Raised by Aspergers parent

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Hope that your kids don't look at porn!?
Matthew 5:29
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

I never knew why my father was so "odd" and difficult until my son was diagnosed with ASD. It all made sense once I read up on Asperger's. My son has very mild ASD, some doctors say it isn't ASD and that it is ADHD with anxiety, but everything I was reading about Asperger's TOTALLY described my father and my sister.
My father was funny and quirky, but unfortunately had a hard time connecting emotionally (had a lot of guilt but couldn't really have empathy) and had terrible meltdowns. His meltdowns caused him to fly into rages and become abusive or withdraw and leave us pretty much isolated for days. Now I see he was a single parent with mild ASD and he tried so hard to love us and connect. I remember how he'd try to be patient and we kids would push him over the edge. My sister has severe ADHD (maybe ASD?) and I have inattentive type ADHD, so we were a handful. Not our fault that he was abusive, but knowing he fits the description of Asperger's allows me to find understanding and forgiveness for him.
My family said he was always odd and thought he had OCD, then he fought in Vietnam and came home with phobias about safety and germs.
The good news is I've been able to connect with him as an adult. He still doesn't know he has ASD and I'm sure never will. That wasn't something that was diagnosed in his generation, especially if it was very mild and the person was highly intelligent like he is. I enjoy his favorite hobby, competitive target shooting, so we "bond" while shooting and on his terms. That's ok. He does the best he can and is a wonderful grandfather! I'm just glad he is more relaxed with me now that I am an adult and he doesn't have to worry about me and take care of me.

I'm a NT woman in my 30s. I think my mother might be on the spectrum. I don't know a lot about the autism spectrum, so I apologize if I describe it incorrectly.

My mother has always been odd. I used to think that it was just an extreme form of introversion and anxiety, but I'm starting to think it's more than that.

She really can't read people or social situations at all. When I tell her a story about people having emotional reactions to things, she doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about. It's like I'm speaking another language. She has a really hard time empathizing with others and seems to be constantly surprised and confused by people's feelings.

She gets overstimulated by crowds and noise. She hates crowds more than most people and won't take vacations during the summer because places will be too busy.

She's very rigid about things that don't matter. She would like to control her physical space at all times. She does not like being told what to do. She does not like being disagreed with and will almost never admit that she's wrong.

She gets really obsessed with things and has a hard time talking about things she's not interested in.

Does this sound like Asperger's? Or something else? I know I can't diagnose her but this feels like a real possibility to me. And it would explain some of the weirder parts of my childhood.

I always knew that my mother loved me, but I didn't feel it the way I did with my dad, who was much more nurturing and empathetic. I love my mom but I don't feel connected to her. I used to think that I was awful because I couldn't even feel a connection with my own mother. But if she has Asperger's then maybe it's no one's fault.

Do I sound completely off track?

I do not mean to dismiss Aspergers parenting in what I have to say, as I realize all our experience are different and people on the spectrum can make competent and loving parents, but I myself feel I had quite a confusing childhood being raised by one (and possibly two) parents on the spectrum. My dad has Aspergers and is very limited socially and emotionally and has strict rules about what is acceptable. I felt very lonely as a child, very invisible and constantly invalidated. I received almost no physical or verbal affection. As I've moved into adulthood, I've started to resent my father more, though at the same time I have been able to understand that my dad can't help his limitations. So it has become a constraint struggle, feeling suffocated by his self involvement and trying to forgive him for what is not his fault. I think a great deal of this is made worse by us having lost my mom who, though she had some spectrum traits herself, was much more flexible and invested in us kids.

My father's narcissism (which might have existed without him having Aspergers) has effected the type of men I've dated and its taken me until now (early 30s) to really actively change what I want in a partner.

I wish I had an easier time being around my dad. Maybe with time I will let go of my resentment and enjoy him more. I do want to, but at the same time his limitations are huge triggers for me.

