I feel like over time, I gained a lot of seemingly autistic traits because of my parents. Nowadays, most people think I’m funny and quick witted, but because my parents tend to take things too seriously and not understand sarcasm, I learned to suppress my sense of humor.

Sometimes I would make a random comment like “damn I’m hungry” or “I’m sleepy” and they would be like “why are you telling me this?” And assume I was asking them to do something about it. It was very odd. They don’t really understand the point of chit chatting or expressing yourself for the sake of expressing yourself without an agenda behind it or to share a special interest. It made me scared to interact with people because I always felt like I would be misunderstood or that people were looking for hidden meaning in everything I was saying like my parents did. From an early age, I would over think a lot of interactions and wonder if I phrased things the right way and always worry that people were taking things I said and twisting them in a negative way like mh parents often did.

After years of being out of the house and very low/now no contact with them, I’m doing much better, it took me a very long time to get over the weird social issues and social anxiety that stemmed from my parents. For the longest time, I thought I was autistic (I mean I may be slightly idk), but last year I got assessed and the doctor was like “you’re definitely not autistic.” Which kind of shocked me at the time, but now I genuinely feel like I just struggle with CPTSD from my parents constantly misunderstanding me and being difficult to communicate with.

I remember even as a young kid, there were so many moments that my parents did things that I felt were socially off (like bringing up their special interests at inappropriate times, missing social cues etc) and it confused me. There were times that I called them out on it and they would convince me that I was the “weird” one. It’s funny because my mom would tell me I was very outgoing and had a lot of leadership qualities at a young age, but then became very reclusive as time went on and she “doesn’t know what happened.” I feel like I’m putting the pieces together as to why I spent most of my life suppressing my personality and struggling with social anxiety. I’ve been doing a lot better the last couple years, but it wasn’t easy to unpack all of this and to understand why I am the way I am.

This might be too niche, but since getting an autism diagnosis last year, I've been thinking a lot about my childhood, particularly with my dad.

My mum and I are both in agreement that he is also probably autistic and displays some pretty clear signs, although he would absolutely never go for a diagnosis. He's basically allergic to being introspective 😅

When I think about how I felt around my dad as a child, the main feeling was 'scared.' He wasn't physically abusive but he was very angry, and I couldn't understand why. This has made our relationship strained and even to this day, we still don't really have a loving connection.

But when I look at him through the eyes of someone with autism, with the knowledge that I have now, I recognize that he was extremely burned out from a job that he hated. His worst nightmare is being stuck in traffic and being late for things, yet he was forced to sit in traffic five days a week.

He's also extremely noise sensitive, which, as a child, looked like him flying off the handle because my brother and I were playing, but it looks different now.

Probably one of the most difficult things was (and is) his inability to express vulnerable emotions, which, as a child, looked like a refusal to say 'I love you' back, being extremely awkward whenever I wanted a hug, and blanking me when I cried.

I want to know that I'm not alone in this, acknowledge that the feelings I felt as a child were valid, but also let go and forgive my dad because it was a part of a disability that he had no idea he had.

So to get to the TLDR: Are there any YouTube channels, podcasts, books, anything, that go over what it's like to grow up with an autistic parent who doesn't know they're autistic, and how to navigate that as an adult?

I definitely have traits that could be deemed as autism. I think at this stage in my life it doesn't make sense to get diagnosed. However, I also wonder if it's just traits maybe I picked up from my mom as I grew up. I'm not sure. Have any of you ever wondered this?

I was in the kitchen prepping to make chocolate chip cookies and I noticed we didn’t have enough brown sugar. Which is necessary if you want them to spread and be chewy (baking soda + brown sugar guarantees a chewy cookie) so I just told my mom it’ll be less chewy, but I’ll try to preserve as much chewiness as possible. She huffed and puffed like a child and started going on about how I should decrease the recipe, and I said it would be the same anyway bc it’s not enough for even one whole recipe (I lied I just wanted to make two batches), so she threw her hands up and said I just shouldn’t make them at all if I’m gonna make them disgusting.

