Thinking you are a burden on your loved ones

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I get very concerned when people (particularly children) talk about feeling like a burden on their family and friends (especially for something they can't help such as a disability or a disease or mental illness, etc). I've known people with ASD's (mostly aspies) who have considered themselves to be some kind of changeling and want to be cured so that, (and I quote from an actual conversation I had with someone) "my family won't have to suffer anymore".

It upsets me because they often think they are inherently bad people or that they're useless and I think it's awful (especially for a child) to have that perception of yourself. There's no feeling more empty than feeling totally powerless, useless and the main source of suffering for your loved ones. What upsets me even more is when families (intentionally or unintentionally) also treat the person like they are some kind of changeling.

I've had conversations with people who have felt this way about themselves and I've oftem been tempted to track down whoever made them think this way and beat the crap out of them.

I also hate it in documentaries whenever parents of disabled children treat the child like they are a problem and not as a person. For example, there was a documentary about a child who had massive emotional problems and was very defiant and violent (I think the documentary was called "The Boy They Call Chucky" or something like that). The mother tried desperately to blame her son's problems on some mysterious disease that she could get a quick fix for (he was already diagnosed with ODD and ADHD on top of having having a learning disorder). She finally saw a very good psychologist who tried to help her understand that his problems are going to take a lot of time to solve and that he wasn't the only one who had to change, but the entire family had to make compromises too. However, she still went on and on at her son about how HE is the problem. After watching the documentary, I felt like the daughter left not because of her brother but because of her mother's emotional neglect as well.

Same with the documentary "Make Me Normal" by channel 4 (I think there's somebody on this website that was a student at the school portrayed on the show). That school dealt with autism SOOOOO different than my school. For starters, my teachers did not blame my autism for everything I did wrong (the show seemed to imply that autism and autism alone caused the children to be defiant). Now, their autism has a lot to do with their behaviour, but when you're telling children constantly that autism makes you do bad things, then of course they're just going to hate themselves. We watched the documentary at my school and all of us were just shocked by the staff, really. My speech and language therapist was surprised that they let a girl (who had a histroy of dangerous, impulsive behaviour) play with a pairof scissors, which she later threatened to use as a weapon.

I guess this is why I hate organisations like Autism Speaks because they treat the children like they're a disease onto society or that their neurology is wrong and that their mind wont work right until they're cured. The messages they convey through their propaganda infects our society and creates certain myths about what it is to be autistic. When I was in primary and secondary school, my teachers constantly made me aware of my strengths and weaknesses and they and my family also accepted me for who and what I was. They didn't feed me BS about how all my strengths were me "coming out of my autistic shell", nor did they blame the bad things I've done on my autism. It's just a part of who I am and to hell with anyone who implies that somehow my very nature is harmful to them. They can f**k off for all I care (yeah, as if their intolerance isn't also harmful).

TD:DR: People who treat their children like they are a curse onto their families are scum and are not fit to be parents. Anyone who makes anyone feel like they are useless just because they have a disability are also scum and shouldn't be around children or very naive or insecure people for they might brainwash them into hating themselves.


Does anybody here feel totally useless or some kind of burden onto their loved ones or onto society for being what you are? Please share your your experiences. If you currently feel this way and/or you disagree with my message, then please explain why. it will be very interesting.

Bloody hell, no!

No, my problem's mostly the opposite - I don't appear to need anybody's help, and will go out of my way to avoid making anybody feel coerced into spending any effort on me that they don't want to spend.

But maybe that's a sign of a deeper, unconscious feeling of being a burden....why else would I act so independent when it's not the way I really feel? I think it can often be like that with feelings - the one who behaves the most as if they are x is the one who is actually the opposite, and their behaviour is their way of negating it.

I don't buy into the entire disability stereotype of people being a 'burden' on others. We're all interdependent as a species and disabled people are not appreciably more so than everyone else. It's just everyone else gets to pretend to be independent. But it's just a cultural lie.

