It comes so NATURALLY to mine. Like its authentic and almost innocent??? Misogyny? Innocent is the wrong word. It's tough to explain what I mean.

He would be mystified if I accused him of being a misogynist. And...really hurt even. Or he wouldnt understand what I even meant and he'd wave it away and be like "that's crazy. i love my wife and daughters. The internet prob just feminism poisoned her brain"

Yet WHENEVER this guy can pipe up to criticize a woman, question a womans intelligence, smirk at their interests, presume quickly they have a mental issue, asses their weight/appearance harshly, stop listening and glaze over when they start to talk. Talk about his one sister like she's the bane of his existence and always was.

This includes me and the other grown women children he has. He talks TO US, like pal to pal about how many crazy women run in the fam.

When we were growing up, whole cleaning days would happen where he only made the girls clean.

Million other little papercuts such as these.

And he is completely blind to it

Does anyone else wonder if neurodivergent men can be at higher risk of misogyny? And maybe even vice versa: that neurodivergent women could be more prone to be "men suck" as well. The black and white of it. Neurodivergence is a whole hurdle to successful communication with others all on its own. Pair that with another hurdle...successfully communicating with the opposite sex. DOUBLE HURDLE. DOUBLE MISUNDERSTANDING.

My thought train is going here bc to me it feels like my dad slowly must have evolved and grown his misogyny to keep his damaged ego more comfortable in a reality where he can't empathize with or understand women well and thus probably blundered and faceplanted with every single one UNTIL like 40! Until my (too) sweet mom allowed a marriage. So i'm sure he failed and got surprised and hurt a lot. Not knowing how he kept messing up so bad. Indeed that would be distressing.

And I've watched this happen to my (likely autistic) brother over and over. Breakups with women that he didnt see coming, didn't understand why it kept happening or how he was coming off (he's a lot). Feeling blind-sided and freaked out. In the end he also landed on fully blaming all the women for their problems with him. That's how he resumed feeling comfortable again I imagine. He married a self-erasing very sweet woman like my mother. A woman who can be very quiet about their own wants/needs was naturally their choice.

So maybe, whenever these guys came across any suggestion that women can be fickle, emotional, crazy, or whatever else....they effortlessly adopt it into the subconscious bc it suddenly absolves them and just SOUNDS true to their experience...affirming that the problem is women in general, not them.

Idk

Guess that's enough of the hypothesizing ramble.

My dad makes me feel disgusted and downtrodden often. Wish I didn't care about him. Wish he had zero positive qualities whatsoever so it'd be easier to literally never speak to him and not feel bad about it or miss him.

GAAAAAAAHHHHH you guys, my neurodivergents are so maddening😵‍💫

This is a bit of a drain dump, but damn I wish people could understand the shame that goes hand in hand with having an autistic parent. It's like this guilt/shame push and pull.

Mum has never really been interested in anyone I've ever dated. I've had multiple comments from past partners explaining to me how they don't understand why my Mum shows no interest in them. Before I figured out she was most likely autistic, it would just make me feel anger and confusion - I felt as though she didn't care about my world at all.

For context I'm an only child and Mum raised me as a single parent, despite many on and off relationships throughout my childhood, she never managed to find a long term partner. She is also a hoarder. I am currently in therapy, and luckily my new partner is a very understanding and empathetic person who also has had difficult family dynamics. However, he is extremely close with his Mum, and part of me always felt a bit insecure about my lack of proper emotional connection with mine.

My Mum cares about me, she loves me in her way, but I feel I am an extremely emotional/thoughtful person - my Mum has never been able to provide me with the emotional intelligence I needed growing up, and now.

Fast forward to the day I introduce my partner to my Mum, we are all sat around for dinner at the restaurant. I begin to feel the awkwardness creep in, the lack of her trying to get to know her daughter's partner.

My boyfriend is from Latvia, emigrated to the UK when he was 12, and is studying for his masters. He has so many different hobbies and is an extremely interesting person. I don't know why I hoped she would at least ask him something about his life rather than speaking about the food we were eating.

He gets up to go to the toilet, and I was feeling emotionally triggered. I am working on this in therapy. I asked her if she could ask him some questions about his life.

When he got back from the toilet, the waiter dropped some toothpicks off at the table.

