My mother and I - some advice please

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Hello,

I'm writing from the point of view of an Aspie child and hope you can give me some advice regarding the relationship with my mother. I'm 42 and finding it really hard to relate to my mother. She has had little education and doesn't know what ASD is and I have no wish to tell her as I know she'll just overreact and start to worry even more than she does at the moment, which is a LOT.

So telling her I have AS is not an option. I live abroad fortunately but we have (enforced by her and her anxious disposition) weekly phone conversations which are really starting to drive me to distraction, I dread them every single week. The repetitive nature of them, each one a copy of the previous one, is one issue. It's also the fact that she feels she has to dispense all this motherly repetitive advice, which I guess would be irritating for anybody, but hearing it week after week with me pretending to go along with it is driving me insane. I also hate the chit-chat and feel pushed into a corner to go along with it otherwise she'll worry something is wrong. I've stopped talking to her except when it is unavoidable, and I pretend I'm fine.

Now I'm going back to visit for two weeks and I'm dreading it. I dread having her around and having to do all this nonsense talk. I wish she would just leave me alone and not insist on conversation and not impose her presence, "checking on me" repeatedly during the day when I'm in my room reading. I try and distract myself when I'm made to talk or she's around but it's not that easy and I just end up near melt-down, with an intense feeling of sickness, at the end of the call or when I'm stuck with her say in the car and there's no escape.

I'm thinking of making up a story, ie that the contract with my current telephone provider has changed and only the first 10 minutes are free. That way I can at least cut the calls to a more manageable time.

Any comments welcome, thanks

Is the repetitive nature of her calls usual for her, or is this something that happened recently. Depending on how old she is, could she have some form of dementia?

For the time being, I will assume she has always been this way, and it is in her nature to be that way, as well as always checking up on you.

At 42 you are way too old for her to be doing this. Her irrational (I am assuming irrational, ---unless there is a relevant backstory) anxiety is not your problem. If she needs to be on anxiety meds, she should take them or deal with it without meds, or whatever, but she should not be dumping it all on you.

Unfortunately, she has had 42 years of doing this, and it is going to be very hard to get her to stop. I don't know what culture you are from, so I do not know how usual this is for her to be doing this, but I would tell her something like: "Mom, I know it is in your nature to worry, but I am fine. These conversations get really old and are annoying me. It is not that anything is wrong that I am trying to hide from you, it is just that these conversations are very emotionally draining for me. I should have told you this much sooner, but I was trying to be nice. I like talking to you but it does not have to be so long and every day. So I will call you every (2 weeks, or whatever) " (Being diplomatic, so you would want to rephrase this, probably.)

I am guessing that if it were that easy this would have been done already, so you may have to ease into it passive-aggressively, and make up an excuse like you said to cut it short, but then you will still have to talk to her every week.

I wouldn't worry about telling her you have AS, in fact if she thinks you ought to be socializing more or whatever, (as long as you will be lying anyway, you could tell her you are busy doing things and going out to talk so much. If she is doing this because she is really worried about you this might help. If she is doing it b/c she is bored or likes to talk frequently for her own emotional needs, it probably won't because she might be jealous if you have to much fun to want to chat with her as much.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 25 Mar 2013, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your post makes me feel rather sad, both as a daughter and as the mother of two adult women. Your mother simply craves contact with you. But I also, abhor inane repetitive talk especially when it's anxiety driven; so I get it.

This is brilliant. It's a generous compromise.

Perhaps you can brain storm and come up with some similar solutions for when you're home with her. If you will be traveling together during your visit home, perhaps you can play a book-on-CD which might be interesting to both of you and discuss the story/subject matter as conversation when at home.

Your mom doesn't want to be boring, but perhaps, that which she talks about, is all she's got. Could you introduce her to subject matter which would expand her horizons?

The key to maintaining control on white water is to paddle FASTER than the water around you.
Otherwise, the current will toss you around where ever it will. Usually against some huge rock.

With your mother’s phone calls, can you change the subject? Take charge, and paddle the conversation your way.
What’s new in your life? However trivial, make it a big deal and give her something new to fuss about.
A single date? Let her think it’s the romance of the century. What’s the difference…
Some trivial thing at work, whether good or bad? Let her go on and on with the clueless advice…

Just a thought, for what it's worth.

