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ergi
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04 Jan 2023, 4:07 pm

does anyone else have a similar situation, i didn't know i was autistic till i was in my 30s,i told my family and still no one has gone out of their way to learn about it,and that feels like they just don't want to know me.i have always had issues with my dad, he wasn't there when i was a baby, and didn't really father me growing up, didn't teach me self defense at all, nor to shave or anything you expect a father to teach his son. yet he expects respect. the man deletes my emailed attempts to talk with him, he complains about every gift i give him, when i try to talk to him about what he does that hurts me he turns it around so the fault is mine...i know what he is, how he is, and i know hes too old to change or take responsibility for how he messed me up, so, what i am wanting to know is, if anyone out there has a similar situation and how do you cope with the feelings it brings up? i don't know if this is the right forum for this but there i go. thanks for reading and any advice anyone may have



FleaOfTheChill
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04 Jan 2023, 6:44 pm

I'm struggling to put my thoughts into words here. Bear with me.

Your dad sounds a lot like my mom. The woman couldn't be much bothered with me when I was a kid, and nothing much has changed over the years. She does tear into me now and then about how I ruined her life or something. She's a peach. The only interest she showed when I got my dx (mine was also a later in life one), was to ask about what pill I would be taking now to fix me. She was bummed when I told her that there is no pill to fix autism. She was sad because that meant she could not get the normal kid she'd always wanted. No other reason. And that was that.

I didn't really expect my mom to give a damn about my dx. I would have been surprised if she had, pleasantly so, but I figured she wouldn't. I have known this woman for as long as I've been alive and she isn't changing. I accept this. That's part of how I deal. Acceptance. I also went through several years of therapy to deal with my childhood trauma and most of that trauma came from her. I got to a point where I could forgive her and let it go. So yeah, how I dealt was with therapy and complete acceptance and forgiveness. I don't have to like it, but my life is infinitely easier without lingering issues from my crazy mother. I just shrug off the crap she says and does anymore. Life is a lot more comfortable this way.



Dear_one
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04 Jan 2023, 7:00 pm

I quit asking my parents questions very early, when I saw they didn't have the answers, nor interest in finding them.



DanielW
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04 Jan 2023, 7:24 pm

I was legally emancipated from my parents at 16. I've been self-supported since then.



Dengashinobi
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04 Jan 2023, 8:00 pm

ergi wrote:
does anyone else have a similar situation, i didn't know i was autistic till i was in my 30s,i told my family and still no one has gone out of their way to learn about it,and that feels like they just don't want to know me.i have always had issues with my dad, he wasn't there when i was a baby, and didn't really father me growing up, didn't teach me self defense at all, nor to shave or anything you expect a father to teach his son. yet he expects respect. the man deletes my emailed attempts to talk with him, he complains about every gift i give him, when i try to talk to him about what he does that hurts me he turns it around so the fault is mine...i know what he is, how he is, and i know hes too old to change or take responsibility for how he messed me up, so, what i am wanting to know is, if anyone out there has a similar situation and how do you cope with the feelings it brings up? i don't know if this is the right forum for this but there i go. thanks for reading and any advice anyone may have


I understand how devastating it may feel to reach out to your close ones and not be understood. Thats why I keep my autism a secret. I don't expect anyone to understand. I only told it lately to my sister and she was (and still is) in denial. She said to me that I am intelligent and therefore how could I be disabled. I am currently at the process of informing her about autism. Yet I can see that she is unwilling to hear about it. It feels horrible since she is the closest person to me.
I made it clear to her that our relationship will not be the same unless she hears what I have to say. She appologised to me and asked me to send her information about autism. I think it's going to be a difficult one. Autism is so invisible even my empath sister has a hard time to understand it.



Dillogic
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04 Jan 2023, 10:40 pm

Maybe he has his own disorder? From what you explain, it sounds like it.

Never really cared about my father understanding or accepting me over here, just being kind, caring and/or loving. My father really wasn't there and was kinda sucky in many ways when it came to me as a child, but that didn't/doesn't really bother me; he still worked and brought money home. He taught me how to fish, which was nice. What bothers me is that he left my mother when she developed a medical condition as he just wanted another mother in the end, even though she healed him from his addictions more than once and kept the business running during the last one (she had to put up with abuse from him and others with the drug stuff too), along with how he treated her earlier on. When I was ~18, he also got me into my first real fight/gunfight with some drug dealers out of selfishness (not all that fun, but I saw it coming), which was one of those drops in the bucket I didn't really need for my own mental health and what came later.

He has/had undiagnosed AS and NPD.



Dear_one
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04 Jan 2023, 11:28 pm

My parents were traumatized in different ways by their childhoods, and then by history marching on to put them in a world they had never prepared for. They were pretty overwhelmed without the puzzle of myself. It didn't help, of course, when they did try to get help for me, and the helpers started to ask my aspie mother questions that threatened her masking. That never lasted.