100% right. My dad was the same as you described and when I was telling about my autistic traits he told me to my face "nope, those are normal things. You can't have Autism, cause I do those things all the time and I never got told I'm Autistic"... 😂 I miss my wonderful shop dad 😢.
@@briannakyse5167 relate! It's so nice seeing the dads in this comment section independently self-assessing. I wish my parents were the same. I told my Mum that I figured Dad had autism too but before I could even start to explain my reasoning and she'd gone 0-100, saying I was obsessed with autism (ha, ironic.) and needed to stop before I went loopy. Safe to say I dropped the subject real quick lol
I am a 50yo dad, and came across your channel looking for info for my recently diagnosed 20yo daughter. Her diagnosis led to mine. What you are saying is pretty spot on in my case, although I don't have a garage/shed/man cave - probably due to space. But from reading on the subject it does appear that ASD is genetic passed through predominantly the male line from males who have children later on in life. My father was 50 when he had me.
I think it is interesting that it is supposed to be more from the fathers side. It started with my mother in my family. She handed it down to me and 2 of my brothers. Then I blessed 2 of my kids with it (one boy and one girl). We are very different, too.
I think a lot of the “it’s paternal” comes from the fact that more boys/men have been studied and diagnosed compared to our moms/women. Not saying it isn’t paternal, but I think that’s something that needs to be looked into.
Paige, I’m here to tell you you’re right on point... At least with my dad. I’m so glad you shared this as I never considered he might’ve been autistic. He passed away 3 years ago at 71.
"Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women."
I am a dad who is Autistic. You got me. I was born a long time ago and diagnosed at 40 years old. My daughter apparently has traits, but was not diagnosed with Autism. I agree with what you say about getting diagnosed. It was a surprise for me to realize I was Autistic and to know that's why I struggled through life. At least I knew what I needed to do next to get help.
"Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women."
Spot on , Paige. I have a male friend who struggles so much in society. He’s super smart, extremely good and precise at his job and a incredibly talented musician (self taught). He is extremely routine oriented. Very emotional about things in HIS life. He’s always thinks right, most often he is. He often times does or says things that don’t go over well with others. He has many texture and food aversions. He has more guitars than average main stream musician. He cannot sustain a long-term relationship or live with anyone. He is now in his 50s. He is a very, very dear friend of mine. He just, within the last year, start to feel comfortable talking about possibly being autistic. It’s clear as day. The important thing is that he is now realizing it. It’s been so helpful for him in every aspect of his life. I’m going to share this with him. I think he will relate to it in a good/comforting way. Thank you for all you do. You are an incredible young woman.
I'm 48 and realizing that a lot my traits fall squarely into the Autistic spectrum and it honestly feels like a fricking relief to not feel so alone. It's nice to think "Oh! I do that! You do that? We ALL do that!? Yay!" lol Except the man-splaining... I never intend to do that, but I do love talking shop about hobbies, and I love learning from other enthusiastic people.
I only found I was autistic four years ago when I was 48 through relating to so-called female traits even though I'm a male dad. I had low-key careers in journalism and now frontline mental health services...always trying to figure people out whilst empathising with the struggle lol... but my passion/obsession is music, jazz in particular. I think the ability to practice alone for hours, find patterns and stim to the rhythm/sound means autists can become good musicians. If i could do it all again with better self-knowledge I'd probably do it as a career.
Cool. I can't live with anyone and I don't have close relationships to the point I cut off contact with my entire family, because they've been so evil toward me, so.
Thank you so much for covering this topic. I was diagnosed at 51. The toll of masking for all those years and of constantly existing in a haze of chaos and confusion is intense. I was the first person in my family to be diagnosed, but there are others. Among them are my dad and two cousins who all died in their forties without ever learning the truth about themselves. When I was seeking out diagnosis, I had two different clinicians question why I wanted to know. I feel like we’ve just been written off as a lost generation. We’re not dead yet! Middle age is not too late to discover who you are and find your joy.
I'm realizing that the longer we go without diagnosis & acceptance of who we are, the harder it is to deal with the toll that masking & camouflage put us through. For decades, we've attempted to be "normal" when we are anything but.
This. Clinicians asking “why do you care” and “what does it matter?” Have been disqualifying for me. Why would it matter if I’m autistic? Maybe because it’d be nice to know why it’s so hard to do everything I do. Maybe knowing your brain is wired differently than normal would be useful if being normal is a strenuous endeavor. Ugh.
@@wyckedbear5598I feel this. And I’ve been finding it harder and harder to mask lately. I used to be in really good control of my emotions. Like a stoic type dude. But lately it’s been crumbling. A couple of kids, less sleep, more stress etc and masking gets harder and harder.
Hello Paige, autistic dad here... Diagnosed last year, severe ADHD with autism... Don't be afraid to have your own children, I have 4 children, 3 of them on the spectrum. None the less, they are the best thing that ever happened to me! My first one (a daughter), gave me a reason to get my life together, get sober, and do better... the 2 boys were the ones that got the ball rolling and got (us all) diagnosed... that was the biggest blessing they could give me! Life is still hard for me, especially with 2 autistic boys roaming the house, and one autistic female teenager, pushing all my triggers at once. But gone are the days that I was desperately trying to "be normal" and feel bad about failing at that. And on the plus side, there are now 4 people in my life that accept me for who I am and love me unconditionally: my children... Having a diagnose helps you avoiding the mistakes that happened to your parents when they were young, and this will have an immense impact on your children, it won't make social contact easier for them, but it will help making them the first generation that will not struggle with the demons that made our parents (and my) life miserable...
recently ive been noticing certain traits in my parents and i just think "oh yeah thats why im neurodivergent". my mom often jokingly says she has adhd but honestly i think its true. and my dad _definitely_ has misophonia. i think lots of people forget that most neurodivergent conditions are in fact hereditary
Exactly the same here!! My whole family dismissed me when I was dx with ADHD at 25 last year because “oh those are just our normal family quirks!”…. Yes, and also they’re every single symptom of undiagnosed ADHD!!
@@GintaCirule-Liberte Really strong adverse reactions to specific sounds. Think chewing, which is the most common example. The reactions can range from hating the sound when it starts to getting violent when you hear it and it's at it worst. You know how people generally react to nails on a chalkboard (or even the chalk itself) and sometimes whiteboard markers on a whiteboard? I'm certain I have misophonia for that nails and chalk thing. It got worse over time and now I want to flee when I hear it and there's this undercurrent of feeling like my energy will need some explosive way out. I a very mild sense I have it for forks on plates and squeaky whiteboard markers on whiteboards too. I also have ASD, ADHD, and most likely a mild form of dyslexia. So all the neurovergent stuff combined.
This describes my dad. He was a master craftsman with a lifelong alcohol addiction. Unfortunately about 15 years ago I had to take myself out of his life due to my inability to handle him being involved in it (self preservation). He died last year and while going through his apartment and storage locker I realized so many things about him. I am now very confident that he had ADHD and was on the spectrum. I see so much of myself in him now and am on the journey to try and make peace with my memories of him and to not only forgive him but also forgive myself.
love this for you. wishing you peace on that journey. working through relationship with parents and childhood trauma is so rewarding and important and hard and good. currently doing the same
I love that you made this video because I’ve been 1000% convinced my dad is probably autistic too. I’m self diagnosed and a few years ago when I asked my dad if I was autistic he was like “you didn’t talk until you were 5 but you’re not. You were such a happy kid!” Like he clearly has no idea what autism really is. But this is the funny thing: one of my biggest special interests, movies, is because I was so entrained in my dad’s special interest in movies like my whole life. Like he would quiz me on cast members, voice actors, directors, all the time as a kid and I’m now an adult who reads the Wikipedia article after watching any movie. My dad is also the only person I know who gives a shit about movie trailers as much as I do. We can sit in a car together in SILENCE until one of us bring up a topic like movies or animals (my other special interest) and we can ramble on for a while until one of us gets burnt out from the conversation. My dad has also never been married, most of his friends are online, he doesn’t think before he speaks and he’s been referred to as an asshole by my mom my whole life. He has other special interests like photography, collectibles, and watches. I can go on about my dads overlooked autistic traits lol
Thank you for this, made me cry a little. I've been about 99% convinced my dad is autistic for a couple years now. It explains so much that never made sense to me before. There's a lot of hurt there, stuff that we couldn't understand about each other... even if it turns out we may actually have the same diagnosis. And although it may never really go away, and nothing can fix the grief over the relationship I wish I could've had with him, it helps to understand more now. There's no point in him pursuing a diagnosis at his age (he'll be 83 in a few weeks), and he probably wouldn't 'believe in it' anyway, but still. There's so much I'd like to ask him about his experiences tbh, but that's just not the type of relationship we have. Anyway... again, thank you.
Without focusing on the autism part, first just ask him one question. If he doesn't wanted to share, no worries. Ask him about an experience that you feel he enjoyed the most, you will have allowed him the moment to share by asking him a specific question.
ever since I was diagnosed I have come to strongly believe that both of my parents are autistic I think this could also be part of the reason it took so long for my diagnosis because we all 3 share so many traits my parents just assumed everyone is like us
The same thing happened in my family. It wasn’t until I got out of the house going to college/working that I was like; Something is not quite right here. I am very much out of place. Hmmm. And then you try to ask your parents like “is xyz normal?” And they go “oh yeah! I do it al the time. Completely normal.” But it’s ONLY ND normal and you’re just like; WTF why is life so hard then?! And then you get diagnosed and you’re like; Wow. We’ve been bamboozled.
Absolutely! My mum is so much like me (we have about 80% overlap of Autistic traits) and so growing up she never saw anything different about me. It was all perfectly normal to her.
This sounds like an accurate anecdotal report tbh Every man in my family is a "shop dad" to some degree, or an "office dad" who spends all his time doing his intellectual hobbies or a "man cave" dad who spends all his time with his music hobbies, etc. The common denominator is the fact that they all have their own private space to do all their lifelong hobbies where they spend most of their time (even thanksgiving dinner time, for example) and tbh it has pissed me off my entire life that the men in my family have had the privilege of having their own private space for their hobbies yet the women in my family didn't get to have hobbies at all, much less their own space to do those hobbies in. My grandmother had many hobbies before she was married but by the time I was born, all of it was in boxes, forever, while my grandfather had the entire basement to himself plus an entire huge work shed in the backyard to himself. That's the patriarchy rearing its ugly head there in the dynamics of a hetero-boomer autistic relationship...
I feel like the hetero-boomer autistic relationship is an entire subcategory of lived experiences on its own that's deserving of conversation and perhaps some support groups. I'm the one in my family that finally connected the dots at 25 when I hit a really bad burnout that led to me inevitably trying therapy. Within the first couple sessions my therapist was just like "is your dad on the spectrum??" and I've been noticing patterns ever since. I can see how it has affected both him and my mom (who I think is adhd) and the upbringing my brother and I had. When you're raised in a home full of neurodivergents and don't know anything else until a quarter of your life has passed by? That shit hits different lol everything just makes so much more sense now.
luckyly my dad was never like that - probably due to my grandma (his mom) she was an amazing woman. dad has his room, his garage. mom has control over almost the whole house and mostly does things in her garden. my little brother doesn't need much and has a little room, but I have the full first floor to myself and my hobbies 😅
My wife and I are a typical (older) millennial couple who can't afford a house, but some day when we do, we're both getting our own shops, or possibly one big combined one to share. It's going to happen. Some day.
@@purrrbotIt’s always a can of worms when someone in the family gets diagnosed, but you grew up your whole life thinking you were normal, and because of the ND there’s no real outside connection to NTs to compare to. It makes me giggle cause I’ve just realized the whole family is a “little special” somehow. My little brother got ADHD and spectrum diagnosed when he was super young and I think no one thought: Huh maybe this is genetic. Fast forward and I got diagnosed adhd and probs on the spectrum, pretty certain my grandpa is on the spectrum, Grandma is probs adhd, and my mom is definitely adhd.
Yes! Listen, I got assessed for autism and am waiting for the results, and my sibling that was interviewed as part of that process, told me that the psychologist was, in fact, leaning towards autism haha. But before my assessment, I started questioning the rest of my family and I didn’t tell anyone but the same sibling came up to me and said, “I think dad might be on the spectrum, as well” LMAO I told her, “Dude, I think half of us are autistic or at least neurodivergent in some other way.” But it doesn’t stop there, I’m pretty darn sure some of my father’s siblings are also autistic because one of them built an entire different room outside of their home and spends his whole time there after work! Him and his wife have a good relationship, but she said he’s been spending most nights there and likes to be alone. I always knew my dad was much more introverted and gentle than most men, and I love him just the way he is. I’m glad we autistics, can secretly speak about our family members who we suspect 😂 Thank you, Paige. Keep your theories coming!
“secretly speak about our family members who we suspect.” YESSS! the only people ive talked to about the likelihood of my dad being autistic are my bf, my sister with adhd/ocd, and strangers on the internet 😂 i literally made an essay of a comment about my dad on here
So my son is autistic and my husband came to me about two weeks ago saying he thought he was as well. I know he is but it was never really needed for me to tell him I thought so. Its honestly helped me understand my husband and his some times odd habits that he HAS to do. I hope he and my son can connect deeply ❤
Other than the alcohol item you have pretty much described me (51 year old dad). I think that there are a very large number of undiagnosed ASD/ADHD dad's out there, hence your "that's just a dad thing" comment being correct. Some of the problem is that diagnosis of children back in our day was not very advanced and mostly only picked up on severe symptoms, and by the time diagnosis and understanding was improving most of us were getting pretty good at masking. It's only after youtude videos like yours that we start considering that we might be asd and/or adhd (unless our children get diagnosed first). Keep up the good work.
John, I think you and I have something in common, probably lot's of things actually. I am a 50 year old Dad and turn 51 next month. Paige described a lot of my traits. When we were young children, an autistic person was someone who would never or rarely talk to others and would shut themselves off from almost everyone. The first clue I ever had that I might be autistic is an exGF told me. She was a Nursing Assistant, so that's the highest medical qualification of anyone who has ever come up with that diagnosis. I was 42 or 43 at the time. Sometimes I think about contacting her to tell her she may have been right. My second clue and one that actually convinced me is a TV show on Netflix I was watching about an autistic teenager. I remember understanding how he felt. I did do the things he did, but I seemed to understand. Being middle aged with no medical plan, it's super hard to get any actual help. I also get super annoyed with the questions I would have to answer. I would actually just like a book to help me figure things out myself.
