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I'm asking this question in the parenting threads because I want to hear similar experience from the parent's side of things, I know I'm only seeing mine after all - I'm 23, new to my asperger's diagnosis and now need to deal with a severely strained relationship with my mother, for a few reasons; I would love to hear any insight on the matter, I'm not asking any specific question. I just want to know, "wtf?".

I've been away from home for quite some time now. Most of my example is from after I turned 18.

- I was never told of my condition, and there's a lot of evidence suggesting that there was early knowledge. Did not record my first steps/words (my brother's, yes), I was sent to play with the kids that were legitimately stupid or abusive, she knows tons about autism yet has no grasp of psychology otherwise, tells me "my body language has always been wierd", "Make eye contact more", etc. Will ONLY introduce me as "her youngest" and NONE of her friends are aware of my existence until I shake their hand.
- She shows narcissistic tendencies.
There was a 'golden child' between me and my brother. Detests my differences and refuses to celebrate things that make me happy (again in the 'golden child' way - my brother drank, partied and did drugs at home with no issues, I took on smoking pot to gain social success and mediate my mean streak, which is to her cardinal sin). I got a 30 year old mattress to sleep on when all 7 other beds in the house were replaced with new pillowtop queens. She used to, and still occasionally says openly that she cares much less about her second son - me. Says "I'm just trying to make everyone miserable" if i disagree. Screams NO! like a baby at the first sign of disagreement, literally, followed by shrieking until I walk away.
- Infantilizes me.
Follows me around the kitchen (the only time/place that she'll approach me pretty much), making the same 5 suggestions she's made for 20 years in baby talk. Smothers me in public (shouting pet names and breathing down my neck in a Subway is a good example - She came and found me there, wasn't with us). Makes a show of her 'widdle baby' at social functions.
- Gross invasions of privacy.
From most recent to least - Opened and read my mail from banks, my college, legal documents, etc. Caught twice rooting through my garbage/bins, will not accept blame. Searches through my possessions every now and then. Forcible "room cleanings (searches)". List goes on.
- Serious manipulative behavior.
Sent emails to my therapist (don't ask how she found him, I don't know) attempting to make me look like a runaway toddler and attempting to get information out of him.

I'm not a parent, I'm (obviously) just someone else's child.

I don't think there's a rational explanation for any of this behavior, let alone all of it. From what little I have so far, my assessment: this behavior is consistent with that of a f**k-up.

Well, I am a parent, but I still can't give you much in terms of a rational explanation. My first thought is that some parents struggle with trying to decide whether or not we should tell our kids their diagnoses. My son knows, for example, but my daughter doesn't. My son knows because he knows he is different and I wanted him to understand why--it's not his fault, and he's not "wrong," his brain just works differently. My daughter does not realize she is different, even though she goes to social skills training and used to have a 1:1 when she was younger. I don't really know how to tell her since she thinks she is just like everyone else (only if you were to ask her, she is smarter and a better artist )

But from the rest of your post, it doesn't sound like your mom avoided sharing whatever knowledge she might have because she was unsure of how you would take it and wanted to protect you.

My advice to you right now would be for you to seriously consider what you really want. If you want to try to establish some kind of relationship with your mom, it might be worthwhile to consider telling her of your new diagnosis. But if you would tell her just so you can "explain" to her why you were different, my gut tells me that might be a fruitless endeavor. It doesn't sound like she is the type to really care and your feelings might just end up hurt.

I am sorry you were raised in such an inappropriate environment. My heart hurts every time I hear stories about kids like mine who are mistreated, even if they are already grown up. Please be gracious and forgiving to yourself. You deserve it.

Yep. This^, right here explains everything you wrote about her, it's as simple as that. (Simple, not easy.)




The most important thing in dealing with you mother is to accept that she is a narcissist. Accept that you can not do anything that will induce change in her. No amount of reasoning, accusing, anger, hurt, threatening or loving will induce her to change or admit to even one fault or mistake. Accept that state of affairs. Know that she will continue to say and do things that will make you look bad and herself look good; through lies & manipulation.

Work like crazy with your therapist on ways to set boundaries with her. It will not be easy. She will not respect many or any boundaries. Boundaries in this sort of situation are not the usual, they need to be the equivalent of castle walls with moats; Great Wall of China type boundaries. Know that you will be better off setting boundaries with her, even though, she will use your boundary setting to make you look bad to others.

Though I am the parent of 2 adults, but I'm not a narcissist, so cannot speak from the narcissistic parental point of view. I have, however, seen a deeply narcissistic neighbor woman raising 2 sons during the course of about four years. It was gut wrenching to behold. I am loathe to use profane language, but in this case, I can best describe her parenting as a continuing series of mind-fucking events arranged by the mother. And all the while, she was extolling her loving parenting. (Just to set your minds at rest, the boys' dad who was already divorced from the mother at the time, is a very wealthy man and was able, through years of litigation, to gain full custody of the boys, which is why they eventually moved from my neighborhood.)

