Feeling like a curse on a NT parent's life

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First off: I'm undiagnosed, so I may just have social anxiety, OCD, depression, any number of things (I've been diagnosed with the last two before), so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I am almost certain my father is on the spectrum, though.

How do folks deal with feeling like a disappointment to their non-spectrum parents? My mother is a fantastic human being, and has gone to what, at least to me, seem like superhuman lengths to keep my siblings and myself from falling off the boat, both as kids and adults. She dealt with compassion with a 9-year-old who thought everyone was possessed by aliens and wouldn't eat, with a high schooler who began self-harming and collapsing emotionally in school and refused to attend any longer, she found a way for me to do high school long-distance and finish, she came to get me when I collapsed again in college and supported me back into a local college where I could attend while living at home, she supported my same-sex marriage to a foreign national without criticism (I'd never had a relationship with a woman before), she supported me when I collapsed emotionally and demanded divorce from my spouse (I did manage the divorce myself, there's an accomplishment for you) and as I've grieved the relationship. I was also a surprise kid. I'm almost certain I'm why she stayed with my father; I suspect if I hadn't accidentally happened, she would have left early in the marriage, once she had time to realize my father wasn't NT and wouldn't give her the clear love and support she expected, based on the model of her own parents' strong marriage.

I feel like my mother longs to see her children do the 'normal' things, and that that's part of why she stays. That's she convinced that some day, we will, we'll all make it. Move out of the house (I have, but my siblings haven't), develop successful romantic relationships, have children (perhaps not all of us, but at least one of us), become less and less likely to collapse into apathy and depression and beat ourselves against dead-end walls. She rarely says anything to the point, but I know in her shoes, I would look at families where the children have gone out and formed their own integrated, active lives and families, where the children bring joy, growth, and new ideas to the family more often or at least *as* often as stress and challenge and a need for understanding, and long for that.

I wish I could give her that. I hate feeling like, instead, she will have to accept that all of us, from my father to myself and my three siblings, are limited and cannot make that transformation into the family that (I think) she deserved. One where her husband was clearly loving, supportive, and responsive and supported and rewarded her energy, creativity, and empathy, and one where her children displayed her own NT-ness and went out to meet challenges on their own. I don't know how to feel like her last few decades would be better *without* us, so she could have the chance to feel free and seek more responsive love, or to feel like I wish I had never been born and she had had the chance to move on from my father and find her own life. I feel like my father's life would have been similar either way. He had a long-term highly regulated career to support him, and would have found someone else, perhaps someone who desired less and would be less restricted by his needs.

Of course, if I told her any of this, she would be horrified. It's part of why I'm hesitant to try again for a relationship, too. NTs deserve to live lives where they don't have to caretake for problems they have a hard time understanding (things like critical illness, at least those are usually easy to see and comprehend); a marriage already has enough of that in it without adding the extra burden of having to translate all of your spouse's actions and emotional responses into something you have some hope of understanding. I can't imagine telling an NT partner they'd benefit from having me around, and believing it.

I can't speak for your mom, but you may be guessing something that she doesn't really feel.

As the NT mom of an Aspie and 3 other kids with their own unique issues, I know that I want ALL of my kids to find activities that they are content with and earn them some money, to live in a comfortable, safe place and to have someone to share life with that understands them, accepts them and treats them well. That will probably look pretty different for each of them.

We have an apartment in our house that some of them may choose to use as a step to launching, or for a longer time as needed. We are big on individual differences here and meeting each person where they are as much as possible rather than comparing them to others.

I think "normal" is over-rated.

Your Mum sounds like a really grounded loving supportive person. I like momnmores suggestion that you might be guessing something that she doesnt really feel. Perhaps your mom has had those fleeting taughts, but it doesnt mean that she gave them much emphasis, or held onto them.

Are you suggesting kicking your mom out of your family for doing too good a job at love?

Ideally what she would like to see is you independant, healthy and happy. But you don't do those things for someone else, even a mom. You do them for you. Perfection is rare. What you can do is try the best you can. No one can ask more.

Along with that, and I can't rate them by importance, is that she wants you to love her back. She just wants to feel that. But I will tell you love is more then just satisfying that feeling, and to add action to the emotion if and when the time comes. In other words be there for her when she needs it.

