We all had tremendous empathy for her and my brother when their son was diagnosed at age 2-1/2. He is now 25 years old and lives at home with her as a virtual prisoner. We are not strangers to handicaps in our family and are well educated, most are professionals, and we all began learning all that we could about autism to help their son. She was diagnosed with autism years before she even met my brother but did not tell him even after their son was diagnosed as low functioning. Instead, she accused our completely NT family of causing her son's autism, demanded that we all leave our brains to science to find the source of her son's autism, while the entire time she knew that she, her mother, and sister were autistic. In short, she "passed" as NT, lied continuously by omission about it, and blamed our family for something that does not exist in our genes. I feel she contributed to my brother's premature death by causing him so much stress arising from her extremely abusive behavior to him. There is substantial literature available about the stress experienced by NTs married to autistics. Had he had a chance to know what was wrong with her, then he most likely would have handled the marital relationship differently. He was a beautiful, warm, caring person, and a medical professional, quite capable of grasping what autism is and responding appropriately to it. As it was, they each had attorneys and were in the midst of divorcing when he died of an apparent heart attack. About a year after his death, because she couldn't cope with many of the simplest tasks in life and needed my help to function and take care of her autistic son, she finally confided to me that she was autistic, that she never told my brother of her diagnosis, and that her entire family on her mother's side is autistic. She continues to defame my family to this day on social media to the point that virtually no one in our family will have anything to do with her. The only reason I continue to have contact with her is to help my nephew, and I try to keep her at arm's length because she is verbally and emotionally abusive by any standard. Her family on her father's side (all NT) also refuses to have anything to do with her. She claims her mother and sister refuse to have anything to do with her, too, and it's certainly true that they never visit. Having alienated all her family members and us in-laws, she now tries to get people from a church which she does not attend and neighbors to do everything for her - clean her nasty house, get her car serviced, mow her lawn, grocery shop for her, make sandwiches for her son (who is perfectly capable of making his own sandwiches because he does it all the time at MY house but whom she will not allow to do for himself). The church people and neighbors ask us about her, expressing concern about her obvious "off" mental state. I flat out tell everyone that she is autistic and un-medicated bi-polar so they can understand why she acts as she does. She exhibits something akin to Munchausen's syndrome by proxy by her refusal to allow her son to learn anything. He's 25 years old and she still insists on dressing him as it he were a toddler and making all his food. I know he is frustrated and his ability to take care of himself has been greatly impaired by her refusal to let him learn. I know he loves to come stay with me for the freedom and independence I allow him. At my house, he dresses himself, makes his own sandwiches and salads with limited supervision by me, watches whatever he wants on TV, reads Wikipedia animal descriptions all day long on the computer if he wants to, etc. I taught him table manners and how to use silverware and a napkin at age 20 because she never did. Prior to my teaching him, he literally ate everything with his fingers, including salad dripping with ranch dressing. It is a pretty disgusting sight to see a 20 year old man eating salad with his fingers in a restaurant. He now proudly goes to restaurants with me where he orders his own food by pointing at the menu or reading the item description aloud, and uses acceptably good manners. Oh, there's one other thing - she also confided to me that she is diagnosed with full blown bi-polar disorder but refuses to take her medications because she "doesn't feel like herself" or she "can't sleep" or she gets "upset stomach" or whatever the excuse de jure may be. She is a train wreck and incessant liar. The combination of autism and her mental illness is almost too much to deal with. But for my nephew, I'd cut her totally out of my life. Sorry this is so long but I hope I've answered your questions.
