I really hate my parents.

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My best advice for you is to make yourself financially independent as soon as you can. Several people told me this throughout my life but I just couldn't do it. It was so hard for me to find stable employment but now that I am finally there I can tell you that this is exactly what I needed all along. No money in the world can substitute being emotionally and mentally free from my parents. I cut all ties with them and just email them a couple of times a year to let them know I'm alive. I can finally feel my mother getting out of my head. It is such a huge burden that was lifted from me. I am going to therapy so that I can stay strong and not react to her emotional manipulation and continue to keep her out of my life. Being financially independent will make you so much stronger in every sense.

When I was in my teens and 20s I assumed my issues with my parents were due to my age and I would change my mind as I got older. In the case of my dad, yes. We had a pretty good relationship after I was older but I also had to keep some independence and distance. Most of his advice was good, some of it was a bit misguided even if well intended. He tried to not judge me but was pretty critical if I failed at anything.

My mom is another issue entirely. What I blamed myself for when I was younger, I shouldn't have. I assumed "I" was the problem since she constantly told me what a problem I was. As I got older I moved half way across the US. I joked about it being nice to be too far for my family to find me. Once I was older I started to see that I was right, I just wasn't mature enough to dissect what was going on when I was 20 or so.

All of this came full circle after my dad died. My mother and older siblings were pretty awful to me. I started noticing things that were oddly familiar. The way they spoke to me, especially my mother. They treated me very much like an "other" and said or did things to me they wouldn't have ever considered doing to anyone else. As a much older adult I was able to see this behavior for what it was and how unacceptable some of the things they were doing were.

In many cases the conflicts might solve themselves as you become an independent adult, but it may not. If the problem is not your age but the parent's personal issues or with how they see or treat you, that may never change. My suggestion would be to seek out someone to help you with the college struggles. If you could find a therapist or someone similar who actually understands how autism works and what ideas might actually work for you to deal with the challenges at school it could be the help you need without the judgment. Having an NT person tell you to be more NT as the solution to everything isn't a solution. Having someone outside your family to talk about your challenges would also help make you a bit more independent. No longer going to your mom for that kind of help might create the distance you need to keep her criticism at bay.

Moving out eventually probably should be the goal, especially if the way she treats you feels toxic. Once you are on your own, any future relationship with your family is optional and up to you.

This thread is six years old.

I figure that if you hate your parents, you probably have a good reason for it. Both the biological circumstances and social circumstances of your childhood predispose you to love and trust your parents, so they pretty much have to do something to mess that up. Whether or not you're right and she's wrong about your education or the other conflicts in your examples is beside--people don't hate each other just for disagreeing.

Teenage rebellion isn't some kind of biological inevitability. Adolescence is when you're biologically an adult but society does not yet give you full human rights. In traditional cultures, adolescence doesn't even exist, because when you hit the teenage years, you're an adult. (And it's not that they treat you like a baby all your life and then suddenly throw you to the wolves at age 12. In your childhood, you'd be given plenty of chances to learn life skills.)

Some people idolize the concept of parenthood, but "all parents try their best" just isn't something that's true. Think of all the huge jerks in the world--would they magically become decent people just by popping out a kid? Of course not. Besides, if they have a twisted enough worldview, they'll try their best at the wrong thing.

Of course, even if their heart was in the right place and they tried their best, that doesn't mean they didn't fail horribly, but I think those ones are worth forgiving.

I'm in exactly the same place as you Lautbiru. My mother will always think her cultural expectations and ideals of academic achievement are more important than what I'm actually able to achieve. I wrote two novels before the age of 20, she didn't read them. I did badly in my A Levels after a year from hell and all hell broke loose. I told her I was teaching myself 3 languages, she didn't flinch. I then dropped out of University and was told to 'enjoy my life in destitution.' Go figure. She and her vile husband are my worst enemies.