You are angry with your mother and cannot help that. Do not, however, cling to that anger, it may through time, substantially fall away from you, which would be the greatest gift you could receive. Such grace exists in the world. Also, you may love your mother and feel attachment and cannot help that. If so, it will ever be a love which is abused; ergo your need for boundary setting.

I see the 2 former neighbor boys from time to time (they live in my town with their dad) I know that they still love their mother. She has moved on and has remarried (another wealthy man) and lives in another town. I think she sees the boys only one day per two weeks. As the boys age they will have much to reconcile within themselves.

As for the narcissistic former neighbor lady, she believes with every fiber that she loves her boys; even as she knows that she lives to mess with people.

You aren't moving back in with your mother, are you?

Have you perhaps read john Elder Robison's book, look me in the Eye? Not that I think it offers much in the way of advice about how to repair your relationship with your mother but you may find that you identify with him. He is an Aspie who was not diagnosed until he was an adult. His mother was literally certifiable .

I'm an Aspie and the mother of an autistic boy and honestly your mom sounds messed up. (My language might have been more colorful, but I am being mindful of the TOS)

Some people are toxic, irrational people and that is what this sounds like to me. I have had family members who showed favorites for no reason other than their own mental issues, and more often than not the favored child ended up more messed up than the least favored one.

I am sorry that your mother is like this. It is not your fault, or anything you have done.

As and adult who recently received a diagnosis, I can commiserate with you about your mother's behavior.

As yet, I have no tools to relate with her except to understand that there are vast communities to assist neurotypicals in dealing with parenting the neurodiverse. These exist because they need help too. There is a vast chasm of misunderstanding that has grown between myself and my parents because we simply haven't ever met on a field of communication and been using the same dictionary.

I'm certain that my parents have struggled with questions about their responsibility for my condition and weirdness, On occasion I'll overhear her talking with others about me or it will sneak through the grapevine that she said something about how she prayed for me over one of my struggles, and I'll be like "I never knew you thought that about me" or a comment will fall into the category of another way to classify my son's failures and bizarre behavior..

There was lots of prying into the details and minutia of my life, lots of nagging and recriminations and worlds of blame and barriers. "You'll never get to X unless you first go through Y..." is the one of the most common phases in my experience with my mom. It's as if all of life's possibilities are drawn out on a Cartesian plane, when I see a world where sheets fold and there's a 3rd dimension.

LOL - after reading both "Look Me In The Eye" and "Running With Scissors" I realized that I grew up with two philosophy professors, one of whom fancies himself a poet...coincidence? I don't think so.

Something I've learned: just because many of our parents escaped diagnosis doesn't mean they didn't need one. The strongest causative link in autism is a genetic link, but keep in mind that autism can be co-morbid with all kinds of other stuff.

My parents are both significantly more impaired than either my son or I - they found that a PHD can be a "get out of social skills free" card in the time when they were getting jobs, and they ran with that. My mother also has significant tendencies towards OCD, my father some kind of mood disorder. What you describe here sounds very similar to my relationship with my parents, and this kind of weird pushme-pullyou behavior continued until I finally drew a line in the sand as an adult and became independent (I was somewhat older than you are now.)

So, to answer WTF - I answer: possibly she has whatever you are diagnosed with, minus any effective interventions either as a child or as an adult, and plus whatever co-morbid mental illnesses were brought on by the stress of covering up any struggles or differences to the outside world.

If you're the kid who reminds your mother of her own struggles, it stands to reason that she'd treat you weird. Doesn't make it any better, but it may make some sense. Basically, sometimes it is about the other person and not about you.

To me, as a parent, I find it hard to imagine treating any child badly, though all parents make mistakes from time to time and some simply aren't too good at the job, almost all do seem to love and care for their all kids even if they aren't too competent.

But I knew a family, years and years ago, where the middle child was treated very differently from the other two. That child had developmental problems by the time I met him - still in nappies at 5, meltdowns, lack of engagement......but he was lovely when he would engage, and clever too.

There didn't appear to be any physical physical abuse. He was dressed fine, clean, fed....
Never saw his mum give him a hug or say a kind word to him though and she clearly loved the others.

He went into care, improved dramatically, went back to his parents and reverted. I lost track of him then but I always assumed he would end up in care.

It turned out that he was not the child of the husband and that caused problems in the marriage and his mum took it out on him.

I'm not suggesting your case is the same at all, clearly you are on the autism spectrum and that may have been enough for your mum to blame you for being different and having to cater to the needs of a child who didn't respond the way her other children did. Perhaps her "golden child" is the one who responds most to her needs.

These are not the actions of an ordinary mother though and you mother might well be NPD or perhaps she doesn't understand what she is doing.

I know that sounds hard to believe but I have had a similar experience in some ways - not the actual treatment but the trouble understanding why my parent, who should love me unconditionally, was such a complete B*****D to me.

My father treated me very differently from my brother, but much of what he did to us both would now be considered abusive. My early childhood was blissfully innocent but later on he became a tyrant and I will always live with the damage he did to my self-esteem and well-being.

I was angry for many years, very, very angry.

