Child Abuse

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My mother has always been emotionally and psychologically abusive. She has never been truthful and honest in anything she says. She says lies to me and to other people when she talks about me. I honestly don't know if she intentionally lies, or if she believes the lies so much that she could pass a polygraph test.

I absolutely know for certain that I am a product of her abuse. It is impossible for me to know exactly what I was born with. I don't know if having Asperger's Syndrome made me a target for the abuse or if I have PTSD resulting from a lot of emotional And psychological abuse. I can only assume I was born with Asperger's Syndrome when there is so much abundant proof of a lifetime of emotional and Psychological abuse from my mother. If I was born with Asperger's Syndrome into a sane family, I would be a lot better off. I would't have the emotional damage I have today.

My self identity defining who I am has shifted so much to the child abuse. If I have to conclude between Asperger's Syndrome and child abuse, I would have to conclude that the child abuse is so severe that it has resulted in me having emotional damage that has left me with the parallel effects that appears to be Asperger's syndrome. Quite possibly I am the result of having Aspergrer's syndrome combined with being a child abuse victim. 

I have been to Asperger's Syndrome support group meetings. What is missing is the lack of support about being a child abuse victim. I have been to child abuse support group meetings. When I notice how I am different from the other people at a child abuse support group meeting, I think I have to conclude I have Asperger's syndrome. The child abuse support group is missing the support I need for having Asperger's syndrome. I need a support group that is specifically for Autistics who are child abuse victims.

The emotional abuse from my mother is only the beginning of a pattern of how I am treated by women. Female employees that work i  businesses and organizations treat me with negative bias against me. What so many women have done to me has been male discrimination. Women are so rude to me. They provoke me to the point of frustration so that they get a response out of me. Then they use the gender card to claim that I am the one that victimized them. When I go to stores, I have to do my interaction with the male employees.

If ever I have to apply for anything, I am always turned down. I have not gone to college to get a bachelors degree because of being denied acceptance to college. That is discrimination they should not be allowed to do. I have the right to go to college. Now if I apply to college, I have to completely eliminate all women from having any part in my application process.

I need support for having Asperger's syndrome and being a child abuse victim. I have heard from others with Aspergres Syndrome who are not child abuse victims who have denied the reality of my child abuse. I don't want to hear from anyone that will make any attempt to invalidate the child abuse I have been though. Yes there are some good parents. Don't try to tell me that talking about the existence of child abuse is not fair to the good parents. The abuse that has happened to me is real. It is not so easy to forget about it and move on. I still need a lot of help with this in very much the same way that a child needs help when they are currently still being abused.

I feel so alone. I need to have support from others who are also Autistic victims of child abuse.

Your idea that you might've been targeted because you're autistic makes sense to me. That was the case for me. I had a couple of stepfathers who saw the great big "Easy Target" label on me and decided that I made a good punching bag. Not cool at all. My sister didn't get it near as much; she's neurotypical and she got really good at hiding and placating people. Not that she didn't get the fallout from it herself; she had to get counseling for depression at one point. I got the whole shebang--PTSD, depression, anxiety disorder, you name it. Your brain takes a while to figure out you're no longer in constant danger. (It does figure it out eventually, though.)

So, yeah, autistics often look like easy targets to sociopaths. Which makes it even more reprehensible, in my opinion--deliberately picking on somebody because they look easy to pick on! Some people are just utterly despicable, aren't they?

Autistics are also more likely to be crime victims.

Autism and child abuse are unfortunately associated. You'll probably find that quite a few of us are dealing with similar problems. I've mostly got the hang of dealing with mine, though I guess there'll always be traces. Last night I even had this stupid dream that my mom was forcing me to move back home. Wish I'd realized it was a dream; I'd just have woken myself up and got out of it. Those are SO annoying.

I still live with my abusive mother. She was physically abusive when I was a small child and she has always been verbally and emotionally abusive and manipulative, from lies to threats to put downs to trying to instill the belief that I can't function without her. I find the support group isurvive to be helpful but I also come here because some of my issues are more related to autism than to abuse. I'm unlike neurotypical survivors of child abuse and unlike autistic adults who didn't experience abuse. Maybe we could maintain a thread here on Wrong Planet for discussing the interplay of autistic symptoms and abuse in our lives and our difficulties with social and emotional development.

I rarely speak to my father these days... The last time he's ever talked to me like an actual human being was the last time I visited him.

You can have both. I have been diagnosed with Aspergers and PTSD. (PTSD being the result of abuse)

I was largely abused becuase of my AS behaviors. I say this because neither of my siblings we're abused.

I did manage to forgive my parents for about 20 years and have a sort of relationship with them. This changed when I had my kids becuase I saw the same abusive behavior that used to be directed towards me, now being directed towards my AS son, which in turn caused me flashbacks. That was when I was diagnosed with PTSD and then I moved a couple thousand miles away. I am told my mother cries because I took her only grandkids so far away. You no what though. My life was living hell for 18 years. Now they can suffer the consequences of their own actions.

