As requested:

I think it would help to understand how the pieces of information first came to me, so I’m going to tell the family history in reverse, working from me to my mother, grandfather, and great grandmother. None of this really seem to make any sense until my early to mid twenties when I finally was told a bit more of the story and shown the newspaper clippings.

I like to tell stories and write, so if you’re interested, brace for a long, thorough rundown.

TL;DR: If you think you or someone you care about has autism but doesn’t know it, please encourage them to do some research and visit a psychiatrist. If you have autism, there are a lot of resources out there to help.

Part 1:

My parents were a bit older when they decided to have children, my brother when they were 35 and me when they were 37. (Having children at a later age is linked with increased risk for autism.) My parents have described themselves as being more established, stable, and ready for children at that point in time. However, shortly after I was born, my dad began to develop a brain tumor, which wasn’t diagnosed until I was probably 5. During those years, my father slowed down in speech and function gradually to the point that he was laid off. My mom didn’t notice this as it was over the course of a few years as the tumor grew. This placed a lot of strain on her as she worked double shifts as an RN trying to make enough money to put food on the table, pay the mortgage, and maintain whatever middle class living in the 90s we had.

It’s a little funny how it was diagnosed. My mother was on the phone with her mother figure (Her mother died when she was ten. I’ll elaborate more on that later.) and mentioned “[Bufftackle’s dad] isn’t interested in sex...” In a deep southern drawl she replied, “Well honey, that ain’t right!” It was her wake up call to find out what was wrong as he only disappeared once during the week conspicuously. (It was to watch Perry Mason reruns in the secluded den, so no affair.) I also found out later that a guy friend tried to convince her to leave my dad to stay with him and take the kids. My dad may have slowed down a bit but he was still a good guy who never once laid a hand on my mother, brother and I. The balls on that guy taking advantage of the situation we were in makes me sick.

Anyways, we lost the house, declared bankruptcy, and have rented ever since. My dad got surgery and now all he needs is a shot in his ass once a month to balance his hormones with no permanent damage. My dad slowly began to re-enter the workforce but my mom had already hit a perpetual burnout stage where she would get drunk on Franzia, sleep in bed all day, and wail sporadically, especially around the fall and Christmas seasons.

As a child, this was embarrassing, odd and unexplained. I found my family members to be highly illogical and feared growing up to become like them. I went to a private school, where I learned etiquette from an early age and I could tell that I was not fitting in with my peers very well and that my family was not like other families. Neither of my parents had a consistent circle of friends and we never had people over. Each of us lived isolated lives within the house but not out of neglect. It was more like we each had different interests and didn’t feel the need to include others in it.

Communication in our house was a nightmare, especially between my parents. Imagine a drill sergeant marrying a free spirit flower child. That was my parents. (Father was a Naval military brat.) I’m convinced the only reason they got together and stayed together was because they shared a similar Asperger's stubbornness and hermit lifestyle, which no one else could tolerate. This view has been affirmed by the parents of my peers who are doctors. My father refused counselling until this past year and has denied all need for psychiatric evaluation for my family out of fear of social stigma, permanent records, and a “there’s nothing wrong with my boy/relationship” attitude.

For vacations, we could only afford to go to Austin to visit her brother and his wife, which was relatively cheap for a getaway. Here is where I met George as he was sometimes there from his assisted living home for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. When I first met Grandpa George, he weirded me out a bit. He had thin hair on the top of his head like Floki from Vikings, yellow teeth as he had been a chain smoker, a nasal cannula with an oxygen tank due to said smoking, a dirty polo with food stains on it, ratty loafers, and ALWAYS sweatpants. He was hunched over in a chair with flat affect on his face. He would cock his jaw like someone with tetanus, flare his fingers before clawing at his armrests, and wheeze a hissing noise like clockwork. I’m told this was a side effect of the drugs he was on. His speech always sounded groggy or dampened. The most frightening thing to me as I grew up was that I looked almost exactly like him after 15. Every now and then I see George in the mirror. This was horrifying before I was diagnosed at 22.

George was a strange mix of southern gentleman and jerk. He would call women darling and as stated above was a silly ladies man at times. However, he scratched out faces on some of my aunt’s family portraits, which put him in the dog house for a while. When we visited, he would always ask for my mom to buy him: pickles, anchovies, and ice cream. All he did was sit in his chair and watch football when we visited him at his home. My brother and I always loathed visiting him, not necessarily because of him but his affect on my mother. She would always break down and sob for the few hour ride home, sometimes persisting for days.

My mother eventually tried to commit suicide when I was 13, 15, 18, and 19. She’s still alive and my dad has stuck with her as "She's the only person he can't live without" ~2011. However, our relationship is strained as I was used as her emotional tampon due to a lack of friendship with my father if you’ll excuse the gross analogy. I hope she lives a happy life but far away from me.

Alright. Here’s where the story becomes more linear as I found out a few more details when I got older.

My mother and uncle grew up in an orphanage after their mother died and George was in an insane asylum. She always referred to it as the Methodist Home. It didn’t quite click as “orphanage” until I was in my twenties as I had just learned to tune out my mother's trips down memory lane.

I had always heard that my grandmother choked and died. This was partially true.

When my mother was 10, grandma was going back to college as George was dysfunctional. He would chain smoke in the house, walk around in his underwear, beat his wife, and say things like “The Jews next door can see through our walls because they stare at diamonds in their jewelry store all day!”

One day, my mother and uncle walked into the kitchen to see George straddling Grandma with a knife to her throat. She simply said, “George, not in front of the children.” This distracted or froze him long enough for grandma to get up and run out the door with the kids following. George shortly ran outside with the knife in hand, stopped to look at himself, realized he wasn’t wearing pants, and went back inside only to run back outside with pants on wielding a chair over his head this time. Grandma had gone across the street with the kids and locked themselves in with their neighbors to call the police. George was detained and sent to the insane asylum.

Grandma continued to go to college and have the kids on the weekends while my mother and uncle lived with my great grandfather (Grandma’s dad) in the back of one of those 1950s style soda fountain pharmacies during the weekdays. Grandma’s side of the family was relatively well known in the small Texas town with a fair standing in the community. Grandma took out a life insurance policy after the event in the kitchen to provide for her children should anything happen to her.

One night after grandma came home from studying, my mother said that she was hungry. Grandma drove to the store and never came home. She was found in a ditch outside the town with her face beaten in, strangulation marks on her neck, her underwear dragged down to her ankles and track marks on her body from a car running her over. The first person the police suspected was George but he was under lock and key at the asylum. He couldn’t have done it. She was last seen at the store by a neighbor, whom also saw another well known troubled individual in the town. My mom described him as another neighbor's creepy shut in brother with known mental issues. All evidence pointed to him but his family put up a pay-me-to-win-not-for-truth sleazy lawyer and no one was ever apprehended. This was the incident that caused the small town to end their open door policy for children playing outside. When we went to visit the town once as kids (~30 years post incident), the custodian of the church one of my relatives founded told my mother the town's never been the same since.

My mother blames herself for her mother’s death. The kids were sent to the orphanage and my grandma's best friend stepped in as her substitute mother figure over the years. They were poor too and couldn't take in the two but were a boon to our family for years to come.

EDIT: Fixed a link to Floki.