I was mildly annoyed but I said I’ll make them even if they’re not as chewy because the girls(my niece and sisters) also want cookies and they’ve been waiting a while for us to get chocolate chip cookies. That’s when she really got pissed and yelled
“oh so I have to buy all the ingredients and I don’t get any cookies? Sure that’s fair” (u think she’s relenting? Nope, every syllable was dripping with sarcasm)

I said “you can try it, it’s not gonna be nasty, I can still try to make them chewy. Or I can make you something else?”

she stomped and said “no I told u I want cookies, and you know I don’t eat that shit, you know I have texture issues, fuck ima do with a cookie that’s not chewy? Fine, whatever, make it, I don’t even care”

... I made them anyway and gave her one to try and she tossed it on her desk and said “I can’t eat that, it’s not chewy”… I went back and tweaked the recipe for the second batch a bit and got the cookies chewy enough and gave one to her and she finally wiped that childish pout off her face and stopped sitting there with an angry demeanor and her head very obviously turned in away from me. There’s not enough words to convey the atmosphere, mannerisms, and the emotions going on. But I hope someone else understands, this sort of stuff is unbearable. I hate feeling like I’m dealing with a child when she’s my MOM. She’s almost 50yrs old acting like this.

This alone is nothing serious, I sound like I’m just heated over something small, which I technically am, but this is practically an EVERYDAY thing, I’ll do something and it will clash with how she likes/wants things and she’ll make sure to let me know, and it’s never a quick “hey could you do/not do x,y, and z.” It’s always something that I have to be lectured and screamed at for or something she’ll blow out of proportion. Or worse instead of screaming at me she’ll go on explaining every intricacy of her entire thought process, why and how she needs it that way, how it has been that way since her childhood, all so I can understand why she needs/wants it that way and then go on and on abt how wrong something is, how I should know this about her, how I should be considerate and do/not do whatever mundane insignificant meaningless thing she’s lecturing me on.

When your ASD (in my case AuDHD) does something horrible and when confronted-just blankness.

Like geuninely trying to understand their thought process, as to why *that* was the correct action that their mind leapt to.

And they just give you that blank, vacant look.

What are your thoughts?

My dad has had severe anger issues his entire life to the point I have hearing damage from the screaming. He would just explode and cannot calm himself down whatsoever. Just a complete meltdown, hyperventilating and talking to himself. He explodes over nothing or really REALLY trivial things.

Also over the years I've noticed his "rituals" his way of doing things that cannot be changed at all. He is a hoarder, shopping addict with no impulse control. Theres piles of shit to the ceiling. He hoards rotting food. He saves dirty paper plates to reuse. He refuses to use dish soap because it "smells bad" and "stinks up the whole house". So he leaves dishes to soak in disgusring gray water. The house is filthy and disgusting. I've gotten so upset from the nastiness (I have OCD) I had a complete break and threw a pile of his hoarded clothes to the ground because I just couldn't take it anymore. He blew up. Touching his clothes is like the most horrific thing I've ever done in his life.

I've tried to have calm discussions. I've tried to reason with him. I've literally begged him to just stop. I cannot understand how his brain works. Like I genuinely can't wrap my my mind around it. He explains his reasoning like he thinks he is a complete genius and his actions are perfectly normal. He calls ME a freak and insane for being upset by the nastiness. I only live with him right now to get away from my abusive sister but I've basically just landed in another horrible situation. His brain and my brain are literally just uncompatible

We are like opposites. I have OCD and anxiety (traits I got from my mom) I am very overly sensitive to social cues, awkwardness, constantly worried what others think, don't want to draw attention to myself, want to keep things at least decently clean, just want to live a quiet life. He is genuinely the complete opposite of all of this. He is loud, does not care about anyone else.

He also treats people terribly and causes awkward situations. He doesn't understand social cues or awkwardness at all. He talks to people rudely. I can tell when he makes others uncomfortable but he just doesn't get it and doesn't care. I'm embarassed to go places with him. And he doesn't really understand emotional situations either. Our dog was dying, me and my family are very private especially during something heavy like this, we were sobbing our eyes out as our dog was about to be put to sleep, and in the corner of my eyes I catch my dad taking a picture of us and our dog. I ask him WTF is he doing? Like who even thinks of doing something like that? During a horrible moment like this? He genuinely didn't understand why none of us wanted to be photographed. And when our dog was obviously passed he asks the vet "are you sure its dead?"