I would like to tell another story a la Saint Alan. I'm giving everyone in my family pseudonyms.

This is NOT a horror story. There are some dark parts, but not concerning Dad, and the ending is happy.

The Hagiography of Brother Mark

Once upon a time there was a great empire. It wasn't an empire in the sense that it was ruled over by a dictatorial empire; rather, it was an empire in the sense that it was extraordinarily, wondrously diverse, yet still had a common nationality called humanity. It was ruled over by lots of different groups, but in the Western Regions, it was ruled over, more often than not, by the Cultural, Ethical, and Economic oligarchies.

There were lots of tribes and ethnic groups in the Empire of Humanity (Kosma). In the past they didn't need papers and less people knew their names, but nowadays there are a lot of ethnographic studies and . . . well, never mind.

A long time ago, in an empire we still live in now, there lived a lady called The Teacher. She was (as the name suggests), a teacher. This gave her a low-ranking but powerful position in the fabric of the Western Region's politics - a post that she had gained because, not in spite of, conjectures this historian, her affiliation (at the very least, if not membership, but that's debatable) with the Aspie tribe. She was a good teacher, as it turned out, and a storyteller, and a remarkable woman, if not a perfect one, and she got married, fairly young, to a strong, silent, quietly humourous man, called Mr. Outdoorsy, and they have been together and happy for upward of six decades now.

Well, Mr. Outdoorsy and The Teacher had two boys, the elder of which was given a rather unflattering nickname at school that basically meant 'shy and awkward' by his default-normal ethnicity (whatever that means) peers, which was to say he got called Frog. Cruel, I know. Anyway, The Teacher loved him, still does, but Frog was such an absent-minded dreamer sometimes. It's possible that she wished he was a bit more . . . down to earth.

Well, Frog was shy and this historian had reason to believe that his long-term confidence took a big knock, but he had a lot of good times with Mr. Outdoorsy and his brother Genuinely Nice Normal, as well as a staggering intelligence and wide-eyed wonder whenever he looked at the world. Anything from Plate Tectonics to the Anglo-Saxons fascinated the guy, and he could be quite charming to people, at least the ones who gave him the time of the day. Not because he was trying to be charming, but because he was intelligent and kind and sensitive and had an innocent enthusiasm for so many things. Still does.

Unfortunately, I suspect that there were a fair few people who didn't give him the time of the day.

So Frog muddled his way through school, and through university, and then a friend showed him the Kingdom of Christ, which lies outside the jurisdiction of the Empire of the World because it transcends it. It's a place where all nationalities and tribes are welcome, and where no minority is oppressed or discriminated against. Access to the King is always free, and there is more peace between the citizens there than there is in the empire of humanity, where there is an awful lot of conflict and endless culture wars and wars of oppression. Frog became Brother Mark there, the wise, intelligent, kind man I know, who actually has friends and brothers who see him like I do: kind and wise and earnest, instead of shy and awkward and cold.

It was here that Brother Mark met Lady Passionate, a fellow citizen of the Kingdom (although with normal papers in the empire), and they got married. In due time, there came a bunch of kids: Mistress Historian, Stan the Man, and Mr. Precious, in that order. I think you can guess who the author is. (The Teacher was over the moon, by the way. She was getting worried that Brother Mark might never marry. And I guess Opposites Attract was the case for both The Teacher and Mr. Outdoorsy, AND Brother Mark and Lady Passionate. I mean, just look at their names!).

Brother Mark and Mistress Historian got on like a house on fire. Brother Mark could, if he chose, almost certainly get the paperwork confirming his citizenship of Tribe Aspie, and his kids, I think, could probably get partial citizenship. At least. And Brother Mark and Mistress Historian had similar natural interests. They just seemed to get each other. Brother Mark understood how Mistress Historian found Academic Talk a first language and small talk a second one, even when Lady Passionate (Queen Passionate by now, but more on that later). When Queen Passionate (justifiably) worried about Mistress Historian, and showed it, Brother Mark just sat the young mistress down and talked to her calmly and rationally. Mistress Historian tended to respond to this a lot better than Queen Passionate's overt worrying. And there were other things that only Brother Mark seemed to understand about Mistress Historian; her difficulty in talking to people, in figuring out what was appropriate, her difficulty with eye contact when stressed/tired/upset. They just grokked each other. And if she was having difficulties, he always went out of his way to give her the best advice he could, not to mention practical help and support.