You are slightly younger than me, but certainly when we were at school nobody vaguely capable of functioning would have been diagnosed with ASD. Asperger’s wasn’t even a diagnosis, let alone one that has been folded into ASD.
@@alexanderlapp5048 hi fellow autistic here and the best help you can get in my opinion is destigmatizing what that means means to you by watching a lot of videos and learning from people who are actually autistic themselves, what their lives are like, and reflecting on your own life. i think at first it takes time to stop “othering” autistic people thinking there is something different about their experience than your own, to begin to really see yourself in what they share and see yourself from a new lens. as far as help getting a diagnosis, i worked with my MD and was able to find a testing facility (therapy office actually) that was covered so got a diagnosis for free. therapy can be helpful to process the trauma (which is kind of an iceberg and can be kind of invisible at first as to how deep it goes). to me the best help is feeling permission internally to know who you really are when you’re not the personality that is the bland socially appropriate version of yourself you do to be liked and just whatever normal and not weird or too goofy inappropriate silly fun kidlike playful whatever. over time reclaiming those parts is insanely liberating and cool. to feel ok being who you truly are. or to know what kind of people you want to be around. i think the more goofy and yourself you let yourself be seen as the more alive you feel and the more friendships with the right people can flourish. can be hard to find the people who like who you are but that’s not new
@@reneesolana6697, Thank you. There's some "autistic qualities" I have that are really good. I do have some abilities that are quite special. I don't always do well in social situations. I am nervous talking to people unless I am talking about plants. I don't like talking but I could talk about plants for hours. Anyway, thank you for the response. I will have to look this over more thoroughly when I get some free time.
I got diagnosed with autism just a few months before my dad died at 59. One of the hardest parts has been realizing that he was most likely autistic too. I feel like I know myself and understand him so much better now..I wish I could talk to him about this and help him understand himself more..I think he could have been happier if he knew and could have accepted himself more. I think you’re absolutely correct.
Very fun and relatable video. I could easily be labeled as a "shop dad" and yes, I am in my fifties. My daughter was diagnosed at a young age and I more recently got evaluated, already diagnosed with ADHD now AuDHD. I've always had dedicated project/lab/shop areas from elementary school on. What's nice now is that there are Makerspaces/Hackerspaces where you can geek out with others whether it's sewing, scrap booking, electronics,, biology etc. It is always so much nicer to be able to share a passion with others and it is also incredibly compelling to hear about someone else's passion. I'd be very interested to hear how un-diagnosed or late diagnosed women exhibit autistic traits!
Thanks for this video! I'd say you're spot on with your assumptions. I'm one of the 40-something shop dad's. My oldest son, 14, is autistic. Diagnosed at 9. I am now on a journey of self-discovery. I was very good at music at a young age, and knew everything about cars. I have my 'shop' in a room in my garage. In there I enjoy strings of led lights, print toys with 3d printers, and tinker with electronics. I was also a heavy drinker for a long time but thankfully, I've been sober for almost 3 years now. And I'll hopefully get tested for autism in the next month.
You are 100% correct. I am male, 53, no kids. I only started researching autism around 3 years ago and discovered it in myself. Everything you said about dads makes total sense. On a side note, I see a lot of connections or similarities between autism and other things such as hsp, introversion, and empathy among other things. All is interesting learning about autism and neurodiversity.
Yes- my dad is def autistic, haha and this is very him. Our relationship improved once I was diagnosed - he always knew he was different but didn’t know why. He still says he doesn’t want the “label” of being autistic, but I think my family has more compassion for each other now. One of the obvious signs my dad was autistic- he HATED if we cooked without turning the vent on over the stove because he was sensitive to the smell of cooking food. I always thought that was normal until I went to college and NO ONE cared if I cooked without the cooking vent on 😂
hahahaha those little quirks! my dad hated when things were not in their proper places because someone else used them. or when i forgot to lock the back door (while we were all in the house). or when i would open the windows. or go into his office. now it makes so much more sense to me and i feel more compassion for those things.
I’ve had the suspicion about my father since self diagnosing, but once you hit the substance abuse part I lost it. You never realize growing up what makes your parents the ways they are, but once you know you can’t unsee it. Even if they themselves can’t see it. Thank you so much for all the knowledge you’ve given me 💘
I definitely think you've hit on a correlation here. My dad passed more than 10 years ago now, but looking back he was definitely ND. Probably leaning more ADHD than autism, but holy cow he had lots of these things you mentioned. Bonding over explaining anything and everything. Always working on something with his hands (and as such, hundreds of projects only 30% finished...), always hiding in one of his "shop"s Sadly I think it's also part of what killed him too. He was constantly drinking coffee (like 6-7 huge cups a day) and smoking, clearly trying to self-medicate. It's really heart-breaking knowing he was struggling so much silently.
i’m only 2:35 into the video, so i haven’t heard this yet, but you’ve def described my dad who passed in 2021, except add in alcohol. and my mom is a silly goober too, with some issues self-medicating with alcohol, so i’m thinking i got whatever brand of ND i have doubly cuz my substance abuse probs are worse than theirs (tho improving yes!!) and i’m easily “weirder” than them tho my parents might’ve just been good maskers/i was raised in a safe place where being my weird self was okay. idk. i get excited when i relate to my dad cuz we were not as close after my parents split. it’s like i can talk to him and learn about him even tho he isn’t here anymore.
Paige, came across your channel several months ago. You inspired me to get tested and see if I’m autistic. Got officially diagnosed in October. After 26 years, I finally have the answer I’ve been looking for. Just wanted to say thank you
Men in their 50s have a lot of structural patriarchal patterns in their system, having been raised in an environment even more male dominant than most of us are now. The emotional neglect from that generation’s childhood is also causing a lot of trauma that may result in retrieving to their own safe spaces, avoiding communication and intimacy and being inaccessible in general. The idea that the man in the family is always right, has been so implemented into our lives for decades. So they often center themselves because they don’t know anything else. While I do see what you’re saying, and while there’s a lot of similarities between autism traits and male patriarchal behavior, I do think we need to separate them. Autistic men in their 50’s will most likely practice patriarchal structures and behavior, but most men in their 50’s won’t necessarily be autistic. They’ll simply be the result of being brought up in an environment that’s toxic and male dominant. It’s obviously too big of a topic to cover it all in a comment, let alone a video, but it’s an interesting conversation for sure.
I agree, there is a lot of overlap in behaviors. Especially the “handy man” stereotype or the “garage cave”. I don’t think any person male or female LIKES being in a house cluttered full of toys and rambunctious kids. If it wasn’t so engrained for women to be primary caregivers, I guarantee women would have their own hide outs too. Most of the time this is the “Moms locked herself in the bathroom” situation. But I think she makes good key points about having specific interests which can be indicative of Autism, especially with more niche hobbies. I don’t think introversion is an indicator for autism for that particular generation, because of the male-centered culture that they were brought up in. What would be more indicative is if dads were not interested in male group activities. Most men of that era learned male-male bonding through goal oriented activities (think Army service, sports). Most male activities that are solo (fixing cars, wood working, fixing pipes, etc.) are usually not done in a side-by-side play, and the side-by-side occurs more with women. (Sewing circles, book clubs, etc.) So it’s super hard to base those activities as indicators of autism just because of the culture around gendered activities. (It also may be why it can be a little easier to pick out autistic women, but they are often just brushed off as introverted or misdiagnosed). If there was a total lack of interest in collective male bonding activities, it could be an indicator of introversion but not necessarily autism.
This is exactly what I was thinking, too. A lot of this echoes autistic traits, and in some cases might be a result of autism, but it really just sounds like Boomer and GenX era male socialization.
@@aubreejobizzarro1208 "I guarantee women would have their own hideouts too." That's a she shed. That's where you keep the boxed wine and the Reese Witherspoon flicks. It smells vaguely of lavender.
The patriarchal part was one of the places I thought the autism comparison got weak too, but because my experience is that autistic traits in men actually run counter to patriarchy. I’m 62 and not patriarchal...or hierarchical. My father was the same. His father was the same. None of us had any classically male friends. None of us liked team sports. All of us were geeks. Both my grandfather and my father deferred to their wives. I unfortunately got my mother’s irritable need for control, and have an ADHD hyperactive mouth, so I’m probably the 500 lb gorilla, rather than my wife...but still not a classic guy in any way. I’d also push back on the notion that my generation (I’m 62) was specifically raised patriarchal. Many were and still are. But I grew up during the women’s lib days, with a liberal background. And I’m actually too young to have done the Summer of Love.
""Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women.""
OMG… you’re describing me! I’m a mom, but everything else you said is me! My middle daughter was diagnosed with autism as a teenager a year or two ago. And the more I learn about autism, the more I think I might be on the spectrum too. And I think my mom might be too.
Growing up, I always felt different and struggled with a lot of social things, and my parents could never really help me. Years later, I finally figured out that it's because they struggle with the exact same things, but they never told me that.
My daughter's paternal family is mostly on the spectrum and it is so hard protecting her and nourishing her beautiful individual self while people who abuse substances try to stomp out her behaviors. Thank you so much for this video.
My youngest daughter is autistic and during her evaluation my husband and second daughter pointed out that I needed to be evaluated myself. The whole process of learning about autism and the evaluation of my daughter has helped me learn a great deal about myself that I didn't understand or have a name for. I have ADHD so does my dad, pretty severe actually. It is funny how you were describing autistic Dad's because it fit my father perfectly. Only one exception, instead of drinking alcohol he smokes weed or enjoys Edibles daily. Taking everything into consideration I do feel that you are absolutely right!
You just described my dad, 88 years old and still very much into his science fiction series/movies, an avid "trekkie" like his own mother had been. So much for shorter life expectancy! He has one college graduate Asperger grandson (27) and one low functioning non verbal 21 year old grandson. It has apparently skipped my generation, or maybe because we are all girls is less noticable. I have 100% diagnosed him. It absolutely explains my difficult childhood, mainly having to deal with his random (in a child's eyes, anyway) dreaded meltdowns and wild uncontrolled outbursts. He always threatened to write an autobiography titled "Surrounded by Dummies". That is how he saw himself. Frankly, we were all, my sisters, myself and even my mother, really afraid of him, though he always and still sees himself as a loving and caring father and husband. When confronted with this diagnosis he absolutely denies it. Still, it helps me accept and forgive him.
YES! I was talking to my mom, and she told me all about how my grandmother was when she was alive ( dad's mom) and we are almost certain she was autistic. We thought my brother "got" the autism from my mom's side, cause she has a lot of traits and my grandpa also does, but my mom's side is a lot more ADHD. Then we started to think about my dad, and my dad's family. And wow, it's so crystal clear thinking about it, my grandma was thought to be a "control freak" with an extremely steady routine, not flexible at all. But now we are thinking, she must have been autistic. And my dad...!!!!! Wow, thinking about it he very much has autism traits. He is VERY smart specially with memory stuff, he always knew he wanted to be a doctor, and he is an excellent one. He doesn't like dealing with people AT ALL so he went on to be a radiologist, who never has to see any patients 😂, he basically has to know all the human anatomy in imaging (wich is pure memorizing and identifying patterns), works from home (internet) and has minimal contact with people in the hospital. He is very good at his job, but is not very independent, he can't manage the other aspects of life without my mom, like what to eat, clean the house, etc. He can survive, but his mental health gets pretty bad when he has to live alone for even just a few days. He is bad with new things, getting out of routine and making decisions, he gets so angry and lost when he has to do that by himself. He is OBSESSED with music. It's definitely his special interest, he could play piano for hours and hours everyday, if he didn't have to work and live besides that. But also in my mom's side, my grandfather probably is AUDHD. He is all that you described. One career all his life at a factory, when he retired he started his small shop and had the same routine waking up 4:30 am every day for more than 40 years. He always liked music, but my grandma didn't, so he couldn't play much in the house, he would play in his shop. He was a severe alcoholic for a lot of his life, but almost died and stoped completely drinking and smoking, is sober for more than 30 years now, God bless him. He has a lot of autistic traits, but they merge a lot with ADHD, he was a terrible student, never could read much cause he can't focus, he hates it. He has to be moving at all times. He is very intelligent, but could never stand a career in an academic setting, so he was a mechanic in a factory, and became a great worker there. In general he is the stereotype of ADHD of a young white boy who can't sit still, but as an elderly 😂😂. He is very playful, always cracking jokes, making us laugh. He is very sensitive and unbelievably empathetic, doesn't seem like he was born in 1937, he is not at all misogynistic, my grandma was actually always the one to call all the shots, and my grandpa do as she tells. He made a lot of mistakes when he was young, I believe from lack of impulse control, but it's visible he regrets all those things deeply. He has his little routines that never change, but is flexible in a lot of aspects, not at all a control freak. And he lives in CHAOS when watching from a far. All his mess makes sense to him, but it's all over the place, it was visible in his shop. He was the only one who could find anything in that place, but he knew exactly where everything was. He is honestly one of the best people I've ever met ❤❤ love my grandpa. Thinking about it, my family is very much made of undiagnosed neurodivergents. My brother will be the first one to get an actual diagnosis.
Wow, so often I feel like I’m the only one with parents and grandparents that form such a genetic crazy quilt. My backstory is a whole lot like yours! Traits everywhere.
I'm 49 and I didn't get diagnosed until after my dad died (actually his death indirectly led to my diagnosis), but when I went to get my diagnosis, my mother had to fill out questionnaires about my behaviour as a child, and she came back to me saying 'I think I'm autistic too, and so was your dad, because these questions all resonate so much with our behaviour as well'. I was a child in the early 70s, not a lot was known yet about autism, and my parents simply had no idea that my behaviour was out of the ordinary, especially because they themselves were probably displaying the same behaviour. Since I got my diagnosis, 2 of my cousins on my dad's side of the family also got their diagnosis, and one of them has a son who also got diagnosed with autism. My mom has also said that she thought her dad may have also been autistic, so I may have gotten the genes from both my dad's and my mom's side of the family 😄 It feels nice to be understood on this level by so many members of my family now, but before everyone knew it was autism, I heard a lot of "you can't be autistic because I do that as well and I'm not autistic", so I was gaslighted all the time until I got my diagnosis about 5 years ago.