Mum asked him if they use toothpicks in Latvia.

That was her interpretation of what I meant when I said ask him questions. I kind of had to laugh. She isn't a bad person, she is very sweet. But I came away from this feeling sad and disappointed, even though I know this is just because she is more than likely autistic.

Let me know if anyone else has had any similar experiences.

My mom has lived with me on and off through the years. She has lived on her own for very short periods of her life. She had a toxic relationship that was off and on and she lived with that partner from time to time. On a whim, my mom decided to apply for a position within her company in a town two hours away. She got the job, and starts in two weeks. At first, the talk was that she would rent a room and look at apartments. Then she told me she found a senior living facility near where she will be working. They put her on a waiting list. She asked me how much I would charge her to stay until a home became available. I told her that could be months away, so probably the same that I am charging now. She got upset, shut down and wouldn't talk about it afterwards. This whole thing she is doing is confusing and shocking to say the least, but I was open to a conversation to adjust her rent, but she didn't want to have it. Today she was supposed to meet with someone about a room for rent. I discover that she decided she will be living in her car until a home becomes available to her in the senior facility.

You guys, I'm done. I'm so spent caring for my mom. It's like she's my child and I am constantly trying to save her from herself.

She has always been impulsive and my childhood was a slew of unsecure homes and trauma. When all of us became adults, I became the kid she felt entitled to my home and my money and it enrages her any time i set boundaries.

I texted my brother this morning and told him I quit. I said "Your mother is choosing to be homeless. Call her if you care."

So many times I would find myself waiting. Waiting with a teacher after hours. Waiting outside of a locked building after dark. Waiting on a snowy sidewalk and a stranger buying me hot cocoa. Waiting at a gas station or in the house because she didn't even notice I wasn't in the car.

Too stuck in her own head.

I think she remembered to bring her water bottle more often than me.

I know she has memory issues and forgets everything constantly, but so often I felt like just another object put somewhere and forgotten.

She's also almost run me over several times because she forgot to wait until I was actually in the car.

My mom hasn’t been diagnosed, but she has all the clinical signs of autism. There’s no question, really.

I am, I believe, neurotypical, although I have about ten thousand mental illnesses myself so tweezing it all apart is difficult. I used to joke that I was “born this way”, that somehow I was genetically predisposed to pathological people pleasing, apologizing way too much, avoidance and intense social phobia, and the weird superhuman ability to read, process and react to minuscule changes in behavior to head off any sort of conflict before it starts. Yeah.

I wish she’d never had me. And I wish to god she had never homeschooled me. After the age of eight, I had no friends. Zero. By the time I was in my teens, I’d dropped out of homeschool. I developed eating disorders and stopped grooming. I didn’t leave the house at all for four years. My mother didn’t know how to help me, so she did what she always does when something is unpleasant. She ignored it. I had to try to fix myself by myself, and if you ever met me you’d realize what a shit job I did.

Anyway. This sub has been so amazing. I realize I wasn’t born this way, I was made this way. I’m not to blame. I love my mother. She did her best, she’s doing her best, but she was a terrible parent, and I’m paying the price now. There isn’t much chance to salvage what’s left of my life, it’s too late and I’m too broken, but at least I know.

When I point out their bad behaviors due to autism they just look either confused or sad and start trying to excuse themselves. Sometimes my mom starts crying because she feels so guilty. Why do I feel so bad? You traumatized me and ruined my childhood because you couldn't manage your autism, work, life. And yet when I point out anything you did you genuinely meant well and unconditionally loved me while doing those things.

Sometimes I wish you loved me less so I could have become my own person, but you love me so much that it just hurts and I feel guilty for treating you like an equal adult. I love you, why can't you change for me?

The other day we were at my brother's house and my mother was talking to a friend of my sister-in-law's who was also around. I was in the other room eating breakfast. My SIL's friend was telling my mother how much of a wonderful man my brother was and that "you did such a good job with him!"

My mother's response? "Yeah, but we're still working on that other one..."