Thanks so much for your comments. To see that there are other people who understand my predicament made me feel much better.

I tend to feel bad towards my mother if I say anything different from the norm because I know she gets hurt very easily and that's why I always try my best to keep the status quo and pretend. It's true that I allowed it to happen, I guess I know that if I try and raise the subject of how annoying her repetitive chit-chat and anxiety is she will instantly feel upset, even if I say it very diplomatically, and then I'll feel very guilty over it. I don't know whether it is a consequence of old age, I guess there could be an element of that. I never used to feel as annoyed as now and actually felt a deep connection irrespective of her behaviour, but recently the connection seems to have completely disappeared. It might be due to the cumulative effect of hearing the same things time after time.

So basically I've been trying hard not to rock the boat but the end result is that I can't stand her anymore because by trying hard not to hurt her I can't be true to myself.

She is almost 72 and never had any formal education, we are Italian and she only went to school up to the age of 8 or 9, she's never read a book in her life and has no wish to do so, her only conversation consists of what my grandmother with Alzheimer has been doing (mainly what she had fed her with), the neighbours, occasionally what the Pope said on TV, her visits to the doctor.

I on the other hand teach at a University and my interests tend to be quite different to hers, so not much conversation there even in the past. I get bored easily at the best of times, but with her it's torture, it really makes me feel totally drained to listen to her or just be around her as she exudes anxiety and concern, she's never been anywhere except for the little village where she lives and never had the chance to become self-confident, she is fine in her comfort zone but still I can pick up on her anxiety very quickly.

I think what I will have to try and do is to let her know as gently as possible not to go over the same subjects and remind her my age. And yes, restrict the time we are on the phone. And stop feeling so guilty over it. It's just that, with the best will in the world, sometimes I just haven't got the energy to even tell her not to do something, I'd rather just be silent and get away from her as soon as I can.

LOL - if it makes you feel better, education doesn't help. My parents are both PHDs and we are in the same situation.

I've reached the point where I now only call on birthdays and holidays and I do my level best to make the call at a time when they won't be home, so I can leave a message on their machine. The entire family (including DS) knows that I am a better human being the less time I am around my parents, and I can't expend the energy it takes to manage the extreme anxiety it takes to have a phone conversation with them.

I feel bad and guilty, but some of the way I manage it is by realizing that, no matter how trapped my parents are by circumstance, they are ADULTS. I am not responsible for them or their choices - I am responsible for myself and my own family. I wish things were different - but they aren't.

I am so sorry you are struggling with this.

For me, the "motherly advice" only points up the fact that my mother might as well be talking to an elephant at the circus or the man in the moon - she has no idea who I really am and doesn't care to find out, all that matters is that I'm on the other end of the phone. While she is now suffering from dementia (which actually makes this easier, believe it or not) when she was not, she strictly followed her own script of "mother," and who I am is completely irrelevant to it other than that we have this biological relationship. It is painful to know that, because of that script, she focuses only on the things I struggle with and does not see any of the positives I have to offer. It is also a painful reminder that I essentially had to parent myself, because I didn't "fit" her script as a child.

All put together, it is no wonder that phone calls were so fraught for me, even when they went well.

Thank you Momsparky, that's exactly how I feel. I feel she keeps projecting her own fears or wishes onto me without really trying to find out whether that fits with me or not, even her constant counting down the days and weeks left before I get back is unbearable, and she keeps saying it on the phone: only two weeks left, only one week left. It makes me feel so disconnected. Can't she see that when I'm there we hardly talk and I just stay away from her as much as I can? Why rejoice at the thought that somebody is coming back when this person gives you the silent treatment, has no genuine connection with and avoids you?

I sometimes wonder whether she is also on the spectrum given her inability to even notice I am playing a role. I know I get my Aspie traits from my dad but perhaps she might have it too, it's just that her AS plays in a different way, in endless chit-chat and living in her own fantasy world. Or maybe she's just starting to show sign of mental aging. I just know that I feel very depressed nowadays when I am in the house with her or otherwise in contact with her, I wish I had my own family so I could have an excuse not to stay there for two weeks.

