Your parents

Post Reply New Topic

Some of my autistic traits (I was undiagnosed) has put a bit of a wedge between me and my father. My mother and I are closer, but I love them both. I still live at home, and my parents have been good parents who were usually patient with my undiagnosed quirks.

My parents are and were both good parents, but my dad is incredibly stressful to be around. He's convinced that I have major anxiety problems, has been trying to get me on medication (for things that are AS traits, not anxiety traits), and has been going and telling any therapist or counselor I go to work with that I have major anxiety problems.

He also does have major anxiety problems, which just makes him even more stressful to be around.

A few of you might have read about my narcissistic father at some point. That's all I really need to explain.

My mother is kind, supportive, and very smart. She can also take the criticism I give her sometimes (because I'm like that). She did lots of research on Aspergers, so it's extremely rare when she ticks me off (the last time I was angry with her was probably around six months ago).

Both of my parents did their best bringing me and my sister up, I guess. I'm thankful to them for it, though I didn't realize it fully until recently. They were usually patient with my undiagnosed quirks too, just as littlelily613's. My dad is probably a semi-Aspie with pronounced narcissistic traits, while my mom is NT with some learning difficulty and memory problem similar to mine. Unfortunately I felt there is a wedge between us since my childhood, none of them could really understand me. My mom was closer to me though as our personalities are a closer match.

my father is too bull-headed and fought with me a lot and continues to do so. he is also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. 10 years clean. but he is still a dick half the time.

Not to say there aren't great AS parents out there (I have one myself) but I do think AS makes it harder to be a good parent, for the following reasons:

* possible trauma growing up due to bullying or poor parental reaction to AS traits, which could especially affect an AS parent raising an AS child because the child's similarity to themselves can be triggering
* difficulty understanding NT children
* poor self-care skills possibly resulting in neglect of child (eg forgetting meals) or in child taking on too many responsibilities to compensate
* meltdowns resulting in scary or abusive behavior towards the child, eg if child is being noisy and parent is hypersensitive to noise

I think it's wrong to assume (as some people seem to do) that AS parents are automatically bad parents, but I think AS parents are more at risk, and therefore need more support.

My mom is and good mom, my dad is an okay dad

Both my parents can be really annoying at times, but other than that I don't have much to complain about.

My parents are absolute saints. In fact, when I was a child, I believed that they were secretly angels in human form. I am very attached to them, especially my mom. My brother says I'll never be the same after they die, which scares me because it's true.

My mom did ok given the circumstances she was forced into. Married at 18, had me at 19, by 26 had 3 boys and by 27 was on welfare. I don't blame her for that though. I blame my POS father for that. He was a drunk who chose malt liquor over his family. So yeah. My mom's ok and f**k my dad in the ear with a masonry drill.

Both parents addicted to various drugs throughout my childhood. They were married until I was 6, divorced, went with mother. Mother became addicted to prescription meds early in my childhood (7-8). Went through a number of boyfriends/husbands, one was abusive to me between ages 9-12. I raised myself and my two sisters as the husband left and mother faded away. Groceries were scarce, mother was an RN but spent all of our money on extra drugs. I had a paper route when I was 13-15, used the profits to pay for the school programs that my mother would always say she'd pay for but never really would. Used excess to pay for food for a few months until my grandmother found out how bad it really was, and then she came to live with us. Mother got in serious trouble around age 15, went to prison for 3 years.

Father, during this time, was addicted to Meth. We stayed with him in the summers, but I hated being around him so I stayed with (the other) grandmother 95% of the time. My sisters, thankfully, were too young to see this part of him (and as a result, still have a relationship with him). His addiction became much worse over the years, and he ended up in prison around the same time my mother did. I lived in my father's rental house alone for 6 months, rarely went to school, got in a massive amount of trouble with the state. Grandmother tried all she could to raise me, but she was old and sick, and I was past the point of caring. I lived between a couple friends houses and once or twice a week, at my grandmothers house, throughout Sophomore and Junior years. I had an IT job that I worked a few hours a day, which paid for my gas and food. Father got out of prison when I was 17. He got in trouble with the mob through his then-girlfriend and his drug habit (being serious here), left town for two years, and I didn't talk to him much for another 5 years or so. Mother got out of prison shortly thereafter, decided she actually wanted to be a mother for my sisters (tried for me also, but it was much too late by then), and offered me a place to stay. I lived between mother's residence and friends houses for senior year. I was done with school due to testing out of everything day 1 of senior year, but I was required to attend school of some sort until I was 18, so I lied a lot and found a teacher that didn't give a s**t - he let me be his aide 8 periods of the day. I left town a lot, ignored parents, got in a lot of trouble, withdrew into my aspergerian nightmare that I've lived in ever since (obviously didn't know at the time), and waited out the highschool experience without parental guidance.

Strangely enough, I have developed a sort of relationship with my mother since I've become an adult. I guess I've forgiven her a bit, since she did try to raise my sisters properly after her release (though one was too far gone and has totally f****d her life up now). My father will never be my father - he can be grandpa to my children, but he lost his right to be my father a long time ago. I scraped him off the ground, bleeding, after a U-Haul fell over on him off of a jack (he is a mechanic) - he was trying to unload it in his shop while he was whacked out of his mind on meth... bad things happened. He stopped being my father that night.

Three categories of bad!

Plus a 'no significant issues' option - let's take a wild guess at your childhood

Good point!

@Oxybeles: Scary. I empathize with you, if it counts...

Wow, that happened to me too. It took me a long time to realise that she disliked them because of her own imagined perspective and they aren't all evil like she says they are. I managed to make contact with family again through facebook, so things have worked out ok, but I feel sorry for my sister because she never got to know any of our extended family and she doesn't want to now.

I can't even talk to my mum about things like this, how her perspective poisons things. It's like talking to a child. There's no point. She does care about me though, she just didn't have any practical skills for being able to look after me. It was my friend's mum that bought me my first bra for example. My mum didn't even realise I was growing up.

I believe that my parents intended to do the best they could at all times and while we had some struggles I cant say that they were bad parents because they eventually realized what they were doing wrong and stopped doing it.