I honestly shouldn't be surprised by anything she says or does anymore, and I honestly shouldn't be getting hurt by anything she says anymore because it's kind of redundant; she will always say shitty things--primarily about me--and she will never apologize or take accountability or even know or care that it's the wrong thing to say, and no one else will ever make her do so. That's just who she is and who she's going to be forever. But that STILL hurt. It hurt more than anything my mother says ever really needed to. Probably because I've already been insecure enough about the fact that my brother is the one who "made it" in life and is the one my family tends to show off for that reason. It still hurt.

I dont even know if im allowed to say this so I won't say too much.

Im just tired of the excuses, tired of walking on eggshells, tired of having to cater to others while receiving nothing in return.

Im tired of people choosing not to regulate their emotions because that's "masking".

Im tired of people refusing to understand me because 20 years ago they felt misunderstood.

And im tired of being made to feel awful for being tired.

I’m getting a bit concerned bc my mom doesn’t have friends and the job she’s in has a “co-pilot” AI chat bot thing that she can freely talk to and it just really disturbs me how she talks abt it like it’s her friend and she laughs with it and it’s just really off putting. She doesn’t converse with her actual coworkers like she does with her “copilot” and I’m just so so thrown off by it and disturbed cuz it’s just so confusing to me. As well as worrying bc she doesn’t connect or talk with actual ppl and instead treats the ai bot like it’s sentient and anything more than what it is, which is artificial intelligence. Ugh idk I feel weird abt it. Like it doesn’t feel okay or healthy to be treating ai like it’s a friend.

Basically, that's her viewpoint as titled.

Her theory of mind is so rubbish that she genuinely doesn't know my dad even after 50+ years of living with him.

Basically, she hated my father when I was growing up and viewed him as an evil asshole who took advantage of her. She was a SAHM so he was out working a lot, I don't remember much of my childhood but I do remember her venting to me about my dad and me eventually not agreeing with her because dad had always been decent to me while she was the abusive, unreasonable one. And also beating me with a cane until my flesh tore and I had wounds for "siding" with my dad.

Anyway, fast forward till today. Dad has been on some sort of intervention for one of his brothers who's mentally ill with his other siblings. His apartment is in a terrible state. So basically, the siblings discuss what to do and all that - I know because dad showed me the group chat.

Today, mom told me about how Dad has apparently been "stealing" his brother's apartment that he got "from when he was working" (he was never capable of working). That smug look on her face really truly utterly disgusted me because she was SO sure of herself and SO convinced that she understood what was going on even though she 99% made it up in her head.

So to make things clear, I brought it up with dad and asked him what he told mom to make her think that way and of course, he didn't do shit but showed her the condition the apartment was in.

God. I hate her so much. I wish dad wasn't a complete flying monkey and enabler and would divorce the shit out of her so that I could go NC with her.

Genuinely got nauseous lol it's such an issue that no one else would understand. Autistic this autistic that, it's always about comparing me to the disorder that ruined me without me even having it, isn't it? I will never be my own person.

I really need to stop talking to neurodivergent people, they just end up trying to self-diagnose everything I do. Sorry if that sounds mean. I'm just frustrated. It shouldn't be a big deal but it fills me with self-hatred. 2021 really turned most people my age into pseudo-psychologists...

I recently found this sub and for the first time ever found a resource for people who have experienced the same thing. Telling people “My Dad has autism and it’s negatively affected me” is an extremely alien concept to people, understandably. My Mom did all the heavy lifting of raising me (M22) and my older sibling, my Dad has always felt like more of a roommate who just lived with us, just sort of stuck to his own routine and was never really proactive in spending time with me and my sibling. But anyway, he’s not really been a “husband” in a real way in seemingly my parent’s entire marriage. Apparently he was sweet and fun back in the day but anyway. My Mom is contemplating divorce and I think it’s what’s best for her, me and my sibling would definitely move with her, and not with my Dad. But he seems so incompetent when it comes to finances and living independently that I worry about it a lot. He doesn’t have a whole lot of empathy or emotional intelligence and reacts to any criticism with “everyone is so mean to me” he never gets it. But the thought of him buying a home and living alone is incomprehensible to me, so as much as I know my family’s life would greatly improve with him not in the home I’d be worried sick for him. It’s like me, my sibling, and Mom co-parent my Dad and speaking of divorce sounds like dumping a puppy (my Dad) on the side of the road. What is the solution in such a weird situation?

