A while back I said to somebody

[conuly]

that many autistics I know seem to have at least one narcissistic* parent. (Edit: It's more specific. The ones I'm thinking of have one narcissistic and one probably-autistic parent. I didn't think of it because, duh, you expect autistics to have autistic parents.) And then I went back and edited to say "anecdotally".

And ever since then it's been percolating in my mind. Is this some sort of fluke of the autistics I know, or is it a legit trend? Am I perhaps in my mind blowing up a couple of people into a pattern that doesn't even really exist among people I know?

Hard to say. Has anybody else noticed this, or do you think I'm full of it here?

Edit: I crossposted here and you may want to read Lucy's comment. Additionally, google suggests other people have noticed this trend. And I had to wade through a lot of shitty "is autism really narcissism????" links to find anything useful, so you can thank me for that!

I need better numbers. It's all well and good to say "I think you're wrong, only 10% of the autistics I know are in this situation", but if only 3% of non-autistics with no autistic siblings have a narcissistic parent, well, that's your correlation right there. But I just pulled those numbers out of my butt because I don't have numbers.

Maybe I should go back to google with better search terms.

* Here used in the more informal sense of "unpleasant and/or actually abusive with these character traits" rather than a strictly clinical sense, though I imagine there is some very strong overlap.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Huh. Of the families I know with autistic children, it could be true for at least a couple of them.

[conuly]

Is it true for any of the ones with no autistic children? If there's a discrepancy, I mean....

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think it's true, and am certain in some faces it's not, for any of the half-dozen or so autistic people whose parents I know well enough to say.

[conuly]

Well, it's definitely not true for every person, and I didn't think that one, thank goodness :)

[miss_s_b]

I reckon my parents are both autistic. Certainly my dad is.
My daughter's parents? I'm really not sure about her dad...

[loligo]

I have never noticed such a pattern. Are there any other commonalities between the autistic people that you're thinking of? (Like, did you meet most of them in a particular setting that might attract people recovering from bad parenting?)

[conuly]

When I first (not very consciously) noted this pattern, no. Most of the autistics I knew came from autistic-specific forums.

Later... maybe? But not on purpose, exactly.

Though come to think of it, there is a commonality. I said "at least one narcissistic parent", but for at least half of them it's exactly one, and the other is a shitty parent but probably on the spectrum. Maybe their autistic parent was less primed to defend against narcissistic bullshit?

[lilysea]

I have an autistic friend with a narcissist mother,

but I also have autistic friends WITHOUT narcissist mothers,

and a non-autistic friend with a narcissist parent, so...

[conuly]

I need real data so much. Sigh. Google is hugely unhelpful.

[pauraque]

My brother is autistic (though I'm not) and our father is a narcissist, and I have an autistic friend whose mother is a narcissist. But I can also think of autistic people without narcissistic parents and narcissistic parents without autistic children. It's possible there's a trend but I don't see it in my small sample size.

What I would venture to say, based on my personal experiences, is that people with narcissistic traits may be particularly ill-equipped to meet the needs of a kid with autism, since a parent who lacks empathy and perceives their child's "bad" or "embarrassing" behavior as a negative reflection on themselves and a threat to their own perfection is going to respond to that behavior in some very counterproductive ways. The dynamic is certainly... distinct. And that may lead us to notice it more and look for evidence that confirms it's a trend.

[ironed_orchid]

That is a very good way of putting it.

[monanotlisa]

That is a good theory about visibility and presentation.

My other thought was that people with brain patterns deviating from some norm* setting may have a higher genetic likelihood of passing on deviating connectivity in the brain. But until I see some solid data for that I'd be careful to make any assumptions; human beings are too complex, and neuroscience is still catching up.

* I'm saying this because one of my friends once told me that "only 7% of people have normal brains," but they may have made that up, although they did go on to get a PhD in Psychology, and a Dr. habil, so.

[zhelana]

I do not have a narcissistic parent - though my own autism might have been misdiagnosed schizophrenia as no doctor has said anything about it since the schiz diagnosis. I still have a lot of the traits though.

My aunt may be a bit of a narcissist though - so maybe those genes run through my father's family?

[conuly]

In the past, you didn't qualify for a diagnosis of autism if you had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and if you weren't spot on you got the schiz diagnosis even if it wasn't wholly appropriate. I don't know what your situation is, but it's not impossible that your doctors are still thinking it's an either/or situation.

[konsectatrix]

I suspect you might have multiple cases of autistics not recognizing narcissistic folks (because honestly, that one person that doesn't make a lick of sense but seems to like you is just an Nth degree version of NT people that also don't make a lick if sense in many if the same ways) and just rolling with it.

