parent's loneliness and isolation

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Ugh yeah I am dealing with this at the moment too and it sucks. I think the problems are twofold
1) Being on the spectrum myself I find it hard to make friends at the best of times, and don't have much interest in doing so - particularly with the mommy brigade. Unfortunately the school has a lot of enforced social interaction and I feel uncomfortable being visible as a loner (my issues I know...), so I feel like I HAVE to make an effort to be friendly, even though I'd rather not.
2) DS's Aspergers means he can be quite aggressive to his peers. He goes to a mainstream school and while some parents are lovely and understanding, others are complete a$$holes. Particularly fathers of girls, I've noticed. So after a few less than pleasant interactions lately I am keener than ever to avoid the other parents. I do wonder if I'd have better luck with friendships with other spectrum families. Maybe DS needs a new school

All the best OP

I used to think I was lonely and even once was foolish enough to accept an invitation to a year one's mums night out, it was a disaster for me and it just confirmed what different planets we were on. A couple of weeks after the event one of the mums spoke to me reguarding my son and how far he has come along, mentioned how well I relate to his needs and Marvelled at how I understand exactly what he is thinking when he is trying to figure out conversations. She then went onto to ask me if the reason I understood him so well was because I was like him.
I replied that the reason I understand him so well is because he is my son! as it was none of her businesses.

When my son was younger I attended a group where the parents chatted and the 'children with additional needs' where in a supervised play session run by childcare educators and 4th year students. It was very overwhelming for me as everyone was talking at once but a few of the moms forged strong friendships and 3 years on still socialise, I am happy to be FB friends with them.

There are other ways of finding friendships other than school, do you have local support groups? Aspect? Disability services for sport and Rec like Dissability trust? Not only can good friendships come out of it but support and understanding and advice.

Oh, will you be my new friend? I thought i was just a mean person because i don't know anyone else who felt this way. I too have had some people tell me i "should join a mom's group." I did try...but oh the drama. Never again.

I am on the spectrum as well as my son, or at least close to it...social groups get too complicated for me. I am ok one-on-one but not in a large group. I can't navigate the social dance of women's groups and i don't care to. It seems stupid to me.

My husband's job for years kept him away from social things due to the hrs he worked. I had no energy to drag my kids to social things and corral the youngest spectrumite alone throughout the whole function. I always blamed the lack of social connection on this--however, as i look objectively i see it is me as well. I just don't do social groups well and a lot of it is my aversion to groups of people. It is just too hard. I do get lonely.

I have a few friends that i can get together with once in a while and that helps. One whose son is also on the spectrum and has similar experiences to mine. I have a nice family although they can be draining at times because of their own aspergers tendencies and anxiety issues. I can identify with the loneliness and isolation but don't have a lot of good answers.

+1

As a general rule, I would rather pull out my own abscessed tooth without anesthetic (or liquor) than spend time with the local Mommy Brigade. It's like Facebook: The Stage Play. Vomit.

It's mutual.

I kind of cut a couple of people out of the pack of preschool moms. Both of them were Different. Yeah, like a wolf cutting out a reindeer, BB marked her potential friends and moved in for the kill... One was a SAHD, and I figured that any guy with a pony tail and a Duck Dynasty hat and a ratty "I Like Knockers" t-shirt had to be potentially OK. Turned out his other kid was my son's best friend from kindergarten... The other one wore baggy pants and liked to knit and garden and kind of kept herself apart from the group. Turned out she was an ABA therapist before she was a mom. That one didn't go anywhere. We always speak when we run into each other, and I wish we could get together to can, but I'm not pressing the issue. She was an ABA therapist. Nuff said... The last one looked unlikely. Styled hair, fake nails, full makeup, buttcheek shorts, always with the mommy pack. But she always looked hungry and hunted. Her oldest kid OBVIOUSLY had quite a bit of ADHD, and she was obviously struggling and embarrassed. SOMEONE had to praise the kid inject some confidence, so I did. She was friendly with the SAHD. I offered to babysit, and she was desperate. Next thing I know, we're drinking coffee and swapping mental health care war stories and it's like we've been besties since high school (even if she is 10 years younger and sometimes I feel like her babysitter, and even if her bubbly ADHD effusiveness is too much for me sometimes, and even if her picket fence envy does drive me crazy).

Yes^10

I don't want to give people a false image of what my life is like and I also don't want to share all of the depressing details. It's easier to isolate myself.

My wife couldn't deal with our AS daughter and their fights grew worse and worse. My wife's behavior became more and more abusive until our daughter cut her off and now hasn't spoken to her in almost six years. It's a totally dysfunctional family situation.

I feel ashamed that I didn't understand better what was going wrong when it was going wrong and do something to stop the abuse. And I feel constant regret that I didn't give my daughter a better home and a better life.

