total unacceptance by mum
I am 28 so yes an adult but I have lived my life with a mum who is emotionally manipulative and so those of you who say dont talk to your mum i say it isnt that easy. Anyway tonight i went around to her place for dinner and I do try and not go all that often.
she was just really horrible and made me cry. I needed to talk about my grandma and how she is getting old and I dont like to see that. Mum started with her verbal abuse saying I am "overwight", "look dreadful", "talk at her", "have no sensitivity" and am "stupid". I was so upset trying to explain i need to talk about it and she became more dismissive callign me a "pain" by this stage i was in absolute tears of frustration deasperation and anghst. I want her to understand and be sympathetic but she is nothign of the sort. She tries to change me and wont accept me as I am difference and all.
she also said I have 15 aspies at work and they dont all talk incesantly. I just want her to accept me and the more i try the more upset it makes me. I wish for my own sake i was able to say thats never goign to happen and live with it but it isnt that easy. Incidents like this make me feel more alone and isolated than i already am. I am lucky that I dont live at home but mum keeps dragging me back into her life like she did last night and iti s sooo hurtful. The woman doesnt get it I am different and that is ok.
Last edited by Catster2 on 22 Dec 2008, 3:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I'm sorry that you feel alone and isolated Caster2, but aside from suggesting you re-examine your expectations (reasonable expectations applied to unreasonable people are often disappointed), I cannot see what useful advise or comment to make.
I cannot explain your mother's behavior, nor can I see what you might do differently to prompt a different (and improved) response from her. I suppose there is not someone more understanding in your family that you could discuss your concerns about your grandmother with?
I hope you feel less alone and isolated soon.
What your mother is doing is wrong, low and mean. My mother is manipulative too, though not always on purpose. Your mother manipulates you, but even worse: She tells you very negative things, and that's very bad for a person's self-esteem and feeling of self-worth, it makes a person insecure. How can a mother say to her child he looks fat and dreadful?? I wouldn't say it to anyone! And especially a mother shouldn't say that. A mother is partly ment to give you a sense of self-worth.
If I were you, I'd move out as soon as possible. You are 28 years now, you shouldn't let someone manipulate you and treat you that bad as your mother does now. Come on, you are a full-grown man, she doesn't have any right to treat you in this way. She seems very heartless to me, since she actually made you cry and still went on bashing you. I'm certain you diserve better.
I don't know if you can move out, whether you have money. You write about your job, so you have one. I think almost any situation is better than where you are now, even in the case you have to live in a small appartment with hardly any money. It can't get much worse. Don't let her ruin more years of your life.
I'm very sorry you feel so isolated. I really hope this feeling comes to an end soon. Can it be an option to visit a doctor or psychologist? It can be posible you're depressed, and there are ways to deal with it.
I hope your situation will improve soon.
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Since she knows you have AS, these things that she is saying, that she should know are attacks on your AS traits, are coming from some other place, and she is saying them for other reasons.
There is some old stuff going on in your relationship with your mother, it seems. Perhaps there is some game, where she makes you feel guilty about things you can't control? Then she becomes emotionally unavailable, cold and judgmental.
It is hard to say from this brief post of yours, but it sure sounds like parent emotional abuse. There are a few things like people's stories on the web, about how to deal with it. The elements of this kind of abuse include:
Invalidation (explaining how you don't measure up to others, or how others look down on you)
Guilt Trips (making you feel guilty about things that you did or can't help)
Toxic Communication (insulting language and unhealthy images)
Interrogation (not respecting your boundaries, invading your private life)
Minimizing (belittling your words, ideas or concerns)
Attacking (Condescending, Judgemental, Disapproving, Critical, Condemning)
Scene stealing (it's all about them, their disappointment, their pain)
Emotional unavailability (coldness, rejection, withdrawal, dismissal, failing to respond to your overtures)
Comparing (tells you that you don't measure up to someone else's child, or siblings)
I mean, from the things you say, it sounds as if she is intentionally distressing you, playing a game.
I feel you. I am in the same boat. My mom says i'm just depressed and not autistic, i just need some antidepressants and i'll be fine.
And she loves to bring it up at dinner with guests in the same way. She just feels the need to belittle me in front of people, I guess to somehow justify that it's me and not her fault.
My mom is massively bi-polar and all over the board. She goes to some quack therapist who has her on way too many meds so she thinks those are the answers.
I've kind of figured it all out though. It's easy to just ignore it and take it with a grain of salt.
I really feel for you, because I recognize myself and my mother in what you wrote. My mother was also very manipulative and very cruel.
As human beings, we are hard-wired to expect love from our parents, especially when we feel very alone in the world. I never knew how much I needed my parents' love till I had my daughter, and saw how she reached out to me, instinctively, from the beginning. When we don't get that love, it's so easy to think that all we have to do is explain what we're saying, over and over, until the parent understands it. Especially as an Aspie, I always thought that just verbalizing things better would help, but after many years of tears and therapy and some more tears, I realized that I am not all powerful. My mother, like your mother, was cruel, and she was not going to get any better no matter how many words and how much hope I sent in her direction.
Your mother is emotionally abusing you. You have the power to make it stop. How? Walk away. I know it's not as easy as it sounds, and you may not be ready to do it. I didn't walk away from my mother till I was 33---15 years after I knew I really wanted to. But once it was done, I had a life.
The bottom line is, you have an absolute, fundamental human right to defend yourself against any form of abuse.
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I am sorry this is happening to you Caster2.
My own mother says I need to relax and am not autistic.
Strange, she knew about my autism when I was little
and now no longer believes anything autism-related
or my diagnosis. {I was diagnosed with AS at 13.}
Caster2, you do not deserve this abuse.
You have the power the make it stop.
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Silly NTs, I have Aspergers, and having Aspergers is gr-r-reat!