Mothers

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Found out today my mother has special powers, and I think this is related to this section. I've been working really hard recently on improving my social skills, confidence and talking to people. Just yesterday I talked to a student I had never seen before about where to pick up her assignment from, plus I've had a fair few conversations with various receptionist and department staff in a quest to track down my dissertation draft in the past day or two, and on top of that I've lost count of how many presentations we've had to do recently, all seems very old hat now.

I still don't go out of my way to participate in conversations, but I haven't felt at all nervous in talking to friends, aquantances or even strangers for months. Then I talk to my mother on the phone and mention I might take her up on the offer to public speak at one of her workshops again as I'm trying to work on my communication skills, and mention the holiday my friends have invited me on.

Suddenly I'm being given all the communication advice in the world, bit annoying but fair enough there were a few titbits I could use. Then she harps on about how terrible I am at holidays as I always wanted to stay in my room when they dragged me involuntarily to whichever godforsaken part of the world they'd picked out that time. Would perhaps be relevant had I any choice in the matter about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do like this time.

Now via a short conversation with mother's special powers I feel my confidence has slipped down a peg or two, or three or five. I'm not going to let it set me back and I'm sure I'll be back to normal in a couple of days but for now I feel terrible.

Does anyone else have these moments where everything seems to be going great then someone drags up the past and poof its almost like your back there again?

Oh, you poor thing. LOL This has got to be one of the most common of all human experiences. I feel much more connected to you since you have that experience also.

Some Mothers don't know when their job is done. Their identity is confused with their job and they can't stop or they might disappear or something. LOL Maybe you can find her a card thanking her for doing her job and have everyone who has experienced you as being self-sufficient sign it and then give it to her. I don't know.

I feel your pain. Good luck.

I hope I don't do that to my kids, but I must say, even at my advancing years (fifty-something), my parents can say things that imply that I have the knowledge, skills and experience of a newly hatched duckling! This is a seemingly universal issue, and is not ASD related. It's an over-protective parent thing, and some parents are just better at letting their kids grow up than others are. None are trying to hurt their kids - they really are trying to help. Some are just really, really bad at it.

Good to know I'm not alone in this. I like the card idea, I wonder if that would work? She's even given me the very nice offer of a caravan at the bottom of her garden for me to stay with her and write a book if I don't get a job right away. A very nice offer to be sure, but I think I'd be willing to even become a binlady to keep my independence after university.



Lovely to know it seems to be a wide issue, although the idea that it might carry on with age is a little daunting. I think I'll just remind myself that she's just trying to be protective if it happens again.

The ability to nag, harangue, and belittle a person into a discouraged state of mind is not a "special" power - it is not derived from "magic," nor is it a "psychic" ability. It is merely a skill that one develops to gain power over others. My father had this skill too.

No matter what I did, he criticized it: If I did something well, I took too long. If I did something quickly, I did it wrong. If I did it right and fast, then I should have been doing something else. Regardless, according to my dad, I never was or would be any good at anything I tried.

It was only after determining for myself that the only reason he had so much influence over me was because I let him have it, that I learned self-determination and began to pull myself out of the mental and emotional rut he had put me in.

I was 30 years old at the time.

20+ years later, I'm an Electrical Engineer in the transportation industry, making more than 64K$ per year. I'm married, and we have three sons; one a businessman in the far east, one a math/philosophy double major at university, and one married and studying to become a paramedic.

No one can make you feel misery, defeat, or shame without your cooperation. YOU have to decide to not let your mother affect you the way she does. But be warned: she will likely hate you for removing the buttons she used to push to keep you under her control.