Which is not to say that Brother Mark was perfect. He wasn't. But he was, on the whole, a good parent.

On to Queen Passionate. I decided to call her 'Queen', because she tried to give all of us kids the guidance that was best, even if she knew we wouldn't like her very much afterwards. In short, she put our needs before her own, and I appreciate her to the moon and back for it. She also became Queen Sensible without ever stopping being Queen Passionate, which was a wondrous thing to behold, although the timing of that transition is highly debateable. Maybe Mistress Historian just got more open-minded with time, hence the apparent change . Queen Sensible taught Mistress Historian what a woman who is both comfortable in her own skin AND working for the good of her family looks like. A female role model with a decent helping of common sense and good self-esteem and self-confidence, even one who doesn't agree with everything the feminazis say, is worth more to a girl that all the Facebook feminazi memes and think pieces in the world could ever be. And it was nice to have a parent in the house who seemed comfortable in their own skin too.

Well, when Mistress Historian was in her teens, she realised that she - and Brother Mark - might belong to Tribe Aspie.

This didn't trouble her at first. She didn't mind a label, or being smart, or even being a bit shy. She had enjoyed life so far, and what, exactly, was the problem with enjoying special interests, or having no interest whatsoever in High School Cliques? And sure, Brother Mark was shy, and a bit narrow-minded sometimes, but what did that matter when he was a great Dad?

None, amirite?

Then she wanted to write a story featuring an adult, married Aspie, and did a bit of research to see what it was like being the spouse or child of one.

You can probably guess what happened next. Mistress Historian literally wound up questioning her humanity, her right to life, whether or not it would ever be ethical to marry or have kids if she was going to Doom them all, and worried obsessively about whether or not she would damage and abuse everyone in her life, and all without knowing it. The previously happy, reasonably confident girl was literally grieving for the future that she felt she had lost. This all happened in her first year at uni.

First step out of the Dark Pit: The Kingdom of God. I wasn't worried about bad social skills, I was worried about Hurting People, because Making People Happy was the goal of my life. I got reminded that God wanted my untouched spirit, and that I was to live for Him first, not other people. Maybe I couldn't live for people, but I did know how to live for God, and I know that aspieness, in itself, is no barrier whatsoever. Free access to the King, remember? It really is free access, and how wonderful that is!
Second step was philosophy (theology and theophily came first, ha ha!). I figured that all those NTs out there sobbing out their hurt were being quite damaging to us aspies, and I totally understood the aspies who ranted back. I still do the same sometimes. But I also figured that even though our hate to NTs wouldn't hurt them on such a wide scale as their hate did us, it would still hurt them on a personal scale - and it would hurt us too. If you never trust an NT again, then you're shutting yourself off and hurting yourself as much as you hurt them. I figured, in the end, that tolerance, understanding, humility of both NTs and Aspies on a personal scale in personal relationships, and compromise was the way to go. It actually even helped a little bit, and perhaps made me a richer person down the line, although the profits are a bit spotty still.
But that was all theory, and theory isn't enough to live on. You need to live it, or at least see it lived. Enter Brother Mark and Queen Sensible.