I am 34 and in 2022 my daughter got meltdowns, shutdowns and we got to know that she has dyslexia and asd. Then learning about asd we discovered that 9 people of our family of 11 people are asd. Funny how an asd can find and love another asd even without knowing at all what asd is.
Great to see a new video 😀 Anyway, my dad was (past tense because he sadly past away way too early) a shop dad. He converted the garage into a shop and your description fits him really well, except for some key points. He didn't misuse alcohol (neither do I by the way) and his shop wasn't his safe space. He was happy to allow people in and share whatever tools he used to have. But I really get where you are coming from. I'm in my 40's (dang, getting old) and live alone. But if I would be living with someone else, I would certainly need a space for myself. In my case I also suspect I got it from my mother. One of my cousins on my mothers side got diagnosed as a kid and my granddad (mothers side) was probably autistic. Since I got diagnosed and my mom got a new relation with someone with autism and we openly talk about it, she recognizes more and more in herself.
Everything from the retreating to their own personal space or 'workshop', to never being sober (smoking and drinking), to having lots of surface level friends but no deep friendships, actually prefferring to be socially isolated a lot of the time, to having sensory sensitivities, and having at least one intense special interest ... It all perfectly describes my dad. There are even more traits I see in him that are autistic traits, and I've been thinking about this 'undiagnosed autistic dad' concept for a while now that I realize I'm on the spectrum, so I'm super glad to see someone else has noticed the same patterns
I literally had a meltdown over a doctors appointment yesterday and I called my dad to help me calm down and he was talking about how he feels some of the same things I feel and he probably passed those traits on to me. (I am undiagnosed but I’ve opened up to him about suspecting autism)
I'm 35 and was just diagnosed on the spectrum a few months ago. I decided to be evaluated because my daughter was diagnosed and many of the traits she exhibits are the same I did at her age, (some I still do). For me this did two things. 1. This will hopefully show my daughter there is nothing to be scared about having the diagnosis. And that she has a support group in myself and the rest of her family. 2. Allows me to better understand myself and a way to better manage my stressors. I love the content you put out!
My Dad’s a scientist (although these days he’s a science teacher). He’s almost certainly autistic (I’m diagnosed). He likes to own tools, but he hates using them. 😂 He’s very particular about his books though, as am I. I feel physical pain when I see a book being damaged and my dad becomes visibly uncomfortable (even to my poor body-language comprehension skills). 😢 My dad’s happy place is the bush and his bedroom and there’s barely anything about Australian birds that he doesn’t know. There are lots of other things that make me pretty sure he’s autistic though. He thinks so too. Also my dad only started to consider that he might be autistic after I was diagnosed too. 😂 My dad’s also got tshirts, paintings, posters, mugs, placemats, coasters, ceramic plates, figurines of birds and SO MANY bird books. He also loves and knows a lot about Australian plants.
i’ve been thinking this for so long and no one understands!! my dad doesn’t have a “shop” but more like an office, where he spent YEARS compiling all pictures and videos he could get from everyone in our family and organized them into a hundred files very specifically
You have just described my dad to a tee. Highlights were controls the temperature in the house, very musical (my dad was a drummer in a famous band in the 80s), he is now a builder (owns his own business because he could never have a boss), and he loves dogs. You could also add has random outburst (tantrum like), excellent with dogs and children, only go to the same shopping centres and will not venture outside of their usual, also refuse to wait in lines. My daughter is exactly like my dad and if I had the knowledge I have now growing up with my dad I would have been able to give him so much more empathy and better communication. We have struggled over the years but since he himself can now identify as autistic we are all able to put in strategies to all get along
My brother was diagnosed at 4 and just until recently my whole family and I thought he was the odd one out. Now I'm also diagnosed (after 10 years of being misdiagnosed with depression...) and the more and more I read into asd, I'm more and more convinced that our whole family has been autistic all along, but it has been understood as just us being "quirky". I've tried to introduce this idea, since it explains so much in our family dynamic that we've all just been undiagnosed this whole time, but my brother has somewhat high support needs and it has really stigmatized what autism looks like to us. My family has been somewhat dismissive of my theory and they've even commented on my diagnosis that "oh, but you must have "high-functioning" autism" without thinking how much this revelation changes everything. But I really understand why they are like that. My parents have grown without any support systems for their (supposed) asd when they were little and later they had to raise a high-support-need autistic child, which is hard enough as it is, but to go through that all while trying their hardest to meet the expectations of the society around them... I can understand why they might feel like that they "couldn't be autistic, we just have our own quirks and struggles and we worked past them, that's just life". I just hope that maybe our generation could finally be the one to break the cycle of quiet suffering that comes from living with undiagnosed autism and trying so hard to fit into the allistic mold of "normal" while wondering why it makes us so unhappy. At least I hope that if my child is anything like me, she won't ever have to struggle all alone because she just can't figure out why she feels like an outsider all the time and why she is so endlessly tired.
my dad is exactly how you describe shop dads. but one thing is he's been sober for a couple decades. anyway, when i was little, he built a studio just for himself because he loves music and rapping. he plays the guitar, self taught because he loves it when he can accomplish something without the basic rules. he would show me around in his little studio and he was very intense, still is intense about how nothing should be touched, only when he says so. when i took something from his studio to play with it he would immediately notice if something was gone. he studies code, he loves code, he also likes studying outdated keyboard codes too and loves analyzing anything that comes his way. he doesn't have a shop of his own but i bet he would love to have one
0:11 Yeah, I actually think he was. He unfortunately passed in 21', but he was diagnosed with depression alone. Though I think he had ADHD and Autism as well, which also would explain where I inherited my own from, and he was 55, so this sounds like another spot-on video, Paige! Missed ya!
Thank you. Every. Single. Point. I'm 50, my self-diagnosis journey started just before my self employed, craftsman father got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer about a year ago. He just passed away 2 weeks ago. About 4 months ago I told him that I am on a wait list to get diagnosed and I shared my perspective of our common traits. He didn't argue a single one and it was never discussed again, but our relationship made an immediate change. I wish either one of us knew any of this sooner. We could have been the best of friends instead of each other's only enemy. All of the signs were there, they've been there all along. I think the biggest thing was that he loved diagramless crosswords.
Now that I think about it, my grandpa was 10000% autistic. He was a shop grandpa and that man had the same exact routine and ate the same exact foods for the entire time I knew him (20 years) and he was also my absolute favorite relative. I don't have an official diagnosis, but over the last year I've done extensive research and compiled lists of traits that I have that make me believe I have autism. My therapist diagnosed me with OCD, but it didn't feel like it fit... after that diagnosis, I stumbled upon an autism video and it felt like everything clicked. It totally makes sense that other people in my family would also be autistic as it is genetic. I'm not close to any of my other family members on that side of my family, so it's hard to say if anyone else exhibits autistic traits.
Pretty certain my Grandpa is autistic too, and he was my favorite relative too, despite having a bit of a short temper when it came to being rambunctious. I think I hung out more with him than my Grandma (super adhd and outgoing). She got along really well with my little brother (he got an early adhd diagnosis). My grandpa was super chill as long as you were chill. I’d just hang out in the messy shop and help him do stuff haha. I always enjoyed going to Home Depot with him to get parts for stuff lol.
Wow, Paige, where do I begin? Firstly, thank you so much for posting this! You have described me with startling accuracy. I am 64 and self-diagnosed about three years ago. At the risk of sounding immodest, I am, in fact, very good at my job, partly because I've been at it for more than twenty years. I work in a lab mostly by myself. But my passion away from my job is guitars. I have a guitar room where my wife is always invited to visit, but I have 100% of the decision rights on how it looks and how I take care of my stuff. (Naturally, I have the same respect for her and her private library.) I have been playing and collecting for fifty years and going to concerts for longer than that. I have dozens of t-shirts somehow related to music. Several years ago, I drove to NYC for the first time, solo, in a 1996 Mazda with a manual transmission, manual door locks, and crank windows. And no GPS or cell phone. Only paper maps and hand-written directions. It was for guitar camp, of course! And I just finished a nice glass of bourbon before taking the dog for a walk. When I got home, I repaired the garden hose. Now it's time to go practice for my 69th musical theatre pit. Yep. Nailed it. Thanks again, and best wishes to you always!
I'm 44 now and started having mental problems. I ended up in prison. A Judge mandated me to have a psychiatric evaluation. Last week Friday i got the diagnosis ASD level 1. I'm trying to process it. Your video's are helping. Thank you.
Ohmygod. You are spot on. When I found out I was autistic I started looking around and my dad totally is and so is my FIL. They are both exactly like everything you said 😂😂 I love that you made this video!
Hi Paige! My name is Lily and I love watching your videos. I am self diagnosed autistic and your videos have helped me understand a part of myself better. I don’t live in an area where an autism diagnosis is easy to get, and the fact that I’m a teenage girl doesn’t help much either, so I’m self diagnosed. I hate loud noises, there are all kinds of smells and textures and tastes that I cannot stand, I’m not good with eye contact, I stim constantly, and meeting new people is extremely hard for me. Your videos have really helped me out so much, they’ve taught me so much, and you are fantastic! Thank you Paige for helping me see its okay to be who you are with no Shane whatsoever, and thank you for always making me happy. You are beautiful inside and out. ❤️💖💕
I’ve been thinking about this a lot too, and you mentioned a lot of the things I’ve considered. In general, your description sounds a lot like the men on my dad’s side of the family - there’s a running joke about our family being the backstage people - and it especially sounds like my dad. My parents’ house has a third floor office, and my dad has commandeered the entire thing as his office/special interest cave. He has work stuff there, sure, but also his camera equipment, his hand-made war models, his giant collection of history books, war books, geology books, etc. and he’s very particular about all of it. He doesn’t drink much or use other substances, but his uncle was an alcoholic which influenced him a lot in that respect. He’s a really, really good navigator, is able to instinctively harmonize with a melody without ever having taken music lessons or studied any theory, and has been listening to the exact same music and artists since the 70s. My partner is autistic too and her dad is almost exactly the Shop Dad you described as well. So no, you aren’t crazy, it sounds like you’re kinda onto something 😂
Wow, your wall with the plant illustrations looks so cozy and pretty. And the light pink curtains too! It's a really nice room :D And of course your matching outfit was on point too!
Dad is 84 and cycles several hundred kilometres per week. He has never drunk much. He has had the same study since about 1978. He has been using computers for hard maths since the 1980s and still uses still Excel for holiday planning. But he is far more mellow than he was last century, and has even lost things. BUT, while I'm autistic and my brother has an autistic son, Dad was an only child (when this was rare - we know of no other live births from his mum) and both of my neurotypical sisters have had difficult pregnancies and stopped at 1 child each for medical reasons. I suspect we will never prove any causation after some German scientists got in trouble last century, but there's lots of medical issues correlated with autism and pregnancy that I suspect there's a nasty causal relationships.
just as a side note - having separate rooms as a married couple (if you can afford it) is really helpful. my partner and i live that way, and we've been together 5 years. we need our space sometimes! when we want to sleep together, we do, and when we want to sleep alone or just be alone, we do. i definitely recommend it (again, if you can afford that)!
My dad's 'shop' is his music studio. He built one (heavily soundproofed) in our old family home & when my parents moved converted a whole barn into one (also heavily soundproofed) so us ND kids wouldn't complain about the loud electric guitar. He also has a lot of random guys friends which are also quite strange and really into music. Haha... it makes so much sense now.
This is so incredibly spot on. I've been a fan of your channel for a while, but I think this may be my favorite video because of how hard nearly everything resonates with me. Well done!
This is so accurate it’s scary. I am sending this to my mother immediately 😂. We actually were chatting about this very subject earlier this morning. Unfortunately I think my dad’s trauma and undiagnosed autism are what made him develop NPD so childhood was so amazingly fun for me. This needs to be talked about more.
Gurl, I’m 52 and I’m not dead yet. Lol. I love this! I need more! Your observations are amazing. Being a mom is not as difficult as you could think it is. Plus, my kid is getting the help and understanding that I still don’t get. I think you would be an amazing mom if that’s what you choose to do.
My dad is autistic and most of that applies to him but he is not a substance abuser. He created his safe space in the basement where he builds golf clubs and blares his music. Most of the time he’s in the dark with his blue led lights behind the tv. A lot of his friends are autistic as well. I’m so happy that I sparked this realization in several people in my family. This is my purpose and I can’t wait to see the future
I think its great that you talk about this, bc I know my mom was very very likely autistic but never got a diagnosis before she died a couple of years ago at the age of 56 (cancer). And I got a late diagnois after she passed. I am kinda sad that i never got to talk to her about it so... let this be the reminder to talk to you family about this stuff, if thats a possibility.
I was diagnosed at 33 years old, my father was not very confident and it bothered him. Without talking to anyone he looked for a psychologist in another city, he did all the tests. He wanted to prove that I wasn't, he ended up convincing himself that I was and he is too. 😂 After a few months he told me. He turns 60 this year - now he's going through the stages of acceptance and so on, he's been complaining about something about me these days, remembering when I rejected something because it bothered me and then my mother interrupted the discussion to say that he's the same. I love my dad and I think it's great that he's discovering himself now.
I passed my autism onto my daughters :D but both my brothers are autistic as well, and they are in their 50's/60's now... and they do those things you are describing - so yes, you're right!
