CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A:Does My Dad Have Autism Or Is He A Narcissist?

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Today, we have a Q&A episode. I answer two caller questions: 1. Caller 1 wants to know if her dad has autism or narcissistic traits. I break down the difference. 2. Caller 2 is struggling to have a surface-level relationship with her family. I also dive into my three little epiphanies for the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. Hello and welcome back to the calling on podcast. I'm excited to be here today for another Q&A episode. We're going to be hearing from two callers today. The first caller is asking

about the difference between narcissistic personality disorder and autism and the difference between the traits that can be found in both of those. And she's talking about her relationship with her father. And then caller number two is having a difficult relationship with her parents after her husband has called out some of the behavior in the family and no longer maintains a relationship with her family. But first, before we get to those caller questions, I want to dive into my three little epiphanies for the week. So I just discovered this account on TikTok called The Necessary Conversation. And it's a brother and sister who are having difficult political conversations with their parents. They have a podcast, but they release a lot of clips on

social media. And it's really incredible to watch the difference in emotional maturity, the way that the parents and the adult children interact, how they're talking about these difficult political issues. And if you have political differences in your family, specifically generationally, I would definitely check out this podcast or look at the clips. I really want to get one or both of these siblings on this podcast, and I'm working on that because I think it's just fascinating what they're doing. The second thing is I'm really conflicted about the ending for the Ratliff family in the White Lotus. I think when they're sailing away on the boat and you kind of see them all falling back

into their original family roles. It's very interesting. We don't know what is going to have into them with the FBI or with their money. And I kind of saw it as it could either be seen as a moment of unity for the family or a moment again where everyone is just going to continue living in denial, acting like everything is fine. You know, they just escaped like a shooting there's definitely something going on with the family potential that they're going to really lose everything and the youngest brother had a near-death experience that was really initiated or caused by the father yet they're all on this boat acting like oh we're just going to sail off into the sunset together and everything's going to be fine and I'm very torn on that ending or what I

think about it. We would love to hear your thoughts. The other thing I'm talking about this week is this question is one of the most Googled questions about family estrangement. And that is why does God allow family estrangement? And I really think that this question being Googled at this intensity is really reflective of some of the attitudes around estrangement, that it is just this thing that happens, that we are not really in control of, that's something that's being allowed and that we need someone to kind of intervene and stop it. And I think that just speaks to maybe a larger culture within the estrangement community or a belief that estrangement is not something that can be prevented by us. And there's not really

any accountability there or looking at personal responsibility, maybe for people that are Googling that. The last thing I wanted to tell you about is that this month at Calling Home We are talking about parenting or deciding to have children after childhood trauma. And I think that one of the really wild things about being triggered by parenthood is that you often don't know what will trigger you until you're in it. You may have plans to parent the opposite of what you experienced, yet you find yourself yelling and slamming your fist on the countertop when your child won't listen at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday. And it's hard to know what will set you off until it does. and when it does, it often feels too late to correct. And I want you to know that it's not. If you experience childhood trauma at the hands of your parents, you may be afraid of the type of

parent that you're going to become. And fears like, will I be? Just like them are really common among survivors of childhood trauma. But trauma can be passed down from generation to generation, even by well-meaning parents. And people who experience trauma as children can mimic the same behavior with their own children. We see that happen every day. And that does not have to be true for you. And I would argue that if you're listening to this podcast and joining the Family Cycle Workers Club, that it will not be true for you. You're going to do something different. And so this month, if you would like to identify patterns, you may have unconsciously adopted from your upbringing, learn how just one person can completely transform the way you parent. And if you want to build confidence

and your ability to be a great parent. I hope that you'll join us inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club, which is our membership community at Calling Home. And you can join at callinghome.co. I will also link that in the show notes. All right, let's go ahead and get to that first caller. Hi, Whitney. Firstly, thanks so much for sharing your expertise and all your work,

assembling the calling home community. I'm Alice. I found tremendous value in your work and I had a question for you as I continue to navigate my adult relationship with my dad. He's overall a great person. He's tried his best to be a caring father to me and my sister over the years, but he's also emotionally detached, very egocentric, rarely ask questions about us or even knows the names of friends we've had for decades. And he's also quite pruned to meltdowns when he perceives any sort of criticism. He grew up in a very abusive and neglected household in the 60s. So I try to have empathy for the ways he never had his needs met and how he most likely subconsciously protects himself. But that said, now that I'm a moment,

myself and I have two neurodivergent kids, I'm noticing more of those traits in him as well. His struggles with emotional regulation, sensory sensitivities, rigidity, lack of empathy for other people or situations that he doesn't understand. And it made me curious if someone can be both neurodivergent, specifically autistic, and also a narcissist. Is there any data or information around neurodivergence and narcissism, you know, can they coexist or are they mistaken for one another, either diagnostically or just socially? I suppose it doesn't matter specifically about my own dad and I, you know, don't believe I can or should try to diagnose him. But all this time I thought he was purely narcissistic. And now I think