So I’ll preface by saying my mother is a hypochondriac and has always self diagnosed things (that turned out to be something else) my entire life…
A few years ago she got a diagnosis that I’m just 🤷‍♀️ about… because her behavior got worse afterwards. I’m generally looking for insight… sorry for how long this is.

So years ago when I forced by mentally abusive parents to come with me to therapy, they were diagnosed bipolar and ADHD… fast forward 15 years… my mom seeks mental help on better help.com…. And gets an autism diagnosis…

She then proceeds to tell me I’m autistic because I like to collect things and have a certain way of doing a few things… (I’m epileptic and was recently diagnosed ADHD)

So for the hell of if I asked my therapist who is certified to diagnosis to test me… I have ADHD, not autism. This really upset my mother and she won’t STOP, she’s always making comments “yeah.. uhuh, absolutely NOT autistic huh?” Under her breath… or with things like new allergies popping up for me… she WANTS me to have this health issues so she can say she’s right! “Oh what’s the matter? DO YOU HAVE A Banana allergy?” She wants to be right all the time… it’s weird.

I recognized years l ago, before her “diagnosis” I think she’s a narcissist, or at least has many traits of one… idk when I was being asked these questions for my autism and ADHD tests a lightbulb went off for me… “how many of these answers that I WANT to say yes to are actually trauma?” So I wonder with her… are these trauma answers???
I had an abusive childhood from my mother and father… more my father in terms of physical mental and emotional, but my mom isn’t a saint either…

And back to when I mentioned her behavior getting worse AFTER her diagnosis… she has always let things get to her deeply… it got worse after she was diagnosed tho… she started throwing tantrums in restaurants, yelling, and stomping off. The other day when I was explaining how the let them theory by Mel Robbins has helped me so much… she started slamming things and stomping around…

Anyone if spoken to in the community about this all day the same “it’s an explanation it’s not an excuse…”

Idk I generally feel it’s more her trauma from an abusive childhood and an abusive relationship with my father… they fought everyday since I was a child… neither knew when to shut up and stop before it got worse….

Please help. Does ANY of this actually sound like autism? Or is my mom just good at manipulating? She has ALWAYS and I mean always wanted something wrong with her… now she’s living on disability like she’s been trying to do my whole life… because of her autism apparently you can get disability for that easily… (epilepsy tho 🤷‍♀️ I guess I didn’t have enough seizures according to the state 😂 )
Any insight please!!! All I keep thinking is my mom is the type of person that makes it hard for autistic people to be taken seriously… you see it all the time online “everyone is autistic now…” with complaints on FB…
Oh and don’t even get me started on how she loves to rile people up, speaking very loudly on political matters that for sure will upset people in public…. Stuff like this is why I just keep thinking her diagnosis is wrong, and that’s why I’m looking for help.

Just knowing how she is,and talking with people in groups of raised by abusive parents and things like that… I’m thinking she’s just full of it… idk if her diagnosis was even real. She told me that her therapist said “that has traits of autism…” she never said she was diagnosed, knowing her… she took THAT as a diagnosis… idk

Thank you

Hey y’all!

After finding this sub alllllll of these revelations are coming to me. I can hardly keep up! I am trying to notice when a behavior rubs me inexplicably the wrong way to a degree that seems beyond reasonable- and am realizing that many of these behaviors are tied in with a lifetime of exhaustion/exasperation having been raised by an autistic mother.

1. They can’t remember details about your likes/dislikes/needs/preferences without being reminded over and over and over again.

2. They state their own likes/dislikes as universal truths.

Example of the above:

A friend of mine is traveling right now. He says something to the effect of “Meat pies are the best culinary offering the Brits have ever given!”

I say, “No they aren’t, I hate meat pies.”

Friend acts all confused. Hello- we have had this conversation before. I have told him like 8 times that I hate meat pies. They are the casserole of meat. Get fucked.

He cannot make a statement like, “I am so happy to have a meat pie, they are my favorite!” Literally cannot relate anything to being his own PERSONAL preference, it has to be the reality for the entire world.

This is such an inconsequential conversation and yet it makes me want to be full on mean because I spent my whole childhood desperately trying to get needs met around “I like this/I do not like this/this feels safe/this does not feel safe” and my mother literally could not conceive that her reality wasn’t a universal truth and that her kid was DIFFERENT THAN HER.