Hi, 45-year old dad here! I was diagnosed with ADHD at 7 and just recently with Autism. Over the years I drank off and on, not too much though. I'm so thankful that I don't have a drinking issue, and I know that can be a serious problem among us autistics. It's probably because I'm obsessed with being the best at my job and with many learning endeavours I've taken and still keep taking. I suspect one of my daughters has AuDHD, I know my father and my paternal aunt both had it. I agree with all of what you said and think you for making this, this is a really great video. Take care! 😀🤗
I thought I might be autistic when I was 15/16 in high school, and the more I thought about it the more I noticed things with my dads' side of the family, he is one of four boys and has one sister, (one passing away when she was young, I believe she had some form of growth disorder but I'm not entirely sure). I never wanted to say "I think I may be autistic" because when I was in high school (2013-2018) it was both a 'reason' for bullies to pick you and also a 'reason' to be called an "attention seeker". However, I started looking at my grandad who had repeatedly said that his only hobby is trains, I never picked up on how much of a special interest that was to him, because I assumed he just liked making things but no, he made an entire railway system in his back garden, and he had his own shed for his tools, a very organised man, but as he was born in the 30s most of us assumed it was the result of being a brigadier in the army that gave him his very strict routine and habits. Then I look at my oldest uncle, who has an obsession with fishing, the youngest of the brothers is obsessed with dogs, and then I looked at my dad and I didn't think he had a thing, but he has three entire cupboards in our house for fishing stuff and it's gotten to the point where, when my brother moved out, it became a storage room for fishing gear. I am obsessed with writing and world-building to the point I have over 500k words that I can't just publish because that's a bit excessive for one book. And yet, I feel that I still can't say that "I think I may be autistic" or even go and get a diagnosis because I still feel I'm just making it up to myself, I also feel at this point it wouldn't make much of a difference as "well everyone has the autism and ADHD now". but at the same time, I have been struggling for years and I can't keep up anymore, so I am now stuck in a perpetual cycle of doubt, confusion, guilt, obsession, and worry. 😌🤦♀😑
I most definitely have my safe space and can't even be comfortable with another person setting foot in it! Thank you, as always, for pointing these things out.
SO glad you posted this video Paige! You are the best!! I can totally see my dad in the patterns you mentioned. He seems to have no concept of anyone else's perspective, and is extremely emotional. He has a shop and struggles with substance use (smoking, drinking and caffeine). I am very curious to see if he ever decides to pursue this possibility of learning more about himself. I just began my diagnosis journey 6 months ago, and your channel was recommended by my friend with ADHD. So thankful for your corner of the internet 💜
Autistic dad here. First identified at 55 years old, still awaiting an official diagnosis. (This year I turn 58, the average age of death for autistic males, primarily due to self-unaliving.) I built my "recording studio", similar to the "shop dad" example. I went through decades of masking, cohabitating with a wife and 3 kids, and it would have been immensely helpful to understand autism and that I am autistic, and perhaps it would have preserved some of the broken relationships that I now view through the lens of greater understanding.
Freakishly sounds like my dad! He’s on adderall for adhd that was diagnosed like 5 years ago but like…..there could be more at play. My grandpa is def autistic. Honestly my dad’s whole side of the family has its own personal brand of neurodiversity going on lmao so I was doomed
I get being doomed that way! I can offer you this much: if it’s not the case that, in addition to what you mentioned, your mother’s side had dysautonomia, PDA, and various dopamine-deficient traits and illnesses...could be worse, trust me on that, LOL!
I didn't figure out my AuDHtism until I hit 60. Yes, it's been a hell of a secret life I didn't even know I was living. I never thought of the workshop as an Autism thing exactly, because every older man I've ever known has one. However, I see what you mean, and it's also related to special interests, in my case, woodworking. You're right, I'm not the oldest Autist in my family. My dad turned 80 this year, and he never knew until I started bringing it up a couple years ago. OMG. Your pattern recognition on this one is dead on. Alcohol. Suicide. REALLY good at my job. Can't be bossed. Singer, songwriter, guitar player. I always know where north is. Dogs have ALWAYS loved me. Main special interest that I've been doing for 45 plus years, that I know a LOT about - photography. Need to be alone to recharge? Yeah, since day one. Some of us REALLY like loud, because we grew up with the good music, and we need it to drown out the rest of the crappy loud world... and the world is very loud. Wait a minute... "All the shop dads I have examined... and I ate the pudding"? That's got to be a genre right there.
Does anyone else here have autistic dads/ family members obsessed with right wing politics…? My (almost certainly autistic) dad is more of an office dad. Unfortunately, his main special interest is conservative politics. He *always* has conservative talk radio on in the car, Fox News on TV, and only right wingers on his bookshelves. Its all we ever talked about when I was a kid. It got to the point in the Trump era where I had to make it a rule that we can never talk about politics. My dad is so intelligent in so many ways (master’s degree, co-founder and CFO of a company, financially successful, etc), but is so easily duped by charlatans. He buys into every right wing scam because, I think, he is susceptible to the “here’s what they don’t want you to know/ we’re fighting the corrupt establishment/ you’re so smart for buying our product” marketing strategies. The thing is, I have the same special interest, but in the opposite direction. I am extremely passionate about environmentalism, feminism, civil rights, and anti-capitalism. However, when I realized that we both are probably autistic (my lil brother is diagnosed ASD, for context), I recognized some of the autistic traits at play: a strong sense of justice, loving statistics, ability to learn many facts about a candidate/ policy, discomfort with change (i.e. distrusting immigrants and progressive movements), and pattern recognition (conspiracy theories). Recognizing these traits helped me to not be so angry with my dad, but more angry with the propagandists that lie to my dad that lead him and millions of others to believe such absurd things.
My dad was a similar way but a different flavor. He's 70 which shifts his perspective on republican politics, or politics in general. The system works, the parties are about compromise, the parties are working towards the same goals and checking each other to make sure they make the best policies etc. etc. He used to listen to rush Limbaugh but I think he caught on to how ridiculous it all was and stopped when I was young. He keeps himself out of national politics and sticks to local because it's the only scene where his ideal of what politics is/should be can play out. But he's never been able to untangle his cognitive dissonance with what politics in America really is. it makes me so sad though because I know what my dad actually values the most is nuance. He's the reason I'm as politically minded and as left as I am now because he taught me to slow down and weigh what people are saying. I'm just glad I didn't get caught in the lie that everyone always has something equally valuable to say or won't try to argue in bad faith.
Pretty accurate. I mean it's not a 1:1 correlation, but I'd say it's common enough to be a factor. Part of the way they deal with it, is to tell themselves "Thats what everyone does". That there are things that have to be done, and everyone just pretends to like doing them. I know that was hard for me to accept that, that maybe the whole world isn't pretending.
YES PLEASE! I have ADHD, and suspect maybe my father did… My youngest sister was diagnosed with Asperger’s… and this was recently a few years ago… she’s in her 50’s now. They never used the words autism spectrum disorder 🤷🏻♀️ but also, I think they just stopped at that terminology more recently… She also has OCD… anxiety and depression, but I think that’s caused by her difficulties. So I’m trying to figure out where the Autism came from, and suspect that my mom actually might be the one? She got in one job and stayed in the same job for almost her whole life… Was painfully shy when she was little… likes to be a home in her own space… needs to have control of situations, and has been anxious, her whole life… 🤔 I’m pretty positive that my other sister is on the spectrum although I’m sure she would deny it … and also her son … he had some issues earlier on in school, but never diagnosed with anything… He does see a therapist now, though… My daughter definitely has ADHD, although I need to get her assessed… But she also has autistic symptoms… Which seem to have developed in her teenage years because she wasn’t that way before that I could see… And totally different than my symptoms… For example, she gets overstimulated… and has food, texture, issues, and things like that… I never thought of her father, as being on the spectrum… But I realize he also has symptoms. He has social anxiety, also, sometimes when you’re standing there talking to him, he has his arm cross, and he sways back-and-forth… Also, when I first was dating him, and I was starting to stay at his house, he mentioned that he does this little rocking thing, and it helps him go to sleep and I’m thinking to myself… this is a 40 something year old man, but he rocks himself to sleep? But I attribute that to the fact that he was the youngest of five, so he just probably wasn’t paid much attention to, and had to soothe himself to sleep. 🤷🏻♀️ I took one of those online test to see if I was autistic although nobody seems to think I am… I believe it was the AQ test that I took. I scored low autistic … but also some of the questions weren’t a definite, yes,or no! And some… idk… I thought they meant one thing, but they gave an example underneath the question which meant something completely different… So maybe I am because I found it confusing! A lot of them were well it depends on… Because it’s not always the case. Like for example I think one of them was not liking unexpected visitors. I don’t mind unexpected visitors…. As long as my house is tidy! But if things are a mess, I definitely don’t want anyone showing up to my house unannounced! I know a lot of ADHD symptoms overlap with autistic so it’s hard to tell if I am or not! Although I can tell you that people knew I had ADHD way before I did! My friends say, they don’t see autistic at all… But I definitely have some of the symptoms I know! Sorry I went off on a tangent… It’s just so confusing… am I? Are they? 🤷🏻♀️
Dude, 38yo autistic shop dad here. Learned how to take better emotional care of myself and allowing the experience of that growth give my partner her own significant insight into a healthier way to be us. Thank you so much, Paige
Absolutely ❤️ I think my dad is autistic but I’m not sure how to tell him because I’m worried about how he might respond - I think he might deny it but all of his traits are absolutely there and are wonderful :^)
The best way is them discovering for "themselves" with your help. Find a way to him watch the videos that you choose for him. Choose wisely so he can relate to. Good luck! I did it with my parents and my kids. It worked!
Of 9 relatives autistic including me, only 2 didn't got diagnosed. My grandma who will not ever visit a doctor and my brother who is not ready yet. Everybodyelse got diagnosis. And now we all can forgive ourselves and praise ourselves for all the struggles in life that we have faced. Now all makes sense.
This is so fucking validating! It's so painfully obvious my dad was on the spectrum, and being autistic myself, and being so similar to him, this video helped give me so much more peace.
I’m a 36 year old dad diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and I’ve just started realizing how common AudiHD. I’m pretty sure my Dad is neurodivergent and my daughter has some signs as well. I watched the video of you and your Mom talk about how much an earlier diagnosis would have changed your lives and wanted to thank you both for your channel!
When I fist told my mother I suspected I was autistic and then explained the symptoms and behaviors that led me to believe so, her first response was “I think your father may be too.” I 100% agree and part of the reason I told her and explained what autism really is as when I was first learning more, I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. Later on, my mom was telling stories about my grandfather/dad’s father. She was describing these very odd behaviors which i immediately clocked as neurodivergent. We always thought it was because of his childhood trauma (which can lead to neurodivergence), him being an immigrant, and his trauma from serving in WWII but, the more I heard about him, I think he may have been autistic as well. I think the “pandemic” of autism or whatever really is just us understanding it better and accepting that more than just young white boys can be autistic.
Hell yeah!! That's my dad!!! He has his own workshop and is just exactly like you said, he can fix anything if he can put his mind to it and he loves a project, he always keeps a to do list (usually grid paper bc it also works really well for planning projects) I love him so much
You are spot on. My dad had a hint of autism, but never was diagnosed. I was diagnosed about 13 years ago. Now I am turning 49 soon. My daughter has signs of autism but we haven't been able to get her diagnosed yet but the medical professionals are treating her in ways that help her learn how to cope, not mask.
I think I might be autistic and I definitely got it from my dad. This man built a gas run fire pit FROM SCRATCH. He has a man cave, he has special interests of golf history, scotch, and fishing boats (and sailboats and fishing as well). He’s even said to me he thinks he’s autistic. Thank you so much for this video. I’m definitely sending this to him
paige. i have a google document’s worth of observations. my father is diagnosed with add, but uh. loves routine, doesn’t have a shop but we have a garage where all the bikes are, he is a doctor and is incapable of sugarcoating anything so he has to go to bad doctor school, his hands are cold all the time and ive heard him talk about loving the OR process of scrubbing up (the soap he has to wash his hands with, the way he has to wash his hands, setting everything up) and being able to help kids. and then he talks about HIS dad and say ok i see. his dad was ALSO a doctor and was weird when interacting with people and an alcoholic and built a barn so i think i’m third generation shop dad. You are onto something
100% right. My dad was the same as you described and when I was telling about my autistic traits he told me to my face "nope, those are normal things. You can't have Autism, cause I do those things all the time and I never got told I'm Autistic"... 😂
I miss my wonderful shop dad 😢.
Isn't obvious that wives and daughters don't always share their husband/father's interests?
literally what my dad told me and he got SUPER pissed when I suggested maybe he had autism too.
@@briannakyse5167 relate! It's so nice seeing the dads in this comment section independently self-assessing. I wish my parents were the same. I told my Mum that I figured Dad had autism too but before I could even start to explain my reasoning and she'd gone 0-100, saying I was obsessed with autism (ha, ironic.) and needed to stop before I went loopy. Safe to say I dropped the subject real quick lol
Me too😢
@@leliza8477 Sounds like your parents are far wiser than you realize. Maybe some dayt you will recognize that.
I am a 50yo dad, and came across your channel looking for info for my recently diagnosed 20yo daughter. Her diagnosis led to mine. What you are saying is pretty spot on in my case, although I don't have a garage/shed/man cave - probably due to space. But from reading on the subject it does appear that ASD is genetic passed through predominantly the male line from males who have children later on in life. My father was 50 when he had me.
I think it is interesting that it is supposed to be more from the fathers side. It started with my mother in my family. She handed it down to me and 2 of my brothers. Then I blessed 2 of my kids with it (one boy and one girl). We are very different, too.
I think a lot of the “it’s paternal” comes from the fact that more boys/men have been studied and diagnosed compared to our moms/women. Not saying it isn’t paternal, but I think that’s something that needs to be looked into.
@@cassidyelaine9569 right. It is under diagnosed bc females mask. I think a lot of females get a misdiagnosis of personality disorders, too.
Fun fact: a study found that the most relevant data is actually at what age the male had his first child.
I don't believe that. They don't even Diagnose women why would they have data on who passed it along? Nonsense.
Paige, I’m here to tell you you’re right on point... At least with my dad. I’m so glad you shared this as I never considered he might’ve been autistic. He passed away 3 years ago at 71.
I'm sorry for your loss. 😢
@@PoptartWrites 🥹🙏🏼
@China Springs Aw thank you, I receive your hug 🤗🥲
"Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women."
@@MaxMyrmyr hahaha that's class
I am a dad who is Autistic. You got me. I was born a long time ago and diagnosed at 40 years old. My daughter apparently has traits, but was not diagnosed with Autism. I agree with what you say about getting diagnosed. It was a surprise for me to realize I was Autistic and to know that's why I struggled through life. At least I knew what I needed to do next to get help.
"Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women."
@@derek4412 from "What Men Know That Women Don't" by Rich Zubaty
Spot on , Paige. I have a male friend who struggles so much in society. He’s super smart, extremely good and precise at his job and a incredibly talented musician (self taught). He is extremely routine oriented. Very emotional about things in HIS life. He’s always thinks right, most often he is. He often times does or says things that don’t go over well with others. He has many texture and food aversions. He has more guitars than average main stream musician. He cannot sustain a long-term relationship or live with anyone. He is now in his 50s. He is a very, very dear friend of mine. He just, within the last year, start to feel comfortable talking about possibly being autistic. It’s clear as day. The important thing is that he is now realizing it. It’s been so helpful for him in every aspect of his life. I’m going to share this with him. I think he will relate to it in a good/comforting way. Thank you for all you do. You are an incredible young woman.
I'm 48 and realizing that a lot my traits fall squarely into the Autistic spectrum and it honestly feels like a fricking relief to not feel so alone. It's nice to think "Oh! I do that! You do that? We ALL do that!? Yay!" lol Except the man-splaining... I never intend to do that, but I do love talking shop about hobbies, and I love learning from other enthusiastic people.
I only found I was autistic four years ago when I was 48 through relating to so-called female traits even though I'm a male dad. I had low-key careers in journalism and now frontline mental health services...always trying to figure people out whilst empathising with the struggle lol... but my passion/obsession is music, jazz in particular. I think the ability to practice alone for hours, find patterns and stim to the rhythm/sound means autists can become good musicians. If i could do it all again with better self-knowledge I'd probably do it as a career.
You are exactly describing the man I was just in a one year relationship with. To the T down to the guitar stuff.
Cool. I can't live with anyone and I don't have close relationships to the point I cut off contact with my entire family, because they've been so evil toward me, so.
I relate to your description of him pretty hard. Shit
Thank you so much for covering this topic. I was diagnosed at 51. The toll of masking for all those years and of constantly existing in a haze of chaos and confusion is intense. I was the first person in my family to be diagnosed, but there are others. Among them are my dad and two cousins who all died in their forties without ever learning the truth about themselves. When I was seeking out diagnosis, I had two different clinicians question why I wanted to know. I feel like we’ve just been written off as a lost generation. We’re not dead yet! Middle age is not too late to discover who you are and find your joy.
Truth
I'm realizing that the longer we go without diagnosis & acceptance of who we are, the harder it is to deal with the toll that masking & camouflage put us through. For decades, we've attempted to be "normal" when we are anything but.
@@wyckedbear5598 Truth.
This. Clinicians asking “why do you care” and “what does it matter?” Have been disqualifying for me. Why would it matter if I’m autistic? Maybe because it’d be nice to know why it’s so hard to do everything I do. Maybe knowing your brain is wired differently than normal would be useful if being normal is a strenuous endeavor. Ugh.
@@wyckedbear5598I feel this. And I’ve been finding it harder and harder to mask lately. I used to be in really good control of my emotions. Like a stoic type dude. But lately it’s been crumbling. A couple of kids, less sleep, more stress etc and masking gets harder and harder.
Hi, I'm a 42yo dad, recently diagnosed Autism (I'm AuDHD). I have a shop. It's my space. You are %100000 on point on this!
Hello Paige, autistic dad here...
Diagnosed last year, severe ADHD with autism...
Don't be afraid to have your own children, I have 4 children, 3 of them on the spectrum. None the less, they are the best thing that ever happened to me!
My first one (a daughter), gave me a reason to get my life together, get sober, and do better... the 2 boys were the ones that got the ball rolling and got (us all) diagnosed... that was the biggest blessing they could give me!
Life is still hard for me, especially with 2 autistic boys roaming the house, and one autistic female teenager, pushing all my triggers at once. But gone are the days that I was desperately trying to "be normal" and feel bad about failing at that.
And on the plus side, there are now 4 people in my life that accept me for who I am and love me unconditionally: my children...
Having a diagnose helps you avoiding the mistakes that happened to your parents when they were young, and this will have an immense impact on your children, it won't make social contact easier for them, but it will help making them the first generation that will not struggle with the demons that made our parents (and my) life miserable...
recently ive been noticing certain traits in my parents and i just think "oh yeah thats why im neurodivergent". my mom often jokingly says she has adhd but honestly i think its true. and my dad _definitely_ has misophonia. i think lots of people forget that most neurodivergent conditions are in fact hereditary
Exactly the same here!! My whole family dismissed me when I was dx with ADHD at 25 last year because “oh those are just our normal family quirks!”…. Yes, and also they’re every single symptom of undiagnosed ADHD!!
THANK YOU for mentioning Misophonia. sometimes I feel like I'm absolutely insane because of how my family responds to my misophonia
@@tink6225 what is misophonia?
@@GintaCirule-Liberte Really strong adverse reactions to specific sounds. Think chewing, which is the most common example. The reactions can range from hating the sound when it starts to getting violent when you hear it and it's at it worst.
You know how people generally react to nails on a chalkboard (or even the chalk itself) and sometimes whiteboard markers on a whiteboard?
I'm certain I have misophonia for that nails and chalk thing. It got worse over time and now I want to flee when I hear it and there's this undercurrent of feeling like my energy will need some explosive way out. I a very mild sense I have it for forks on plates and squeaky whiteboard markers on whiteboards too.
I also have ASD, ADHD, and most likely a mild form of dyslexia. So all the neurovergent stuff combined.
@@ammalyrical5646 ok.
This describes my dad. He was a master craftsman with a lifelong alcohol addiction. Unfortunately about 15 years ago I had to take myself out of his life due to my inability to handle him being involved in it (self preservation). He died last year and while going through his apartment and storage locker I realized so many things about him. I am now very confident that he had ADHD and was on the spectrum. I see so much of myself in him now and am on the journey to try and make peace with my memories of him and to not only forgive him but also forgive myself.
love this for you. wishing you peace on that journey. working through relationship with parents and childhood trauma is so rewarding and important and hard and good. currently doing the same
This gave me chills. Bless you both. I understand where you are coming from. Sending you much love & hugs! 💞💞💞
Every Dad ever: "WHO TOUCHED THE THERMOSTAT?!?!?! IT STAYS EXACTLY 71 DEGREES IN THIS HOUSE AT ALL TIMES!!"
OMG... temperature... sensory issues...
Yes!!!
*68°
My dad is ADHD... But you just described my grandpa perfectly. This was very helpful.
I love that you made this video because I’ve been 1000% convinced my dad is probably autistic too. I’m self diagnosed and a few years ago when I asked my dad if I was autistic he was like “you didn’t talk until you were 5 but you’re not. You were such a happy kid!” Like he clearly has no idea what autism really is.
But this is the funny thing: one of my biggest special interests, movies, is because I was so entrained in my dad’s special interest in movies like my whole life. Like he would quiz me on cast members, voice actors, directors, all the time as a kid and I’m now an adult who reads the Wikipedia article after watching any movie. My dad is also the only person I know who gives a shit about movie trailers as much as I do. We can sit in a car together in SILENCE until one of us bring up a topic like movies or animals (my other special interest) and we can ramble on for a while until one of us gets burnt out from the conversation. My dad has also never been married, most of his friends are online, he doesn’t think before he speaks and he’s been referred to as an asshole by my mom my whole life. He has other special interests like photography, collectibles, and watches. I can go on about my dads overlooked autistic traits lol
Thank you for this, made me cry a little. I've been about 99% convinced my dad is autistic for a couple years now. It explains so much that never made sense to me before. There's a lot of hurt there, stuff that we couldn't understand about each other... even if it turns out we may actually have the same diagnosis. And although it may never really go away, and nothing can fix the grief over the relationship I wish I could've had with him, it helps to understand more now. There's no point in him pursuing a diagnosis at his age (he'll be 83 in a few weeks), and he probably wouldn't 'believe in it' anyway, but still. There's so much I'd like to ask him about his experiences tbh, but that's just not the type of relationship we have. Anyway... again, thank you.
Without focusing on the autism part, first just ask him one question. If he doesn't wanted to share, no worries. Ask him about an experience that you feel he enjoyed the most, you will have allowed him the moment to share by asking him a specific question.
ever since I was diagnosed I have come to strongly believe that both of my parents are autistic
I think this could also be part of the reason it took so long for my diagnosis
because we all 3 share so many traits my parents just assumed everyone is like us
The same thing happened in my family. It wasn’t until I got out of the house going to college/working that I was like; Something is not quite right here. I am very much out of place. Hmmm. And then you try to ask your parents like “is xyz normal?” And they go “oh yeah! I do it al the time. Completely normal.” But it’s ONLY ND normal and you’re just like; WTF why is life so hard then?!
And then you get diagnosed and you’re like; Wow. We’ve been bamboozled.
@@aubreejobizzarro1208 I relate to this so much! Haha! We've been bamboozled 😅🤣😂
Absolutely! My mum is so much like me (we have about 80% overlap of Autistic traits) and so growing up she never saw anything different about me. It was all perfectly normal to her.
This sounds like an accurate anecdotal report tbh
Every man in my family is a "shop dad" to some degree, or an "office dad" who spends all his time doing his intellectual hobbies or a "man cave" dad who spends all his time with his music hobbies, etc.
The common denominator is the fact that they all have their own private space to do all their lifelong hobbies where they spend most of their time (even thanksgiving dinner time, for example) and tbh it has pissed me off my entire life that the men in my family have had the privilege of having their own private space for their hobbies yet the women in my family didn't get to have hobbies at all, much less their own space to do those hobbies in. My grandmother had many hobbies before she was married but by the time I was born, all of it was in boxes, forever, while my grandfather had the entire basement to himself plus an entire huge work shed in the backyard to himself. That's the patriarchy rearing its ugly head there in the dynamics of a hetero-boomer autistic relationship...
I feel like the hetero-boomer autistic relationship is an entire subcategory of lived experiences on its own that's deserving of conversation and perhaps some support groups. I'm the one in my family that finally connected the dots at 25 when I hit a really bad burnout that led to me inevitably trying therapy. Within the first couple sessions my therapist was just like "is your dad on the spectrum??" and I've been noticing patterns ever since. I can see how it has affected both him and my mom (who I think is adhd) and the upbringing my brother and I had. When you're raised in a home full of neurodivergents and don't know anything else until a quarter of your life has passed by? That shit hits different lol everything just makes so much more sense now.
luckyly my dad was never like that - probably due to my grandma (his mom) she was an amazing woman.
dad has his room, his garage. mom has control over almost the whole house and mostly does things in her garden.
my little brother doesn't need much and has a little room, but I have the full first floor to myself and my hobbies 😅
My wife and I are a typical (older) millennial couple who can't afford a house, but some day when we do, we're both getting our own shops, or possibly one big combined one to share. It's going to happen. Some day.
@@purrrbotIt’s always a can of worms when someone in the family gets diagnosed, but you grew up your whole life thinking you were normal, and because of the ND there’s no real outside connection to NTs to compare to. It makes me giggle cause I’ve just realized the whole family is a “little special” somehow. My little brother got ADHD and spectrum diagnosed when he was super young and I think no one thought: Huh maybe this is genetic. Fast forward and I got diagnosed adhd and probs on the spectrum, pretty certain my grandpa is on the spectrum, Grandma is probs adhd, and my mom is definitely adhd.
@@purrrbot I feel that
Yes! Listen, I got assessed for autism and am waiting for the results, and my sibling that was interviewed as part of that process, told me that the psychologist was, in fact, leaning towards autism haha. But before my assessment, I started questioning the rest of my family and I didn’t tell anyone but the same sibling came up to me and said, “I think dad might be on the spectrum, as well” LMAO I told her, “Dude, I think half of us are autistic or at least neurodivergent in some other way.” But it doesn’t stop there, I’m pretty darn sure some of my father’s siblings are also autistic because one of them built an entire different room outside of their home and spends his whole time there after work! Him and his wife have a good relationship, but she said he’s been spending most nights there and likes to be alone. I always knew my dad was much more introverted and gentle than most men, and I love him just the way he is. I’m glad we autistics, can secretly speak about our family members who we suspect 😂 Thank you, Paige. Keep your theories coming!
Your comments about other members of your family probably being autistic or Neurodivergent in some way, I can totally relate to!!
“secretly speak about our family members who we suspect.” YESSS! the only people ive talked to about the likelihood of my dad being autistic are my bf, my sister with adhd/ocd, and strangers on the internet 😂 i literally made an essay of a comment about my dad on here
So my son is autistic and my husband came to me about two weeks ago saying he thought he was as well. I know he is but it was never really needed for me to tell him I thought so. Its honestly helped me understand my husband and his some times odd habits that he HAS to do. I hope he and my son can connect deeply ❤
Other than the alcohol item you have pretty much described me (51 year old dad). I think that there are a very large number of undiagnosed ASD/ADHD dad's out there, hence your "that's just a dad thing" comment being correct.
Some of the problem is that diagnosis of children back in our day was not very advanced and mostly only picked up on severe symptoms, and by the time diagnosis and understanding was improving most of us were getting pretty good at masking. It's only after youtude videos like yours that we start considering that we might be asd and/or adhd (unless our children get diagnosed first).
Keep up the good work.
John, I think you and I have something in common, probably lot's of things actually. I am a 50 year old Dad and turn 51 next month. Paige described a lot of my traits. When we were young children, an autistic person was someone who would never or rarely talk to others and would shut themselves off from almost everyone.
The first clue I ever had that I might be autistic is an exGF told me. She was a Nursing Assistant, so that's the highest medical qualification of anyone who has ever come up with that diagnosis. I was 42 or 43 at the time. Sometimes I think about contacting her to tell her she may have been right.
My second clue and one that actually convinced me is a TV show on Netflix I was watching about an autistic teenager. I remember understanding how he felt. I did do the things he did, but I seemed to understand.
Being middle aged with no medical plan, it's super hard to get any actual help. I also get super annoyed with the questions I would have to answer. I would actually just like a book to help me figure things out myself.
+
You are slightly younger than me, but certainly when we were at school nobody vaguely capable of functioning would have been diagnosed with ASD. Asperger’s wasn’t even a diagnosis, let alone one that has been folded into ASD.
