sense for how self-aware she is of her behavior and its effects on you all.  (And would I ever like to be able to do the same with MY Mom!)

I don't think that anyone here is in a position to say whether she has AS or not. But whatever her schtick might be, coming up with some coping strategies is in order.

Hehe, I take the same route everyday too.  I value efficiency when doing something I HAVE to do.

As far as interests are concerned, I can't get enough tastes of different flavors.  My interests list would take up an entire page =).

As for menopause, there's many, diverse chemical changes going on, just like in puberty.  Whether or not there's any symptoms that are 100% documented is sort of irrelevant.  You would have some changes in personality (my mom went through the same thing, actually, which may be why she pisses me off so much, she's JUST like my mom, only worse haha).

Yeah, definitely will test the waters first, and then come up with a plan accordingly.  If it works for my mother, I'll document it and write a self-help book for you energeia haha ^_^.

LOL, my self-help was to move 3000 miles away!

LOL

Well that saves me some trouble then...Might be the best thing for me too.

I thought about suggesting that option--but figured you'd thought of it already and rejected it.

She could be a bit aspieish but I'd also suspect some degree of antisocial personality disorder.

The thing that caught my eye was the never takes the same path - I would think an aspie wouldnt change his/her path.  She sounds like my mother in law in that she turns everything about her and is always negative. Of course my mom in law was great until I got engaged Good luck with that.