Last edited by Moonflower on 25 Mar 2013, 12:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I am trying hard to understand where you are coming from. You do have a right to live your own life as best you see fit. My mom is also in her 70s and after my father died, we have all made sure to spend more time with her. Our relationship has it's moments when she drives me crazy but at the end of the day, she is my mother so I let her talk about her dog, church, etc. I half listen and she gets to connect with her daughter. My mother lives in FL and I in NYC. We visit every few months and she sometimes tags along on our vacations. My kids love having their g-ma around.

It's good for me to see these posts though. I must learn that my son (maybe all 3 of my children) may find me tiring when I am older, so, I will need to start preparing myself for this separation. I will do all I can to help him while he is a minor, but as he gets older, I need to find interests of my own. My husband and I had always planned to travel and maybe live in the caribbean after retirement. When we found out about my son, our plans changed. Now, I think it is best for us to retire as we intended. I think overall, it will be best for all of us.

Yes that sounds like the perfect attitude to me MomofThree if you want to stay in your children's life, particularly when you do that because it's the right thing to do for yourself rather than worry about your children withdrawing. With my mum, there's just no way I can expect she'll be as enlightened as that.

Sorry, my last comment was threaded with sarcasm which you obviously didn't pick up on. So, let me speak openly. I think it is okay to distance yourself from parents who are abusive. I think it is cold hearted to distance yourself from parents who are old, boring, etc who have always loved and cared for you. I think it is wrong to not to care for the parents who raised you and gave their all to get you where you need to be. Parenting a child on the spectrum can be very hard. It is even harder when that child decides they no longer need you and can easily lose any love they ever had for you, just because you are now old and boring. On top of that, the grown adult child assumes that same parent needs to always have open arms and door, in case that same child should fall and need help.

There, I said it.

Momofthree, I think that is an unnecessarily harsh comment. There are all kinds of ways parents can be abusive, and emotional abuse is just as difficult to manage as any other - but more so, because those of us who walked away from families like these without physical scars get judged by our peers all the time.

I know this is very hard for someone who comes from a good home to understand, but there is a LOT of grey area between "normal" and "monster." I think many people who have an affectionate but occasionally annoying relationship with their family think those of us who are headed towards the darker shades of grey are just intolerant. I think you would be really, really sorry if you somehow wound up living with my mother for more than a week, and it would be an education for you (and that's not even mentioning my father.)

Just because a person is on the spectrum doesn't mean they automatically have a healthy relationship with their parents - or that they are solely responsible for any problems in that relationship. Right now, I have outside support from people who know both me and my parents who've agreed that my Mother's lack of regard for me as I actually exist is abusive. This isn't the same as someone complaining about their parents being old or senile or in some way inconvenient, and I think it's the same thing that Moonflower is talking about.

We aren't talking here about a parent who takes a normal interest in our lives - my mother wouldn't allow me to learn to drive a car or leave home or even have a private diary - I was trapped there until I finally got myself out. When I finally did move out, I had to buy an answering machine to screen calls because she called me five to six times a day. I finally talked her down to once a week. No amount of explaining that she was causing me stress from me or my brother or my therapist caused one bit of difference in her behavior.

Moonflower, I do think my parents are both on the spectrum, probably to a significantly stronger degree than I am. It does make me feel sorry for them - I know they can't help that. Again, they are adults - at some point, if having a relationship with me was really that important to them, they could have sought help for themselves.

Momsparky, I have a lot of respect for you and I sorry your parents were abusive. However, the OP did not say her mother was abusive. She said her mother was a boring, repetitive, old, uneducated, and a worry wart. That does not add up to abusive in my book.

There are a lot of parents with very young children in this section. I know what I go through with my son. I know I am supposed to be "perfect" all the time. I know I am suppose to be there for them when they fall. But I am a human being. Nothing makes you feel like "why bother" when you hear that after all you have done above and beyond the call of duty, your adult child will discard you because you are old and boring".

I think there is way too many parent bashing on this site. What has this mother done that is so wrong?