I went home for the summer holidays for a few months, and stayed for a few months. And this was where I got to learn . . . a lot. Sure, Brother Mark can be absent-minded and inconvenient and oblivious and awkward. In comparison to that, Queen Sensible seemed, for the first time in a while, to be more lovable than Brother Mark, who seemed, at the time, more admirable than lovable (note the superlative. He was definitely still lovable). She pointed out, one day, that there was a lot of good things I got from Brother Mark . . . as well as naivety, awkwardness, stubborness and shyness. But that last bit didn't matter. Queen Sensible thought that there were a lot of good things about us both, and that was enough. I knew for certain that she loved me, and if she loved me, then I must be worth loving. And she, a fine judge of character, said that there were good things about us - and that she didn't regret being married to Brother Mark.

And then there was Brother Mark himself. Whatever anyone else said, he was a good parent. Not that he didn't struggle - visibly so - but he loved us all, and we know it, and he tried hard and did his best. His personality helps too. Staying around Brother Mark, I came to an astonishing realising: even though he ticks so many boxes for 'aspie', he's so much more than *just* and aspie. Asperger's is part of him, an integral part, but it's not all of him and it doesn't define him. If you want to love the man, you love all of him, even this part. Sure, it's an inconvenience - but it's also an advantage, and the whole man is worth loving, and accepting, inconveniences and all. Asperger's doesn't make him defective, because he's not defective. There's nothing wrong with him at all, at least, no more than there is with everyone else in the empire of humanity. We're all imperfect. But some of us are still worth loving, and admiring, and accepting, warts and all. Without knowing it - without even knowing that he quite probably has Aspergers! (and I don't think I want him to know, TBH - I don't want to put him through the pain of thinking himself defective when he isn't) - he's become my aspie role model. He's proof that I CAN make it, someday, in the world of adult personal relationships. He's proof to me that Asperger's Syndrome is not just a horror story on the internet, or a list of diagnostic criteria.

My NT and AS parents - TOGETHER - raised me to be a worthy human being. Thank God for yoking those two together and giving them custody of me. Thank God that Brother Mark didn't die of cancer when I was a teenager, which he nearly did. I would have spent my teenage years being confused and misunderstood and scared. Thank God I had my Mum, who showed me what a confident, sensible lady can look like, and who taught me how to be a woman.

I would never hope to make my Dad less of an aspie. I like him just like he is. The only thing I would change is the experiences I suspect he had as a child, and then as an adult - for his sake, not for mine.

And that, folks, is the Hagiography of Brother Mark the Kind, Sweet and Pious and Queen Sensible, Passionate and Loving, by Mistress Historian, aka Lady Aspergirl.

So excited to have found this thread! I have recently realized that our family, while not diagnosed, has Aspergers after my nieces and nephews have been receiving autism diagnosis (unable to speak at 5 years old, etc). My parents dont believe aspergers is a thing, so they would never seek a diagnosis and even deny that the neices and nephews have anything wrong with them. Thinking about this has led me to see the Aspergers Traits in all of my parents Mom, Dad and Step Dad, and one brother, and then myself. I have been seeking answers my whole life, in therapy, trying to figure out 'what is wrong with me' because I'm definitely not like other people, and now that this piece of the puzzle is in place, it really seems so obvious that I cannot believe I didn't see it sooner. I have floated the idea to siblings, but my family is in denial and I put it to bed after a couple of frustrating conversations.

First of all, let me preface by saying that it has taken me all this time that none of my parents know how things work IN REAL LIFE. They have all three created worlds for themselves where they dont have to navigate institutions, social structures, or the real world at all. But they still speak from a place where they are trying to give advice or tell you what you should do, and I didnt realize till I was an adult that they had no idea what they were talking about. I had to go on many wild goose chases before I realized it was THEM.