there could be a neurodivergent component as well. And I was curious to know your thoughts. And if there's been any research as we continue to learn more about neurodivergence and narcissism and just curious about their relationship or how one can be mistaken for the other. Thanks, Whitney. Hey, Alice. Thank you so much for calling into the calling on podcast. Thank you for listening to podcast and I appreciate this wonderful question. It sounds like you have a ton of empathy for your father understanding about how things ended up this way and that you're also wondering how is this going to impact my relationship with him. How is this going to impact his relationship with my children or my relationship with my children? And there might even be this desire to understand

what things are going to look like in the future for your children as far as their neurodivergence and their relationship with their grandfather. But the core question that you're asking here that I want to answer is what is the difference or the overlap between neurodivergence or autism specifically and narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder more specifically. I am not an expert in neurodivergence or in autism. It's something that I've certainly dealt with with its impact on family relationships, but I tend to have more experience in the ways that narcissism presents. But I have a handy little chart in front of me that I'm going to walk you all through, and it goes into the overlap between narcissistic personality disorder and autism spectrum disorder. And the traits between these two can be quite confusing because there are deficits in both

or complications when it comes to social interaction, emotional attunement, empathy. But what we're going to see is that the motivations or the underlying causes and the patterns are pretty different. So let's talk about the traits first. The first trait being difficulties with empathy. Okay. And when we're talking about someone who has autism, they may struggle with recognizing or interpreting others' emotions, but people with autism can also be quite sensitive, but they might just miss like subtle or nonverbal clues, especially if they're not overtly paying attention to it. And of course, there is a spectrum there in terms of how intense or debilitating that symptom is. With NPD, you're going to see the, you're going to see the, that they lack emotional empathy, as in they really don't care about other people's feelings, but they do understand emotions cognitively and can use that knowledge to manipulate.

So there's a difference here between not being able to recognize or interpret other's emotions and not caring about other people's emotions, right? Sometimes can look the same in a situation, but different. there's also some rigidity in terms of thinking and routines and structure that can be found in both of these diagnoses. And so people with autism may have a preference for structure and predictability, change can be particularly stressful for them, where people with NPD may want control or dominance over a situation because it helps them feel superior or they have a sense of entitlement.

So again, could be the same thing where there's rigidity or there's a need for routine, but not necessarily same motivation or implication for that behavior. You also might see social challenges for people who have autism and people who have narcissistic personality, sort of. People with autism are going to struggle with social cues, norms, small talk. They may come across as, like, awkward or. aloof without trying to be, where people with narcissistic personality disorder may actually come off charming or confident at first, but then they have some highly manipulative or

exploitative patterns that come up. So some social challenges, but again, manifesting very differently. Difficulty with perspective taking is another interesting area of overlap. So they may not instinctively understand another's point of view. may be difficult for them when we're talking about autism, where someone with a narcissistic personality disorder may actually disregard other people's perspectives because they're not valid, they're not important, or they're not aligned with what that person thinks or believes. You can also find some like blunt or insensitive communication in both of these diagnoses. So people with autism may be overly direct.

they are not understanding like the social nuance or they're not masking in that situation. But it's not coming from a place of trying to be demeaning or rude. Where with narcissism, we may see more of that person using demeaning language or like bluntness or telling a hard truth as a way to assert superiority or control. The difference here, I think between the two when we're talking about underlying motivation and patterns is that people with autism are typically having like some of these social missteps or emotional distance unintentionally or because they have different types of processing in their brain. They're not really focused on status, how other people perceive them. Social

rejection can be painful for them, but they're not necessarily trying to assert control or dominance socially. They may also get, like, confused or distressed when responding to criticism because they're unclear of what went wrong. Their cognitive empathy can also be limited. So they struggle to, like, quote unquote, read others, but they have emotional empathy when they do understand. People with autism also typically value deep connection. they just struggle to maintain it because of communication or sensory challenges. Where if we compare that to NPD, we're going to see that a lot of the behavior is strategic. It's used to elevate their self-image or control.