Edit: As for your other thought, yeah, ppl have noticed this trend. An online friend calls a certain organization "Autism Would Speak If Narcissistic Personality Disorder Would STFU For A Minute."

[conuly]

*snicker*

[wendelah1]

I only know one family who have children with autism. They had six children between them, two with other partners, and four during their marriage. The two older children are neurotypical. Three of the four children they had together have autism. I'm not a clinician but as far as I know, neither parent is narcissistic.

I don't know anyone personally that I would call a narcissist. One of my parents and a sibling are pretty self-absorbed, though not to the point of being abusive. Selfish is how I would describe them.

[conuly]

Presumably narcissism is like everything else, and some people with it are quite functional and not abusive, just a little selfish.

Which does not mean I think your family members are N's! Just thinking aloud, as it were.

[alatefeline]

I'm an outlier data point for you, then. I'm autistic. Neither of my parents is either autistic or narcissistic.

I think they're both ... autism cousins, maybe ... but neither one is armchair-diagnosable with anything that I can tell. My Mom probably comes closer. My Dad is reserved, gentle, prefers to work with his hands, cares deeply about a lot of things, has long-term intense interests in his hobbies, likes to organize things correctly, is incredibly well-read and scientifically-minded but left formal education partway through college, BUT, he is also highly socially competent, well-spoken, good at abstractions, able to prioritize others readily, laid back about other's actions. My Mom is often anxious, emotionally easily flustered, gets disorganized easily, is able to handle a lot of social-emotional labor such as phone calls and travel plans but doesn't actually enjoy doing them, worries about being perceived poorly by other people, is sometimes rigid about what she wants other people to do or easily upset, BUT, she is also a soothing presence, has systems that mostly work for her to organize things, offers to set plans up for other people but has learned to let them do it for themselves too, enjoys social gatherings a lot as long as she's had the chance to get ready, and is flexibly willing to be outgoing and social or to entertain herself with a book and tea.

That said, I think that a correlation is certainly possible. That wouldn't necessarily mean that the phenomenon of A [parents of children with autism making their alleged advocacy all about themselves] is caused in any large part by B [a predisposition towards adults with narcissism having offspring with autism]. I think that A [the self-absorbed 'autism parent' phenomenon] is fully explainable in terms of the cultural forces at work given C1 [the shear between common experiences such as trying to be a 'good parent' given implicit ableist expectations of a child's social and intellectual development,] C2 [trying to help a child who is often genuinely suffering,] C3 [trying to relate to a child who is very different than the parent,] and C4 [trying to comply with peer pressure on how to do parenting and do parenting of a specific 'type' of kid.] Which is not to say that that can't dovetail perfectly with narcissism to make for a monster-parent; but I think that the whole all-about-me-autism-parent phenomenon is widespread precisely because of the existence of numerous *neurotypical*, stressed-out parents of neurodivergent, stressed-out kids in our ableist society. Also, I think it's false to state that parents of children with other neurodivergences or disabilities *don't* commonly get into the mindset of constantly explaining their child, fixing their child's behavior, advocating for their child's alleged disability needs rather than their child's individual needs, and so on, even if it's less cohesively organized. I have definitely seen parents doing this, in the school setting, with young children who have some special needs but no diagnosis and are probably not autistic, with children who are dyslexic or anxious or younger/smaller/developmentally younger than peers but whose biggest problem is parental nerves, with kids with specific neurological conditions I won't go into here but definitely lie in the realm of needing extensive support, and so on. As well as an interesting inverse where parents are somehow okay with their children being constantly 'in trouble' but don't want to have a support plan for unsafe behavior cross over into actually talking about special education services. Bad parenting comes in lot of specific flavors.

I imagine numbers that are remotely reliable will be EXTREMELY difficult to find in this case. I'm going to go out on a limb below with what I think could be reasons why...