Real Dad: No friends, not remarried. He has always been interested in mechanics. Was in the navy and worked at a shipyard. Worked on nuclear subs. I have always had a difficult time talking to and being around him. I was anorexic in high school and during that period of time my mom forbid me from being around him because she said that I got 'worse' every time I spent time with him. He has no friends. Very negative. If you say black, he'll say white. If you say up, hell say down. He will argue in circles, and when I got older and able to track, I realized that if I changed sides in the middle of an argument, he would automatically switch to the other side. He just really likes to argue, whereas I find it very frustrating and energy sucking. I dont have any verbal functioning at all, so its very difficult for me. When I was young I didn't see the things he was doing socially. But now i see it. He will say the rudest things to the grocery store clerk in an attempt to make jokes. When he talks about mechanics he will go on an on about the inner workings of an engine, as if you understand what hes talking about, but ya dont. He will wear layers and layers in really hot weather, and then complain about how hot it is. When I had my baby, she would cry every time he would come around her and not want to be held by him. That was because he held her with his arms out like she was a biohazard. He has some issues with women. He hates them. He has never had a girlfriend or partner since my mother and really only has bad things to say about women. On the other hand if I had friends, which was rare, if I brought them around him he would claim they were interested in him, even though they werent and they were half his age. I stopped bringing my friends around him after my aunt told me he wouldnt stop talking about one of them. If a woman is age appropriate, he thinks she is a hag. if she is normal weight, he thinks she is obese. Needless to say that hasnt helped with my confidence growing up. He used to love to walk or hike. His other main interest is that he likes to drive and will drive forever but never get out of the car at the end. He once drove to vegas but then turned around and drove back. As a child, our visits were driving around in the mountains but then never getting out of the car. He just wanted to see where the road went. One time he drove up into the mountains and his truck slipped on some snow and went half off the road so his tires were just in the air and he couldn't get the truck out. We had to walk forever (after carefully getting out of the truck cab) till we saw some guys with a truck and they got the truck out but he refused a ride with them, so we had to walk into the night back to the truck. He didnt do self care so on the times when we went hiking there were never snacks or water or anything. He always complains about the fact that I have toys for my daughter. When we would visit him at his house there were no toys. One time he finally got toys for me and my sister and they were two dump trucks. Now that I know of his diagnosis its easier to understand, but then again, and another poster said this, when he calls I never want to pick up the phone because I cannot stand his criticisms, circular conversations, and just bullying. Its not fun to talk to him. Now he's losing his hearing and I have to yell, but of coarse its MY fault, he says its my voice. On the other hand, my logical mind knows its not his fault. but that's still not enough to make me want to pick up that phone, because i know it could ruin my day.

Mom: No friends. She had obsessions that would come and go. We lived in a trailer in a trailer park. She went through a plant phase and bought a million plants. they were everywhere. you couldn't see the tv because all the plants. then she let them all die when she was tired of them. She went through a bird phase and bought a bunch of parakeets and other tropical birds. there were a million cages, then she got tired of them and 'set them free'. This would make me cry because I knew the birds couldn't survive out in the real world, especially I do believe a lot of them had their wings clipped. Then the fish, and you know where this is going. Her obsessions were intense but short. She never trusted people and most of the time would try to talk me out of the friends I did make because they were not to be trusted. She said that women never liked her because she was so pretty. that was her main narrative. We never went anywhere. not out to dinner. not to a park. nowhere. my parents just had no interest in doing things outside of the home and we would beg to go to the seven eleven when my dad went to get smokes. She was an alcoholic and as the disease progressed she started doing weirder and weirder things. One time I came home from work at like midnight and she jumped up out of bed (she slept on the couch bed) and started calling me satan and shouting things at me in olde english 'Get thee satan out of my house'. I locked myself in the bathroom because I was scared she really thought i was satan and would go get a knife or something. She did quit drinking and is much better now, but still has her same issues. She's just like a kid, really, emotionally. Like my dad, she just hasnt seemed to have evolved emotionally.

Me: I struggle to understand if its my parents that caused me to be so non verbal and socially outside the norm or if its true aspergers. I just haven't had any words this whole time and when people are talking around me I look around and have no idea what to say, or what it is that made them say the things they are saying to each other. Socializing is baffling to me. My instinct is to put myself far away from people. I do want friends and I do want to connect with people and I don't know how. For 12 years at school I just wandered around alone by myself or would find a place to go hide. It was excruciating. When I grew up and had to go to college to meet my goals, I never made friends, and would sit in class in the front row with tears streaming down my face because I knew they would tell us to get into groups and I wouldn't fit in with my group and I was just so sick of it after so many years.