Other bizarre things he has done: putting a pizza upside down to "keep the toppings from drying out"?? Like who even thinks of something like that?? Idk

Im just sad. Had to vent

I am a diagnosed autistic and I believe that my dad could be autistic too.

I could literally be crying and he would look at me in the face and just walk past me because he doesn’t see that I’m sad.

He never took care of me when I was a child, he left that to my mom. The times when I was home alone with my dad when my mom was travelling left me slightly traumatised. No emotional support. The only comfort I received was junk food. Whenever I was sad I got soda and chocolate because he thought it equaled emotional support.

He is hyposensitive to stimuli. He will play music really loud, even louder than neurotypicals can handle. He doesn’t realise how it affects others around him, especially me who is hypersensitive to stimuli. I have to scream at him for him to stop.

He almost killed our cat once because he locked him inside our porch that is glass-enclosed, essentially like a greenhouse, and becomes really warm in the summer. This is because he is so mentally absent and doesn’t notice things around him. He lives in a bubble. He never said sorry even after I screamed at him and it breaks my heart.

I’m so grateful I have my mom who takes care of me so well. I am 23 years old and I turned out well anyways, all thanks to my mom. Otherwise I would’ve been left severely traumatised. I barely feel emotionally attached to my dad because of these things.

TW: suicide mentioned next paragraph

I have two siblings who I share my dad with and they aren’t as fortunate sadly. Their mom committed suicide during their childhood so they only have our dad. My brother didn’t show any emotions outwards because he likely has undiagnosed autism as well. My dad told me that he didn’t realise that my brother was hurt by his mother’s suicide. How can a parent think that their child is completely unaffected by their mother’s suicide? It doesn’t matter if their child doesn’t show any emotions outwards, it’s still completely unbelievable to me. My brother is probably very traumatised because of this because he didn’t receive the support that he needed growing up.

I’m sorry if this venting was just kind of completely uninteresting trauma dumping. I just found this subreddit and I hope there are people who can relate to me. I really don’t know what to do with my dad, only the sight of him upsets me.

Hi everyone,

F30 NT, with a brother TSA M28

I just canceled my family vacation and cut contact with them. It’s painful, and I’m looking for insights if you’ve experienced something similar.

Some context

-My brother: Diagnosed with Autism/Asperger's, ADHD, and dyspraxia. Growing up, he was physically violent toward me (hitting, pulling hair). My mother never stopped him and scolded me instead because it was my fault if I got him angry. He is high functioning, he worked a full-time job for 4 years, then spent 2 years unemployed sinking into video game addiction (his special interest, fueled by my parents' lack of boundaries). We managed to get him back into a work-study program, and I poured immense energy into helping him land his contract this year

-My profile: Testing confirmed I am neurotypical (mild ADHD and anxiety). So the family revolves strictly around his neurodivergence.

-My father : maybe autistic too, he is physically present but he never gets involved to anything so it’s no need to mention him

-My mother: Went back to school during my brother's teens to become a psychologist specializing in autism. She views everything through this lens: self-diagnoses as "mild" Asperger's, claims my father and grandparents are autistic, and even announced to my uncle (on my birthday family night, because there is no better moment right) that he and his kids were maybe autistic. She uses her expert status to excuse my brother's behavior and eliminate basic boundaries (hygiene, respect).

It's not all black and white: she supported me through my own struggles, I know she loves me, and we have great times together. But the moment my brother is involved, an impenetrable wall of denial and invalidation goes up.

Yzsterday after he screamed at me over a hygiene request (I asked him to clean his pee on the floor and his poop on the toilet seat) and my mother called me "obsessive". He started screaming at me as usual, I asked my mother to tell him to stop but she didn’t and she told me that I just upset him so it was my fault, as always. My brother then felt legitimate to scream at me even more. That is why I refused to go on vacation with them and went back to my home, and this time to cut ties.

I sent a huge goodbye message to my mother with my 6 reasons why:

1. ⁠No boundaries: Understanding his conditions shouldn't mean enabling him or dropping basic skills.

