The curse of being on the very mild end of the spectrum

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The closer to normal you are, the more normal you seem and the less deficits people see. When you are on the very mild end, people may see your awkwardness but tie it to your personality, they may see you communicate differently but tie it to your personality, they may notice things about you but see it as your personality rather it's speaking your mind or being blunt or opinionated and people might think you have balls to say things and have guts and also think you simply don't care what others think and are not concerned and they may think you are self absorbed and selfish. Also when you are at your worst moment or stressed out or having a bad day or anxious, your symptoms tend to appear and you no longer seem normal. Also do your parents see your symptoms as part of being you and see them as your personality and flaws? I believe my mom sees mine as my personality.

Despite being diagnosed, my mom thinks I don't care about what other people think because of what I wear. Uh I don't know fashion and I don't stress about trying to dress "normal" and if I gave a darn so much about being a normal woman, then wouldn't it be social anxiety then I would be having if I was putting in too much effort to dress "normal?"

Also my mom claims I didn't care so I did things like turning off the light when she would be in the bathroom and also when I took a pack of gum from the store, my mom said I just didn't care so she had to toss it out after she made me pay for it when I think it might have been I just didn't have a concept of being embarrassed and not having the concept of how it would make others feel unless I had that psychopathy trait of lack of remorse and empathy.

Also last night she called me self absorbed when it's because I can't do two things at once. Like if I am in the middle of something, it's hard for me to shift my attention and do something else so when my husband handed me my dinner, I was able to take it and put it on the table but I forgot "thank you" because it didn't enter my mind. I don't do it on purpose. I do these things pretty often. Also as a child I was very literal so my mom just assumed I never listened. So even with a diagnoses she still thinks these things and I don't really let it bother me even though I find it a little hurtful. But I guess this is what it means to be close to normal. But then I feel too embarrassed to ask for any help because since I am so close to normal, I shouldn't be struggling.

Also I don't ask my mother about her tone or when she uses air quotes. She has accused me of trying to be Asperger's before so I am afraid if I ask, she will think I am trying to be so I let it slide and not think about it and just see it as one of her quirks. And I am not sure what she means by "Just be Beth" because I am not trying to be any label but she will mind as well say I am trying to be anxiety or OCD but I am surprised she has never given me those accusations either. Only thing I had ever tried to be was normal but there was a time when I was trying to not be Asperger's and all it was was giving me anxiety so I stopped worrying about it and even my therapist I used to see agreed I was wasting all my energy and stress about it. I don't even waste my energy about not being anxiety or OCD because I don't think about it. I don't spend my days thinking if it would be a "normal" thing or an aspie thing or an anxiety thing or an OCD thing to do X. But sometimes I still wonder if she thinks I am still trying to be Asperger's. Like I told my mother a couple weeks back that words tend to leave my head in certain situations and I had all these words I have to say but they get jumbled up in my head I have a hard time speaking and getting it all out, I wondered if she thought then I was trying to be Asperger's. She would mind as well say I am trying to be anxiety. But I have also felt she has used it against me too because she has told me I was trying to be AS in 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade so I finally told her "How was that even possible if I didn't even know what it was?" Then she changed her answer too "Okay when did you meet what was his name who would come over who was violent?" I said his name and she said "That's when you started to get worse." Honestly I do remember feeling more irritable and impatient but I tie that to hormones because I was told by several people that is what it was and it was pretty normal. If that is what my mother means by getting worse, it had nothing to do with Asperger's or trying to be. Even I didn't like feeling that way myself. But I wonder what my mom's excuse would have been if she didn't tell me about having Asperger's and if I never met that kid, then she would have to find another blame for me and say I was trying to not be normal or that I was trying to be anxiety or OCD