My biggest thing is that I just really wished I had known about all this sooner. I feel like my life could have been much easier and I could have been kinder to myself if I had known what I was dealing with. Also feel like there wouldn't be so much anger because I would be more understanding. I really appreciate those who have shared their stories.

Hi Elvira, I relate to a few things you've written here.

My parents would never bring drinks or snacks on outings. I remember going on a hill walk and one of my Mum's friends gave me half her sandwich because I was hungry.

My parents don't seem to have evolved emotionally either. They are still tactless and don't have very good theory of mind skills. They're not good at understanding how other people see things differently to them. They think that what they experience or read must be the absolute facts because they can't conceive of another way. Occassionally I can explain things to them and they do accept that there might be another way to see something.

I get the being non-verbal in social situations. I have a suspicion it springs from my Mothers' reactions to me when I was a child. I think that was related to her unbalanced hormones rather than aspergers, though she completely believes that she has aspergers now she knows what it is. But she would just snap at me when I tried to talk, so I learned not to talk about things. I don't think teachers helped either. They would tell me to be quiet or not care about what I had to say, so I don't expect people to care about what I have to say as an adult.

I've improved over the years. I've learned how to engage people in conversation to a certain extent. It's easier for me now that it used to be. But sometimes I still just feel blank and no words come. Especially in a group setting.

This is exactly my experience now. It's like dealing with children. Weird children. But I am baffled by how long it took me to realize that their reality is separate from the rest of the world's reality. I was so confused for so long and doubted myself because I couldn't sort out the two realities. My mom also had paranoid delusions, but I suspect they were related to asperger's because they were all stories that she created to explain why people didn't like her or how people were conspiring against her. Sometimes in my worst moments I have caught myself slipping into this spiral, but for the most part, I can now recognize and stop it. I now stop my mom and say 'no one said that, you are making that up'. When she starts fabricating stories. They always are that someone said something over the top mean to her, but no one but her ever seems to have heard that person say it. Sometimes she even giggles like she knows that she does it.

One time my dad was arguing me in circles changing sides in his argument finding ways to criticize me that didnt even relate to what we were talking about, confusing me and sending me into a rage, and I stopped the conversation and yelled, 'dad Im sorry, i have to get off the phone, it is so hard to talk to you, nothing is productive!' and he started laughing, and said 'I know, Im the worst'. He, too, knows he does it but cant stop himself. So frustrating.

I just don't understand, for all the pain that they have experienced, why they have never sought help to make life easier. Why cant we even talk about autism or aspergers with them. There has to be something too, about people with aspergers finding each other, because it is too difficult to pair up with an NT, or something.

What help? I remember seeing a documentary about autism, from Australia. They interviewed an autistic woman. She said after her own diagnosis she realized her mother had been on the spectrum. At one point, her mother had a massive meltdown, and was carted off to a mental institution, where she was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia and medicated into a catatonic state for the rest of her life.

Seeking help might have made things much worse for your parents and your family. I don't know how old your parents are, but they must have feared that if anyone ever knew, they'd lose their child(ren).

Good point! Yes we live in a different world, now.

Hmm. No my parents don't have circular reasoning conversations. They are quite matter of fact. They don't say something if they don't mean it.

My Mum definitely thinks people are against her. Not just don't like her, but that they are the enemy.

It's black and white thinking I guess. People are only good or bad to her it seems.

I feel like being the only aspie in my family including close and distant relatives, is worse than being NT in a aspergers family, least u have the chance they will treat u with respect and not discriminate like mine have

I understand that was hard for you.

I still had issues with them not understanding my aspieness. Like they couldn't understand why I didn't have friends as a teenager.

