Family Parties & Talking

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I know why I don't want to go to family parties anymore, when I go to these parties, I have to force myself to talk, I don't know why I can't talk to them. I shouldn't be force to talk, they never noticed, I always go into an empty room to be by myself. Why can't I talk to my family?

I don't know why Kitty but I am same.

Is your family unkind to you, bullying or teasing or dismissive? Do they know about your ASD?

Do they talk about things that bore you, so you don't want to participate?

Do you wish you could join in, but you can't pace with the conversation? This happens to me a lot, I think of something to say but first I have to arrange the words in my head, then I wait for an opening--and either the opening never comes, or when it comes the words I'd scripted are no longer relevant. I have a really hard time getting others to realize that I have something I'd like to say, not just with Family but with every group.

Do they ignore you when you try to talk, so you give up? Do too many of them talk at the same time? For me if there is more than one conversation going on I can't track. That's when I want to go find an empty room to be alone in. Of course there's always the chance that one of them will hunt me down and ask the dreaded "what's wrong?" question.

And then there's the horseplay, the rough-housing, and one brother's supposedly funny sexist comments. I'd rather be in a different room when that goes down, too.

Anyway I feel the same as you about family parties; I can only talk to my mom usually.

I'm like that too. I rarely contribute to conversations at family parties. Maybe it is because I feel like I have little to nothing in common with my family. I do have one aunt who has some of the same interests as I do and I love it when she is there because we can talk about Doctor Who and she doesn't get annoyed with me.

Often kept to myself at family gatherings as a child and young adult. Mostly just sit and listen now, decades later, or better still, just stay home, but can't avoid all family functions. I definitely prefer being alone. It is so much less stressful. Don't have much in common with other people, including family, so it's hard to have conversations. Most conversations with them involve them criticizing me, so I avoid most family gatherings, and then they feel hurt because I don't want to spend time with them. Being constantly criticized hurts me. Can't win. I'm in my mid 50s and shouldn't have to put up with that all the time. I compromise by only attending family gatherings occasionally.

your not alone my family mostly ignore me or are quick to dismiss any subject i come up, they are also fairly critical. so i just hang out on my own when family parties happen and keep my distance. my mother usually comes to say hi every so often, she's very kind most of the time, just the ignoring, dismissing and critical comments that my family do are the problem, they are good people otherwise. most of the time i feel like im the least important person out of all my family members.


id see this as normal behavior, its maybe a reaction to something similar as ive just described

My family is nice, but controlling, selfish & they can gossip & tell lies. Oh I almost forgot, they can cause tooooo much drama. One of my aunts can believe anything, when my mom was in the hospital, she believed something that was untrue, next I got a very angry email from my aunt & she was yelling at me. My mom told me to let it go, I did let it go, she never apologize to me. Some of my family knows about my Asperger, they don't care to learn about it, when I try to tell them, they don't listen to me & think whatever they want to think about me, they think they know better than me. My sister is the WORST!! !



I have sooo much trouble opening my mouth.



Yes, I want to talk to them, when some people in the kitchen cooking, I can have trouble jumping into the conversation, I wait for an opening too, I can say hi, how are you or say a few more words, but if I talk a lot, I feel force to talk.



I can only talk to my mom too.

Most of my family and I have nothing to talk about. I highly dislike forced meaningless conversations.

My sister is also usually the worst--also a drama queen, and so painfully NT it's very hard for me to talk to her. We have nothing in common except we happen to have the same parents.

My husband thinks she does it all deliberately to see if she can provoke me to a meltdown.

So talking to them is hard, and I usually hide in a back room instead.

That was really horrible of your aunt. Nobody in my family really gets the concept of *Lyra has Asperger's* either. they told my husband outright that he didn't know what he was talking about.

Can I PM you?

Whenever a family friend or a relative visits, my mom always has a habit of trying to force me to talk to people who I don't want to talk to.

I have absolutely nothing in common with my family. I don't care for family parties and events as much as I used to. I was made to know that I'm a second-rate family member the first third of this year. I'd rather be true to Germany than be a first-rate Munro, anyways. I keep to myself and my lips are sealed after the small talk. I know that if I open my mouth after the small talk is done, I'll say something that marks me as a The Family Nazi. I find myself inching away from the dinner table after I'm done eating. That's when my mum asks, "Who wants desert?" I grin and bear it as I eat my desert and than I find myself inching away from the table, again, my sister laughing as I'm inching to the left of the sofa. I make my way into the spare bedroom. As I'm about to listen to my song on YouTube, I close my laptop and get my butt into the living room and I sit in whatever spot there is. I sit there and I speak only when I'm spoken to. Lili Marlene by Lale Anderson is playing in my head as I say nothing and listen to stories from each Munro and Levvit. My French Canadian mum is also quiet so I sit next to her. I know not to cross the family name when I'm close to her.

After everyone leaves, I scoot into the spare bedroom. I go on WP and YouTube and listen to a plethora of German war songs and marches.

I don't care for family gatherings, but they're not as bad as they used to be now that I have an Asperger's diagnosis. My parents used to force me to be with the family all the time until I couldn't take it anymore and had meltdowns, and then I would get in trouble for those. Since my diagnosis, they give me time to be alone, which I sorely need.

I hope you have plenty of water to wash it down with!

I have no interest in conversation at family get togethers.

I'll often go off on my own and do my own thing or if there's a decent amount of kids around be the oldest one who plays sports with them and more rarely games such as tag and such.

That or I'll be eating. I love to eat at family get togethers.

Small family gatherings are fine.
Most of the people in my family are highly entertaining and chatty amongst themselves when they get together, so I barely need to talk - which is great, because barely talking is my thing.
The only trouble I have is with hearing (hearing impaired).
So I will often ask someone to interpret the conversation for me.

My mother, on the other hand, is very challenging to speak to and I don't enjoy her company at all. Having to go to a party which she is also attending really puts a damper on the fun, and I know I'm not the only member of the family who feels this way.

I used to love family parties as a kid, I really love the Halloween parties, back then there were alot of kids, I have a big family. My grandmother had 7 children, her sisters has more, they have 60 children, grandchildren & great grandchildren. I not only have to force to socialize with my family, somebody have to pick me up, I can't drive, so I'm struck there for hours. Sometimes I have a good time, but rarely, once I beat my younger cousin at a dance game on WII.

<--- You can get him to go to a family get-together or reunion by putting a gun to his throat.