I suppose I am I'm probably projecting, assuming she *should* feel something because it seems reasonable and logical to me that she would. I know she's frustrated and tired sometimes, but I also know that that's not constant (or at least I believe it's not). Judging all of how she feels based on how she sometimes feels is off, on my part. I have to get used to the fact that sometimes people around me are unhappy, and I can't always fix it and am not always directly responsible for it, and that unhappy in a moment doesn't mean unhappy forever. (All knowledge that would have helped me in my marriage, too.)

Don't feel bad about thinking that way. I think your heart's in the right place. Its possible to overthink it sometimes, and part of that is because a child does not always have the opportunity to return what a parent has given them. You probably will have the opportunity to return some however and in the meantime staying close and being able to talk openly with her is likely all she wants. Some of what she gives you, you may be able to give to another one day, which is to her credit. Its not too common to have such a good role model.

I also feel the same. My mom is a great human being, and she does so much for me. At my 27 years, she shouldn't have to. I know that I am a great disappointment to both my parents. My mom deserves MUCH better. A person like her does not deserve someone like me for a daughter. That's probably one of the reasons I've never liked her to behave kindly towards other girls my age. What if she really wishes she had someone normal for a daughter? Well, she probably does.

My mother's just so consumed by my family. I have no idea if she would have friends if we weren't around--she has essentially none, at present. I remember her having friends when I was little, but none since then, except for two other women she's kept in touch with over the years and sees only infrequently. I feel like we, my father, siblings, and I, don't leave her the emotional time and space to find support from others.

That might genuinely be a problem. But I couldn't say whether it is she herself that does not need or want friends or if the situation is blocking that from her. People go both ways. About the only thing I can think of doing is trying to talk with other family members and if successful in getting their agreement, try and facilitate your mom getting some social life back. If she does miss it and want it, you might see her eagerly try and re-establish friends or make new contacts.

I feel for my Mom a lot of the time, because at 53, she still doesn't have much time for herself. Most days, she goes to work, comes home, watches TV for a few hours, and goes to sleep; that's it. On weekends, she goes to church with me and runs errands, but that's about it as well.

The one thing we constantly argue about is my lack of a job, and I wish my explanations were enough for her. I pay part of the rent plus my won Internet and phone bills, but she wants me out of the house every day, feeling I'm making no progress. I see her point, but she's made me live on my own twice before, and I hated it. The typical version of "independence" holds very little appeal for me, instead causing a lot of fear and anger in my heart.

All the same, I still feel guilty sometimes, because my Mom's been divorced for almost 30 years, and has never remarried. She talks about it sometimes, and I want her to be happy with a husband...but I also worry so much about myself, too. By contrast, my sister's wanted me out for years, and mainly stays because Mom still needs help with finances for the three of us. Some folks have asked me what I'll do if Mom dies before God comes back, and having no answer for them scares me. I know nobody in my family would take me in, so the whole thing is depressing. All I know to do is try and avoid the subject.

@Toy_Soldier I'm thinking about trying to find a way to talk to her about it. She's tough, because she tends to evade if I imply that we three siblings are taking her time. She's more honest about feeling drained by my father, but it's harder, I think, for her to talk about her kids *to* her kids. She's put a lot of work and time into us and loves us, and continues to want to offer us as much as she can. Every once in a while, I see some frustration from her, just one-off comments, particularly at one of my siblings who's chasing a dream job from unemployment. (Of course, she may make comments about me when I'm not around, too, but no one's told me, if that's the case ) The trick is I'd really have to offer her resources, some way to give her more time, to make the conversation have any results. I've thought about offering to go over to her place to do housework now and then, but I do (ungenerously) worry that then I would be setting myself up to do what other members of the household could be offering to do. Also ungenerously, I'm very concerned that my father will start to see me as a second support person if I'm around too much and I'll get sucked in to emotionally caretaking him. Which, honestly, is what I think my mother most needs--a surrogate emotional caretaker for my father, so she can have some time to herself to regroup. So I'm in the position of, if I'm honest, knowing what I could do to help and being very wary of doing it.

@Moviefan2k4 That sounds very rough! It's hard when family members' expectations of each other and of how things 'should' go are all very different. Living with fear for the future is awful, too. I'm out on my own, but I don't know what I would do if my coping mechanisms gave out on me; before I developed them, living on my own would have been impossible, and I haven't had them for all that long.