I can't respect my parents :-(

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I'm an Aspie and I live with my parents.

They don't support me in ANY way at all. They have this idea on who I should be, and they seem to hate me because I don't follow that way of thinking.

They seem to think I am incapable of many things. They are so wrong! And it REALLY s**ts me when Mum VERBALLY ABUSES me for looking up Asperger's-related information on the internet. She seems to think it's a "cop-out", and I reckon she is sick of me altogether because I have Asperger's.

I'm over it! Am I justified to feel this way? I'm 22 years old, and they treat me like a 12-year-old with half a brain

I know how it is to be treated like a child when you're an adult.

Unless you are moderately functionally impaired, it would indeed be a copout. How are your job interview skills or your ability to establish rapport with others? Describe your gait. How well developed is your coordination? What kind of brain do you have in regard to SQ/EQ? Are you easily influenced by optical illusions or do they not effect you? What are your social skills like and can they be developed further?

Well, I have the SAME problems! My mother calls me a couple times a week, etc... She would calll every day if I let her. She knows I am smart, etc... I make more than she ever did, and she calls me with problems/questions SHE has!

Regarding SSDBs questions:

Interview skills: Very good

Establish rapport: Generally good

Gait: A bit off, but rarely an issue

Coordination: For what I do, exellent, even if some is poor.

SQ according that that silly test: 84 EXTREME SYSTEMIZING

EQ: I forget at the moment.

Optical illusions: Generally not affected.

Social skills: I get along with most fine, but there is a point where things just break down.

Hello. Ya know I read these kinds of posts alot and I too while living at home felt this way about mom and dad. I have since moved out, got my own life and am independently making my own living.

If you answered the above posts questions that would help alot. What do you do with your life like work, fun ect?

I think parents want what is best for their kid, they want them to be happy, sucessful and to do something with their lives, eventually produce grandchildren.

They dont want you to be different, this is normal. When they see you reading about Aspringers they feel you are copping out and will use that as an excuse, it is good to know and if you want to try and get a DX great! But dont let it ruin what could be a good life. Your parents want you to have a good life, and right now I think they fear you may not have a good life, they may not be happy with ya and do expect more from their 22 year old son, they dont want you to waste your life but always progress.

I dont truly know your situation, all I can do is form my own opinion and read what you wrote. I think you should give your parents some credit, and I think you need to respect them and not giving them respect just cause they have the same concerns and wishs as any other normal parent is a bit extreme.

i cant respect my parents either, the best cure is to get as far away from them as possible!

I think most mom's are overprotective. I think your parents care about you and are doing what they think will help you. You can try talking to them. Talking didn't help me. The only solution for me was to move out on my own. While you're living with them, try to realize that they're just trying to help you and probably don't think you're incapable. I later realized that many parents treat their completely normal children the same way my parents treated me.

You wrote, "And it REALLY s**ts me when Mum VERBALLY ABUSES me for looking up Asperger's-related information on the internet. She seems to think it's a "cop-out", and I reckon she is sick of me altogether because I have Asperger's." I think she's worried you are using AS as an excuse and is worried that you are limiting yourself. I wouldn't let it get to you and just say to yourself she's trying to help but just doesn't understand.

Same thing here. Sorry but one can't respect what's not respectable. They even try to talk me down if I say this but it's the truth. They embarrass me.

Had to move out to. Try to move out.

The way I got treated by close relatives put me in a bad position regarding distant relatives. . . younger relatives - so everyone in my family either gets accustomed to acting like I'm some sort of handicapped idiot either because they truly think it or because it gives them an excuse to vent their own personal spite.
A shrink actually used to say that I get treated worse than a 12 year old with Down's syndrome in front of others and that I should either make it clear things can't go on like this or avoid any interaction until they reconsider their attitude. Then years later anotehr shrink said something similar.

A couple days ago I snapped. I arrived at my apartment building to find out my parents had been there and had filed a complaint on my behalf because there was a drip along the side of the balcony. The drip didn't bother me at all since I never use the balcony; it just made a little pool that didn't grow because it spilled to the balcony below and so on.

They also put stuff I'm never gonna eat in my fridge (this is my mother). Each month we have a long argument about this having to stop; it stops, then a couple days later a random yogurt appears; I don't mind - but then it escalates and becomes annoying again.
It've been noticing this since 2003. . . my mother denies the existence of any complaints dating back to more than a couple months ago. "You never told me anything!"

Same thing with pasta when I used to have a meal with them in my teens:
- This sauce has cheese I told you I don't like any cheese on the sauce. What's so hard about letting people have it separatedly?
- It doesn't have any cheese! It's the sauce!
- Look. . . that's obviously cheese. . .
- Well, it if it didn't have any cheese it wouldn't taste at all. Also you like it.
- No, I don't like it. We've been having this discussion for almost two decades and you know I don't have any cheese in my tomato sauce.
- It doesn't have any cheese!
- . . . You just. . . said. . .

It's a BS cultural thing related to the belief in the nebulous notion of "free will" mixed with with American notions of "rugged individualism." these notions lead to the notion held by many people that mental illnesses are excuses or a conspiracy to line the pockets of "Big Pharma" and that back in their day "a good whipping with a belt" would "knock the sense back into us".

I have issues with my parents as well. It's not that I don't respect them; we get along okay and I think they meant well, but after years of being whipped with a leather belt because I didn't do well in school (despite being smart as hell), and the fact that my depression and Asperger's symptoms were plain as daylight and they still didn't lift a finger to find any help for me... Well, yeah, I'm a little resentful. I finally moved out on my own a little over ten years ago, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I seriously think I would have killed myself if I had stayed at home much longer than I did.

Nowadays I visit them about once a year around the holidays, and this past Christmas was no exception. Like I said, we get along okay, and I can usually carry on an intelligent conversation with them at the dinner table, but I find myself completely unable to show the slightest bit of emotion to them, as if I'm a machine. For some reason my Invisible Anti-Intimacy Force Field™ automatically adds a few extra layers of bullet-proof armor whenever I'm near them, and it was with a huge sigh of relief that I returned home to NYC after my trip.

Does anybody else have similar issues?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

My plan is to hopefully move out within the next 2 weeks.

In regards to my social skills, they need work but I've been told I'm doing fairly well (by my best friend, who is NT)

Seriously, I'm over it!

Did your parents expect you to move out at an earlier age? Ive heard of parents talking down to their children if they feel they should be out of their house by a certain age.

It's good that you are moving out. The best thing to do is to build an identity away from abuse.

Do you have a job?

I know a 20-something NT who feels unloved and unsupported by his parents. Only the problem is that the person he wants to be is someone who doesn't have to work for a living or go to school. He sleeps all day and stays up all night playing video games. His lack of a life is somehow his parents' fault.

I have a son on the spectrum. The reality of life is that he will have to get a job someday. I don't care what the job is, but show up everyday, put money in the 401(k), because that's what I've had to do to survive.

If you get out on your own, pay your own bills, then you might view your parents differently.

It's good that you are moving out. Sometimes, thats the best thing that you can do for yourself. I am 16 and moving out of home in a few weeks...not out of choice, so you are lucky in that sense, [That you have a choice].
I hope things work out for you.