My Mum told me that my sister would get married before me because of how I am.

My whole damn family is undiagnosed or diagnosed Aspie, for better or for worse, and few are NT... if there is such a thing. There's also a lot of diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenia and depression and ADHD and PTSD in my family.

I get the feeling that, regardless of what side of the AS/NT divide one and one's parents fall on, what really hurts is feeling rejected and belittled. The lack of acceptance, the lack of an attempt to understand each other.

God I hope I don't do that to my kids. I know my (AS) grandfather did, and my (NT) grandmother kind of did too. I know that both of them had a lot of anxiety; based on stories remembered from my mother (NT) and told by my aunt (pretty safely presumed AS), most of the problems came more from shoving their anxieties down their daughters' throats than from the AS itself. I know I (AS) experienced two very different people being raised by them for 10 years than their children did (they'd had a lot of therapy, and Grandpa was taking Xanax three times a day, by the time they were raising me). I really hope I don't/haven't done that to my kids. Because, for the last probably 10 years and definitely for the last 7, anxiety has been a major player in our household too.

I know they've been treated to a fair bit of inconsistency. Not just "Everyone loses their s**t sometimes," but fluctuating rules and expectations (you know, the bad kind of inconsistency). I know I haven't had as much energy to engage in their world as consistently as I did before anxiety became the driving factor in my life.

Well, I guess I still have time. What could your parents have done for you to help remediate their failures??

[quote]What could your parents have done for you to help remediate their failures??{/quote]

In my family we were pretty functional. One thing I do think is important is to understand each other's point of view. I'm coming at things from a view I've never really seen articulated except just a little bit by BuyerBeware, but I'm a maybe-aspie, Dad is an aspie in all likelihood, and Mum isn't, and it was actually my Mum who had most trouble understanding me, and it showed sometimes. Dad was always the understanding parent, lol.

I do think for people who are aware that they see the world differently, talking about things might be the way to go ?????? That is, Mum and I are at a place where we can talk about our differences. In the past there was a bit of mutual misunderstanding - she just didn't get why I didn't have friends, didn't know how to talk to people, or never asked anybody's name when I did [i][/i] talk to them. On my side, I didn't realize that she had very high expectations of me, academically speaking, because she fully believed I was capable of them (and she was absolutely right). It didn't help that she had limited patience and I took everything personally until I was like seventeen. I think realizing that we were different helped a lot, and it didn't hurt that we got a few laughs about it.

Having said that, I have had (and might still have) anxiety, brought on by stuff like academic stress, feeling that I had to be 'perfect' (my definition of perfect - AS is fine, but a lot of other stuff isn't), the less structured nature of a university, and a pretty bad case of a chronic guilt-by-association episode. It was so bad I barely left my flat for a month. Intrusive thoughts happen a lot less these days, but I still get half-hearted suicidal ideations. I don't have any children, and I've never had a parent in a situation that bad. What I HAVE had is a Dad nearly dying of cancer, or more accurately of chemotherapy, with Mum having an ensuing short fuse. At the time she was trying to personally coach me for important exams, no less. During that time, Mum just put her nose to the grindstone and blazed through as best he could. Dad couldn't work at the time and was going in and out of hospital and if he wasn't doing that, he was in bed or trying to get a nutrition drink down. What he DID do, with me at least, was play to what strengths he had at the time by explaining why my Mum was so short-tempered at the time, calming me down himself (I was eleven years old and a ball of anger), and NOT freaking out over every practice paper which came back with a bad score, which was all of them. Mum did her best.

Of course that time didn't last forever, but even when Mum and I were strained, I never doubted that she didn't love me. I never blamed Dad and his cancer for anything, and I understood that Mum wanted me to take Grammar School Exams for my future. It didn't make it easier when she told me about everything I got wrong in all my practice papers (so that I could learn from my mistakes), but I understood why we were doing it, which made me a lot more willing to try.

I hope this helps????? Sorry for the waffle.