Do Your Parents Prefer You to be a Terrible Person?

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I am undiagnosed, and my parents prefer to think that I am simply a terrible person, rather than contemplate that I might be ND.

Times when I have not realised that people are upset cause my parents to tell me I'm 'heartless' and 'uncaring' and 'selfish'; times when I have not known how to interact with people, so have not talked to them cause my parents to say that I 'think [I] am superior to everybody' and that I am rude; times when I have misinterpreted their non-obvious questions as statements and have not answered cause them to call me 'passive-aggressive' and 'lazy' and 'acting stupid'. They tell me these things all the time. If I protest that I really did not know what to do/say etc. they say that I'm lying.

When I have (once) approached them with my suspicions about ASD, both parents have shouted at me, saying that I'm not like that, and suggesting that I stop playing dumb. This is after they kept me down in preschool for lack of social skills.

Did/do you have similar experiences? Did/do your parents persist in the belief that you were normal but badly behaved/rude? Do you have any suggestions as to what I can do about it?

Last edited by FandomConnection on 28 Sep 2016, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My parents don't think I'm terrible. They usually have good and positive things to say about me. I feel like sometimes I'm the only person here whose parents do.

You're not. My parents are very supportive, at times to a fault.

My mom and my sister both want me to be a bad person because I am not female. They both believe that all men, Aspie or not, are stupid, self-centered pigs who think more with our genitals than with the brain!

It's not so much that they think I'm a terrible person that's the problem, it's that they want to think I'm a terrible person rather than contemplate that I might have Asperger's/Autism/ASD.

I'm glad your parents are supportive - how good it must be to have people trying to help you!

Mine never wanted me to be terrible. In fact they wanted me to be normal so they gave me a normal childhood and made me feel normal. But unfortunately that couldn't be avoided elsewhere, not with my school and other kids.

Not sure which poll option to choose.

I don't think my dad considers me a terrible person now or ever. He also doesn't seem to care what I am dx'd with one way or another. He's supportive, I guess. He's never been jerky to me.

My mother, on the other hand, is a different story. She's called me a lot of not so nice things over the years. Not sure if it's an autism thing for me though... my mom is an addict and was not even close to okay when I was growing up, so any flaw with me she takes personal and then turns it back around on me to try to act like she's a victim or saint. She did say at one point though how glad she was I had a dx so that they could give me a pill to finally fix me. Other times she says I do not have autism and it's all in my head and I need to quit thinking about myself so much. She's an odd one... drugs and booze will do that to ya...

I suppose it's a confusing subject name - the character limit did not sufficiently allow me to express my intent. I mean that my parents would prefer it if I were a terrible person to me being autistic etc. Instead of accepting that I actually am confused in social situations and don't understand emotions they say that I know what I'm doing, but just cannot be bothered to interact normally because I'm too selfish. They want me to be normal so much that me being selfish/unfeeling is a better option in their opinion to me being on the autism spectrum etc.

I think it's terrible for how they are treating you. I think they should at least listen to you and try to help you. Some parents seem to think that if they just pretend you are "normal" it will all go away.

My parents thought I was a perfectly normal but intentionally difficult child.

Sort of, but not my parents exactly. It was my grandmother who raised me, and she does believe in the diagnosis, but only as far as things like stimming and harmless awkwardness go. She refuses to believe any rudeness on my part is unintentional. She was always yelling at me over something I said or did (not that she'd ever tell me what I did wrong) and often tells me I'm "hateful" and "a bully." Whenever I apologize and ask her to help me understand what went wrong, she accuses me of hiding behind my diagnosis and using it as an excuse to be a lazy jerk and avoid self-improvement. I've learned to just apologize for being deliberately hurtful and promise to try and control my sadistic impulses in the future.

3 years ago my mom decided that my problems must be caused by my atitude, not my disabilities. It didn't help that this was a time when my anxiety was so bad that I could barely get myself to go to school and I myself didn't know much about my disabilities. It was very frustrating for me, I tried as hard as I could yet was told that I was being lazy and I didn't really know what was wrong with me. it was by far the worst few months of my life. Since then she has become more understanding and I have learned more as well, my anxiety has also gotten significantly better.

Thank you all for taking the time to cast votes and reply. It makes me happy . To those who had/have similar experiences to me, I'm sorry to hear that it is a more general problem than just my family. To those whose relatives are supportive and understanding, I'm happy for you!

No. My parents think my AS makes me a good person. I like to think the same way, but sometimes I give myself way less credit than I should.

Good for you. Your parents must be very understanding. Have you been diagnosed? I wonder if early diagnosis might improve parents' acceptance and reduce blame of one's character?

Once again, thank you for taking time to reply!

Ouch. I can sort of relate to that. I also have anxiety and it got pretty bad in my teens and it didn't help when my parents would get mad at me about it. It just made it worse for me. I don't think they realized I was getting more anxiety with them getting mad at me and invalidating my feelings. For a while I just figured it was because we were moving house and just were building it and my parents were under stress because moving is stressful for lot of people and they didn't have the mental energy to handle me.