Any other aspies feel this way about parents/ siblings?

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KenM
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06 Sep 2006, 6:18 pm

My Dad passed on when I was very young, but we spend alot of time together. I did love my dad. My Mom I don't feel anything for. She is just a person. She likes to guilt me into helping her around the house. She says I have to her out because she is my mom and she had a stroke. She says she loves me and does alot for me, but I feel she has to do these things because she is my mother, she has an obligation. She is not doing it out of love or wanting to do it, but because she feels she has to because its what society expects.
Any other aspies feel this way about relitives?



CockneyRebel
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06 Sep 2006, 6:31 pm

Sometimes I do. I feel that my Dad's just a person. I used to love him, until that one day that he told me to lose my Accent, when I was Twelve. The rest of my Family and Relatives are strictley Canadain, from their tastes in Music, right down to their Speech Patterns. There was a toy Routemaster Bus placed on a toy Hockey Rink in 1974, and that Bus is me. That's what my Family is like. If my Dad didn't want a proverbial Cockney for a First Born, than that's his loss, not mine.



Fraya
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06 Sep 2006, 6:44 pm

Well my parents both had AS so Im not sure how I feel about em.. my mother died when I was 9 didnt cry at the funeral cant remember her face now 18 years later and I still know nothing about her.

My parents would sit and quietly watch while I took apart and reassembled my toys to find out how they worked otherwise they might as well have not been there.

Feel kinda sorry for my sister her being the only NT in the household she probably felt very out of place.

I havent talked to my dad about anything but computers and electronics (our mutual interests and the only topic we really discuss) in a long long time but my sister calls every now and then to tell me about my neices and her new/ex/old boyfriend/husband/whatever.

Just like the Brady Bunch :)


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krex
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06 Sep 2006, 10:47 pm

I am adopted and met my bio family a few years ago,so I have two "mothers"

Bio mom,who I barely know....seems very much like me(possible aspie?)she seems to like me the way I am but we seldom talk and she has never done any thing for me ,other then giving birth...but I would feel some loss if she died...she feels like an older me....so I have some empathy with her.

My adopted mom...very complicated relationship...I understand what you are saying about feeling that what she does,she does for "social obligation" and not because she actually loves me (I know she doesnt LIke me and never has)...but the thing is...she has been the ONLY person in my life who I know I can count on...she has made my life a living hell at times and has made mistakes but...I do think she tries to do the right thing and cant help it that she doesnt actually like me(we have nothing in common,
never have and never will)I am still greatful(maybe more so)that she has stuck beside me inspite of not liking me...I dont know if I could have done that if she had been my daughter...I dont know if I could say I love her...I think I do...but I know one thing for sure...I am greatful and I will miss her when she dies....

When my bio dad died I did not grieve...was sadder when my cat died...he was basically a stranger to me....my adopted dad...I have always been fond of,he never seemed as judgemental as my mom,but he also got to cop out of being the "desciplinarian(as many dads do)"...

I am never sure that I have the ability to love anyone as much as I do my boyfriend or my cats...but I will miss my famiy when they are gone...and thats a sort of love(and I do feel grateful for what they have done for me...whatever their motivation for doing so,it still intailed personal sacrifice from them.


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Mnemosyne
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07 Sep 2006, 12:54 am

I definitely don't have that "love" for any of my family that I'm supposed to. I make sure they don't find out though, because I know it would probably upset them. All I can manage is a sense of duty because it's what's "expected" of me. It hasn't ever made sense to me that I'm supposed to value a person higher than all other because of the arbitrary fact that they were born into the household that I was. I didn't choose them, why am I supposed to like them more than other people?

I don't like to eat grass simply because it grows outside my door.



KenM
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07 Sep 2006, 8:31 pm

Mnemosyne wrote:
I definitely don't have that "love" for any of my family that I'm supposed to. I make sure they don't find out though, because I know it would probably upset them. All I can manage is a sense of duty because it's what's "expected" of me.



My mom knows how I feel, and she is upset over it. But I really don't care. I think its just her way of trying to guilt me into doing more stuff around the house for her. I really think thats the only reason she keeps me around. I really can't wait until she is dead and out of my life. I don't even have a sense of duty to anyone in my family. I don't pretend to act like I do because I'm not going to pretend to be someone i'm not just to make someone happy. If I act like someone i'm not, its living a lie.



violet_yoshi
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07 Sep 2006, 9:39 pm

My sense is that perhaps you all feel like this, because your parents expect things from you. Rather than letting you be your own person and making your own choices, it's you have to do chores or you won't have freedom. Which is what I was discussing in another post somewhere awhile back. Alot of the parents disagreed with me, but I think it's wrong to make a child feel they were only born to be used like a packing mule.


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DirtDawg
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07 Sep 2006, 10:48 pm

violet_yoshi wrote:
My sense is that perhaps you all feel like this, because your parents expect things from you. Rather than letting you be your own person and making your own choices, it's you have to do chores or you won't have freedom. Which is what I was discussing in another post somewhere awhile back. Alot of the parents disagreed with me, but I think it's wrong to make a child feel they were only born to be used like a packing mule.


