My dad is almost definitely on the spectrum and it absolutely affected the way he parented me. My brother and I essentially weren’t allowed to have emotions and would get yelled at if we were sad or mad. He has the attitude of a literal child sometimes and I often felt like I, at 11 years old, had to be the adult in the room. He’d say that he believed in treating me like an adult and not coddling me, which in his mind probably sounded cool or something but really all it meant is that he wasn’t going to parent me. 

He treated us as adults in the way you’d treat a roommate as an adult. Gave me near complete autonomy in the years when I badly needed guidance and then when I was old enough to really start looking for independence, he hated not having control over me. He used to point out the flaws of other people that he didn’t like about himself, like when he started putting on weight he’d tell my brother and I that we were getting fat. I was like 10. That led to some severe body issues in both of us and my brother even developed eating disorders, which my dad pretty much ignored. 

He can’t stand criticism of any kind and takes almost everything personally. He’ll then probably exact some passive aggressive revenge about it later. What really pisses me off is that he used to hit me but absolutely refuses to own up to it and denies it vehemently. I have vivid memories of running to my mom crying because dad hit me again. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t beat or anything and it wasn’t enough to leave marks but he’d just smack me in the side and back of the head if I said or did something stupid. Enough so I could feel his wedding ring. 

But yet he just loved to tell this story to people about the time that he spanked me once and then vowed to never hit me again because of how much I was crying. I get so fucking mad when he’d tell that story because it’s an outright fucking lie but the thing is I think he believes his own lies. 

My mom is an entirely different situation, she has her own issues due to a very difficult life so I just constantly felt like I was trapped in between two stressors. 

I could go on but this post has gotten ranty enough. So has anyone here had a parent on the spectrum? Do you think that had something to do with your developing of BPD?