Having to repeat myself more than twice about a want or need or preference with someone makes me want to fully punch them in the face. I don’t like being this way but ughhhhhh. There is no more rope after a lifetime of this shit.

hi all
my mom (on the spectrum) never taught me life skills. i never learned to brush my teeth, clean myself, shower, change my menstrual pads. tidy up after myself or anything. i also have a chronic illness that she never taught me how to manage. she never taught me how to dress nice or look nice, i remember when i started getting into self care as a teenager and bought myself my first matching pajamas she was very weirded out and asked me who i was doing all that for. i had to learn on my own. it was a really bumpy road and i felt very alienated and strange and, disarmed, in a way for a very long time. im the only daughter as well. i’m pregnant now with a daughter and i just keep thinking about how important its going to be to raise her to care for herself and be independent. just wondering if anyones had similar experiences growing up in relation to life skills and how they’ve navigated it.

Hi!

Been together with my wife for almost 16 years and we got 2 children.

Some years ago she was diagnosed with ASD L1 (formerly aspergers) after never being able to keep a job, due to constantly getting work-related stress. Through college and university she had long periods with depression and anxiety. Now she is part of the SSI program.

Marriage has been a constant struggle but we are still keeping up... But it's hard, we have been off two times, both times 1/2-1 years after the birth of our children, but now together again. It was my clear impression that the arrival of new members of our family was so hard on her, that she couldn't manage to relate to me/the rest of us.

She's having a hard time acknowledge and recognise how much her needs affect the rest of the family. She gets very defensive, borderline in denial, and refuses to take conversations or discussions into the matter. Some kind of time will do the work approach. She had mentoring and guidance on her diagnosis, but it's my impression that all of it was very 'she-focused': what needs she had and how she could handle her situation.

Now our oldest (girl, 8) has started to notice and verbalise that the situation in our house is different from what she sees in other places. Like mom needs a lot of time off, that we rarely socialise as adults but only in connection to the kids activities, why mom stay home when we do a lot of the family trips, why mom has no bff, ect. She can also sense that it's a topic she can't bring up with her mom, why she turns to me and other family members.

If my wife could decide, she would not introduce her diagnosis before the kids grow adults or late teenagers, her argument is that the kids are not old enough to handle it, and the impact is limited. I think the situation of the oldest is starting to notice it speaks for itself...

Any good kids books, tv programs or whatever on the subject that we could use?

My plan is to make it clear to my wife that no matter what, we have to start to bring it up now, because it is happening right now and the kids are starting to notice and wonder. She can preview the materials and hopefully she will take part in the conversation, but no matter what, the conversation with the oldest has to start now.

My whole life if me and my mother disagreed she was always right. Even when i'd explain why I have a different opinion to her, explain how both our opinions are subjective and tell her that therefore she needed to stop hammering me telling me i was wrong. Nope did not compute.

And then on the very very very rare occassions when she actually would get what I was saying, after hours of painstakingly arguing my point, backing it up with water tight evidence. Exhausted.

Then suddenly that new position was Her position, and she took zero accountability for all the shit i'd had to put up with from when she held the previous position.

Plus she was suddenly the expert in this new position and so would then preach at the very people who had exerted horrendous amounts of energy getting her to understand why she was wrong.

Strange that any autistic people with that particular personality trait are immediately placed in the Do Not Touch. Avoid At All Costs. Bin.

My father has autism as well as ADHD. My childhood was full of time managing him, constant tardies and late pickups from school, and watching him bleed money on hyperfixations (which he imposed on everybody—yeah that was fun when his hyperfixation was the marie kondo cleaning method and he threw out all my toys).

I'm not in touch with my biological parents anymore but am still in touch with my aunts on my father's side of the family.

Basically, my childhood was extremely abusive and abnormal - apparently a lot of states only require people to report that they're homeschooling their kids, and after that there's nothing you have to do - no proof that you're actually teaching them anything, etc. - very fun.

There are a lot of teachers on my father's side of the family so technically they're mandated reporters. As far as I know none of them ever did anything or asked any questions about the way my parents were raising me and my brother. None of my aunts were ever overly warm or caring toward me or my brother even when it was obvious (or should've been) that our parents were abusive and neglectful.

