Tired of unsolicited advice/criticism from family and friend

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So, I'm having rough a week but today has been particularly rough.

I am dealing with a chronic health issue as well as my own issues with Autism (mainly related
to executive function). I am struggling with day to day life so much these days.

I have trouble with sleeping at night which makes me tired during the day. I also, have trouble waking up at a decent hour which just makes the insomnia worse.

As you may have guessed, I am unemployed during this time of my life, and to add you my own loserdom I am also living with a family member.

Which brings us back to the title of the post. I am so f***ing tired of my family and friends commenting on my situation, and what I should do. Yes, I know I should eat better and yes I know that I should establish routines to get things done more efficiently.

This kind of talk is insulting to my own intelligence. For christ sake how stupid do these people think I am? I know what I bloody well need to do. It is execution of the tasks in question that f*** me up.

Now most of my friends don't know I am autistic, so I can forgive them for thinking that I am capable of more than I really am. But my family all know about my diagnosis and consequent struggles in life, and still insist that I am not trying hard enough.

My stepfather is constantly asking and pushing me to do things that I am just not capable of doing at the moment. I try to calmly explain why I find something challenging or downright impossible to do, but it just falls on deaf ears. All I get is criticisms, opinions, observations and unsolicited advice.

None of these things help, they just make me feel worse about myself. Often after having an argument with my stepdad, I feel physically and emotionally exhausted. It usually takes a few days to recover and sometimes as long as a week depending on the severity of the conflict.

All I want is a bit of understanding and acceptance for what I am going through right now. I don't need other people's thoughts to clog up my already confused and stressed mind.


Thank you for reading all of the way through this. I really needed to get this of my chest.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation, and if so how did you deal with it?

Regards,

CFL

I haven't had much of that for a long time, but I remember that when I have, it's felt embarrassing and frustrating. What did I do to survive?

I've argued back for as long as it took to tire them out. But then arguing never tires me out, I seem able to go on forever. So probably not good advice for you. And it tends to do little but invite their contempt. Things can get polarised, I stick to my guns, they stick to theirs, and it goes nowhere. It's probably been better when I've gone into great detail about things about me they couldn't have known, that show how their (presumably) well-intended advice wouldn't work.

I've tried to be gracious and just thanked them for their concern and thus ended the debate. It's probably better than getting into an argument, but it often left us both feeling frustrated because I haven't engaged with them. Still, there's no law that says I have to engage with every clown who crosses my path. Especially relatives (who let's face it were thrust on me in the first place) and not-so-close friends. And like anybody else who isn't too easily led, I'll do what I want to do anyway. No reason why I should tell them directly that I think their advice sucks.

Slightly more diplomatic might be to ask them a question about themselves, thus taking over control of the subject matter. But I can't remember doing that myself. I remember one guy who did (when I was talking too much), and I was impressed. One day I hope to try it. I think half the battle is that I felt wary of hurting their feelings, though they set themselves up for it by being so invasive in the first place.

I wonder whether these people of yours are hogging the conversation. If they're interrupting a lot and you aren't, it's OK to say to them, "let me finish" or that line of Kamala Harris' to Mike Pence - "if you stop interrupting me then we can have a conversation."

Just my thoughts. Maybe there's something useful in there, maybe not. I usually try to be as light-touch with people as I can be, because I've noticed how unhelpful it is when some folks wade in like it was any of their damn business.

Would it help if you asked your stepdad to teach you how to do stuff?

A lot of time folks just assume you know the proper way to do things but nobody ever showed you how to do it!

Not getting enough sleep can mess up everything else.

I found when I was laid off that if I made a job out of getting a job, I could maintain a good sleep schedule. This meant getting up at the same time I would for work. I would take to bus to the library and read the paper to look at job listings. If I found none, I would still use the library for research into other interests. Putting in a full day allowed me to get tired enough to fall asleep in the evening.

^
Indeed, poor sleep is debilitating, and I think a human needs work of some kind, and a purpose, but perhaps something more physical would do more for sleep than the largely clerical, sedentary occupation of jobseeking. Not that I'm knocking looking for paid employment. But going for walks or cycle rides might be a good thing, and it may also get away from the unwanted advisors. But I guess it's all horses-for-courses, one man's meat being another man's poison and all that.

OMG, I relate to you so much like 100%. I get this all the time from everybody. I HATE it so much when people do this. The only thing that I have found that works for me is just going no contact. Of course, when you live with people, unfortunately it's not possible to go no contact. But I am so sorry you are going through this. I totally understand and relate.

Too many people especially older ones think of Autism as character flaw that can be mitigated by trying harder. We older folks grew up in an era when it was widely believed that all issues can be mitigated or solved by trying harder(“You can do anything you want by putting your mind to it”).

Autistics are especially are targets of this type of criticism because things that are very unnatural for us many NT’s can do without thinking about them.

