Are your parents overprotective?

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I second this but in reference to both of my parents. They don't allow me to go anywhere alone so I suppose being almost 30 and having that still be an issue would constitute significant overprotective behaviors.



If I didn't have access to the internet like I do I probably would have killed myself ages ago because the internet is the only place where I can live and do as I please given the fact I have limited freedom to do such in real life ...

The internet was, for many years, my only means of interacting with NTs who weren't teachers or teaching assistants, and hence my only means of being able to compare myself intellectually, academically, and socially to NTs of a similar age, and also my only means of interacting with mainstream educated Aspies. It's what gave me the confidence to explore the world more and seek out further opportunities academically and socially, rather than reluctantly accepting what special education had to offer. And special education had practically nothing to offer.

No, they weren't at all, as I was allowed to do things on my own, and that meant sometimes learning from my mistakes. I was also expected to do my own homework in school, and if I didn't, I was expected to suffer the consequences which was usually a lower grade.

I knew someone growing up whose mom was a helicopter parent before it was even a term, and this person has never been able to function as an adult.

I would say my mom is normal-protective of me, and also not any more protective of me than she is of my NT brother. My dad is not very protective of me at all. He holds me pretty much to NT standards and doesn't understand just how hard my AS makes things for me, yelling at me about how I'm lazy, don't care, and/or am not trying hard enough when I don't live up to his expectations.

"Overprotective" seems to suggest a positive, caring motivation.
There is a big difference, I think, between that and being downright inappropriately intrusive, overbearing, encroaching and nosy. I get the latter, as an adult. I am treated as if I don't have the right to any personal privacy, autonomy or respect at all, and am treated as if I am severely intellectually disabled and need to be treated like an impaired child.
Which is even stranger because no one appeared to treat me like this as a child. Then, they didn't care about me at all, and I was happy with that as I was a half-feral child, with a pack of other half-ferals, and we spent more time in the wilderness than anywhere near our parents. We only returned to one of the houses for food.

My mother has been . Mostly she has worried that I might wonder off and get lost . And she might panic if she doesn't immediately notice where I am , when we are out on the town together ,even though I am usually only a few feet away . I suspect that parents of persons on the spectrum , even after the children are grown , might tend to infantilize them . http://blog.theautismsite.com/infantilization-autism/ P.S. This thread triggered these two Britney Spears songs , as a mental stim .

Less so now that I'm older. I actually wish we could spend more time together. My mom's often too busy for family these days.

A couple of months before I was diagnosed, the staff at the home thought I was too sheltered by my family when I really wanted to live as freely and independently as possible. I had a tendency to put my mom and my brother on a pedestal and tell the staff that if either of them were there, they wouldn't let the staff treat me like they did. They ended up calling my mother without letting me know first, and she was guilted into telling me not to mention it to the staff or anyone in the home when she and I were going out to do things together like shopping or going out for supper. Never mind that another resident in another home I used to live in called his mother on the phone constantly and went out with her maybe once a day. It was okay for other residents because they were mentally ill. It wasn't okay for me because I was "behaviorally dysfunctional". If my parents went on listening to them and treating me the way they believed I should be, I might not even have been diagnosed. I might not even be alive.

I wouldn't be doing what I am now if it wasn't for my parents, which is what most people my age learned to do, and more, on their own without any serious problems. But part of it was possibly also due to my being incurably stubborn and a huge fighter.