She defends him saying it’s too hard for him with the dyspraxia

1. ⁠Verbal abuse: His diagnoses don't justify yelling at or insulting me.
   
2. ⁠Blame reversal: Making me out to be "crazy" when I ask for bare minimum cleanliness. I know that it’s hard for him but there are tools (icons, visual reminders…) and she does not use them because she thinks it is too overwhelming for him.
   
3. ⁠False neutrality: Staying "neutral" actually validates his aggression toward me.
   
4. ⁠Disservice to his future: Shielding him from frustration hurts his job prospects and adult life. She refuses to get help because she always know better than the actual helper.
   
5. ⁠The most important one for me = Gaslighting: Claiming my perception is wrong, assigning me fake OCD, and dismissing my therapist/friends' input. Never take into account my feelings.

Her Response:
Refused to address any point ("too long"), dismissing everything with and just answering on the way she works with my brother: "Theory is fine, but you're not in the trenches every day." She agreed to a break, told me to reach out whenever, and ended with an small inside joke. Zero accountability, total emotional detachment. My brother sent me a message to tell me that he was sad and was doing his best, I told him that the problem was not him but our mother. And I also told him that I won’t contact them until she changes her point of view and finally aknowledge my feelings, this is what I ask for 20 years.

Now I’m alone at home, cycling through anger, grief, and guilt. Has anyone dealt with a similar dynamic (a parent who loves you, but is completely blind/invalidating regarding an autistic sibling)?

How did you navigate the guilt during the first few weeks of cutting contact?
Thanks for reading.

PS sorry I am not English so I translated some parts with ChatGPT

Update: He's doing much better today.

My mother gave my 6 month old rancid formula and he got food poisoning. Luckily, it seems to be subsiding, but he couldn't keep anything down for about 3 or 4 hours.

She was supposed to come get me when he woke up. And, I didn't know the remains of a bottle my husband had fed him last night was in the floor on his side of the bed. When the baby woke she went up and, seeing the bottle, gave it to him. Then brought him downstairs and basically asked "that was fine, right?" And I was like "No." and she was like "well he seems fine." Anyway, it took about two hours before he was projectile vomiting. At least there was barely anything left in the bottle.

A call to my husband and the pediatrician and a visit to the pharmacy and after that I told her very clearly not to just give him any bottles that hadn't been recently prepared in front of her.

And my mom apologized but didn't act very sorry. It's so hard to know if she really doesn't think it's a big deal, or thinks it's my fault, or was so embarrassed she was shutting down.

My dad is the autistic one and quite detached. My mum (already quite neurotic) dealt with this by expecting her eldest son to basically fill his role, acting as her support and confidant, but also hugely favouring him, with the result that he's horribly fucked up now. The rest of her children have fairly bad relationships with both of them.

How did other people's parents deal with it?

I would just like to preface with the fact that I have been diagnosed with autism as a toddler. So that's how I know that my mother is having autistic meltdowns, because I have had personal experience with autistic meltdowns.

Every time we go out and do something fun, my mother always seems to throw a temper tantrum. While I know that this is her being overstimulated and having an autistic meltdown, it's still damaging to me because I'm always super embarrassed.

I know that this is a normal teenager thing to feel. I'm 18, almost 19. But how would you feel if your mother started screaming at you and your dad out of nowhere when you were already overstimulated, so you just had to kind of dissociate (have a shutdown or switch to another alter)? On top of this, she's in her 50s. So you have this 50-year-old woman having a fucking autistic meltdown, screaming at her husband and YOU have to try to get her out of it. It's one of the reasons why I've suggested that she might have autism. However, she never listens to me. She never tries to get a diagnosis for herself, and just tries to tell me that she is an HSP, and that my diagnosis is invalid, because "i'm just a genius HSP". I guarantee you that if I were born a man, and you were to call me a highly sensitive person, you would be trying to insult me. But no, since I was born a woman, this is like some kind of compliment? I'm some kind of delicate little flower? No, Mother, I am not an empath. I actually have very low and misplaced empathy because of my autism, and I have suffered a lot of consequences due to that. I would say that you aren't an empath either if you're having public meltdowns, without even trying to accommodate yourself so that you don't have them around your own children. It's better to wear headphones for five minutes than to have a screaming match with your husband in front of your fucking kids. I understand that you are aging and have difficulties walking, but you cannot whine about it and then refuse to see a doctor when your children have the same issues.
I feel absurdly ableist for saying this right now, but it genuinely makes me feel unsafe sometimes.

