I am a coward and parents want me to leave

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On Friday I was interviewed for a job and was supposed to go Monday for training. Instead I was paralyzed by an intense panic attack and ended up not going. My dad was pissed and said I am not carrying my weight and said he's giving me three weeks to find a job or I have to leave.

I cut the lawn, do dishes everyday, water the garden, but this isn't enough for them.

I just want to kill myself. I can't afford to live somewhere else, but I hate my parents, especially my dad - I've never liked him and no one else in the family does either.

Sounds harsh fella. I know how you feel. Your dad is still your dad and won't throw you out - he just doesn't understand and is trying to play hard-ball to see if you respond. Dads do that. It's not going to change until he accepts who you are. That will only happen if you are consistent. Most NTs think we Aspies are on the make until they finally get it. This "getting it" for them is the crap you have to bear. It'll be fine mate

Im sorry to hear that.

Do you have any friends you are really close with who can offer you some temporary accomodation?

You could do that for a while until your financial situation or home situation improves

No I don't have any friends right now.

one can hope, but don't rely on anything. always have an alternative.

some thoughts, salvation army. department of human services, autism support groups in your area.

salvation army will provide sleep quarters and a meal or two each day in exchange for labor. sometimes the labor will lead to regular work. department of human services can guide you to resources that can provide an apartment, medical assistance, food stamps, etc. depending on which state and city you live in, they might be the option that helps you become independent. autism support groups will often have resources and/or information on resources that will help you become independent.

I don't live in the United States.

There might be ASAN in Ontario. This stands for Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. And some speakers I saw in February seemed communicative and to have some good life skills.

Been there done that got the tee shirt.
You just have to put up with their crap until you can move out, once that happens you can have your parents in you life if you want to, but you'll get to set the terms if you stay in contact.

This is just a setback; does you Dad even know or understand that you had a panic attack, or what that is? I doubt it.
Get yourself to a doctor and see if they can refer you to a psychologist that can help, and you may have to consider taking medication short term if you're still feeling low depressed and suicidal.
Nothing is permanent, and it's not worth trying to use a permanent solution to end a temporary problem.
If your Dad really wanted to throw you out he would have, he just doesn't know how to react, and feels that he is out of control because you are not acting the way he wants you to.
Newsflash; you can never be what someone else expects you to be, you can only be yourself, and if that's not good enough, that's someone else's problem not yours, because it means they have unrealistic expectations.

My father understands I have panic attacks but he says I've done it to myself by sheltering myself from the world and failing to take initiative.

    This seems pretty normal. Every sentence of it.
    Got an opportunity.
    Meltdown.
    Misunderstanding caretakers.
    Threats from universally obnoxious persons.
    Irrational goal date.
    Disregard for actual helpfulness by focusing on pure cash.
    Despondency.

    And unbeknownst to most anyone, the worst of the worst was the meltdown and the personal loss of opportunity, independence, self esteem, and more.
    Yet everyone acts like you were just lazy and intentionally defiant just to spite them.

    It's very angering, even for me, as distanced as I am from you, I feel your hurt. And it sucks.
    This will happen a lot in your life. It has in mine.
    Be strong. And enjoy the good times because you will make those too. More often than you expect.

Please do not kill yourself. Please stay here with us. I think there will be growing self-advocacy for those of us on the Spectrum, and at times including civil rights- type activism.

I myself sometimes struggle with depression. I have not yet tried antidepressants, but they are kind of my ace in the hole. And what I gave read, it is trial and error in a respectful sense, and also that it's sometimes important to step down in phases.

And I strongly suspect both of these are true of panic attacks. And I think p.a.'s have at least the biochem component of depression. So when someone lays on some complex psychological explanation, whether it's your dad or someone else, they're missing the main game. There might be some tricks, but I think lion's share by far is getting your biochem balanced in a more healthy and flowing way.

And to give you one more good option, a general practitioner can prescribe medicine for panic attacks just as well as a specialist. And the main skill is not being genius, but willingness to adjust and tinker with the medication.

It is infuriating, isn't it??

Well, you can't make your dad stop acting like a dick. No choice you can make or behavior you can engage in will make him stop. I figured this out with my father-in-law, and to a lesser extent my husband, after suffering a few losses that I WON'T get second chances at trying to please them and gain their understanding and empathy.

You won't be getting it, and that has everything to do with him and nothing to do with you.

Find someone you can talk to.

Analyze what went wrong this time-- With the panic attack, not with the asinine parent. Figure out what to do about it next time. Apply for another job. Get another interview.

Wash rinse repeat.

Eventually you will show up at an interview.

Eventually you will succeed at an interview, land a job, and be on to the next miserable hurdle.

This is life-- for ALL of us humanoids. Yes, the NTs with the perfect credentials are nervous too. They won't admit it, but they're scared white.

Look-- I am not you and you are not me. But here's my life.

Got a scholarship and moved out at 18, with Daddy's boot prints on my ass. Not that he was unkind about it, just-- I was 18. Everyone told him it was time for me to go. And then I got the stupid scholarship, so off to college I went. With absolutely no idea of what I was supposed to do there, what I wanted out of it, or how I'd survive.

Spent the first month of freshman year cowering in the back of classrooms, smoking dope in the park, crying in my dorm room, or having panic attacks in the library.