(Anyone who knows more statistics than a couple of educational-data focused grad classes is MORE THAN welcome to correct me here...) One, there may not have been a study done just to look at the overlap of these soceific conditions. Two, any study that would in theory collect this data might have missed it, since involving *families* rather than individuals could mean longer time frame and/or getting similar rigorous data for people of different generations ... so anything except very large studies might well have rates of people dropping out or just not getting fully recorded that may make any small or subtle effects fall out of what's statistically notable. Three, both autism spectrum disorder and narcissistic personality disorder (using the DSM-5 terms since they'd be current even though I have a LOT of issues with the DSM-5) have patterns of being diagnosed more or less frequently by gender, by race, and by co-morbid conditions, in ways that have been shown to match up with social stereotypes about hysterical women and emotionally unavailable men, so there's already some missing people in both categories. Four, even if the data on 'this many kids diagnosed with X have one parent diagnosed with Y' been collected and published, it might not have been published in a way that draws attention to the link you're looking for. Five, it's really hard to extrapolate from statistics on how many people have specific diagnoses to how many people have traits clustering with a diagnosis but not at a clinically diagnosable level, but it seems the frequency of the traits of narcissistic personality + child with autism + not-good parenting is what you're actually looking for.

Which brings me to a final point. I think as someone with autism, and with little to no understanding of narcissistic personality disorder, I shouldn't speculate about it. But I know that the stereotype of someone 'acting autistic' has very little to do with the reality of having AS, so I think that it's like;y that the stereotype of someone 'acting narcissistic' is a poor representation of people who have NP. So are you wondering about parents who have that diagnosis, parents who act in accordance with that stereotype, or both? Because they aren't the same thing. I am trying to be sure that I don't conflate them in the course of talking about this admittedly interesting question. I think I've probably screwed up by now, so, well, I guess people can tell me how to fix it if they want, because my mind is spinning its gears.

[alatefeline]

Sorry I got a bit carried away with my replies. *thwaps self with pillow*

[boxofdelights]

Anecdata: I know two women with autistic children. Both women are lovely, and are devoted to careers of helping people (one priest, one doctor -- which doesn't preclude you being a narcissist, I've known some narcissistic doctors, but in these cases, hearing them talk about their work, I'm confident they are not). Both of their spouses are such introverts that I have no idea whether they have any narcissistic traits!

[conuly]

I'm glad to hear that :)

[siderea]

Further complication! I believe that personality disorders are extremely underdiagnosed, for a variety of very compelling reasons.

Remember, until recently, having any PD/o dx on your insurance record would prohibit your getting any mental health services at all; consequently, mental health professionals, as a profession, got in the habit of never diagnosing any patient, ever, with a personality disorder. Doing so could (1) mean you wouldn't get paid to treat them any more and (2) screw up their lives in other ways.

Even though that's no longer the case – insurance companies no longer (AFAIK) immediately and automatically terminate mental health services just because of a PD/o dx – it still, to this day, is something very many mental health professionals avoid doing.

I have literally gotten referrals from other therapists because the patient had a PD/o and the other therapist didn't want to handle the PD/o, but the therapist was unwilling to tell me in writing that's why the patient was being sent to me, and none of the file said anything about a PD/o. But they'd tell me verbally.

But even where mental health professionals are willing to dx PD/os, not all of them are able. It's actually much harder to diagnose a PD/o than an Axis I disorder, and I'm increasingly convinced it requires special training and quite a bit of experience. What makes a PD/o a PD/o is that it's pervasive through all domains of the patient's life. Mental health professionals only get glimpses of, at best, an hour at a time, in a single context. If the patient's not doing something flagrant, like cutting, assaulting others, attempting suicide, etc, then a PD/o can be pretty subtle in an hour interview; you have to know what questions you need to ask, and you have to pick up on subtleties to even know to ask them.

Then, on top of that, is the fact that only people with certain PD/os are generally willing to present voluntarily for therapy. Borderline, sure; Obsessive-Compulsive and Histrionic, okay. But one of the classic qualities of all PD/os is an intense fear of personal change, so insofar as psychotherapy is "help changing" most people with personality disorders fear and avoid it at all costs. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder generally disown responsibility for, well, everything bad, and as such are uninterested in talking with a professional about how they could change to better take responsibility for preventing bad things in their lives. People with Paranoid Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder are likely to consider remaining the way they are necessary to their safety. Avoidant Personality Disorder isn't going to get through the door. And so on.

So a lot of people with PD/os avoid therapy like the plague, and they're not otherwise going to get diagnosed.

As someone who is a mental health professional able to diagnose personality disorders, who works with a lot of patients with personality disorders (mostly Borderline): I see undiagnosed personality disorder – and it's kid brother, "personality disorder features" – everywhere, all the time. I'm convinced the prevalence rate is way, WAY higher than has ever been reflected in the academic literature.

All of which is to say, your question may be unanswerable because the prevalance rates for PD/os that we have, I think are largely crap that massively underreport the actual general population incidence of PD/os.

