I don't know why I'm posting this
spicymayo1159
Emu Egg
Joined: 30 Nov 2018
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Posts: 4
Location: Washington, United States, North America, Planet Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy
I've been having family issues. I am dependent on my parents, I still live with them. I cannot hold a job, I am trying to get applied for job training thing for people with disabilites.
I struggle with selective sound sensitivity, and sensitivity for other things, such as certain smells, movements, the way certain things feel, or look, ect. I also struggle with severe anxiety, and I'm certain that I also have depression as well.
My mom gets angry over trivial things, and overall has a very unstable personality. She is always in a hurry, always some kind of anxiety with her, and she never seems completely satisfied with what she's doing. She will constantly change her mind, and the rest of us usually have to do whatever she tells us to, otherwise she gets mad and says that no one ever helps her.
My mom never took my autism diagnosis well. The day I was diagnosed, she went shopping after the meeting with the ABA people, and she broke down crying while she was putting groceries into the car. Every time I had some kind of meltdown or freakout she never took it well. She would get mad at me and spank me if I misbehaved. She doesn't spank me anymore, she stopped after I was about 8 or 9. But she would still yell harsh words at me when she got angry, and words can be quite brutal.
By the time I was 11 I was struggling in school, and I started ditching entire school days. I didn't have a lot of friends.
At the age of 12 I had a meltdown at a restaurant with my mom. She was not happy. As soon as we were in the car I was sobbing and telling her I was sorry. She just yelled at me that I was purposefully looking for things to annoy me, because I didn't freak out when we were at a theme park, just 2 days before the meltdown. She concluded that i was purposefully trying to make her life miserable, and I was just crying and screaming the whole time.
She keeps complaining about how I spend all day in my room (because I'm anxious and depressed, and lack motivation) and how I should "do something". Easier said than done.
When I was 18, I had a meltdown when my dad turned up the volume on the loud home theater system which was playing music. I cannot handle loud base. My mom got angry at me because I was supposed to be preparing quesadillas for the whole family, and she yelled at me about how she was "completely out of the world" because of me. I tried to talk to her but she just kept yelling at me to get out. I spent the rest of the day crying in my room.
Of course she isn't always like this. She advocated for me and helped put me in a private school, and government benefits for me. She advocated for me and she said that she's proud of me and happy that I'm her son. There are times where we can have reasonable conversations. But both of my parents use this to defend her actions, and I don't see how that justifies anything. My dad keeps telling me to "remember that she's trying her best" and my mom once told me to "stop living in the past".
She sometimes gets extremely depressed over fears of being a horrible parent, and fears of the possibility of my father leaving her for a younger woman. But my dad is extremely loyal to her. Honestly he's the perfect man for her, because he's willing to put up with her BS even when no one else will.
Her verbal abuse has gotten to the point where I do not feel comfortable around her, even when she isn't mad at me or saying or doing anything wrong. I fear my mother. And that is not healthy. Ever since I had a big argument with her in late 2018, she has not yelled at me as much. She calls this "improvement" despite the fact that she still most of the time denies that she ever did anything to hurt me, and that she still yells at my brother and at dad.
Then she uses this "improvement" excuse to make it look like i'm the bad guy for being traumatized by her, and that "I'm not trying to improve". Ever since a feud last week, where she made a bit deal about how I didn't brush my teeth properly, and that she was going to supervise me if things got worse. In that feud she said that I was wrong to claim that she ever did anything to hurt me. After that feud I have just practically given up at trying to reconcile with her.
My mom has suffered an abusive childhood where her mother was cold and her father beat her. Sometimes I wish that she actually hit me, because then nobody would be giving her a second chance. But it's just words, and "words don't hurt people". BS.
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Now on to my dad. My dad is not as abusive as she is. I think he might be on the spectrum, though i'm really not that certain. I used to see him as an idol, and I used to want to aspire to be him. I struggled with finding myfelf as a result.
I tried to get into math and programming, which my dad excels at, but I failed. So I instead took his political views without question. I do not have those views anymore, and I don't really see him as an idol anymore.
There are certain topics where if you mention them in front of dad, he will ramble about some conspiracy theory. Which is so maddening, because he's most of the time a somewhat reasonable person. But mention 9/11 or vaccines or a certain political party and he will go on and on about some conspiracy.
My dad says that he had a happy childhood, but his parents were very cold towards him.
Sometimes he doesn't understand me either. Often he makes me do chores, and he struggles with understanding why I don't like doing them. Sometimes he assumes I'm lazy or just don't want to do it. But he doesn't often raise his voice at me. That's extremely rare.
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My brother and I are close and we hang out whenever he has the time. I sometimes feel that he's the only one in my family I actually feel a connection with. I'n not very close with my aunts, uncles, or cousins. My paternal grandparents don't like me, my maternal grandfather died years before my parents even met, and my maternal grandmother is really old and has memory issues. I feel lucky to have my brother.
But ever since college, he's been devoting more and more time to study. And my parents discourage us hanging out while he's supposed to be studying. So we don't hang out as much as we used to.
Don't worry about flying out the nest too quickly, most people leave the nest in their mid-late twenties nowadays. But I'd say it does sound like you need to place some distance between you and your mom. Your relationship with your parents typically gets a bit better once there is some distance between you.
I would say that one way you can deal with your mother, when she is combative, remain silent. Don't take the bait of engaging her in argument, silence is a very very powerful tool, and you need to pair it with patience when she's baiting you into an argument, you will be tempted to bite the hook -- stay quiet -- don't do it, and she will eventually lose interest and feel guilty for baiting you.
Try to maintain a disciplined schedule to preview if you can hold a job, like each day, do x, y, and z, and see if you can do these things consistently each day. Try to do the chores your dad asks you without question as that will temper your parents and raise their opinion of you. Obedient children are always the sign of good parents. I hope that you didn't give up too soon with math as programming/coding seems to be a very lucrative field. At your age you can pretty much learn anything if you're willing to put in the time, so if you're bad at math you can certainly get better.
Keep in mind that in whatever field you decide to go into, you are going to be BAD and will have to slug through repeated failures on your way to success, that's how we all do it.
But it's ok to still be depedant on your parents, you have to spend the next few years discovering who you are, what you will be happy excelling at and put your heart, mind and soul into it. reading your story it sounds like you're actually in a pretty good position, there is some drama but it's manageable. What you don't want to do is stay dormant in your room with videogames and distractions.
But I think you're doing ok!
But be patient with your parents, like us, they are also flawed people. You're very young so please don't try to convince yourself that you're a failure. Your job right now is to discover what you want to do with life, and that can take some years, so be patient with yourself as well.