They want to be admired to feel superior or special, and they need that external input to raise their self-worth. and when they are criticized, they're often not just like confused or distressed, but they're responding with rage, defensiveness, or devaluing the other person. They also have cognitive empathy in the sense that they can read people. They can sense what they're feeling, but they don't have that emotional empathy or that ability to connect emotionally. And I think that they really, narcissistic people, people with narcissistic personality disorder typically want to have relationships as a way to raise their self-esteem, have control, get validation, and the intimacy is usually quite superficial or one side. So I don't know if this helps this caller come to any particular conclusions

about the relationship, because sometimes we are more concerned with intention, sometimes we're more concerned with impact, and I think that knowing the intention behind some of these diagnoses can certainly differentiate how you are going to deal with them, even if we know that maybe the person has a diagnosis and they're struggling. Sometimes the impact and the harm is so. large that we're not able to necessarily consider the intent or the cause behind the behavior. But what often does happen is that people with autism can be diagnosed or seen as being narcissistic because their sensory style, their communication skills are not seen

as being quote unquote normal and people who have not interacted with someone like that might view them as being that way even though that is an incorrect assessment and incorrect labeling of that. I do think that people with autism can certainly be stigmatized and labeled incorrectly, especially when they are just trying to connect, right? And they're being seen as narcissistic when really they're struggling with their sensory needs, their ability to understand what's going on in the moment and trying to connect with the other person. And so I think if you are struggling to understand, you know, is my family member dealing with narcissistic personality disorder? Are they dealing with autism? I think it's

important to kind of come back to this place of like, what's actually going on here? What is the behavior? Are they aware of it? Can they prevent it? Do they seem to have any sense of remorse or understanding. Do they show empathy in other areas? How long has this been going on? How am I able to contend with this behavior? And sometimes that can help you develop a framework for having a relationship with this person that works for both of you. Thank you again so much for calling in. Let's go ahead and get to that second caller. Bank more oncores when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages.

Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Hey Whitney. I'm calling in regards to a question about my own family, actually. Usually it's the mother-in-law, the daughter calling about the mother-in-law, but I'm the daughter calling about my own family and troubles of my husband with my family. So I guess I'll keep it as short as possible. I guess I grew up pretty enmeshed with my family.

I call myself brainwashed when I first got together with my boyfriend, husband now. I felt like I didn't see, no, I didn't see anything. I was brainwashed. That's how I'm looking at it because of my enmesh with my family. They treated him badly. And he never said anything to me through the times that it was happening, maybe like five years. And then eventually when we decided to get married, he opened up and shared some stuff with me. And I've got my own, I was going to therapy on my own from my own issues,

my parents, but when he opened up to me about his issues with them, that was just like another layer. So essentially, where I'm at now is I have a very, very distant relationship with my family because I've tried to have so many conversations over multiple, multiple years with my own mom and dad, and they have straight up said to me that they're not going to change. they want to they want us just to come over and just to pretend like nothing happened and just be a family and I'm not okay with that I that doesn't that's just not okay with me especially because I've opened up and shared some really vulnerable things about the way things have gone in the past and I just I think I want an apology I think I want some like ownership or something but where I'm at now is like my

husband refuses to see my family. He doesn't want to see my mom and dad. So he hasn't seen them in years. We have two kids now. I don't really see my family. And so therefore my kids don't, our kids don't really see my family. It's just, none of it feels good. But like, I don't know what my question is. I just, I feel like there's no resources out there for people where their spouse is involved. Thank you so much for calling in, listening to the podcast, and leaving this voicemail. Her voicemail is two parts. So I just played you the first part, and I'm going to respond to that.

And then I'll play you the second half of the voicemail. I think that this is a unique dynamic, right? And you alluded to that in your voicemail, that you're actually aligning with your spouse and saying, you know, he sees this discomfort in the relationship. a piece is that there are issues. We have tried to talk about them. And now I feel like it's very difficult to have a surface level relationship. And I think the thing that you pointed out here that I want to really emphasize is that you said that your parents or your family are saying, we are not going to change. They want us to just come over and pretend like everything is fine.

And you want an apology. And so what do you do when you are faced with, these two options, right, of essentially saying, I can't have a relationship with you until I get an apology, a change of behavior, whatever it is, and them saying, we're not going to change. You're basically at an impasse here in terms of the relationship, because you either have to continue pretending like everything is fine and you're okay with it and give up on what you want, or they have to change. And they have to change. And they have to to do something different. And as you know, and I think you said this in the voicemail, like you can't make them change. You can't make them do anything different. And when you have

tried over and over to express your needs and what you need from the relationship and you are getting this overt confirmation that that's not going to happen, I think you have to accept what you are getting from them. And in this situation, you know, the husband is already refusing to see the family. And so it's really just this caller that is left maintaining that tie. But in a lot of ways, this relationship is already very fractured. Let me go ahead and play the rest of that voicemail for you. I think what I'm trying to get at is I feel like I'm waiting for something that's never going to happen. But at the same time, it doesn't feel authentic or good to me to have a surface level relationship with my parents, even though I friggin' miss

my family so much and I wish it was different. But it's really, really hard when your parents are not willing to own their mistakes or own up to any of the things that I've discussed with them that have to do with me and with my husband because my husband is my family now. We have kids and I mean, I don't know. I don't really have a question, I guess. I just, I feel like my situation, I've never read anything or talked to anybody that's in this sort of like triangle. Yeah, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear it.