As far as doing things you should be doing my advice is work on improving one thing at a time. I say that because many autistics are poor at multitasking and skilled at hyperfocusing on one subject.

Dad, very likely an Aspie IMO but undiagnosed, used to say with disdain, "this is the golden age of good advice." So I think he'd have related to this thread.

Parents are like that, they will turn up the heat on an adult child that does not leave the nest. Pretty much every human parent wants their chick to leave the nest the minute they are of age. It is like a social expectation. I would not take it personally, it is just the way that humans are wired pretty much. Think about it from the parent's point of view, they sacrificed a lot, now they want time to themselves and to enjoy life. They have bills to pay, financial pressure, that kind of thing and also they want to know their children will survive after they (the parents) die.

My brother did not leave for a long time. He lived with my parents up to age 25 or so. The parents got in fights with him a lot, I mean once a month at least, and he would throw temper tantrums too. Pretty sure he was aspergers like me and also, ADHD / Hyperactivity, which is an interesting combination. He did however manage to go through a succession of jobs, getting fired every once in a while especially at first. But then he worked as a landscaper for a local state park for years and achieved some stability there, saving money.

My parents were relieved when he was able to hold down a full time job for over a year, in fact they were elated even though it was minimum wage, that was OK, because it meant he could support himself. They then subsidized his getting his own apartment, and he moved out. After several more years, in his thirties he was truly supporting himself. He was not rich or anything but he was independent for the most part. Parents would help him out now and again, but for the most part he paid his own bills and managed to acquire the life skills that you need to get by.

The irony of the situation is that my brother took care of the parents, each one as they got old and increasingly dependent on his care. He was up to the task, because by now he had acquired all the life skills and could act as a responsible adult and a patient advocate for them. But understand, he had worked a variety of full-time jobs at different places, and learned something from each job and from each boss he had. The bosses were not nice, they were mean but he learned a little bit from every situation and how to deal with things. He got better over time, and is a lot improved than when he was 25 and throwing temper tantrums. Now he manages emotions better.

I have lived on my own and paid my own way in the past. I was fully independent for three years while I worked as a landscaper and rented a small basement suite.

The difference between now and then is that I can not afford even the cheapest of rentals. And my mental and physical health have taken a major downturn in the past couple of years, meaning that I currently can not work. Otherwise I would be able to function on my own.

The cost of living in Canada is causing a lot of young people who were previously independent to move back in with family. So I'm not the only one.

I lived with parents until age 34.
There was constant friction, fighting, tension
about my situation. Sometimes I was working
full time, but most of the time unemployed.
Until I got an actual autism diagnosis
and qualified for benefits, I was in a bad situation.
I was extremely stressed.

I don't know what the answer is for you, but you should be living on your own.
If you can do that on your own, excellent. If you need supports, maybe you need to look into that.

Yes, going no contact was a tool I used often to enforce boundaries with family members in the past. Unfortunately I do not have my own place at the moment, so that currently isn't an option.

I often feel trapped by my living situation and health issues. I try to tell myself that this too shall pass, and that I will appreciate living on my own so much more once it eventually happens again.

Thankfully, I have a support worker that is helping me apply for government subsidized housing. I seem to have good luck with getting into government programs, so I am not too worried about being rejected. So that's positive.

Yes, I agree the line of thinking that disability can be cured by hard work alone is so laughably old fashioned that I can't believe that anyone thinks that. This is such BS. Its not 1924 anymore, autisim is a well known and studied condition. People should know better than to spread such garbage, especially my stepdad since my Mom worked with autistic children for 30 years.

And thank you for the advice. I will try to take things one thing at a time. Honestly, I think that is that only way for me to effectively get anything done.

Yes, I would like to be living on my own but it's currently not an option due to the high cost of housing in BC and Canada as a whole.

Believe me, I will be living on my own and working as soon as possible. Being unemployed and sick while living with a family member is not my idea of a fun time.

For three years from my early to mid twenties I was fully independent, I rented a basement suite, worked four days a week and drove my own vehicle. Besides disability benefits and a support worker that I saw a couple times a month, I was like anyone else. Infact the whole reason for this mess with family and friends is that I pretend to be normal too well. If I was clearly mentally or physically disabled I wouldn't get any flack from anyone. That's why Aspergers and High Functioning Autism are often call invisible disabilities.

unsolicited advice: when it comes my way, I simply say "thank you" , nothing else.
We are under no obligation to justify, explain, give "reasons", or otherwise be beholden to others who question our choices or actions we do or do not take in our own lives.

Eventually the person doing the lectures gets tired of preaching. We can't change their behavior but we can change the way we respond to it.

If possible, don't discuss your struggles with the ones who would lecture you, come here and to other boards where folks actually understand and can relate to the problems you face. Many may have useful insights and suggestions for new approaches to those struggles or at the least you will find that they have empathy for your situation. Do your best self care right now above all things. It sounds like a miserable situation. You are not alone.

Thank you autisticelders, that is some good advice.