Two dozen panic attacks later, went to Student Health. Got a therapist. Got a lot of bad advice. Got another therapist. Went through every therapist the student free clinic had to offer. Gave up, started wondering when I was going to kill myself.

Somehow pulled a B+ average that year. Bought a trailer and got a driver's licence. Gave myself about half a dozen black eyes learning to drive-- MELTDOWNS. To this day, I can parallel park a minivan full of screaming kids, on a curve, in two tries or less. YOU WILL LIVE. I DID.

Went back to school. Got suicidal. Went to the real mental health clinic. Lucked into a decent therapist. Learned about AS in 1998. Did some research, called BS on a lot of what little there was back then, understood that I had pretty crappy social skills and would probably always be misunderstood and misrepresented, but I could build for myself any kind of life I wanted by working hard, thinking about it, and trying to be kind.

Decided what I really wanted was a mate and a family.

By 1999, I had the man. Perfect?? HELL NO!! ! But I really haven't seen better.

By 2001, we had the first kid. We were a postcard for FAILURE. He was failing out of engineering school. I dropped out, then went back and completed a f*****g liberal arts degree.

Fast-forward to 2006. I've made some friends. I'm liking life, if not myself. He graduates. Gets a job. We move. Life is great-- except that by this time, I've read enough popular research on Asperger's to believe that I must be some horrible monster and incapable of doing anything (including sustaining the marriage) and I just don't know it. I become a complete and total doormat.

Six years of misery ensue. Two more kids are bright spots, but they're pretty much the only bright spots (and that's probably why they're 23 months apart). Marriage goes to hell. My stepmom gets sick and ends up in a nursing home. My dad dies alone and rots in his bed, all because I'm too scared of acting like an Aspie to go home when I know I need to, whether the spouse and his daddy like it or not.

I try to kill myself, chicken out, end up in the hospital. Spend a week there, a month in outpatient treatment. Get some Prozac and a formal diagnosis. Have some well-educated, recently educated professionals tell me what I used to believe-- that I can be capable of anything I want enough to set my mind to; I just might have to do it differently. And that IT IS OK FOR ME TO DECIDE THAT SOME THINGS AREN'T WORTH THE EFFORT, NO MATTER HOW MUCH OTHER PEOPLE SAY I SHOULD DO IT.

I spend a year living with his parents and come to the above realizations. People-- especially parents-- are always going to try to push you in the direction they want you to go as if your life were their life, as if you were an extension of themselves, because in some pathological way, that's how society treats parents and kids. And people who tend to bully are going to try to accomplish that by bullying-- just like Aspies try to accomplish things by getting all cognitive-- because it's the main tool in their box.

So ignore it. And don't take it personally. And don't try to help him learn better.

Find a job-- even if all you can feel safe with for now is a sh***y temporary job wrapping napkins around plastic spoons in a picnic factory somewhere. It pays, you can write it on a resume, and the whole time you are there with the forks and napkins, you are gaining confidence whether you realize it or not.

The turning point for Hubby, actually, came while he was working a summer job in a warehouse for a retailer of damaged clothing. He went to work there a frightened, beaten-down large boy. Somehow, he spent a summer lugging boxes and sorting shoes, and came out a man. Don't ask me how. I think he had some smart co-workers, and realized that even if he didn't make it through school, we'd be OK.

My turning point-- the first one anyway-- happened while I was serving French fries and washing tables in a sh***y fast food restaurant. I realized that if I could do this, I could do any of the things I was considering...

...including MOMMY.

So I did it. I screwed it up, learned from the mistakes, and did it some more.

The only mistakes I have made that have been truly damaging and difficult to repair?? The ones I made from listening to bullies, thinking I must suck so much as to be worthless, and worrying about what other people would think.

We're still cleaning up the mess from those. But my 6-year-old son has quit crying every time he makes a mistake. My 11-year-old daughter isn't afraid of me anymore. My 4-year-old is still a nightmare...

...and the baby's learning to walk. We're OK. We're gonna be OK.

YOU DO NOT SUCK. Panic attacks suck-- but YOU don't. YOU SHOULD NOT DIE. YOU ARE OK. YOU ARE GOING TO BE OK.

    Ditto.

    You're brilliant hon

I think very few people are totally brave or totally cowards. Most are in between and the game can be won or lost on any given day.

Doing a few chores around the house isn't enough. So your Dad is right in that respect. It would be best for you to get back on the job trail, and make yourself follow thru. Best for you, not for your Dad btw, because its your life. Your goals would coincide however and it may keep him off your back if you show progress.

BuyerBeware, I wish to respectfully disagree with something you said. You seem to be saying that entry-level jobs are relatively easy to get. And that just has not been my experience at all. These jobs are as hard to get as any other job, and sometimes harder.

And once you get the job, sometimes the people there are reasonable, middle-of-the-road kind of people, and sometimes they're not.

I really get angry sometimes and wish my parents hadn't conceived me, but I also wish that they had a better child. I know my parents love me, but they are frustrated that I am not moving on with my life and I'll be 50 years old and still living with them.

I wish I wasn't born. My entire family is a saga stemming from poor genetics and somewhere along the line some one ancestor of mine should have been sterilized.