[conuly]

Remember, until recently, having any PD/o dx on your insurance record, would prohibit your getting any mental health services at all; consequently, mental health professionals, as a profession, got in the habit of never diagnosing any patient, ever, with a personality disorder. Doing so could (1) mean you wouldn't get paid to treat them any more and (2) screw up their lives in other ways.

Wait, what!? Sorry, I'm stuck on this. What the hell was the bullshit excuse for this load of crap?

[shadowkat]

I don't know, I've become wary of using the word narcissism as liberally as we have been for the last few years. I think we may be applying it wrong.

I remember 10 years ago, talking to a friend, whose mother was a licensed psychologist and she told me that they told entry level psyche majors not to diagnose themselves or anyone else -- because honestly you can find a way to fit anyone into those descriptions. I also looked up Border Line Personality Disorder and it overlaps with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I think unless you are a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, you probably wouldn't know. That of course hasn't kept me from diagnosing folks, most likely in error. Another friend of mine decided her son who is autistic is a narcissist -- which again, I'm not sure is true. Just her perception.

Autism - from my understanding of it is when people feel sensory overload. They "Feel" too much and shut down. Too much external stimuli or they are too sensitive. While Narcissism seems to be the exact opposite, where the person really doesn't "feel" much of anything, and is looking for external stimuli and wants validation. The autististic wants to retreat from the external stimuli, go inward, while the narcissistic, is going outward and looks outside for everything, there is no self, no core.

At least that was my understanding. But again, not a licensed psychologist.

The classic example of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder is well Trump.

[yuuo]

I was just about to point out that the prevalence of NPD in the news the past couple years has almost overwhelmingly been because of Trump. XD

[yuuo]

I can see the correlation- I dunno if I'd say the narc parents necessarily have full blown NPD, but certainly seem to have some traits in common. You can have traits of a disorder without actually having the disorder, obviously.

I've actually bemoaned this myself on my Facebook- autism affects about 1% of the population. That's it. Just 1%. And yet it has a huge presence in public awareness, and it usually can be squarely placed on the shoulders of loud and obnoxious parents crying about boo hoo, poor them dealing with such a 'special' child. As stated previously, I'm sure most of those 'boo hoo'ers don't actually have NPD, but they sure have some traits in common.

That said, I know three autistic people, one I know has a good mom, and a dad that suffers from White Male Privilege, but is otherwise okay. Another ... I don't know her parents personally, but what I've heard from friends who've known her longer, boy can I guess that there's some measure of 'pity poor me' mothering going on. The third, I hadn't even realized was autistic before she said something, and I've watched her interact with her mom on Facebook. They have a healthy and happy friendship. I have no idea about her dad, I'm not sure I've ever even seen him mentioned.

But, as someone upthread mentioned, there's the "Autism Would Speak If Narcissistic Personality Disorder Would STFU For A Minute" crowd, and if it's noticed enough for that to be a thing in the autistic community, then there's at least some correlation.

But, at some point, you also have to take in confirmation bias- it's like the old myth about people getting crazier on the full moon. There have been numerous studies that watch ER admissions and crime reports all month long, and there is no change over the full moon. Civil servant who respond to these issues simply notice them more over the full moon, then come to expect it, and then only really start noticing normal crazies when it's the full moon.

(Interestingly, on that tangent, while the studies overwhelmingly debunk the idea of a mental health ER being busier over the full moon, there was one tiny detail that the studies couldn't explain- while there aren't more admissions, the number of people who come in with severe issues- think like, someone with unchecked psychosis -went up. Not by much, but enough to be noticed. No ideas yet on why that is.)

Buuuuut yeah, I think there's a correlation. Doesn't necessarily mean causation, but it'd certainly explain why a disorder that affects 1% of the population appears so prevalent- noisy and obnoxious, self-centered parents whining that society wasn't helping their kids. Granted, society wasn't, but society neglects a lot of kids with various forms of social or otherwise neurodiverse 'impairments', and they don't get as much publicity.

On a personal note, as someone affected by a disorder closely related to another disorder that also affects only 1% of the population, it'd be nice of autistic people would share some of that awareness. They may not want a 'cure' (which is an insulting term to use in relation to autism- there's nothing to 'cure' to begin with, that's horribly ableist), but those of us with schio-specturm disorders sure would love one. Awareness means research dollars. I also can admit to struggling with jealousy and envy all my life, for a variety of reasons, so take that with the knowledge that I'm full of salt and vinegar, and not because I think autism doesn't deserve the awareness and people with autism don't deserve to be accommodated, just like everyone else.

Also, it is after midnight local time, and I'm tired, and about to go to bed, so I'm sure none of that made sense, was in anything resembling a coherent order, and possibly is offensive in at least one place. Nighty-night.