@@alexanderlapp5048 hi fellow autistic here and the best help you can get in my opinion is destigmatizing what that means means to you by watching a lot of videos and learning from people who are actually autistic themselves, what their lives are like, and reflecting on your own life. i think at first it takes time to stop “othering” autistic people thinking there is something different about their experience than your own, to begin to really see yourself in what they share and see yourself from a new lens.
as far as help getting a diagnosis, i worked with my MD and was able to find a testing facility (therapy office actually) that was covered so got a diagnosis for free. therapy can be helpful to process the trauma (which is kind of an iceberg and can be kind of invisible at first as to how deep it goes). to me the best help is feeling permission internally to know who you really are when you’re not the personality that is the bland socially appropriate version of yourself you do to be liked and just whatever normal and not weird or too goofy inappropriate silly fun kidlike playful whatever. over time reclaiming those parts is insanely liberating and cool. to feel ok being who you truly are. or to know what kind of people you want to be around. i think the more goofy and yourself you let yourself be seen as the more alive you feel and the more friendships with the right people can flourish. can be hard to find the people who like who you are but that’s not new
@@reneesolana6697,
Thank you. There's some "autistic qualities" I have that are really good. I do have some abilities that are quite special.
I don't always do well in social situations. I am nervous talking to people unless I am talking about plants. I don't like talking but I could talk about plants for hours.
Anyway, thank you for the response. I will have to look this over more thoroughly when I get some free time.
I got diagnosed with autism just a few months before my dad died at 59. One of the hardest parts has been realizing that he was most likely autistic too. I feel like I know myself and understand him so much better now..I wish I could talk to him about this and help him understand himself more..I think he could have been happier if he knew and could have accepted himself more. I think you’re absolutely correct.
❤️🩹
Very fun and relatable video. I could easily be labeled as a "shop dad" and yes, I am in my fifties. My daughter was diagnosed at a young age and I more recently got evaluated, already diagnosed with ADHD now AuDHD. I've always had dedicated project/lab/shop areas from elementary school on. What's nice now is that there are Makerspaces/Hackerspaces where you can geek out with others whether it's sewing, scrap booking, electronics,, biology etc. It is always so much nicer to be able to share a passion with others and it is also incredibly compelling to hear about someone else's passion.
I'd be very interested to hear how un-diagnosed or late diagnosed women exhibit autistic traits!
Thanks for this video! I'd say you're spot on with your assumptions. I'm one of the 40-something shop dad's. My oldest son, 14, is autistic. Diagnosed at 9. I am now on a journey of self-discovery. I was very good at music at a young age, and knew everything about cars. I have my 'shop' in a room in my garage. In there I enjoy strings of led lights, print toys with 3d printers, and tinker with electronics. I was also a heavy drinker for a long time but thankfully, I've been sober for almost 3 years now. And I'll hopefully get tested for autism in the next month.
IM SO HAPPY YOU UPLOADED PAIGE!! Also, I think you taking your time and only posting when you feel ready makes your uploads even more exciting!
You are 100% correct. I am male, 53, no kids. I only started researching autism around 3 years ago and discovered it in myself. Everything you said about dads makes total sense. On a side note, I see a lot of connections or similarities between autism and other things such as hsp, introversion, and empathy among other things. All is interesting learning about autism and neurodiversity.
hsp, introversion and empathy issues are usually just autistic symptoms too
Oh my gosh, I agree 100%! I've been thinking about this so much, because I'm autistic, HSP, introvert, INFJ, and somewhat reclusive!
Yes- my dad is def autistic, haha and this is very him. Our relationship improved once I was diagnosed - he always knew he was different but didn’t know why. He still says he doesn’t want the “label” of being autistic, but I think my family has more compassion for each other now.
One of the obvious signs my dad was autistic- he HATED if we cooked without turning the vent on over the stove because he was sensitive to the smell of cooking food. I always thought that was normal until I went to college and NO ONE cared if I cooked without the cooking vent on 😂
hahahaha those little quirks!
my dad hated when things were not in their proper places because someone else used them. or when i forgot to lock the back door (while we were all in the house). or when i would open the windows. or go into his office. now it makes so much more sense to me and i feel more compassion for those things.
I’ve had the suspicion about my father since self diagnosing, but once you hit the substance abuse part I lost it. You never realize growing up what makes your parents the ways they are, but once you know you can’t unsee it. Even if they themselves can’t see it. Thank you so much for all the knowledge you’ve given me 💘
I definitely think you've hit on a correlation here.
My dad passed more than 10 years ago now, but looking back he was definitely ND. Probably leaning more ADHD than autism, but holy cow he had lots of these things you mentioned. Bonding over explaining anything and everything. Always working on something with his hands (and as such, hundreds of projects only 30% finished...), always hiding in one of his "shop"s
Sadly I think it's also part of what killed him too. He was constantly drinking coffee (like 6-7 huge cups a day) and smoking, clearly trying to self-medicate. It's really heart-breaking knowing he was struggling so much silently.
i’m only 2:35 into the video, so i haven’t heard this yet, but you’ve def described my dad who passed in 2021, except add in alcohol.
and my mom is a silly goober too, with some issues self-medicating with alcohol, so i’m thinking i got whatever brand of ND i have doubly cuz my substance abuse probs are worse than theirs (tho improving yes!!) and i’m easily “weirder” than them tho my parents might’ve just been good maskers/i was raised in a safe place where being my weird self was okay.
idk. i get excited when i relate to my dad cuz we were not as close after my parents split. it’s like i can talk to him and learn about him even tho he isn’t here anymore.
Paige, came across your channel several months ago. You inspired me to get tested and see if I’m autistic. Got officially diagnosed in October. After 26 years, I finally have the answer I’ve been looking for. Just wanted to say thank you
Men in their 50s have a lot of structural patriarchal patterns in their system, having been raised in an environment even more male dominant than most of us are now. The emotional neglect from that generation’s childhood is also causing a lot of trauma that may result in retrieving to their own safe spaces, avoiding communication and intimacy and being inaccessible in general. The idea that the man in the family is always right, has been so implemented into our lives for decades. So they often center themselves because they don’t know anything else.
While I do see what you’re saying, and while there’s a lot of similarities between autism traits and male patriarchal behavior, I do think we need to separate them. Autistic men in their 50’s will most likely practice patriarchal structures and behavior, but most men in their 50’s won’t necessarily be autistic. They’ll simply be the result of being brought up in an environment that’s toxic and male dominant. It’s obviously too big of a topic to cover it all in a comment, let alone a video, but it’s an interesting conversation for sure.
I agree, there is a lot of overlap in behaviors. Especially the “handy man” stereotype or the “garage cave”. I don’t think any person male or female LIKES being in a house cluttered full of toys and rambunctious kids. If it wasn’t so engrained for women to be primary caregivers, I guarantee women would have their own hide outs too. Most of the time this is the “Moms locked herself in the bathroom” situation. But I think she makes good key points about having specific interests which can be indicative of Autism, especially with more niche hobbies. I don’t think introversion is an indicator for autism for that particular generation, because of the male-centered culture that they were brought up in. What would be more indicative is if dads were not interested in male group activities. Most men of that era learned male-male bonding through goal oriented activities (think Army service, sports). Most male activities that are solo (fixing cars, wood working, fixing pipes, etc.) are usually not done in a side-by-side play, and the side-by-side occurs more with women. (Sewing circles, book clubs, etc.) So it’s super hard to base those activities as indicators of autism just because of the culture around gendered activities. (It also may be why it can be a little easier to pick out autistic women, but they are often just brushed off as introverted or misdiagnosed). If there was a total lack of interest in collective male bonding activities, it could be an indicator of introversion but not necessarily autism.
This is exactly what I was thinking, too. A lot of this echoes autistic traits, and in some cases might be a result of autism, but it really just sounds like Boomer and GenX era male socialization.
@@aubreejobizzarro1208 "I guarantee women would have their own hideouts too."
That's a she shed. That's where you keep the boxed wine and the Reese Witherspoon flicks. It smells vaguely of lavender.
The patriarchal part was one of the places I thought the autism comparison got weak too, but because my experience is that autistic traits in men actually run counter to patriarchy. I’m 62 and not patriarchal...or hierarchical. My father was the same. His father was the same. None of us had any classically male friends. None of us liked team sports. All of us were geeks. Both my grandfather and my father deferred to their wives. I unfortunately got my mother’s irritable need for control, and have an ADHD hyperactive mouth, so I’m probably the 500 lb gorilla, rather than my wife...but still not a classic guy in any way. I’d also push back on the notion that my generation (I’m 62) was specifically raised patriarchal. Many were and still are. But I grew up during the women’s lib days, with a liberal background. And I’m actually too young to have done the Summer of Love.
""Age has an unequal impact on men and women. Men lose brain cells three times faster in old age. As men age the corpus callosum withers, decreasing communication between both spheres of the brain, even more so than in youth. Responding to language - chatter - requires an obnoxious, annoying amount of mental effort, especially if the old guy is approached in a moment of right brain reverie. That's why grandpa never listens to grandma and why grandma is always yelling at him to pay attention. She thinks he's deaf, but he's just off in a different part of his brain. Old age becomes a war of the sexes to see whose brain content is going to dominate the home front. Sadly, if grandpa is not permitted to build a hogan of his own out behind the chicken coop he will be trampled by an invading army of words. He waves the white flag and sets up camp by that lake inside his mind that he remembers from when he was a boy. It is one of the forgotten jobs of this society to protect old men from the cheekiness of old women.""
OMG… you’re describing me! I’m a mom, but everything else you said is me! My middle daughter was diagnosed with autism as a teenager a year or two ago. And the more I learn about autism, the more I think I might be on the spectrum too. And I think my mom might be too.
Growing up, I always felt different and struggled with a lot of social things, and my parents could never really help me. Years later, I finally figured out that it's because they struggle with the exact same things, but they never told me that.
My daughter's paternal family is mostly on the spectrum and it is so hard protecting her and nourishing her beautiful individual self while people who abuse substances try to stomp out her behaviors. Thank you so much for this video.
My youngest daughter is autistic and during her evaluation my husband and second daughter pointed out that I needed to be evaluated myself. The whole process of learning about autism and the evaluation of my daughter has helped me learn a great deal about myself that I didn't understand or have a name for. I have ADHD so does my dad, pretty severe actually. It is funny how you were describing autistic Dad's because it fit my father perfectly. Only one exception, instead of drinking alcohol he smokes weed or enjoys Edibles daily. Taking everything into consideration I do feel that you are absolutely right!
You just described my dad, 88 years old and still very much into his science fiction series/movies, an avid "trekkie" like his own mother had been. So much for shorter life expectancy! He has one college graduate Asperger grandson (27) and one low functioning non verbal 21 year old grandson. It has apparently skipped my generation, or maybe because we are all girls is less noticable. I have 100% diagnosed him. It absolutely explains my difficult childhood, mainly having to deal with his random (in a child's eyes, anyway) dreaded meltdowns and wild uncontrolled outbursts. He always threatened to write an autobiography titled "Surrounded by Dummies". That is how he saw himself. Frankly, we were all, my sisters, myself and even my mother, really afraid of him, though he always and still sees himself as a loving and caring father and husband. When confronted with this diagnosis he absolutely denies it. Still, it helps me accept and forgive him.
YES! I was talking to my mom, and she told me all about how my grandmother was when she was alive ( dad's mom) and we are almost certain she was autistic. We thought my brother "got" the autism from my mom's side, cause she has a lot of traits and my grandpa also does, but my mom's side is a lot more ADHD. Then we started to think about my dad, and my dad's family. And wow, it's so crystal clear thinking about it, my grandma was thought to be a "control freak" with an extremely steady routine, not flexible at all. But now we are thinking, she must have been autistic. And my dad...!!!!! Wow, thinking about it he very much has autism traits. He is VERY smart specially with memory stuff, he always knew he wanted to be a doctor, and he is an excellent one. He doesn't like dealing with people AT ALL so he went on to be a radiologist, who never has to see any patients 😂, he basically has to know all the human anatomy in imaging (wich is pure memorizing and identifying patterns), works from home (internet) and has minimal contact with people in the hospital. He is very good at his job, but is not very independent, he can't manage the other aspects of life without my mom, like what to eat, clean the house, etc. He can survive, but his mental health gets pretty bad when he has to live alone for even just a few days. He is bad with new things, getting out of routine and making decisions, he gets so angry and lost when he has to do that by himself. He is OBSESSED with music. It's definitely his special interest, he could play piano for hours and hours everyday, if he didn't have to work and live besides that.
But also in my mom's side, my grandfather probably is AUDHD. He is all that you described. One career all his life at a factory, when he retired he started his small shop and had the same routine waking up 4:30 am every day for more than 40 years. He always liked music, but my grandma didn't, so he couldn't play much in the house, he would play in his shop. He was a severe alcoholic for a lot of his life, but almost died and stoped completely drinking and smoking, is sober for more than 30 years now, God bless him. He has a lot of autistic traits, but they merge a lot with ADHD, he was a terrible student, never could read much cause he can't focus, he hates it. He has to be moving at all times. He is very intelligent, but could never stand a career in an academic setting, so he was a mechanic in a factory, and became a great worker there. In general he is the stereotype of ADHD of a young white boy who can't sit still, but as an elderly 😂😂. He is very playful, always cracking jokes, making us laugh. He is very sensitive and unbelievably empathetic, doesn't seem like he was born in 1937, he is not at all misogynistic, my grandma was actually always the one to call all the shots, and my grandpa do as she tells. He made a lot of mistakes when he was young, I believe from lack of impulse control, but it's visible he regrets all those things deeply. He has his little routines that never change, but is flexible in a lot of aspects, not at all a control freak. And he lives in CHAOS when watching from a far. All his mess makes sense to him, but it's all over the place, it was visible in his shop. He was the only one who could find anything in that place, but he knew exactly where everything was. He is honestly one of the best people I've ever met ❤❤ love my grandpa.
Thinking about it, my family is very much made of undiagnosed neurodivergents. My brother will be the first one to get an actual diagnosis.
My mother's side of the family has many Autism Spectrum and ADHD traits. Especially on my grandmother's side.
Autism can come from both sides of the family as well.
As you probably have realized!