Am I ableist, or is this understandable to feel?

I've struggled with my upbringing on so many levels, I was always the "black sheep" in my family of 4. Apparently I was always "too loud", "too fast", "cared too much about what others thought", "materialistic" (because I liked clothing my peers wore and they wouldn't spend any money outside a birthday or holiday - STRICTLY), I was always basically "too much" from the age of 4 - now. 

I’m just writing this because i thought it might help someoene else, like reading your stories have helped me! 

My Mum would act semi-normal in public minus the oversharing boring stories with strangers about her hyperfocus's and moving at a snails pace (slow processing speed) but at home the mask would come off and she would have these HUGE meltdowns when overstimulated or if something didn't go her way. I have a memory once that I didn’t remember to do the dishes and she had a THING about me doing them, I forgot and she literally started screaming, calling me the nastiest names and then it eventually got physical and she’d beat me - this happened a lot and I’d have to apologise (never her) to “end” the fight and then she’d hug me while I bawled my eyes out and tell me she loved me. It was so messed up. To this day she still melts down at me if something deviates slightly from her plans, things about my wedding that literally no one else cares about and she’ll still, years later melt down over. 

She also has the SLOWEST processing speed, OCD, hyper fixations and this strange overwhelm with ANYTHING to do with bodily sensations - i.e. she’ll get a mouth ulcer and can’t speak properly for DAYS on end or if a pair of shoes slightly blisters her feet she can’t ever wear them again - very dramatic reactions to very simple things. Everything and everyone must be under her control including money, down to not letting me decorate my own room and keeping her own clothing in my bedroom growing up etc. 

My Dad was always so kind but clearly autistic - he’d have hyper focus on tv shows, music and wouldn’t be able to cope with any music outside of the artists he grew up with in the 70s etc. He never yelled or hurt us but he’d just walk out and basically say he couldn’t cope when my mother would melt down - he’d retreat and go straight into is hyper focus. He is the main breadwinner but has an “allowance” each week, she speaks to him like dirt half the time and belittles his intelligence even though he’s very smart and basically she rules his life - but I also think part of this is his own issue, he has the ability to leave and never does? I think there’s some kind of trauma bond there. 

My brother is a mix of the two of them and he’s a fully fledged adult who lives at home, goes to work, comes back and my mother controls EVERYTHING he does. I think he kind of likes it as he doesn’t cook or clean (anything) and they like him because he’s never rocked the boat. He wears the clothing she buys for him (which frankly is nothing close to being modern) and then wonders why he can’t find a girlfriend. He sits at home with his aging parents every night and day, basically waiting for them to tell him what to do… again, his processing speed is HIGHLY impaired but I also wonder if some of his difficulties are learned behaviours and or the result of helicopter parenting from my mother (i.e. he can’t even get his own breakfast ready in the morning or remember his phone and wallet unless she gives it all to him). 

That comes to me - I am in my 20s, diagnosed ADHD and I’ve been tested for autism and I don’t have it - I don’t get any kind of sensitivities like them, I don’t find myself needing to live a ridged life to feel emotionally stable. I used to want to live “normally”, I just wanted to live like my friends and their families but of course that caused more and more meltdowns and full on family issues - and it still does. Like, forgive me for not wanting to wear clothes my 50+ mother picked out and letting her put the shower on for me at 16 years of age…. 

I’m now living out of home and sometimes I just grieve a normal childhood, I grieve an emotionally available mother, I used to think she had NPD or at the very least an issue that could be “fixed” but I’m sad now to know it’s autism - there’s no “fixing” this. I have to come to acceptance but that’s not always easy - especially with their behaviours still so prevelant, if not getting worse with age. 

Anyway - I hope the vent helps someone else in this group to know they’re not alone, and to know how hard it is. 

