My mother and I - some advice please

Post Reply New Topic

MomOfThree, I'm sorry if I sounded overly harsh - it's just that I get this kind of reaction all the time IRL when I explain that we don't do holidays with family. People cannot seem to understand that a walking, talking, breathing, functioning person can come from an extremely unhappy home.

I re-read the initial post, and I can see where you and I would read it differently because of our personal experiences. Let me put it this way: if your own child grew up, had a successful life, but - even if the reason were unknown to you - was so upset by your presence as to make himself physically ill for a week - wouldn't you want to respect his limits? Or at least figure out what is going on?

The fact that our parents have turned a blind eye to this issue for over twenty years is an indicator of just how destructive our relationship is.

Thank you for all your replies. As said before, reading them makes me feel so much better as I've been harbouring difficult feelings towards my mum for a long time and the cumulative effect is getting hard to manage. Thank you ASDMommyASDKid, the theory of mind explanation is spot on.

In a way I feel twice a bad now because with men in my life I did exactly what my mum keeps doing with me, not seeing them, always projecting myself and wishes on them, and no surprise they run for the hills and I felt utterly devastated when they did and unable to see what I did wrong.

The good thing is that I've finally learnt and I can now connect in a more healthy way with people and "read" and understand them, but having to be reacquainted every time I visit her with her projections and inability to understand me reminds me of the painful experiences I had with men and how I smothered them (I always fell for avoidant Aspie men where I was the anxious/needy one, so a recipe for disaster).

As for the calls, no she would not write, she has trouble writing as she didn't go to school for very long, it's not something she'd ever contemplating, it takes her some time just to write a simple note. Telling her I can only talk once a month would upset her a lot, so not sure I can do that. Restricting the time to 10 minutes a week might be the only option.

And yes I try and go to the library and shops on my own when out there so I can get away for a couple of hours.

As for my sister, she thinks my mum is very selfish but she is the dutyful daughter who will do what is right and act properly towards her parents regardless. She has her own family, is married to an Aspie man and has an Aspie daughter she's having lots of trouble with at the moment so my mum doesn't sit high in her agenda at the moment. She did go through a time of severe anger and hatred towards her recently, which I think is still there to some extent, she's had some therapy and realised my mother was never a mother in the true sense of the word to her or to me. She's ten years older than me and basically had to play a motherly role in my family, my mum abdicated her role and my sister became in effect truly the mother to both me and my mum up to her getting married.

So then your mom has always been a dependent personality, for those many years, then? That is next to impossible to retrain. Try to manage the best you can. Maybe take some extra walks out and about while you are there.

Basically yes, she depended on my sister a lot when we were growing up, now I'd say the emotional burden is mainly on me after my sister made her feelings known to her about her lack of mothering and the role reversal. I will try and explore walks in my area, it's a good idea, not something I normally do but I should try and be more adventurous

I just wanted to post an update to reassure those mums that might have felt upset after reading my posts. I think I was panicking unecessarily (typically for me, black and white and tendency to catastrophising).

My holiday with my parents is going very well, I've got tons to read, my parents are happy and relaxed and now I know the issues, ie that my parents might also share with me elements of ASD and that I tend to overreact to their well-meaning attempts at communicating with me, I am so much more loving and patient with them, and I feel the connection is back again. So thank you for all your posts, I feel I've made real headway in my relationship with them.

I am very glad your holiday is going well.

Me and my husband are both aspies and our mothers are exactly same as yours. There must be a connection. I suspect they have Asperger's themselves.

Yes I agree totally. In my case both my parents are on the spectrum. As long as they are happy and content, then to some extent I'm happy to play a role. I love them dearly and wouldn't want to upset them.