Wow, so often I feel like I’m the only one with parents and grandparents that form such a genetic crazy quilt. My backstory is a whole lot like yours! Traits everywhere.
I'm 49 and I didn't get diagnosed until after my dad died (actually his death indirectly led to my diagnosis), but when I went to get my diagnosis, my mother had to fill out questionnaires about my behaviour as a child, and she came back to me saying 'I think I'm autistic too, and so was your dad, because these questions all resonate so much with our behaviour as well'. I was a child in the early 70s, not a lot was known yet about autism, and my parents simply had no idea that my behaviour was out of the ordinary, especially because they themselves were probably displaying the same behaviour. Since I got my diagnosis, 2 of my cousins on my dad's side of the family also got their diagnosis, and one of them has a son who also got diagnosed with autism. My mom has also said that she thought her dad may have also been autistic, so I may have gotten the genes from both my dad's and my mom's side of the family 😄 It feels nice to be understood on this level by so many members of my family now, but before everyone knew it was autism, I heard a lot of "you can't be autistic because I do that as well and I'm not autistic", so I was gaslighted all the time until I got my diagnosis about 5 years ago.
I am 34 and in 2022 my daughter got meltdowns, shutdowns and we got to know that she has dyslexia and asd. Then learning about asd we discovered that 9 people of our family of 11 people are asd.
Funny how an asd can find and love another asd even without knowing at all what asd is.
Great to see a new video 😀 Anyway, my dad was (past tense because he sadly past away way too early) a shop dad. He converted the garage into a shop and your description fits him really well, except for some key points. He didn't misuse alcohol (neither do I by the way) and his shop wasn't his safe space. He was happy to allow people in and share whatever tools he used to have. But I really get where you are coming from. I'm in my 40's (dang, getting old) and live alone. But if I would be living with someone else, I would certainly need a space for myself. In my case I also suspect I got it from my mother. One of my cousins on my mothers side got diagnosed as a kid and my granddad (mothers side) was probably autistic. Since I got diagnosed and my mom got a new relation with someone with autism and we openly talk about it, she recognizes more and more in herself.
Everything from the retreating to their own personal space or 'workshop', to never being sober (smoking and drinking), to having lots of surface level friends but no deep friendships, actually prefferring to be socially isolated a lot of the time, to having sensory sensitivities, and having at least one intense special interest ... It all perfectly describes my dad. There are even more traits I see in him that are autistic traits, and I've been thinking about this 'undiagnosed autistic dad' concept for a while now that I realize I'm on the spectrum, so I'm super glad to see someone else has noticed the same patterns
I literally had a meltdown over a doctors appointment yesterday and I called my dad to help me calm down and he was talking about how he feels some of the same things I feel and he probably passed those traits on to me. (I am undiagnosed but I’ve opened up to him about suspecting autism)
I'm 35 and was just diagnosed on the spectrum a few months ago. I decided to be evaluated because my daughter was diagnosed and many of the traits she exhibits are the same I did at her age, (some I still do). For me this did two things. 1. This will hopefully show my daughter there is nothing to be scared about having the diagnosis. And that she has a support group in myself and the rest of her family. 2. Allows me to better understand myself and a way to better manage my stressors. I love the content you put out!
My Dad’s a scientist (although these days he’s a science teacher). He’s almost certainly autistic (I’m diagnosed). He likes to own tools, but he hates using them. 😂 He’s very particular about his books though, as am I. I feel physical pain when I see a book being damaged and my dad becomes visibly uncomfortable (even to my poor body-language comprehension skills). 😢 My dad’s happy place is the bush and his bedroom and there’s barely anything about Australian birds that he doesn’t know. There are lots of other things that make me pretty sure he’s autistic though. He thinks so too.
Also my dad only started to consider that he might be autistic after I was diagnosed too. 😂
My dad’s also got tshirts, paintings, posters, mugs, placemats, coasters, ceramic plates, figurines of birds and SO MANY bird books. He also loves and knows a lot about Australian plants.
i’ve been thinking this for so long and no one understands!! my dad doesn’t have a “shop” but more like an office, where he spent YEARS compiling all pictures and videos he could get from everyone in our family and organized them into a hundred files very specifically
Ha…. That’s me with the pictures….
Could this title be any more specific to my recent suspicion about my father omg haha
RIGHT
This comment…
You have just described my dad to a tee. Highlights were controls the temperature in the house, very musical (my dad was a drummer in a famous band in the 80s), he is now a builder (owns his own business because he could never have a boss), and he loves dogs. You could also add has random outburst (tantrum like), excellent with dogs and children, only go to the same shopping centres and will not venture outside of their usual, also refuse to wait in lines. My daughter is exactly like my dad and if I had the knowledge I have now growing up with my dad I would have been able to give him so much more empathy and better communication. We have struggled over the years but since he himself can now identify as autistic we are all able to put in strategies to all get along
My brother was diagnosed at 4 and just until recently my whole family and I thought he was the odd one out.
Now I'm also diagnosed (after 10 years of being misdiagnosed with depression...) and the more and more I read into asd, I'm more and more convinced that our whole family has been autistic all along, but it has been understood as just us being "quirky".
I've tried to introduce this idea, since it explains so much in our family dynamic that we've all just been undiagnosed this whole time, but my brother has somewhat high support needs and it has really stigmatized what autism looks like to us.
My family has been somewhat dismissive of my theory and they've even commented on my diagnosis that "oh, but you must have "high-functioning" autism" without thinking how much this revelation changes everything.
But I really understand why they are like that. My parents have grown without any support systems for their (supposed) asd when they were little and later they had to raise a high-support-need autistic child, which is hard enough as it is, but to go through that all while trying their hardest to meet the expectations of the society around them...
I can understand why they might feel like that they "couldn't be autistic, we just have our own quirks and struggles and we worked past them, that's just life".
I just hope that maybe our generation could finally be the one to break the cycle of quiet suffering that comes from living with undiagnosed autism and trying so hard to fit into the allistic mold of "normal" while wondering why it makes us so unhappy. At least I hope that if my child is anything like me, she won't ever have to struggle all alone because she just can't figure out why she feels like an outsider all the time and why she is so endlessly tired.
Wow. This is me and my family.
my dad is exactly how you describe shop dads. but one thing is he's been sober for a couple decades. anyway, when i was little, he built a studio just for himself because he loves music and rapping. he plays the guitar, self taught because he loves it when he can accomplish something without the basic rules. he would show me around in his little studio and he was very intense, still is intense about how nothing should be touched, only when he says so. when i took something from his studio to play with it he would immediately notice if something was gone. he studies code, he loves code, he also likes studying outdated keyboard codes too and loves analyzing anything that comes his way. he doesn't have a shop of his own but i bet he would love to have one
Yayyy new Paige upload!!! Btw I’m getting screened for autism today, so wish me luck!!!
I’ve thought about this A LOT. I think you’re absolutely onto something!!!!
0:11 Yeah, I actually think he was. He unfortunately passed in 21', but he was diagnosed with depression alone. Though I think he had ADHD and Autism as well, which also would explain where I inherited my own from, and he was 55, so this sounds like another spot-on video, Paige! Missed ya!
Thank you. Every. Single. Point. I'm 50, my self-diagnosis journey started just before my self employed, craftsman father got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer about a year ago. He just passed away 2 weeks ago. About 4 months ago I told him that I am on a wait list to get diagnosed and I shared my perspective of our common traits. He didn't argue a single one and it was never discussed again, but our relationship made an immediate change. I wish either one of us knew any of this sooner. We could have been the best of friends instead of each other's only enemy. All of the signs were there, they've been there all along. I think the biggest thing was that he loved diagramless crosswords.
Now that I think about it, my grandpa was 10000% autistic. He was a shop grandpa and that man had the same exact routine and ate the same exact foods for the entire time I knew him (20 years) and he was also my absolute favorite relative. I don't have an official diagnosis, but over the last year I've done extensive research and compiled lists of traits that I have that make me believe I have autism. My therapist diagnosed me with OCD, but it didn't feel like it fit... after that diagnosis, I stumbled upon an autism video and it felt like everything clicked. It totally makes sense that other people in my family would also be autistic as it is genetic. I'm not close to any of my other family members on that side of my family, so it's hard to say if anyone else exhibits autistic traits.
Pretty certain my Grandpa is autistic too, and he was my favorite relative too, despite having a bit of a short temper when it came to being rambunctious. I think I hung out more with him than my Grandma (super adhd and outgoing). She got along really well with my little brother (he got an early adhd diagnosis). My grandpa was super chill as long as you were chill. I’d just hang out in the messy shop and help him do stuff haha. I always enjoyed going to Home Depot with him to get parts for stuff lol.
Great topic 😂😂😂
Totally relating to this...
Spot on !
Wow, Paige, where do I begin? Firstly, thank you so much for posting this! You have described me with startling accuracy. I am 64 and self-diagnosed about three years ago. At the risk of sounding immodest, I am, in fact, very good at my job, partly because I've been at it for more than twenty years. I work in a lab mostly by myself. But my passion away from my job is guitars. I have a guitar room where my wife is always invited to visit, but I have 100% of the decision rights on how it looks and how I take care of my stuff. (Naturally, I have the same respect for her and her private library.) I have been playing and collecting for fifty years and going to concerts for longer than that. I have dozens of t-shirts somehow related to music. Several years ago, I drove to NYC for the first time, solo, in a 1996 Mazda with a manual transmission, manual door locks, and crank windows. And no GPS or cell phone. Only paper maps and hand-written directions. It was for guitar camp, of course! And I just finished a nice glass of bourbon before taking the dog for a walk. When I got home, I repaired the garden hose. Now it's time to go practice for my 69th musical theatre pit. Yep. Nailed it. Thanks again, and best wishes to you always!
I'm 44 now and started having mental problems. I ended up in prison. A Judge mandated me to have a psychiatric evaluation. Last week Friday i got the diagnosis ASD level 1. I'm trying to process it. Your video's are helping. Thank you.
Ohmygod. You are spot on. When I found out I was autistic I started looking around and my dad totally is and so is my FIL. They are both exactly like everything you said 😂😂 I love that you made this video!
Hi Paige! My name is Lily and I love watching your videos. I am self diagnosed autistic and your videos have helped me understand a part of myself better. I don’t live in an area where an autism diagnosis is easy to get, and the fact that I’m a teenage girl doesn’t help much either, so I’m self diagnosed. I hate loud noises, there are all kinds of smells and textures and tastes that I cannot stand, I’m not good with eye contact, I stim constantly, and meeting new people is extremely hard for me. Your videos have really helped me out so much, they’ve taught me so much, and you are fantastic! Thank you Paige for helping me see its okay to be who you are with no Shane whatsoever, and thank you for always making me happy. You are beautiful inside and out. ❤️💖💕
I’ve been thinking about this a lot too, and you mentioned a lot of the things I’ve considered. In general, your description sounds a lot like the men on my dad’s side of the family - there’s a running joke about our family being the backstage people - and it especially sounds like my dad. My parents’ house has a third floor office, and my dad has commandeered the entire thing as his office/special interest cave. He has work stuff there, sure, but also his camera equipment, his hand-made war models, his giant collection of history books, war books, geology books, etc. and he’s very particular about all of it. He doesn’t drink much or use other substances, but his uncle was an alcoholic which influenced him a lot in that respect. He’s a really, really good navigator, is able to instinctively harmonize with a melody without ever having taken music lessons or studied any theory, and has been listening to the exact same music and artists since the 70s. My partner is autistic too and her dad is almost exactly the Shop Dad you described as well. So no, you aren’t crazy, it sounds like you’re kinda onto something 😂
Wow, your wall with the plant illustrations looks so cozy and pretty. And the light pink curtains too! It's a really nice room :D And of course your matching outfit was on point too!
Dad is 84 and cycles several hundred kilometres per week. He has never drunk much. He has had the same study since about 1978. He has been using computers for hard maths since the 1980s and still uses still Excel for holiday planning. But he is far more mellow than he was last century, and has even lost things.
BUT, while I'm autistic and my brother has an autistic son, Dad was an only child (when this was rare - we know of no other live births from his mum) and both of my neurotypical sisters have had difficult pregnancies and stopped at 1 child each for medical reasons. I suspect we will never prove any causation after some German scientists got in trouble last century, but there's lots of medical issues correlated with autism and pregnancy that I suspect there's a nasty causal relationships.
just as a side note - having separate rooms as a married couple (if you can afford it) is really helpful. my partner and i live that way, and we've been together 5 years. we need our space sometimes! when we want to sleep together, we do, and when we want to sleep alone or just be alone, we do. i definitely recommend it (again, if you can afford that)!
My dad's 'shop' is his music studio. He built one (heavily soundproofed) in our old family home & when my parents moved converted a whole barn into one (also heavily soundproofed) so us ND kids wouldn't complain about the loud electric guitar. He also has a lot of random guys friends which are also quite strange and really into music. Haha... it makes so much sense now.
This is so incredibly spot on. I've been a fan of your channel for a while, but I think this may be my favorite video because of how hard nearly everything resonates with me. Well done!
This is so accurate it’s scary. I am sending this to my mother immediately 😂. We actually were chatting about this very subject earlier this morning. Unfortunately I think my dad’s trauma and undiagnosed autism are what made him develop NPD so childhood was so amazingly fun for me. This needs to be talked about more.
Thanks for uploading again I enjoy
Gurl, I’m 52 and I’m not dead yet. Lol. I love this! I need more! Your observations are amazing. Being a mom is not as difficult as you could think it is. Plus, my kid is getting the help and understanding that I still don’t get. I think you would be an amazing mom if that’s what you choose to do.
THIS NEEDS TO COME BACK EVERY SPRING!!!!! LIKE it's always true but like the timing wow
My dad is autistic and most of that applies to him but he is not a substance abuser. He created his safe space in the basement where he builds golf clubs and blares his music. Most of the time he’s in the dark with his blue led lights behind the tv. A lot of his friends are autistic as well. I’m so happy that I sparked this realization in several people in my family. This is my purpose and I can’t wait to see the future
the way you literally just made an entire video about my dad 😅 this makes a lot of things make SO MUCH SENSE - you are absolutely spot on
I think its great that you talk about this, bc I know my mom was very very likely autistic but never got a diagnosis before she died a couple of years ago at the age of 56 (cancer). And I got a late diagnois after she passed. I am kinda sad that i never got to talk to her about it so... let this be the reminder to talk to you family about this stuff, if thats a possibility.
