Is it safe to say my mom screwed up my life?

Post Reply New Topic

It's nobody's "fault," really, but I do believe that if I acquired certain skills earlier in life, I might have been more independent today. Autism wasn't talked about in much of Europe, or the United States, in the 1960s and 1970s, when I was growing up. They called it "hyperactivity" or "minimal brain dysfunction." They didn't think I was stupid after I proved I wasn't, but some people still thought I was weird. I don't have it that bad, really, but I would have done much better if I developed more skills and didn't waste my time with some of my obsessions.

I blame only myself for my shortcomings and lack of action.

I agree, Fnord. On the other hand, I have also seen NTs who thought they knew everything and it turned out they didn't know much more than I did. They became "boomerang kids," after their marriages failed and they experienced financial setbacks. That scared me a bit, because I thought, if they couldn't do it with all their social know-how, what hope would I have of success? It turns out that, despite a late start, I'm beginning to catch up, but I wonder, "How late is too late?" I estimate it will take me until I'm in my 60s or 70s to catch up to where I ought to have been in my 40s, when I came close to disappearing altogether from life.

In some ways I'm glad I had kids before I got my diagnosis. Because I realise how absolutely impossible parenting is. Yes I'm angry my parents didn't get me help (they even knew it was likely aspergers but "didn't think it mattered"), yes I wish they could be more understanding now of my limitations. Yes I wish I didn't have to battle what feels like an impossible uphill climb against my own self loathing and crappy strategies for dealing with my own limitations, but I can honestly say that my parents did everything they did out of love and they did that best they could.

So no, I don't think you can say your mum screwed up your life. Like every parent she made mistakes, and yes if you'd had help you might have been in a better situation now, but equally there are heaps of kids who were forced through horrific interventions in the name of therapy, so maybe she saved you all that?

I believe the best therapies involve real life situations and helping kids with the executive function skills they will need out in the world. It seems a lot of therapies are either too strict or too unfocused and a lot of them are pretty babyish. I would have hated a teacher saying "Good job" to me for putting a puzzle piece in its proper location at school age or something similarly inane. I always found that kind of behavior really patronizing.

I will tell you a story about a woman who hated her mother and was jealous of her sister. The woman always complained bitterly about her mother. The mother was a union seamstress during the depression. Divorced and trying to raise two daughters in Brooklyn. She was known as a modern woman, breaking norms of the day, and she lived to the ripe old age of 102. The sister was a lovely woman, had two sons and is a very proud grandmother.

I never knew why the mother was hated or why the sister was the favored one. But, the women went to her death bed shunning her sister and hating her mother. The livelong hate was part of her being and made all those close to her miserable.

My personal feeling is simple. Did they try to be good parents? If so, cut them some slack and forgive them for their mistakes.