An excellent point about pack mules, but I try hard to not do that to my kids, while at the same time teaching them skills they need to be independent. My kids don't learn by being told things. They learn by doing, and in the case of my son, by reading. I'm also keenly aware of their need to skip chores when they are stressed beyond learning ability, a luxury the real world won't always afford them. But HEY ... they're kids ...

I was very close to my dad. He was always my best friend, except for about a year when I was a jerk of a teen (13 -14) and hated everything and everybody. I have become much closer to my mom (I suspect she's an aspie) in the last few years, but I never had the problems mentioned here. My folks raised me, not full of their pat answers, but to ask my own questions, and find my own way. I got really lucky in the parent department.


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krex
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07 Sep 2006, 10:58 pm

I really have such mixed feelings about this.I hated being treated as my parents servent,house cleaner,dish washer....but then I grew up.I realize its a matter of "degree".Because my parents "tayght" me to think of other people and try to be helpful(this did not come naturally)I
learned how to be a better worker(it does help to get paid,but wanting to do a good job has been internilized and it has taught me some empathy....I think for a family to function smoothly....every body has to be willing to pitch in.Why should parents have to go to work,cook and clean for me...they are not "my personal servents "either.I do hate to be pulled away from my "interests"but so do they!!Not very many people enjoy cleaning(etc)more then whatever their interests are.Maybe it helps when you grow up and have to be the one to do ALL the work.Because my boyfriend never had to do any "chores" when he was a kid....he never learned how...and I dont want to cean up after him either.
Its taken 4 years to get him to understand that someone has to do this stuff,nobody wants to do this stuff,so we both should share this stuff....I think anyone who isnt willing to share the load or uses AS as an excuse to do nothing to contribute,is copping out....


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CockneyRebel
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07 Sep 2006, 11:39 pm

I do chores all the time. As a matter of fact, the chores that I do, keep my emotions intact. If I didn't do any chores, I'd be looking at Half-cab Double Deckers on the Internet, all day. I'd love to think that I've changed, since I was Ten. At that age, I used to sit around, looking at maps of the US. I feel that if I were given more chores, than I wouldn't have sat around, obsessing over the US. My current Obsession with Routemasters and their other Half-cab Relatives is even stronger than that other Obsession that I've experienced, as a Ten Year Old. If I do chores, I don't obsess over Buses, plain and simple. I can think about my Half-cab Friends, from the time that I'm done washing the Dinner Dishes, until I go to Bed. I can even dream about my Red Beauties. :)



KenM
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08 Sep 2006, 4:20 am

I do my own chores at my place. I clean my place, do my own laundry, ect. I don't mind doing my own chores. But my mom is always asking me to do extra stuff that I know she can do herself, she is just using me.



CockneyRebel
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08 Sep 2006, 4:33 am

KenM wrote:
I do my own chores at my place. I clean my place, do my own laundry, ect. I don't mind doing my own chores. But my mom is always asking me to do extra stuff that I know she can do herself, she is just using me.


Than that's different. It seems to me, that she's using her Stroke as an excuse.



KenM
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08 Sep 2006, 5:09 am

A little more info about my living situation. I rent a downstairs apt. from my mom. I pay her rent every month. I moved back to help her a few years ago when she had the stroke, but she is going better. I also pay the cable/ internet bill for both of us, and car insurence for me and her cars. But she always asks me to do more around the house.
I think part of it is I was sent mixed messages when I was a teen. My stepdad would always say. "be independent, do things on your own." While my mom would keep saying: "help me with this help me with that, i'm your mother, you have to help me" :roll:



Morphia
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08 Sep 2006, 10:11 am

I love my family and always have, i get on well with my parents and had a very relaxed upbringing. My parents let me be myself which was really nice. My family is very eccentric, so its easier for me and i don't stand out so much.
Saying that though, i still get tired if i have to see them and pseak to them too often and i get irritated by them....i get easily stressed that way.


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08 Sep 2006, 12:29 pm

I love my parents, but I find it pretty hard to talk to my mother, you know, there are kind of 'rules' you have to follow, and my father can be very, very irritating (I dunno whether he's conscious of it) when eating something, or when everybody's quiet during watchen the TV, he says "AAAAH POOR GIRL" "MUST BE REALLY HARD FOR HIM" that kind of stuff.
The oldest of my two smaller brothers is also tiring to talk to. Also, he can be a real prick and selfish.
My youngest brother is the best person ever existed. I think he's Aspie too (undiagnosed, but there are some things about him that make me think he's aspie) and we can have the most brilliant conversations about nothing. He's the only person with who I have no problems at all with my AS. :D



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08 Sep 2006, 1:18 pm

i only really love my mom, sisters and my brother baby cow, (thats his nickname) everyone else can bug off