Sounds right!
Also I genuinely find your way of self expression and honesty really refreshing and adorable!
I was diagnosed at 33 years old, my father was not very confident and it bothered him. Without talking to anyone he looked for a psychologist in another city, he did all the tests. He wanted to prove that I wasn't, he ended up convincing himself that I was and he is too. 😂 After a few months he told me. He turns 60 this year - now he's going through the stages of acceptance and so on, he's been complaining about something about me these days, remembering when I rejected something because it bothered me and then my mother interrupted the discussion to say that he's the same. I love my dad and I think it's great that he's discovering himself now.
I want to thank you so much for this Paige
I passed my autism onto my daughters :D but both my brothers are autistic as well, and they are in their 50's/60's now... and they do those things you are describing - so yes, you're right!
Hi, 45-year old dad here! I was diagnosed with ADHD at 7 and just recently with Autism. Over the years I drank off and on, not too much though. I'm so thankful that I don't have a drinking issue, and I know that can be a serious problem among us autistics. It's probably because I'm obsessed with being the best at my job and with many learning endeavours I've taken and still keep taking. I suspect one of my daughters has AuDHD, I know my father and my paternal aunt both had it. I agree with all of what you said and think you for making this, this is a really great video. Take care! 😀🤗
I thought I might be autistic when I was 15/16 in high school, and the more I thought about it the more I noticed things with my dads' side of the family, he is one of four boys and has one sister, (one passing away when she was young, I believe she had some form of growth disorder but I'm not entirely sure). I never wanted to say "I think I may be autistic" because when I was in high school (2013-2018) it was both a 'reason' for bullies to pick you and also a 'reason' to be called an "attention seeker".
However, I started looking at my grandad who had repeatedly said that his only hobby is trains, I never picked up on how much of a special interest that was to him, because I assumed he just liked making things but no, he made an entire railway system in his back garden, and he had his own shed for his tools, a very organised man, but as he was born in the 30s most of us assumed it was the result of being a brigadier in the army that gave him his very strict routine and habits. Then I look at my oldest uncle, who has an obsession with fishing, the youngest of the brothers is obsessed with dogs, and then I looked at my dad and I didn't think he had a thing, but he has three entire cupboards in our house for fishing stuff and it's gotten to the point where, when my brother moved out, it became a storage room for fishing gear.
I am obsessed with writing and world-building to the point I have over 500k words that I can't just publish because that's a bit excessive for one book. And yet, I feel that I still can't say that "I think I may be autistic" or even go and get a diagnosis because I still feel I'm just making it up to myself, I also feel at this point it wouldn't make much of a difference as "well everyone has the autism and ADHD now".
but at the same time, I have been struggling for years and I can't keep up anymore, so I am now stuck in a perpetual cycle of doubt, confusion, guilt, obsession, and worry. 😌🤦♀😑
I sooo hope your circle of guilt and bad emotions end soon.
I am diagnosed with autism 1. You described my dad in such detail. I'm blown away.
I most definitely have my safe space and can't even be comfortable with another person setting foot in it! Thank you, as always, for pointing these things out.
Me and my sister talk about this so much! It's even in movies and shows!
SO glad you posted this video Paige! You are the best!! I can totally see my dad in the patterns you mentioned. He seems to have no concept of anyone else's perspective, and is extremely emotional. He has a shop and struggles with substance use (smoking, drinking and caffeine). I am very curious to see if he ever decides to pursue this possibility of learning more about himself. I just began my diagnosis journey 6 months ago, and your channel was recommended by my friend with ADHD. So thankful for your corner of the internet 💜
"they're usually quite handy"
My dad who is a mechanical engineer: 🙋♂
They are usually people on a 4th grade math level too.
Here's me wondering about mine and hes a mechanical engineer 😂
Autistic dad here. First identified at 55 years old, still awaiting an official diagnosis. (This year I turn 58, the average age of death for autistic males, primarily due to self-unaliving.) I built my "recording studio", similar to the "shop dad" example. I went through decades of masking, cohabitating with a wife and 3 kids, and it would have been immensely helpful to understand autism and that I am autistic, and perhaps it would have preserved some of the broken relationships that I now view through the lens of greater understanding.
Freakishly sounds like my dad! He’s on adderall for adhd that was diagnosed like 5 years ago but like…..there could be more at play. My grandpa is def autistic. Honestly my dad’s whole side of the family has its own personal brand of neurodiversity going on lmao so I was doomed
I get being doomed that way! I can offer you this much: if it’s not the case that, in addition to what you mentioned, your mother’s side had dysautonomia, PDA, and various dopamine-deficient traits and illnesses...could be worse, trust me on that, LOL!
I didn't figure out my AuDHtism until I hit 60. Yes, it's been a hell of a secret life I didn't even know I was living. I never thought of the workshop as an Autism thing exactly, because every older man I've ever known has one. However, I see what you mean, and it's also related to special interests, in my case, woodworking. You're right, I'm not the oldest Autist in my family. My dad turned 80 this year, and he never knew until I started bringing it up a couple years ago.
OMG. Your pattern recognition on this one is dead on. Alcohol. Suicide. REALLY good at my job. Can't be bossed. Singer, songwriter, guitar player. I always know where north is. Dogs have ALWAYS loved me. Main special interest that I've been doing for 45 plus years, that I know a LOT about - photography. Need to be alone to recharge? Yeah, since day one. Some of us REALLY like loud, because we grew up with the good music, and we need it to drown out the rest of the crappy loud world... and the world is very loud.
Wait a minute... "All the shop dads I have examined... and I ate the pudding"? That's got to be a genre right there.
Does anyone else here have autistic dads/ family members obsessed with right wing politics…?
My (almost certainly autistic) dad is more of an office dad. Unfortunately, his main special interest is conservative politics. He *always* has conservative talk radio on in the car, Fox News on TV, and only right wingers on his bookshelves. Its all we ever talked about when I was a kid. It got to the point in the Trump era where I had to make it a rule that we can never talk about politics.
My dad is so intelligent in so many ways (master’s degree, co-founder and CFO of a company, financially successful, etc), but is so easily duped by charlatans. He buys into every right wing scam because, I think, he is susceptible to the “here’s what they don’t want you to know/ we’re fighting the corrupt establishment/ you’re so smart for buying our product” marketing strategies.
The thing is, I have the same special interest, but in the opposite direction. I am extremely passionate about environmentalism, feminism, civil rights, and anti-capitalism.
However, when I realized that we both are probably autistic (my lil brother is diagnosed ASD, for context), I recognized some of the autistic traits at play: a strong sense of justice, loving statistics, ability to learn many facts about a candidate/ policy, discomfort with change (i.e. distrusting immigrants and progressive movements), and pattern recognition (conspiracy theories). Recognizing these traits helped me to not be so angry with my dad, but more angry with the propagandists that lie to my dad that lead him and millions of others to believe such absurd things.
My dad was a similar way but a different flavor. He's 70 which shifts his perspective on republican politics, or politics in general. The system works, the parties are about compromise, the parties are working towards the same goals and checking each other to make sure they make the best policies etc. etc. He used to listen to rush Limbaugh but I think he caught on to how ridiculous it all was and stopped when I was young. He keeps himself out of national politics and sticks to local because it's the only scene where his ideal of what politics is/should be can play out. But he's never been able to untangle his cognitive dissonance with what politics in America really is. it makes me so sad though because I know what my dad actually values the most is nuance. He's the reason I'm as politically minded and as left as I am now because he taught me to slow down and weigh what people are saying. I'm just glad I didn't get caught in the lie that everyone always has something equally valuable to say or won't try to argue in bad faith.
Pretty accurate. I mean it's not a 1:1 correlation, but I'd say it's common enough to be a factor.
Part of the way they deal with it, is to tell themselves "Thats what everyone does". That there are things that have to be done, and everyone just pretends to like doing them. I know that was hard for me to accept that, that maybe the whole world isn't pretending.
I’d be curious if you were able to make a version of this with 50+ year old Moms because that might be the case with my family, idk
YES PLEASE! I have ADHD, and suspect maybe my father did… My youngest sister was diagnosed with Asperger’s… and this was recently a few years ago… she’s in her 50’s now. They never used the words autism spectrum disorder 🤷🏻♀️ but also, I think they just stopped at that terminology more recently… She also has OCD… anxiety and depression, but I think that’s caused by her difficulties.
So I’m trying to figure out where the Autism came from, and suspect that my mom actually might be the one? She got in one job and stayed in the same job for almost her whole life… Was painfully shy when she was little… likes to be a home in her own space… needs to have control of situations, and has been anxious, her whole life… 🤔
I’m pretty positive that my other sister is on the spectrum although I’m sure she would deny it … and also her son … he had some issues earlier on in school, but never diagnosed with anything… He does see a therapist now, though…
My daughter definitely has ADHD, although I need to get her assessed… But she also has autistic symptoms… Which seem to have developed in her teenage years because she wasn’t that way before that I could see… And totally different than my symptoms… For example, she gets overstimulated… and has food, texture, issues, and things like that…
I never thought of her father, as being on the spectrum… But I realize he also has symptoms. He has social anxiety, also, sometimes when you’re standing there talking to him, he has his arm cross, and he sways back-and-forth… Also, when I first was dating him, and I was starting to stay at his house, he mentioned that he does this little rocking thing, and it helps him go to sleep and I’m thinking to myself… this is a 40 something year old man, but he rocks himself to sleep? But I attribute that to the fact that he was the youngest of five, so he just probably wasn’t paid much attention to, and had to soothe himself to sleep. 🤷🏻♀️
I took one of those online test to see if I was autistic although nobody seems to think I am… I believe it was the AQ test that I took. I scored low autistic … but also some of the questions weren’t a definite, yes,or no! And some… idk… I thought they meant one thing, but they gave an example underneath the question which meant something completely different… So maybe I am because I found it confusing!
A lot of them were well it depends on… Because it’s not always the case. Like for example I think one of them was not liking unexpected visitors. I don’t mind unexpected visitors…. As long as my house is tidy! But if things are a mess, I definitely don’t want anyone showing up to my house unannounced! I know a lot of ADHD symptoms overlap with autistic so it’s hard to tell if I am or not! Although I can tell you that people knew I had ADHD way before I did! My friends say, they don’t see autistic at all… But I definitely have some of the symptoms I know!
Sorry I went off on a tangent… It’s just so confusing… am I? Are they? 🤷🏻♀️
Dude, 38yo autistic shop dad here. Learned how to take better emotional care of myself and allowing the experience of that growth give my partner her own significant insight into a healthier way to be us. Thank you so much, Paige
I think I'd like to become a shop dad one day
Very insightful. Thanks for sharing your own thoughts, i find them very useful for figuring out my own stuff.
Absolutely ❤️ I think my dad is autistic but I’m not sure how to tell him because I’m worried about how he might respond - I think he might deny it but all of his traits are absolutely there and are wonderful :^)
The best way is them discovering for "themselves" with your help. Find a way to him watch the videos that you choose for him. Choose wisely so he can relate to. Good luck!
I did it with my parents and my kids. It worked!
Of 9 relatives autistic including me, only 2 didn't got diagnosed. My grandma who will not ever visit a doctor and my brother who is not ready yet.
Everybodyelse got diagnosis. And now we all can forgive ourselves and praise ourselves for all the struggles in life that we have faced. Now all makes sense.
This is so fucking validating! It's so painfully obvious my dad was on the spectrum, and being autistic myself, and being so similar to him, this video helped give me so much more peace.
Growing up with a dad that was always “out in the garage” , this video just blew my mind 🎉 All love for the dads ❤
Yes to everything... Especially when you brought up the not being sober part.
I’m a 36 year old dad diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and I’ve just started realizing how common AudiHD. I’m pretty sure my Dad is neurodivergent and my daughter has some signs as well. I watched the video of you and your Mom talk about how much an earlier diagnosis would have changed your lives and wanted to thank you both for your channel!
When I fist told my mother I suspected I was autistic and then explained the symptoms and behaviors that led me to believe so, her first response was “I think your father may be too.” I 100% agree and part of the reason I told her and explained what autism really is as when I was first learning more, I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad. Later on, my mom was telling stories about my grandfather/dad’s father. She was describing these very odd behaviors which i immediately clocked as neurodivergent. We always thought it was because of his childhood trauma (which can lead to neurodivergence), him being an immigrant, and his trauma from serving in WWII but, the more I heard about him, I think he may have been autistic as well. I think the “pandemic” of autism or whatever really is just us understanding it better and accepting that more than just young white boys can be autistic.
Hell yeah!! That's my dad!!! He has his own workshop and is just exactly like you said, he can fix anything if he can put his mind to it and he loves a project, he always keeps a to do list (usually grid paper bc it also works really well for planning projects) I love him so much
You are spot on. My dad had a hint of autism, but never was diagnosed. I was diagnosed about 13 years ago. Now I am turning 49 soon. My daughter has signs of autism but we haven't been able to get her diagnosed yet but the medical professionals are treating her in ways that help her learn how to cope, not mask.
I think I might be autistic and I definitely got it from my dad. This man built a gas run fire pit FROM SCRATCH. He has a man cave, he has special interests of golf history, scotch, and fishing boats (and sailboats and fishing as well). He’s even said to me he thinks he’s autistic. Thank you so much for this video. I’m definitely sending this to him
Awesome to see you back Paige!
"Get wrecked you are autistic" hahaha
paige. i have a google document’s worth of observations. my father is diagnosed with add, but uh. loves routine, doesn’t have a shop but we have a garage where all the bikes are, he is a doctor and is incapable of sugarcoating anything so he has to go to bad doctor school, his hands are cold all the time and ive heard him talk about loving the OR process of scrubbing up (the soap he has to wash his hands with, the way he has to wash his hands, setting everything up) and being able to help kids. and then he talks about HIS dad and say ok i see. his dad was ALSO a doctor and was weird when interacting with people and an alcoholic and built a barn so i think i’m third generation shop dad. You are onto something