Yeah, your podcast means the world to me. Thanks. I do therapy. I'm trying all the things and I just, you know, would love to hear your thoughts because I think you're wise. Thank you. So here the caller says, you know, I'm waiting for something that's never going to happen and that the surface level relationship doesn't feel good and it doesn't make sense. And I think that this is some of the biggest pushback that I see within like the estrangement community and people that talk about estrangement is that there is this belief. that we should maintain surface-level relationships with family because the benefit of being

connected to family, even if it's surface-level, far outweighs the cons. And to that, I would say sometimes, yes, sometimes it does. Sometimes having a surface-level relationship allows us to have access to a wider network of family relationships, family gatherings, inheritance, connections within the community, having, you know, siblings in our lives, whatever it is. And sometimes that really does make sense. It absolutely outweighs the consequences of breaking off that relationship. There are other scenarios where someone is being forced to have a surface level relationship with their parents, and they are getting nothing out of it, except for that surface level relationship. And on the other hand, they're having to conceal who they are,

swallow how they feel, participate in dynamics that they don't want to be around. They are maybe having to do extra emotional and physical labor. And they're really feeling like there is no upside for me in maintaining this surface level relationship. I don't feel like I'm continuing my family legacy. I don't feel like I'm getting access to other healthy family relationships that feel supportive and genuine to me, my holidays and events feel very draining and overwhelming. I don't like the behavior that's being modeled for my children. They're having this laundry list of reasons why that surface level relationship is actually not benefiting anyone except for maybe the person that is demanding it.

And there's a lot of shades of gray in between those two options, right? There are people who are going to be getting more out of that and less. out of that. And I think that you ultimately have to decide, can I sustain a surface level relationship? Does it make sense for me and my family? Is there some sort of benefit to maintaining this relationship? And sometimes that benefit is that you don't have a strangen in your family and you remain closely connected to other people and to your lineage and to your culture. And that's enough for you. And for some people, they will say that I have to conceal and hide so much of myself in order to maintain this surface relationship that it's

actually killing me to do that. It's making me feel like I'm going insane. And I am prioritizing someone else's needs completely above my own at this huge cost to myself. And it's not worth it. And I think, you know, I know this caller said I didn't really have a question, but I think that that is the question. It's like, can I maintain this? When my partner has already stepped out, we have children. Now, it's solely on me to maintain that relationship and have this surface level relationship with my parents that I don't want to have. And it sounds like you feel very alone and isolated in that and truly wondering, like, can I maintain this? And is it the right thing to do, to maintain it. And I would never counsel someone one way or the other on that,

because I do think that there are pros and cons to maintaining that surface level relationship and abandoning it. And so I would always come back to what's the cost? What message am I sending my children? And for some of you might be saying, I am sending a message that maintaining relationships with family are important and that sometimes we have to make sacrifices and this is what we need to do and having a surface level relationship is an okay and a good thing. And some of you might say, I don't want to teach my children that we should maintain relationships like this at such a cost to ourselves. And I think that all comes back to what are the things that you are having to hide and conceal in order to maintain this surface relationship and what is the cost to

you and everyone is going to make a different decision based on those factors. Thank you so much to both of these callers for calling in. As a reminder, you can always call and leave me a voicemail and I might choose your call to be on the show. The number is 866-225-5-4-66. And I look forward to hearing from you. This month inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home, which is our membership community, we are focusing on parenting and choosing to have children after childhood, trauma, and adversity. So if you are a parent that is worried about passing down any of this stuff to your children, you're trying to make decisions about who involved in your child's life, you want to make sure that you're not getting triggered and yelling and lashing out and letting

your past rule your parenting, this month is for you. We already have one week of worksheets, articles, videos, and scripts up on the website. You will get new content delivered to your inbox every Monday straight from me. And then we'll be meeting for group every Wednesday this month to help you dive deeper into the content, ask for advice and feedback, and just share your feelings with other family cycle breakers that are working on parenting after childhood trauma. We also have groups for family estrangement, estranged adult children, adult children of emotionally immature parents and adult daughters with difficult mothers, and you get access to unlimited groups as a member of the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home. You can visit

callinghome.co to join, and I will also link it in the show notes. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day, and I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday. Thank you so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail. I do these episodes every Thursday, and I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this

podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the calling home community. You can join us for weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more, and those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to to www. calling home. com and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club.

Thanks, and I will see you all on Tuesday for another episode. The Calling Home Podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health

advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship

between you and Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes Terms of Service linked in the show notes below.