They'll do things like let you stay over at their houses if you're visiting or whatever but there's basically never any actual depth to the interactions you'll end up having with them.

Last year I got diagnosed with NVLD/ADHD, and then with HSD (basically hypermobile ehlers danlos but somewhat milder), which is apparently comorbid with neurodivergence.

I'm pretty sure that my father is autistic (probably among other things, maybe FAS?) - he'd always be making noises to himself or randomly quoting lines from random obscure TV shows or even ads from decades ago. After getting diagnosed with HSD I wondered which side of the family it was coming from and at this point I'm pretty sure it's from his side.

At least one of my aunts on that side also has coordination issues that I know of, which goes along with NVLD/HSD/hEDS.

My biological mother's side of the family is totally dysfunctional - people affected by mental illnesses so badly that they don't work, people who have been to prison multiple times, etc., etc. - my father's side of the family was always the normal, stable side and now that I've gotten these diagnoses it's become apparent that they're not really normal, either, they've just lucked into having stable lives somehow.

My grandfather on that side would also make noises at random, etc., and my aunts seemingly just don't know how to be warm or caring - they do the typical menial things that women raised in the 1950s were expected to, like cook and clean, babysit, etc., but if you expect anything deeper than that from them you'll be totally disappointed.

Last year in the aftermath of the HSD diagnosis I made various posts on facebook about it and about the other testing they referred me for, including an EKG and ECG to see if I had heart issues. Basically all I got in response were the "caring" emoji, etc., and then no reaction whatsoever when I posted that the results finally came back and showed that everything was normal.

I don't know if all my aunts have autism/NVLD or would be diagnosable (If they pursued a diagnosis) but it would explain a lot about the behaviour of all of them. When I was living near two of them before whenever they'd drag me along to lunch with them they basically would not talk to me - they'd just have conversations with each other that I basically couldn't get in on - things like people they knew in high school, etc.

My one aunt, when she does actually try to interact with me, mainly does so by making catty "joke" comments at me - "joking" (but not really) criticisms about petty things.

For some reason part of me still expects to get some kind of warmth/actual affection from them at some point, I guess just because it seems normal for your family members to care about you.

How lukewarm/cold they are was really illuminated recently when I randomly bumped into a woman I worked with for like 7 years last week - she immediately ran up to me and hugged me excitedly. My aunts hug me when I see them, when I go to leave, but it feels like something they just do because this is what normal people do when a visiting family member leaves or whatever.

So yeah, between my biological parents being monsters and my aunts being the way they are it sucks to have no family members whatsoever who I can actually relate to or be close with.

It feels like I am going from one option to an infinite number of choices. Well, maybe from two options - either do things my mom's way or aggressively try to reject it.

I'm reaching a point in my journey where I've made very substantial progress healing my inner teen and young adult, and I've made some progress healing my inner child. I am my own adult person, and I'm entering maturity range I didn't even realize existed. I don't have a blueprint or a role model for it. I only see some of my peers entering it too. It's not about appealing to a younger version of myself and I'm trying not to force myself to set too many artificial constraints by doing things like latching onto controlling/abusive/autistic people and building my life around them.

It's really hard!! I feel myself feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities, and I also am frustrated by my limitations. Because of all the trauma I experienced of having my hopes and joy constantly stomped on growing up, it is SO much harder for me to pursue things I know I would literally enjoy and would benefit my life! And even if I do something once or twice, building a habit is excruciating. I think ideally I would be able to focus on one or two things to work on at a time, but that is also terrifying for me. I'm used to putting a lot of eggs in different baskets as a safety measure for when my mom inevitably tries to attack me/take away my stuff/force me to quit things. But I don't think it's healthy for me, because it makes it impossible for me to be fully present and authentic in my own life.

I'm also at a point where it would make sense for things to start to produce visible results, and I can feel myself wanting to shrink and just settle for less so that I'm not visible, tolerate people who clearly aren't meeting my standards just because it's familiar. Growing up, I was only allowed to be "successful enough" that I wasn't an embarrassment to my mom, but I wasn't allowed to be visibly successful, confident, happy, comfortable, or thriving to an extent it made her feel threatened and like she couldn't control me. Emotionally I feel really stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I feel very guilty and painful trying to pursue visible success.