My mother didn't have other children so I can't be positive, but I also believe the abuse was largely a failure to accept that I was different. My mother was most violent during an episode of mutism and often lashed out over unintended offenses like a matter of fact tone of voice or blank stare. On the other hand, mutism can be a reaction to abuse, so sometimes I ask which came first. I don't remember my early childhood well enough to say.

hey, I'm right with you. I always just figured i couldn't handle my own life because my upbringing has degraded my sense of self and value so much, but I now understand that it's not just. It's a horrible combination, Asperger's and child abuse. To be afraid and helpless at home as well as outside in social settings, there's not relief. Personally, I can't tell my family about my strongly suspected Asperger's because of the sh*t I know I will have to endure for the rest of my life if they find out "i think i'm ret*d" :/

Hmph... nothing wrong with being "ret*d". Being an abusive jerk, though--plenty wrong with that.

I found a good deal of escape in books. I was such an obsessive reader as a child--multiple books a day, most days, re-reading books when I couldn't find new ones. Nowadays I only get through one or two books a week unless I go on a reading binge. Books are a wonderful escape, though; and once you have stories or information in your head, they can't take it away from you. Of course, they can take your books away (which they did to me, naturally) but by the time they start up with that, you've got plenty squirreled away in your head; and by the time they've done it for a second time, you've learned how to hide books anywhere, and they never find them all.

I very much relate to that. I've been to child abuse survivor support groups. I'm not quite the same as them. That can only be explained by having Asperger's Syndrome. Maybe the main thing that makes me different from other Autistics is when we can't relate by not having a similar abusive situation, or when I want to deal with how it has affected me, and I'm not getting that kind of support out of an Asperger's support meeting.

I have the exact same issues - both ASD and child abuse. A difficult combination.

I haven't gotten over my childhood - my mum regularly threatened to overdose on sleeping tablets, and I wouldn't know if she was dead or just sleeping. She would ask me why life is worth living etc. Dealing with this sort of stuff as a 10 year old child is an emotional burden that I will never be able to get rid of. My parents fought (yelling) all the time and would keep me awake at night. My issues were ignored, I was constantly in trouble and I was taken to a psych once because there must be something wrong with me because I'd scream at my parents to shut up all the time.

Even after I moved out of home, I still got phone calls with my mum crying and telling me that there was no reason to live and if I didn't talk her out of it, she would overdose. I still dread answering my phone and I have distanced myself from my family.

While psychs are shocked when I tell them about this, my mum has no idea what effect its had on me, or that it wasn't bloody appropriate to behave that way. I'm 20 years older now, and it still haunts me. I have gone through some very bad times when I thought life wasn't worth living.

However I've managed to get my life sorted, have a job, partner, house etc. I just can't get over my past, and its something that hangs over me, and invades my dreams frequently.

I envy those kids whose parents notice that something isn't right, and they are provided with help and support.

I also relate to this.

I have a dual diagnosis of PDD NOS and PTSD. My parents were great, but when I was 10 months old they got custody of an 11 year old nephew and 14 year old niece, who both sexually abused me over the next several years. (Both had been victims of physical and sexual abuse, which is why they were removed from their father's custody.)

I've found that some counseling techniques that work on NT abuse survivors, such as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, don't work properly on me. I also found that discrimination based on autism (bullying in school, conflicts with teachers, etc) exarcerbate my PTSD to the point where I think I got a secondary trauma from my school experiences. I constantly find myself asking whether various traits are PTSD or autism related - am I having meltdowns or flashbacks or both? am I asexual or sexually repressed? am I tactile defensive or triggered by touch?

Maybe we should have our own subforum here at Wrong Planet, because I do think there are some things unique to autistic abuse survivors.

^ I can really relate to not knowing if what I'm experiencing is due to the effects of child abuse or Aspergers. I was in total denial about having Aspergers for years until recently, although with hindsight It fits me like a glove. I've read before about people who were abused saying how they have trouble connecting with people as a result, and then add Aspergers to that and it makes life doubly challenging.

I'd like to second that proposal, I think we would find a lot to discuss that is unique to those of us who are ASD/PDD survivors of abuse.

Interesting how this is worded. I say that because when I finally got around to asking my psychiatrist about having an AS assessment done there was not enough time to arrange for it before I would be leaving the country. However, he did say something close to...'that it may give a false positive, that I may not have it, but because of what I had gone through it may show a positive result...'

Now I wish that I had pressed him to explain further.

Yes a forum specific to this would fill a void.. I don't fit in anywhere. So many parallel effects of child abuse that resembles Autism. I feel like I am stuck between two dimensions.