Motherly miscommunications...

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So, ever since I got my diagnoses this last spring, my mom has really latched onto AS as an explanation for everything I do...she's been reading books, articles, etc... I suppose it's nice that she's interested...except for the fact that now my having AS is the cause of all the problems she and I have...all the problems I had as a kid, all that. Sometimes, she finds an interesting connection. For instance, she read that many kids with AS like string. Well, nifty, I love string, it's cool stuff. Sometimes, tho, she uses info she reads to explain my faults, such as that kids with AS "don't understand" when they're told to clean up their rooms. (I'm 21, I know what she means when she tells me to pick up my room...but I just don't want to...I like a certain amount of disorder^.^)I know she means well...but she manages to phrase things in such a way to insinuate a lack of intelligence on my part. "You just don't grasp the way other people think..." "You don't understand" blah blah blah. Additionally, everytime I get upset at something mean she says, she tells me that people with AS get offended all the time, and think that other peole are being mean when they're really not. While I know that I sometimes take things too personally...she can also be really, truly mean (This occured after a fight in which she told me that I was thoughtless, self-centered and selfish, and that she didn't trust me to help her if she really needed help...) Everything is phrased in such a way that it because my fault..."You need to learn how to cope," "You need to learn how to be less sensitive," "You need to learn how to take things less literally," etc etc. She gets mad at me when I avoid situations I dislike...then gets mad when I get visibly upset when forced into those situations. I feel like i'm in a lose-lose situation.

How do I get her to understand that having a diagnoses doesn't change who I am, doesn't mean that I don't understand things that NTs might, doesn't mean that my reactions aren't valid? And how do I convey that I'm not choosing to be hypersensitive, that I'm not choosing to take what she says literally, and therefore I can't simply stop doing it? After all...I know that she really just wants to help, but all of her "helping" is really starting to wear at me...

I know; my mother used to be exactly the same way... she's getting way better now, but she used to be like yours, as I wrote in the "Do people blame your normal problems on AS?" thread in the General Autism Discussion forum.


This was part of what caused me to resent her.

I know what you mean except my mom is the other way around. She cant accept who I am, I would love to have your mother. But chances are you wont be able to do anything about the way she talks to you, I cant do anything about how mine treats me. Good luck to you though.

Did your mom just get better with time, or did you successfully explain stuff to her?

Im guessing your talking to Ana.

Woah! You need to get her on the parent's forum here asap!

I've seen this sort of thing with other diagnosis.
She needs to have someone else to talk with who understands AS from a parent's point-of-view, hopefully one who isn't like her... or worse.

Check out the parent's section here and see if there's something that addresses the issues you speak of, print them out and give them to her to read. Perhaps since she's been trying to learn about AS, she'll read what you give her or check in here.

I wonder if she may be latching onto the, "AS is to blame for everything" mindset because that helps her feel better about herself.
Parents can heap a bunch of blame on themselves for the things that happen to their kids, even if the parent had nothing to do with it.
Maybe this relieves a bunch of guilt she harbored for years?

wsmac...

I keep trying to get her to look at Wrongplant...but she won't, I don't know why. I think she distrusts web forums...your suggestion about printing posts out is good, thank you.

yeah, that's wasn't very clear of me^.^

I forgot to ask earlier...

Your avatar, is that you buskin' on the fiddle?

My mother sometimes drives me nuts the very same way. Any problem that I have she attributes to AS and when she's drunk she can be very mean about it.

When she's sober the one that always annoys me is when she uses a figure of speech and then tries to explain the figure of speech to me before even waiting to see if I understood the figure of speech. She does this because she read in a book that aspies are very literal minded and have a difficult time understanding figures of speech. One of the least aspie thing about me is that I usually understand figures of speech, sometimes better than most NTs. She thinks I don't understand them because when ever someone uses one I have a tendency to make a smart ass comment.

Yeah, that's me busking in Paris...

COOL! I've played at things like farmer's markets before, but never for money. I'm probably not good enough to get paid for playing... but I'm sure they'd pay me to STOP!

btw... that's a really good looking picture.

NIfty! Do you play violin? ( I actually play viola, tho it's impossible to tell from a picture.) I've never tried farmers markets, tho maybe I should...