That is precisely what I believe as well! The problem is not that we're dependent on others - it's that we're dependent on others for something totally different from what most people need. Because we have different needs, people think that accomodating for us is way too much for society to handle. Funny how we can put money and resources together for frivolous wars or so that the freaking pope can visit your country but not for people within the community!

Not my immediate family anymore, but in regards to my extended family, definitely.

Not because of AS but yes i am a burden to them.

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That matches my experience.

- pgd

I used to feel that way alot when all my family lived under one roof, but now it is me and my mom and I mostly take care of her because of a chronic illness. However with my sibblings...they think I am some kind of ret*d because I dont think like them. They have a very narrow idea of what is intelegence. I think they have deep seated anger at me because I required alot of my mother's attention as a child.
My dad fueled the situation by telling them that mom only loved me...he was a f***ing nutbag.

I have at one point felt I was too expensive for my parents because they had to take me to all these therapies and doctors and the fact when I was a baby I took up lot of their time with taking me to doctors because I kept getting sick and they also had to use their time to take me to my therapies. Plus they also had to pay for my medication. But my mom said it was their job and all kids are expensive and my brothers cost just as much except they spend their money on other things for them. I couldn't see how they be as expensive if they didn't need therapies or medication. But my mom said it was with other things, they always need new clothes and they had to pay for their school trips or pay for their activities like sports.

I still think I was more expensive and school trips are not weekly things and you sure don't need to buy clothes every week or month for your kids and sports is a seasonal thing and I doubt you pay for every practice and game. I think she was just saying that to make me feel better.

nope, I never went to things like therapists and I had my own job from 10 onwards so I didn't ask for money a lot, since I worked every summer and saved some for the winter

[quote="Kilroy"]nope, I never went to things like therapists and I had my own job from 10 onwards so I didn't ask for money a lot, since I worked every summer and saved some for the winter[/quote

you work

Absolutely, I am a burden on them. They asked for it though.

I like the way you said that.

I also will always be grateful for how much time you once invested in helping me understand my son's issues in his hands (the loose joints thing). Maybe there are people out there who don't see what you give back, but I do.

Seriously, everyone is a burden to someone in one way or another; it's pretty difficult to avoid. Sometimes it is obvious, and sometimes it is not. Sometimes relationships between 2 specific people are balanced; sometimes they are one-sided. But, even when they are one-sided, it doesn't mean that the person drawing the most benefit can't pay it forward in some other way. It may not be obvious, but it not be measurable, but it often is there.

I think most people consciously try not to be burdens to those they care about but, sometimes, you've just got to accept the apparently unequal relationship and try to make up for it in some other way. Most people seem to instinctively do that, for there can be a lot of joy in feeling that you've assisted someone else in some way, any way. We are all inter-dependent.

I get a lot of - hard to get the right word, but I'll choose admiration - from people when they hear that I have a spectrum child, as if quietly and cheerfully bearing that burden makes me some super woman. But it isn't a burden and I'm no more superwoman than the next person. Everyone, every family,. has their "things," and everyone just deals best they can. There is no way to put it all on a scale and figure out who actually has it "harder." So why try? I just tell these people my son is great and that in some ways he is easier to raise than my NT daughter - he is You've got to live the life you've got and not worry about some unseeable scale.

Well, that's as may be, but it doesn't stop one from feeling like a burden when you've gone out into the world to become an independent adult and continually failed and ended up right back in your parent's house because you couldn't manage to function as competently as everyone else seems to. Once is bad enough, but after the third or fourth time this happens, it does tend to make one feel as though you're being a royal pain in the @ss and that you're taking more than you ever really deserved. It causes you to look in the mirror every morning and see LOSER stamped across your forehead. Whether my family thought of me as a burden - my parents would never have said that to my face, but I knew it anyway, because I knew what they had raised me to be as a person and my sister was achieving it just fine, but I couldn't seem to do it to save my life. I'd like to be able to say its a lie, but I was a burden and I can't pretend otherwise.

I barely had time to feel like a burden before my parents kicked me out, three months after I finished university . . . which I suppose means I was a burden, whether I felt like one or not.