My parents won't understand that I might be 'different'

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My mom and my older NT sister know I have AS but refuse to acknowledge it.
There is a possibility both of them are AS, but the catch is my mom grew up
in Central America where such disorders like Autism, AS, and epilepy are still unheard of.

My sister, whenever Mom is not in the house, makes me her personal slave,
making me clean up after her, picking up the trash can whenever it rolls
into the street, etc. {At least I don't have to give her sponge baths! }
However, she has a stout figure and is self-conscious about it.
Her ego is the size of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

I'm pretty sure my dad is an undiagnosed Aspie...probably moreso than I am...and even he is in denial of my AS.

Echo...echo...

Diary...diary...page...torn...from...my...

The acoustics of this thread...

imagine yourself in 10 years, and they still think your completely normal :]
thats me!
no job, no friends, no nothing, and they all think im just "not trying hard enough"
:''')

That's just plain lousy. They should at least make some effort to understand you, not get angry. Even mild ASD can do one hell of a number on you.

Same. I felt like I couldn't win at school. On one hand, we were expected to resist peer pressure and develop a strong psychological 'core'....and on the other, the fact that I failed to understand and gel with other girls, even though said girls were shallow insular morons, was seen as a disorder in dire need of correcting.

Either that or some parents think that they caused their childs 'problems'. When my mum told my dad that I was diagnosed with AS, my dad said..."Just cause I wasn't around, don't blame it on me! There's nothing wrong with her!".

Echo...echo...page..diary

Never mind...


This whole "there's something wrong with your child" and "needs to be fixed" thing was gospel about 15 years ago.

Professionals had a Psychological viewpoint back then.

Lots of therapies still are attempts to "correct" behaviours.

My behaviour still isn't really "corrected" only masked.
I have to be such a fraud to please other people sometimes.

You describe my sister quite well, she always had a hug ego and was always very dictatorial. She frequently tried pushing me around, and I of course learned to stand up to her and was actually making progress, but our parents put and end to that by trying to force whatever she did on me, in the hope it would make me a better person, aka more like her.

Between ages 11-14, with the final summer being the worst, I was forced by my parents to go swimming whenever she did. She loved this because it gave her control of me and she could even take me away from or stop me from doing anything I wanted to do just by deciding she wanted to go swimming. Another thing she liked to do was ask me if I wanted to go swimming and if I said no, ask if I was doing anything. I considered playing with toys or trying to build things to be doing something, of course she would tell our parents I wasn't doing anything, which meant of course I had to drop what I was doing and go swimming. The idea she could place a value on the things I liked really hurt me. The final summer of it was the worst, when our parents banned me from going anywhere, watching TV, listening to music or the radio, and decided th only thing I was allowed to do was sit around and way for my sister to decide to go swimming. They thought taking all of that other stuff out of my life and forcing me into the pool everyday would build me up into a human being, whatever that means. I think it was by taking what I did out of my life and only allowing me what she did, I'd become her, but of course it didn't work.

They also loved forcing me to go places with her, even going as far as threatening to institutionalize me if I didn't because they if I didn't go out, I'd be "warped" and unable to function in society, so I'd better go out and learn to be with people. That lasted on into my first 2 years of college believe it or not. My parents thought I'd be better off living at home and going to school, which I was OK with, because my sister was accepted to graduate school and was going to move out. She decided not to, so that same nonsense continued, with the additional reason of me having to drop what I was doing and go with her wherever she wanted, aka the mall, concerts, football games, her friends's parties, being that I needed to be there to support her since she decided she was going to try to get into medical school. I didn't know how not going shopping with her was keeping her out of medical school, and still don't.

She eventually moved out to go to medical school and I was finally free to be me. I seldom went out and settled into my more geeky, sedate, activities, and was happy and what really made no sense was my parents didn't mind. If it was wrong to stay in when my sister was there, why was it wrong to stay in when she wasn't there? Another thing I never figured out.

She ended up spending the next 2 years bouncing back and forth between home and medical school, and whenever she was back, the same nonsense started up again. One of her times home, a friend of her's invited both of us to a party by asking her and my sister accepted for both of us without consulting me. I didn't want another fight with the parents so I just went. My wife and I were invited to a Christmas party at a coworker's home once and my wife asked me if I wanted to go instead of accepting for both of us and I told her I really appreciated that. She didn't quite understand why I thanked for asking me first, saying that it wouldn't be right for her to just accept for me without asking, maybe I should tell her.

My sister flunked out of medical school, and our parents actually put some of the blame on me for it, because I wasn't always thrilled to just drop whatever I was doing to go do what she wanted. The parents claimed that showed I didn't support her going to medical school, which made her feel bad and not able to do well. The fact she skipped classes alot and had to deal with students who were better than she was didn't help her much either.

The only way to put an end to her nonsense was to finally move out on my own, and then move to another city, to get further away. That is the only way I've been able to find anything that even remotely resembles peace.

^^
Maybe your sister is an Aspie?

Returning to thread, what parents have in order to understand
an Aspie child is opinion and no logic. Same goes for emotions.

Sometimes my mother will try and blame my AS on other things like when I was in Montana, I was off by myself playing my Nintendo DS and I got angry when I got bothered and hated being waited to have my picture taken so I can get back to what I was doing. Well my mother made a comment about how I am off in my own little world, I don't interact with anyone, didn't do it at my grandparents old house, not interacting at their house and I am on the computer instead and she blamed it on the upcoming wedding and my anxiety. Hey I have always been like this, I have always been off by myself when we go up to my grandparents house and I be alone in one of the bedrooms or out in the living room, not even interacting with my family. So no, the wedding had nothing to do with me being anti social. Even without my anxiety I am still off by myself, I have no desire to interact. It's boring. That's why I bring my things with to keep me entertained. I've been doing it since I was in my early teens. It all started with "Bring a book with you to read" so I wouldn't be bothering them about being bored at places and I want to leave. I used to get overwhelmed from them interacting and I'd want to leave so when my therapists recommended they have me bring a book with, it solved their problems. They could now have peace with interacting at the table in a restaurant and not have me bother them about being too loud or me being bored and I want to leave and I start bugging them about "When are we leaving?"