MomofThree1975, I get what you are saying b/c you are identifying with the mom. We don't know all the details of their relationship. And yes, I do sometimes question the motives involved when the details of a post strike me as inconsistent or untrustworthy. I did not get that vibe from the OP, so I answered the question as asked. The relationship is causing the OP distress, and it does not sound like she is proposing estrangement in which case I might have asked more probing questions. She just wants to dial down the conversations, which does not mean she does not care for her mother. She is still visiting her, in Italy, even though she knows that it will be somewhat tortuous for her. I doubt she would have waited until age 42 to try to figure out how to balance her own sanity and the needs of her mother if she was being callous.

We all bring our own situations on to this board. In the OPs mother's case, I assumed it not to be typical worrying, but the type that gets under your self-esteem b/c the basic assumption is that the child (adult) does not know what she is doing and therefore needs to be questioned all the time. That is what my experience brings to the board, while your experience apparently, happily, brings something different.

MumofThree I think your angry reaction is truly unjustified. I can assure you I keep and will keep treating my mother with respect, but I can't pretend I don't feel resentful because deep down I feel she is not attuned or trying to establish a true connection with me, I'm making all the adjustments and bending myself out of shape to please her and she doesn't seem to pick up that she is violating my space or that it is hard for me. Maybe I'm just very good at acting or maybe she is in denial.

As I said, this situation does upset me a lot, but I always spend at least two weeks with my parents three times a year (Christmas, Easter and the summer), basically over a solid month with them, I never go anywhere because if I did she'd feel I was taking time away from the family. I do all the things a good child is supposed to do. I take it to the shops, I compliment her every time she cooks a meal, I listen or at listen pretend to listen to her chatter, if she has something on her mind I support her, and when I'm reading she comes into my room several times a day even though I'd prefer to be left alone. I never ever am rude to her.

I am the perfect daughter and I guess that's why she is always so pleased to see me. The only problem is that to me it feels like a huge effort recently, because I need to pretend I'm still a teenager / perfect daughter, rather than be a grown-up woman.

If I ever had a man coming to see me and suggest I might go and spend time with him in a hotel, she'd go in a franzy of panic, embarassment and shame, so I can't even be honest or open about a thing like that. It happened once a few years ago and I had to make up a story I had been invited by a girlfriend. I was in my early thirties then. I co-habited with somebody for many years and had to pretend he was my landlord. My sister told me that the fact I was living with a man made her say she wanted to kill herself. I guess because we weren't married? I don't know.

So my reaction is to spend as little as possible with her or speak as little as possible because I can't be myself with her, I am constantly walking on eggshells so as not to hurt her feelings. She probably values that a lot and if I was troublesome or unpleasant in any way I guess she wouldn't count the days or months left before my next visit.

Your mom might have some Aspie in her. It sounds like your mom has a Theory of Mind problem of thinking you should be thinking like her and not have your own independent thoughts. I have much the same issue with my mom. I do not think you should feel bad about it because it is soul killing to deal with this. It is a denial of self. I think you are very kind to visit your mom so often, despite how difficult it is. Does she have the same dynamic with your sister, or has your sister managed to carve out more autonomy? If she has, then maybe you could ask her for advice about how to more adequately handle it.

Is there any way that you could address some of her worries with some kind of finality and then refuse to discuss them any more--and distract her with another topic of conversation that is not so inane or annoying? Do you have anything at all that you have in common interest?

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 25 Mar 2013, 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can understand how if you are used to living by yourself, that you might feel somewhat smothered while visiting. Is there any way you could arrange to get off on your own for a couple hours a day? Sometimes having a little "me time" helps center me and helps me make it through a situation where I feel overstimulated. Could you say you have taken up walking and go for a hike or say you have a new research project and want to use the local library...anything that might give you a little space.

For the weekly phone calls, is there any chance you could convince her to write letters and only call once a month? Maybe that is not realistic, but it would seem much easier to gloss over the repeated details in a letter and you wouldn't feel on the spot like you do on the phone to keep up the chit chat. My grandmother and great aunt always used to repeat things. They truly just did not realize they had already told you. One time when I visited my grandmother, she took a quilt out from under her bed and showed it to me on two separate occasions during the same visit. It is fairly common when people get older. I was close with my grandmother so it did not bother me, but it was hard to get quite as excited the second time.