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

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I am in my late 21's and now I finally improved my communication skills but I can't help to think if I got my diagnosis when I was a kid (I got it at 17) then maybe my social skills could have improved in middle school or high school. Then the hand full of people who tried to be my friend in school could have actually been my friends. I can't help to think this thought because I went through my childhood and teen years not being self-aware to my situation of having no friends. I remember when my mom told me that I didn't say my first word until I was 3, I wasn't potty train until I was 5 and how I use to hide from kids in daycare. I became shocked because that is some red flags but my mom excuse is
"I didn't know what autism was, autism isn't talked about in Mexico". That makes me mad because she could have used common sense. My mom is a very caring woman but she doesn't always use her head.

I understand your frustration. I'm 35 and I'm only getting tested for autism now because I went and got the process started. My whole my Mum would jokingly tell me how I could walk and talk after 12 months but that I stopped and only did it when I chose to until 18 months. And she laughed at how my Dad would say that they should take me to see a doctor but she said I was fine. So like you, I wonder what might have happened if my parents took me to see a doctor way back then. But it's impossible to know. Maybe your life would have been better. Maybe it would have been worse. It's actually better not to dwell on it. As you said, your mother is loving and caring and it's true that autism awareness is only being very openly discussed in more recent times. I hope you can find it in your heart to see things from her point of view and just accept the way things happened, then try to move forward and make things better Good luck.

I am glad I was not diagnosed as a child. I don't know how anyone survives all those therapies. Count your blessings.

There comes a time, as you become an adult, to stop blaming your parents for how you are.

Awareness of issues can change dramatically over even one generation. If your mom is loving, again, count your blessings.

Parents make mistakes all the time. Your mother might not have wanted a stigma attached to you. Are you in Mexico now? Autism might carry a greater stigma there than here.

You’re 21. You have your whole life ahead of you. Now you know what you have to deal with.

The Blame Game keeps so many people down it isn’t funny.

Please hug your mother. She sounds like someone who might have made a mistake---but has your best interests at heart.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 24 Jun 2019, 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here is something to consider also before you blame your Mum.

I was dating a lady a couple of years ago for a short time (Well... Was probanly about a year of less then that but was mainly over the internet but I did meet her three times as she came down for a holiday and we got on fine).
Now the lady has asperges. She was diagnosed after her son was diagnosed with autism. Though to others it is very apparent her son has autism, she never knew, because her son didn't act any differently to herself or her brother, so the way her son acted was normal in her eyes.

In the same way I believe that my Mum has it if I am diagnosed with the condition. The general way I think is very similar to the way my Mum thinks ans my dad (Who died just over 10 years ago) was very different. Yes, he had his own imperfections but who does not! But he was able to easily befriend people. He wasn't at all shy. I used to marvel at how he could do this as to me I just never knew how. Sure I could talk to people if I ignored my shyness, but somehow it was like my dad could almost walk into anyone elses home and it was like he could straight asay be accepted almost as part of their family somehow. And yet for me, a kind family would likely chat and ask me in for a cup of tea (I don't like tea though here in Wales is traditional to be asked in for a cup of tea), but though I would be friendly and they would be to me I would not "Connect" like my dad would. My mum used to rely on my dad to make connections for her to befriend people, and she has to purpously try to befriend people since my Dad died because it does not come naturally to her to do rhis. Is not that she is not friendly. My Mum is a beautifully hearted woman.

But what I say in conclusion to this is your Mum may not have thought anything was odd when you grew up if she was also slightly on the spectrum herself.
If I am diagnosed, then I am almost certain my Mum has it but as she said that she is retired now, so she does not see an advantage to being diagnosed. With me the main advantage is understanding myself and to feel that after all these years there is a reason for me being very unique so that I don't have the worry of being different... It is like an excuse to be diffeeent so I can start to slowly unmask... (If that makes sense?)

I was diagnosed when I was 8, but it didn't help me socially. I was lonely as a teenager, and if kids knew about my diagnosis they just rejected me even more. I was aware about my lack of friends, but it made me depressed and self-loathing. Nobody wanted to include me or accept me for who I was or even be a good friend and help me improve my social skills to be accepted. So, whether you were diagnosed early in life or not, having ASD still ruins your life.

I guess it helped that I always knew I was "weird," and (sort of) why I was "weird."

But....in my case, there was absolutely no doubt that I needed some sort of diagnosis and intervention. I was a raging autistic toddler who, apparently, cried all night, every night. I also destroyed things, and went on rampages anywhere indoors that wasn't my house. No speech. No desire for social intercourse with other people. I was tested for many, many things, including epilepsy. The psychologist evaluating me said I was a "vegetable," and should be institutionalized.

The unfortunate thing is that, these days, there is much more subtlety to autism than in the old days. We still have the "raging cases," of course. But now, autism is a spectrum with many different presentations. This makes it more difficult for people who are not expert in it to think of it as a possibility, because it could be other things----or it could be nothing. Perhaps, your mother might have been one of those people.

My Mum said when I was a baby I used to cry so often that she nearly chucked me out of the window! However, I spoke three very clear and precise words (I remember saying them) when I was about 8 months old (My Mum said six monrhs old? I'm almost sure I was told it was eight months old) and my Dad made such a fuss in his amazement that it scared me and I didn't talk again for ages until about the average age for learning to speak.

My youngest brother is interesting. When he was 18 he was telling my Mum what he remembers about being born. My Mum didn't believe him. Then he described the room with the clock on the wall and the colour of the paint in the room and my Mum was gobsmacked! Yet later when I asked him when he was about 25 he didn't remember saying it. Wierd!

Maybe and maybe not. The real question is, "What have you done since then to improve your situation?"

The past is over. Let it go.

I'd let her off the hook. She said she didn't know anything about autism and that there isn't a lot of autism awareness in Mexico. This is a fair argument. Autism wasn't even that well known among many professionals until the 90's, and even then it was either unknown or poorly understood in most circles. When I was at the age one typically screens for it, no one in my home community had likely even heard of it because of its poverty and isolation, and if they had it would have been an awareness of "classic autism." Some people might have not even "believed" in modern psychological/neurochemical sciences.

Focus on the present. You know you're autistic now, which is a great leap from not knowing. Now you have vocabulary to define your limitations, which means you can figure out how to self develop intelligently.

Make peace with the past or let the future be stolen by dwelling on thoughts of bitterness. You're playing a highly competitive game for security and survival and there is simply no use for crying over the past beyond necessary ventilating for your mental health. Yes it was an unfair situation for you. Your struggle is certainly valid and I don't think anyone here will deny that for you.

Cry it out and let it go...

"There comes a time, as you become an adult, to stop blaming your parents for how you are."

this

... usually about the time you decide to move out and live on your own.

Child Protective services "failure to attend to the special education need"


If you want you can blame anything you want


Correlation versus causation


But please put more emphasis on the current Maslow's hierarchy of needs


Please move your life forward












My precious lil "parents" did not send me to get diagnosed before 18

21 diagnosed


Not eligible for the Regional center service


Speech therapy
Applied behavior analysis
Occupational therapy



They saw my autism symptoms and blamed me for it

Defensive



They told me off for wrong nonverbal communication and correctly told me that you have no friends






And I find it their fault


But everyone is biased


Nobody is perfect


"Life" goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on


And 36 years old













My precious lil "parents" are nice and more or less normal

Playing the "blame game" only keeps you down.

It's fashionable to blame one's parents for one's difficulties, but I know of nobody who has a right to do so.

While everybody does have the right to blame their parents, not everybody has a valid reason.