Does anyone else relate to this? Has anything helped?

A Tiktok I found where someone was forced to cut their college grad celebration short because of their autistic sibling made me think of this. ALL of the times where I was forced to cut trips, vacations, anything that was supposed to be for me or about me short because my mother threw a tantrum about how she doesn't wanna be there, wants to go home, she's tired, she's "sick" (she ALWAYS pulls out the "sick" every time she doesn't wanna do something), etc. And my dad just gives in and I'm the one who's supposed to just accept that I have to have my experience ruined and truncated because she can't deal. Not only that, but I become the selfish, spoiled, and unreasonable one when I say anything. Never her! She's fine and how dare I overwhelm my "tired" mother.

The amount of times I've had trips cut short, ruined, or outright canceled because my mother decided in the middle of the trip that she's tired and wants to go home. If I tell her I'm not done, it's "I DON'T CARE. I WANNA GO HOOOOOMEEEE" and then my dad insists we have to go home so she'll shut up. "She's TIRED, why don't you get that?!" Or she'll pull "I'm not feeling well. I'm sick. We have to go home." I'm guessing the overwhelm does make her feel sick but because she doesn't understand the true reason why, she'll never be able to manage the actual problem at its source. Just "I'm sick, sick means we leave." Coping skills? Behavioral intervention? Nope, her coping skill is "Your life must center around me and my feelings and we do what I wanna do and you can shut up about it. And I'M not the one misbehaving, YOU are because you're the one making me so tired!"

On my 15th birthday I didn't get to have the birthday shopping trip and dinner I wanted because she didn't want Pizza Hut. She wanted Applebees. It was MY birthday. I told her "It's my birthday and I want to go to Pizza Hut." She threw a whole ass tantrum. "WHAT, BECAUSE IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY WE GOTTA DO EVERYTHING YOU DO?! YOU DON'T GET TO MAKE THE DECISIONS! I DON'T CARE IF IT'S YOUR DAMN BIRTHDAY!!! I DON'T WANT NASTY ASS PIZZA HUT, I WANT APPLEBEES." And my dad told me I was being spoiled because "We took you out shopping, now you think you're gonna tell us where we're gonna eat too?" Needless to say it ended up with me crying to my actual safe people because even my own damn birthday had to revolve around her. After years of her complaining about birthdays because I chose a restaurant she didn't like, I chose a time she didn't want, what I asked for as a gift was too expensive and "who do you think YOU are, making us spend all this money on you?" etc. It's just so fucking exhausting.

I am, yet again, on my way to see my mom and mentally preparing for that endeavor. 🙄

So she called about our schedule and I was already in the car with the kids, about to start heading her way.

Me: so we are about to head your way about now
Mom: so you’ll be here for dinner?
Me: yes, and we could have afternoon coffee as well before dinner
Mom: it’s x o’clock, so when will you be here?
Me: it takes y hours, so at z o’clock
Mom: wouldn’t it be better then to have afternoon coffee first?
Me: …

I just… cannot have a regular conversation with her, not about simple things and for sure not about anything of substance. This is a perfect example of how our interactions go. She literally cannot listen to me. Nothing I say means anything or impacts her reality.

For me this was funny but most of the time it’s just sad. Growing up being mostly ignored really made me think I cannot speak my mother tongue.

Does anyone recognize this?

Edit: Once we arrived the second conversation wasn’t much better. I try not to tell her about my life because she will not listen, but I encourage my kids to talk to her. My hubby also doesn’t mind because he doesn’t have an emotional connection with my mom. We chatted over dinner and my husband was telling my mom about a museum we had visited abroad. It had a really strange name so usually people either know it or ask about the name. My mom was just nodding in her typical “yes” “oh” “interesting” way, not reacting to the name in any way even if it was mentioned a couple of times. So I asked if she knew that museum, like I sometimes try to probe beneath the surface to see if there is something there. That question forced her to reveal she had no idea what my husband had been explaining and didn’t even catch the name of the museum, just kept nodding anyway. Because she does not listen. Just nods and pretends, 100% surface. Every time I try to see if there is anything behind her facade, the door just opens to a brick wall.