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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

a visit

I came home from class on Sunday afternoon to find my mother-in-law in the backyard with Meego. Apparently, she and her husband were here for a visit. The rest of the brood was out procuring some lunch for all of us.

Now, about my mother-in-law. Yes, she is Magnum's mom. She's also a bit loco en la cabeza.

A few years ago, when we confirmed that Magnum has Asperger's, he and I unprofessionally concluded that his mom has it too. It's interesting to watch.

I notice, for instance, that Mag and his mom share most of the core symptoms, but after that, they are at opposite ends of the psychological bell curve in most ways. I have read that Asperger's manifests different symptoms in men versus women, and this plays out with Magnum and the MIL.

I don't want to go into detail, but suffice to say that, we don't "socialize" with them a whole lot when they do visit. They are certainly welcome to come out and see the grandkids, etc., but we typically limit our activites to things that don't require us going out in public much - activities and places where there might be.. uhm.. other people.

This is not to say that I am anti-autistic -people. Heck no! But, we suspect that she's actually got more than just the Asperger's going on in there...

In the end, it was a nice enough visit. Nothing majorly inappropriate occurred, and if it had, we would have been the only witnesses. I do find it interesting to watch - from a purely psychologically geeky perspective.

I suppose that's better than "Crap, this is NUTS! I'm going home to Mother."
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4 comments:

brandy101 said...

The dreaded pop-in? WOW. Glad you managed to get through it without too much trauma.

My dad's parents used to do that, too. It drove my mother NUTS.

Scott said...

People are different--but I wouldn't care what other people thought. For example, I once dated a girl who was beautiful, but mildly retarded. And there were times she wouldn't act her age--would be kind of silly, in public. But I didn't care. She was with me, and she was doing no harm. As long as I'm not infringing on others' rights, it doesn't matter what others think of me. And as long as my friend, relative, or girlfriend isn't infringing on others' rights, it doesn't matter what others think of him/her.

Abby said...

Just to clarify... she's not particularly "silly" in public, but yes, she does in some ways infringe on others' rights.

terri said...

You're pretty vague about what happens when the MIL is in the presence of other people, but I'm going to assume it's not fun.

Glad the visit went reasonably well!