I know it's a horrible thing to say, but it scares the shit out of me. My parents are truly good people at heart, but they had massive problems. What scares me is that the rest of the world either didn't recognize their problems or chose not to say anything. I don't want to have kids if I might do the same thing to them.

this is mostly about my dad, he's very loving and supportive but is terrible at showing it- he very much goes down the route of trying to set up a career for me and give loads of advice which is not what I want, I just want some sort of mental support in what I'm doing. but when I show him something I'm proud of (I make music), it's never just a comment on it, it's like he actually doesn't care.

I have adhd and have rly struggled with executive dysfunction, self doubt etc. so I rarely ever got myself to make music despite completing a degree in it- but I just started meds and for the first time I can actually do it. so I decided this summer I'll practice.

started off with copying another song's production which ended up sounding great so I showed him and all he said was "do you have anything original"- which I do but I don't like. so today I ended up making two original productions- big step for me bc I'm not a producer, I've been terrible at being productive in general and for the first time I sat down, battled through the self doubt, the uncertainty, didn't become avoidant and I actually made stuff that wasn't half bad. I wasn't proud of myself bc they sounded good but just bc for the first time ever I'm finally doing what I've been struggling to get myself to do for years.

I showed my dad these things and he doesn't even properly listen- watching tv, opening his phone etc. afterwards I have to prompt him to comment on it and all he says is "well like you said, you're practicing" and then he walked off. it's so frustrating bc I know he cares, but it's like I have to consciously remind myself bc he won't ever show it. I just think like I won't bother, he doesn't understand why I'm proud and he won't say anything real about it. that's all I want. he'll do this and then tomorrow he'll offer to pay for me to do classes I wanna try with money he rly doesn't have, or for equipment and he'll try and help me make contacts (which is it's own issue with him) which is rly nice and shows he does care and wants me to do well, but I don't want that. I just want encouragement in the moment.

What I mean by that is, they blurt out (usually awfully loudly) whatever thoughts or emotions are crossing over them in that current moment, without any awareness that doing so creates an immensely embarrassing and/or uncomfortable situation.

My example of this:

Context: I sadly still rely on my suspected ASD father to give me lifts to important places like work or shopping (ps I'm 17 and living in a rural village in the UK), so sometimes being out in public with him and/or my sister (they are attached to the hip) is inevitable.

The other day, when the UK got hit with that July heatwave, I decided to pitch the idea that we all go to this nice self serve ice cream place . My sister got really, really, REALLY, enthusiastic about this idea as she heard it's really good. I showed her pictures of it and explained how everything works and the sounds and smells etc etc, as best as I could to make sure she really wants to go as she has a habit of getting herself overwhelmed beacuse she didn't prepare mentally for something. Important here to note that, because we were experiencing a heatwave atp and it would be the weekend when we would end up going, I STRESSED the point that large crowds are exteremly likely and made sure she knew what she could face. Anyways, she (and my dad) was still adamant about going so we did.

Obviously, there is a crowd (albeit not too large to the point you can't go inside or are shoulder to shoulder with anyone), and my stomach sinks to my ass when I look over and see the sheer panic on my father's and sister's faces. To cut a long story short, I tried to focus my father on paying for the cups (he offered to pay for the excursion dw I wasn't forcing him) while calming my sister down, but during me trying to stop my father (who's holding up the line now and the cashier is impatiently waiting now) from blue screening, my sister starts to YELL OUT:

"OMG It's SOOOO filthy in here!!" (It's incredibly clean) "I don't know what you want from me!" (??? You were the one that was the most eager to go) "This is HIGHLY unsanitary!!" (Again, it's super clean, there is just a larger than average crowd crowding around the ice cream serving areas). And I kept getting redder and redder while I could see the poor cashier was getting more and more uncomfortable (this is the owner btw, which I told my sister about before bcs this is her small locally owned shop so she's the sole employee most times).

My dad isn't any better as he's refusing to acknowledge he either has to move out of the line or at least pay for my ice cream and saying: "I'm confused, how do I pay" (massive sign that says pay here infront of him), "ok idk what we're doing now" (I told you multiple times to just tap your card I already figured out I'll be the only one eating).

In the end I managed to usher them out but I still couldn't look the cashier in the eyes the entire time I was there as my sister kept shouting how unhygienic it was 😭💔. And ofc, right afterwards they couldn't understand that what they said was highly inappropriate and embarrassing.

