Undiagnosed Autistic Mother?

[Whobuddy]

I have been a member of OOTS since 2015 but I haven't posted for years. Looks like a whole new crew here now, of course. Hi to all and especially Kizzie and anyone else who might remember me.
I wanted to post today because I don't know where else to turn. I had determined that I have CPTSD over 12 years ago and began my healing journey. My parents have passed and also one of my two sisters so I don't have family to discuss this with.
Through a ton of reading and research the best I could figure was that my mother was BPD but none of the PDs seemed to fit her exactly.
Recently, I learned about the symptoms of autism and I can see her plainly in almost the entire list. What I thought was emotional neglect may well have been an autistic lack of empathy, lack of appropriate social skills such as eye contact, facial expression, and conversational skills. I thought she was ignoring me.
Her random tantrums which were usually aimed at me were likely autistic meltdowns when she felt overwhelmed.
I grew up frightened of her and I tried to make myself invisible so she wouldn't attack me. So the abuse was real. But her motives are so very different from what I thought.
It seems that autistic people are not usually violent toward others so there may have been a comorbidity also.
I can't find any information about growing up with an undiagnosed, untreated autistic parent. So I was wondering if anyone here has had a similar experience or just wants to comment on this. I would love to hear from you.

[Kizzie]

I do remember you WhoBuddy, welcome back! 

That's quite the revelation about your M. I did Google "parents with autism" and there is quite a bit from various organizations although not much in academic journals apparently. Here's just one I found. I don't know if it quite matches what you've said about your M - https://heller.brandeis.edu/parents-with-disabilities/pdfs/autism-parent-factsheet.pdf. I suppose it matters where on the spectrum a parent is.

In any event, I think what matters is how it affected you and from the sounds of it you needed to be invisible a lot of the time to avoid her anger so developing CPTSD is not a surprise. My M was a narcissist due to trauma in her own life and it was the same for me. Even though I can now feel some compassion for her because of what brought her to be an N, I still have a lot of feelings about losing my childhood and ending up struggling with CPTSD.

Hopefully there will be a few members whose parent(s) were autistic who can share their experiences.

[Whobuddy]

Thank you for the reply and the article.  I hadn't come across that one. Most articles deal with autistic parents who have a diagnosis and they are doing their best to parent their children - or how to parent autistic children. Autism had not even been identified until my M was an adult. It makes me sad that she never got support for the overwhelm she must have felt all her life.

My head is really spinning as to how to process this new information.  I know they always tell us that the abuse wasn't about us and I had understood that on some sort of cognitive level but now I see much more clearly how it REALLY wasn't about me, she was coping the best she could considering her disorder. But it was very frightening for me as a child. Apparently, some autistic people don't remember all or part of what they do during a meltdown. It was so confusing how afterwards she would act like nothing had happened.

This explains so much about her inconsistency, and why once my sisters and I had become adults and moved out of the house, how she seemed to be able to cope somewhat better.
It's a lot.

[Blueberry]

Hi Whobuddy Welcome back, I do remember your name. There are a few oldies from back then still on the forum.
I don't know about autism, hope others have more to contribute.

[Whobuddy]