She also claims my school counselor was teaching me to be Asperger's so I told her he was not telling me how to act like one, it's not like I was sitting at a desk and he was writing on the board telling me how someone with it would act and telling me to act that way. But she said she knows he wasn't doing that but he was saying things like "That is because you have Asperger's" "of course you couldn't figure that out, you have Asperger's" and I said to her how did she get that idea and she said she based it off the conversation in the parking lot when they happened to run into each other there when she went to the bank. It started out with small talk and then it turned into a fight. But even if he wasn't teaching me to be Asperger's, he still wasn't the right therapist for me because he had told my mother I would never get better and it will always be that bad and that she was wasting her money on another therapist for me so that meant he didn't have enough faith in me. He didn't think "You can do it, go go go, keep trying, you can do it, you can get better, go go go." Also I think he was pathologizing so he saw anything I did as Asperger's and made the assumption I would be that naive to hand my Game Boy to a middle schooler if he wanted to buy it from me but promised to give me the $20 the next day. He ignored my answer when I told him I would hold onto my Game Boy until he gave me the money but instead he said if I had handed it to him, I may never see that boy again. He even kept asking me the same question over and over and I kept giving him the same answer as if he wanted me to say "I will give it to him" and when I told my mom this story, she said "Are you glad we got rid of him? He thought you would be that stupid." Basically she has just said aspies are that stupid when they are that trusting. Naive would have been a better word or trusting or just say he really underestimated me and didn't give me enough credit and he really saw me as the label instead of just me. I hope my mom doesn't think people with ASDs are really dumb when they are trusting and get duped and she was only saying if I did that, then I would be stupid because I am too close to normal to have that happen. I would just think they are that severe and don't really understand the world and have the concept of how dishonest people are so they are very vulnerable and need someone with them when it comes to money. But then again I have known plenty of people on the spectrum who wouldn't be that trusting to just hand their item to someone and then expect money from that stranger later.

Also another curse being close to normal is when you have a lot of anxiety, it's all your fault for how you feel and if you are having meltdowns and if you are getting stressed out because things are not going your way, I had a need for a clean house. But when my parents would get mad at me for my anxiety, it just made things worse for me and gave me more anxiety. Then it wasn't helpful when my dad brought home a new puppy that wouldn't pee outside and would wait until he was inside to go and there was tremendous anxiety and my parents getting mad at me even more and me getting even worse because of the anxiety they were giving me by getting upset with me. I couldn't stop and I felt I was going crazy because I was getting worse so it felt relieving when I read about how common it is to get worse when you reach puberty. Throw in the hormones, the anxiety, and part of being a teen, and the autism, yeah that is not a good combo and my mom thought I was trying to be Asperger's. She would mind as well give me that accusation in 6th grade but wait, I wasn't even diagnosed then with it so she can't say I was trying to be AS then. Instead she asked me "How did you get so depressed?" But at least she didn't accuse me of trying to be depressed

Also she thinks I chose to not say certain things when really it didn't occur to me to express it like I never told her when I was a kid until I was 16 that little kids are allowed to act up and torture older kids and do things to upset them and it's the big kid's fault and they are to let them to whatever they want because they are just little kids, do not get upset. But because I had expressed other things like being picked on in school and that other kids have different rules than me, she is assuming I could express everything. She also said we always talked about my behavior and consequences and I still "chose to not tell her."

Also I didn't talk about my feelings so she says I was too afraid of being hurt again and that people would just hurt me so I was afraid to talk about them. Maybe I just didn't know how but I could in writing? I didn't even know I was writing about feelings until my mom told me when she was nosey and read my notebooks. The curse of being a kid, no privacy lol. Anything you write or type on your computer will be read by your parents. You have no right to your personal thoughts when you write them down. You have no right to your private stories either. I think I can understand why it's that way.

Also she accuses me of ignoring my son when he says something to me and I don't answer. I just have nothing to say and what do I say? "Oh?" Also if I am focusing on something else, it's sometimes hard to do two things at once and shift gears and I get accused of ignoring my son.

Sometimes my mother is just harsh with me and now that she is working fewer days of the week now, I have a feeling it might get worse and I am worried I will get anxiety from it and then it makes me worse because of the anxiety. I would hate to be back in high school again and moving to a different home isn't really an option.

Can anyone relate?

Tell her you're a grown woman with kids and a husband. And that she must respect you more.

Yes, yes, yes - can relate.

I said I was trying to be normal but I forgot for the moment I also tried to be ODD when I was 16 because I had found a short cut to my problems but it backfired. It may have worked with Frankie but not with my own family.