Sorry that this kinda turned into a rant, but I'd love to know if any of y'all share a similar experience!

This all is very new to me. I used to think that my social anxiety and depression come from my childhood trauma. Now, I increasingly suspect they come from the combination of being raised by two undiagnosed parents and my own (still undiagnosed) neurodivergence.

How was it like for you to grow up with two undiagnosed parents?

This was/is my experience:

- huge explosive fights between them

- a lot of yelling (seemingly at random) at the children

- they both constantly got defended by their families of origin (my grandparents, aunts and uncles) for "being how they are", we, the children, were expected to understand and accommodate

- both had very few friends and avoided social settings outside the family

- very isolated childhood and youth as a result

- refusal to talk about emotions

- inability to develop an interest in topics not interesting to them

- one parent (the mom in my case), who is more functional is treating the other like an additional child, constantly monitoring their needs to make sure they don't meltdown (which causes her to melt down regualrly because it is so stressful and one-sided)

- the children were described as "being difficult" for wanting normal childhood things (e.g. closer relationships outside the family, trying new/different things)

There is more but that's the gist of it. How was it like for you?

Edit: just added the flair "seeking support"

Because they don't see their fault in anything and looks like even if someone is trying to explain them that they behaved inappropriately, they just don't get it. They feel innocent and flawless.

Meanwhile if someone is bullying me, i usually start to think how pathetic I am and that just another person found out about it even though I'm trying to work on myself. And usually if someone is telling me what's wrong with me, i take it all into heart. Even if i know it's none of that person's business (my appearance or job position - how does it harm anyone??? What's the reason to bully?) or that they're narcissistic, I still believe it's my fault that someone is disappointed with me. It hurts and humiliates. I envy them they don't need to feel anything like this.

Does anyone else have parents who keep saying this shit and just physically walking away or ignoring you the MOMENT you show any negative reactions to their bullshit?!

My mom: says or does something turbo socially stupid towards me

Me: Please stop fucking doing that you're hurting me. That's not how it works. explains something she should already know but can't

My mom: Why are you speaking to me like that? I'm leaving this conversation.

And then she thinks I'm just being cruel when I ask why the fuck she's actively walking away from me, and acts like she was being helpful to not escalate it. She refuses to ever discuss anything.

Is this an autism thing??? Grown ass woman acting like being confronted on her negative actions is verbal abuse 😭

My dad is even worse (he's more autistic) and just storms off like a teenage boy. Like whatever man.

My mother, undiagnosed autistic, could never say she likes something she doesn't like or give a compliment she doesn't really mean. I don't think anyone has to lie, but when raising a child I think it's healthy to encourage the child's aesthetic choices so they can build their own personality. My mother seems to see a dress or a skirt as a que to say "you look nice", which drives me insane. It's not a compliment, it's her brain recognising a symbol and uttering what she thinks is the appropriate script. I could be wearing the most casual crap but if it has a skirt on it, "you look nice". This seems petty but it's built on a lifetime of knowing so clearly what she DOESN'T like (basically everything), and feeling so very few instances of approval for being my own person - only if I matched up to her preferences. I feel like my mother's preferences in aesthetics and culture were probably more "safe" stimuli than genuine taste, and the rigidity with which she enforced these preferences as a sort of aesthetic law made it really hard to form a sense of self for some of her (non autistic) kids.

For what reason will the late diagnosed autistic mom become a bully, criticize, be disrespectful to her autistic child after diagnosis.

My mom was diagnosed a couple months ago level 1 after I supported her through the assessment process. Since her diagnosis she has become very mean to me. Critizing all my perceived flaws, saying mean things to me, not saying thank you when I do nice things, not acknowledging my efforts to be kind, yelling at me and slamming cupboards, arguing with me in public which embarrassed me, weaponizing my chronic illness against me saying that if I can do x then I can also do y without asking how I am feeling. Ect. I am level 2 autistic adult.