[conuly]

Note: Many autistics don't want a cure for autism, per se, but would be happy with a cure for some associated aspects, like sensory hypersensitivity, anxiety, depression, and circadian disorders. And plenty of others would be okay with a cure for those autistics who want it so long as it wouldn't be forced on the rest of us. (That there's the sticking point, though.)

At any rate, a lot of awareness about autism is sooooo crap, and sometimes I wish it was less well-known and I didn't have to deal with people who think they understand it and really they don't. If I could toss some of that awareness onto you and your neuro-kin, I would in a heartbeat. (But, um, hopefully it all be real awareness, not shitty half-awareness.)

[oracleofdoom]

I believe I'm the probably-autistic parent of my son who was diagnosed recently. Of course, I realize I'm not likely to say "I'm the narcissistic parent!" But really, everything they've described that points to him being autistic is something that describes me. And I'm pretty sure my dad is my probably-autistic parent.

FWIW I don't consider my husband to be narcissistic, but I'm also not 100% certain he's neurotypical either.

I started following some pages on facebook like Giraffe Party, and I'm just disgusted by some of the behavior of parents that they highlight over there.

I had assumed it was just because people are assholes about disabilities. I hadn't known that autism was particularly subject to this sort of behavior.

[conuly]

FWIW I don't consider my husband to be narcissistic, but I'm also not 100% certain he's neurotypical either.

Well, putting aside my suspicion (which could really boil down to "autistics - those of us who don't go off the deep end of cynicism, anyway - are vulnerable to the sort of abuse n's dish out, and so make easy targets, and then their kids have one autistic and one n parent"), it is a fairly well-known phenomenon that people tend to marry people similar to them. Which definitely applies to autistics and those on the broader autistic phenotype. I'm pretty sure that's how my own parents met, actually.

[griffen]

As you know, my mother is textbook NPD. My dad may not have been autistic, but I know I am.

And yes, I would be very curious to know how strong the correlation is.

[conuly]

These are numbers we're not going to get, it's looking like. Though if the correlation is as simple as "autistics are easy prey for narc's looking for love somebody to screw", then at least there's an explanation.

[polydad.livejournal.com]

More anecdotal data: My mom was narcissist. Dad is still as Aspie as ever.

[conuly]

You hit the rest of the pattern I worked out this morning: Most of them seem to have one narc parent, one autistic parent. I didn't think about that last night because you expect autistics to have autistic parents.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether you mean "diagnosed and somehow severely impaired" or "probably somewhere out there on the spectrum". Yes, people I know who have truly impaired skills due to autism (not talking, for instance) do have at least one parent who seems narcissistic to me (not a psychologist). On the other hand people who are just "probably out there" (can talk, would rather sort car parts by shine coefficient, for instance) do not. I think all people have a limited amount of good in them, and for parents of sick kids often (depending on the original amount of good and the energy the kid takes) all their good goes into keeping their kid alive and moderately functioning, so the side we see is pure selfishness and/or evil.

Being rich helps, btw - some of one's own energy gets replaced with money, so there's more energy left over to do things like "consider the feelings of others". Having a support network also helps, for the same reason.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

" The ones I'm thinking of have one narcissistic and one probably-autistic parent. I didn't think of it because, duh, you expect autistics to have autistic parents."

Suppose you were to re-frame the statement: 'Many autistic people have narcissistic partners." Some of those couples then go on to have children, thus leading to the configuration you've observed.

'Passing' autistics - those whom neurotypicals consider 'high-functioning' - are very attractive to narcissists, who are always looking for a source of 'narcissistic supply' they can control. Autistics usually have dealt with a lot of social rejection, so being love-bombed by a narcissist is a heady experience. Autistics tend to be unusually loyal and/or change-aversive, so are more likely to stay with a narcissist than others might be.

The Google search term you want may be narcissist magnet (https://www.google.com/search?q=narcissist+magnet): check out how many of those traits match up with typical Aspie ones. Of course, that kind of begs the question of whether those are actually Aspie traits, or if they're neurotic traits to which Aspies are often prone due to emotional trauma.

[conuly]

Suppose you were to re-frame the statement: 'Many autistic people have narcissistic partners." Some of those couples then go on to have children, thus leading to the configuration you've observed.

Yes, that actually occurred to me in between the original post and the edit - though that doesn't rule out the possibility of a slim genetic connection the other way as well. Genetics and neurology are freaking complex and confusing as hell.

Thanks for the search term, I'll try it out.