It's not just about Facebook. Acquaintances always ask, "how was your Thanksgiving", "what are you doing this weekend", and so on. The truth is too depressing and complicated to explain. It's easier to minimize the circumstances in which people will be asking me these questions.

Does your daughter still talk to you? It's almost never too late to reach out gently and without pressure. If your wife would want to, your daughter might be interested in a new, adult relationship. And if not, your daughter might welcome a positive connection with you. If you already have that you can tell her what you are telling us.

But don't stay away because you are ashamed of not protecting your daughter if she could interpret you staying away as not wanting anything to do with her because of her. Sometimes no matter what a parent has done to you all you want is they aren't doing it now.....just speaking for me what I would wish for.

I agree with Waterfalls. From the perspective of an aspie, i am often unsure of what people are thinking and feeling; and I myself interpret silence as abandonment. Someone could be deeply regretful for hurting me, but unless they come right out and say, "I know I hurt you when i did such and such, and I am very sorry," I will never get the message. Just treating me politely and pretending that the incident never happened is not mending things. I will always distance myself from the person and mistrust them unless things are patched up in a very direct manner.

We have some family members whom I do not trust because there are hurts that have never been directly mended. My husband tells me that they don't hold anything against me, and they act like nothing ever happened...but i will never trust them unless we have that plainly spoken conversation that mends the fences. I don't hate them, i just don't trust them. But one family member did come to hubby and me and we had a direct conversation over the incident. That person i do trust.

Obviously everyone is different, and i don't know if that is the key to mending things with your daughter. But that is my experience.

Yes. During the years when she fought with her Mom I felt like I was always in the middle trying to de-escalate without taking sides. They were like a cat and a dog that couldn't wait to fight. Once their relationship was irretrievably broken, I realized that I had to side with my daughter and that brought us much closer. I have essentially been her single parent for six years. We had some very positive facebook-worthy experiences. But from these I saw that if I had understood things more clearly much earlier then I could have given her a better childhood and helped her be a stronger person.

I don't want to hijack this thread and have it being all about me. And I guess that's been my approach IRL. I'd rather avoid describing all of the details, hence isolation. But feel free to contact me by PM if you have something to say.

Sort of. But one thing I do is since my kids are "high functioning" I force them out into the world. They get days off, but by and large I usually have them involved in some activity like girl scouts or soccer. I lead the girl scout troops to make sure my kids don't get kicked out. I also volunteer at the school. I can't stress enough how important it is to volunteer at your childs school so that people know you and who you are. It shouldn't matter for the IEP, but it totally does. IF anything, being an aspie myself, advocating for the kiddos forces me into way more social stuff than I'd like.

Even when they know you, they will still turn on you if you don't go along. I think that's what knowing each other does, makes it more likely everyone will agree. That's valuable, but sometimes you may not agree, and volunteering and being known won't matter then.

Volunteering works fine if you're reasonably certain that the teachers/staff will like you.
If I volunteered, it would probably only make things worse for DS.

probly.an.aspie : Yeah, we would get along fine.

As far as volunteering goes, it really is a mixed bag. I was basically told to do it by the school shrink so we would not be viewed as too much of a time/effort suck and so teachers would be more willing to work with us. (She said it nicer than that, but that is what it translates to, in normal English) Most of the teachers appreciated the effort, except one, who at the outset, literally told me, she was doing my kid a favor by allowing it. She ended up appreciating it b/c I am hella efficient b/c I optimize what I am doing, don't waste resources, and I don't yammer to others.

The last year of PS, I did not bother b/c they started pooling the volunteers and ran it through the local PTA b/c some teachers got more help than others. Some got none, some had a lot. At that point it became impossible to avoid the social aspect, and the social aspect was with the type of people I cannot handle. I was always willing to do individual things for the teacher, and offered to do that, but no way was I going to be bossed around by the mean girls, with no visible benefit for anyone dealing with my son.

The extreme level of false pleasantness in schools really freaks me out. I stiffen up and become even more socially awkward than usual. It feels like I'm in a funhouse. I don't think me lumbering around looking alternately stone-faced and terrified would benefit anybody. Especially since DS is the outgoing and oblivious type of aspie who's generally well-tolerated for his Forrest-Gumpish innocence.

The few times I had to do things in a communal manner were just awful. I don't think in those instances I was much help to the cause other than when I was able to convert some of the time to acting as my son's personal aide (which he needed but they were not providing) In other words, just being up there as his mom, helping him with stuff, so no one else had to and he was not let foundering -- like gingerbread house building time. Much more productive than when I was cutting out the patterns from the graham crackers and sorting the damn m&ms with the mean mommies.

Yes there are some really mean mommies out there, though what i especially dislike is when they act like I'm not there.