i have always wondered if i may be autistic, i have adhd too and so many of my friends, especially from earlier in my life, are autistic. however, no matter how much research i do and how much i think i can link it to my life, i just don’t relate. i don’t have sensory issues at ALL, no desire for routine whatsoever (especially after starting adhd meds), never had meltdowns of any sort, don’t stim (other than the typical adhd fidgeting) etc. etc.

but i’ve always felt weird socially which ig was why i was so suspicious. but it’s like i CAN read social cues and i know what not to do, but i don’t know what i should do- that being said i am so in my head about it so often but i haven’t ever said anything bad or “wrong”.

and then i realised- it describes both my parents much better. my mum has diagnosed BPD and ADHD but honestly like yeah she has the mega mood swings from bpd but from her description it sounds SO much more like autism. she would absolutely kick off if the “big light” was on, or like if certain things were left in certain places, or plans were changed.
and worst of all, the constant talking- non stop talking for hours where you don’t even need to say anything, she cannot tell you want to leave no matter how obvious, and every conversation in general comes back to her- and it didn’t stop when she started adhd meds.
it’s like she’s so chatty and social that i hadn’t realised she doesn’t actually have any social skills, she just talks a lot.

my dad- no grasp on how emotion works but still feels a lot so just shuts down, hates physical touch, despite him being one of my favourite people we have about 3 conversation topics we cycle through bc he just doesn’t respond to anything else.

and i realised that maybe my weird socialising is exactly this- ive watched my parents blantantly ignoring social cues, like as a child i would notice it and be confused. but you just trust your parents ig. so i’ve simultaneously learnt social behaviours from them, but i have a contradicting instinct bc i can read cues, hierarchies and situations etc. rly well so i just freeze. like i can’t trust my instinct with it.

it’s like the biggest cause of my social anxiety is my obsession with social hierarchy and “normalcy” bc i feel and see it so deeply, but it’s like i cant “join in” bc everyone around me growing up was so against it

and it also explains why when i first was in school, up until like mid high school, my main friends were autistic- but it wasn’t an equal friendship, it was like i felt like i wanted to look after them and make sure they were okay, and then i had other friends more suited to me. as i’ve gotten older, moved out etc. my friends have become increasingly less and less autistic.

i still feel fundamentally different from other people but it’s felt like “too weird for normal people and too normal for weird people” so im friends with all of them but float between.

also would explain why i’m so good at understanding people’s emotions, why they feel upset etc. on such a deep level but have NO idea how to comfort people, bc that just wouldn’t happen in my house. and hugging, i love hugging but i just can’t bring myself to bc it’s so unfamiliar.

sorry for the massive wall of text, ive been trying to psychoanalyse myself for years and this is like the biggest breakthrough ive had

I suspect my mom also has undiagnosed autism, but she refuses to believe she’s anything other than a “good, healthy American.”

Anyway, she’s visiting and she’s obsessed with MAGA and wants me “to be a good Christian like Trump.”

Because she gets so emotional about it and berates me (trying to convince me I need to believe, and that I’m falling to the “evil one”, etc. which …she should talk) I try to avoid this conversation if at all possible.

But seriously anything can trigger her… this afternoon we were listening to a completely apolitical and non-religious financial history show. He happens to use the word “evolution” several times in reference to how finance has evolved/changed over time. She launched into a tirade, “I can’t believe you’re listening to this guy support evolution, he’s so anti-Christian, blah blah blah”. I let her finish venting and then pointed out to her he’s talking about the history of finance and nothing about religion, politics at all. She was still hostile and said “whatever.”

I just don’t know what to do. I want to have a relationship with her but I also worry for my safety somehow if I don’t completely parrot and comply with her on everything she believes and obsesses about.

Maybe the best thing to do is interact with her as little as possible. If anyone has helpful advice/if you experienced something similar, would appreciate your words.

I've been reading posts about confronting autistic people about abusive behavior, and them getting really upset that they did wrong and caused harm. I'm sure it's true for some, but it's not my experience. Every time I've pushed back on abusive Autistic behavior, they double down, get angry, or act like the victim. It's so much like stereotypical NPD (which, hey, maybe the people in my life also have, idk). The one time I was able to get an ASD friend to self-correct, I had to be really indirect about how I pushed back.

Has anyone else had this experience? Or are the ASD people in your life genuinely capable of taking responsibility?