And then, one day, I was researching AS for a paper and was reading about parents with AS and what it is like to live with them - the picture painted in that book was my father.
It seems my father became a tyrant because he was frightened of losing me, and frightened that I might get hurt in the big bad world and his way of protecting me was to try to control me.

ASCs do run in families, and though I'm not suggesting that your mother may have the same motive for treating you badly, her treatment of you may be caused by a lack of understanding of you as a person and a need to push you away because she can't make the bond with you she shares with your sibling.

I am still angry but I can now see his reactions to me and the world in a different light. I can now deal with him as he is rather than expecting him to respond as a "normal" parent to my needs. He still treats me like a child and he still says some dreadful things but I can mostly ignore it and move on, accepting he is not going to change now and he really doesn't know how offensive he can be.

My father is an autistic person who grew up with no support, whose parents rejected him and who was never taught how to love and care for his family. I chose to continue my relationship with him because I know he cannot survive on his own after my mum dies and someone has to care about what happens to him.

That sounds like my relationship with my father. We got along pretty good until I got old enough to separate and want some freedom and independence, and then he was very manipulative, bullying and controlling. Things didn't get better between us, ironically, until I achieved some independence -- a driver's license and a job. Up until then though, he did everything in his power to try to make sure I'd never get either.

I only self-diagnosed as Aspie last year and I never thought about my father (he died twenty years ago). But the last few months I realize he probably was Aspie also. He had numerous obsessive interests that changed every few years, didn't socialize, had meltdowns. The household was geared around keeping him calm. He also had OCD probably. He had routines he had to follow and certain things had to be done precisely right (parking for example).

It kind of helps to figure that out. I don't know if he was still alive if it would have changed things between us though. Sometimes you just have to step back and have as little to do with an abusive parent as possible, since you can't change them. But you can't let them keep messing you up either.

Are you sure we didn't grow up in the same house?

Spot on with the parking - he has a very tight drive for his posh car and to make sure there is precisely enough room around it and it's perfectly straight he has this plumb line dangling from the car port that has to just not be touched.

I spent a lot of my childhood in fear and my father will never understand that, but he does know that he hurt me (couldn't miss it, I threw it back at him in my late twenties and didn't speak to him for a very long time) - every so often as he gets maudlin with old age he apologises for not being a good father. I think he also now recognises his autism though I don't think his exaggerated sense of self worth would ever let him actually admit it - he looks at my son sometimes and says how alike they are, and even though they are not at all alike in personality or looks you can see the traits they share quite clearly.


Not getting the right support as a child is tantamount to abuse for some people on the spectrum and I think I see that my father is such a victim. That helps me stand back from him and I can see it is his problem not mine. I don't think I could deal with him at all without that insight

Because of your parents philosophy background and you growing up with it is how you're able to effectively deal with me and my questions. Is this correct? I didn't grow up with the benefit of a diagnosis either and I truthfully needed it. This makes me wonder though. What if the father of modern day philosophy Socrates was on the spectrum himself? What if modern day philosophy came about because he truthfully had questions to things he didn't understand.

Maybe some people followed him and just simply rolled with it when all he was doing was asking questions and trying to gain answers. Maybe Plato and others wrote things down and blew him out of proportion. I'm not sure.

It seems like when I ask thou rough questions of people on things like positive learning environment no one can give me an in depth meaning to it whatsoever. People seem to portray that they know but yet know not. People act like they are wise but yet they are not. It seems like the difference between me and a lot of people is people do not know that they do not know and for me it is I know that I do not know.

The problem is I'm ignorant but it seems like I am the least ignorant. I don't know how best to explain it. How can one gain wisdom when it seems like a lot of people do not seem to have wisdom?

When you ask specifics it is difficult to give a specific answer - many people have a general philosophy on something but when you ask for direct answers find it impossible to relate that philosophy and wisdom to what you are asking in specific terms and to give the details you want.

Often this is because each and every person is different and this applies even more to people on the spectrum so the specifics are different for each person. And anyone you ask is going to be looking in from the outside while you know what you feel from your own perspective. Sometimes you will hit on someone who connects with how you think and feel about certain things and can answer your questions more effectively but those people will be few and far between.

Take the idea of a positive learning environment.
There are things that might apply to all people - support for individual needs, encouraging ownership of learning, making learning relevant, suitable physical environment, ..... but what those mean for each individual is not necessarily consistent.

For example take 2 people on the spectrum.
One might be sensory craving and need a visually and physically challenging environment where they can hop from idea to idea to learn best but another may feel overwhelmed in such an environment and will learn best in a calm, low-arousal environment with a lot of individual support gently offered.

Personally, as someone who has taught for most of my life in various settings and environments, including ASC specific settings, I would always go for person centered learning where the people I work with play an active part in determining the curriculum and the environment in which they learn which means that each person in a classroom would be working in a different way according to their needs and interests.

For me, what a person learns (apart from the obvious basic skills that we all need) is secondary to how they learn which is secondary again to how they learn to learn.

Currently I work with young adults and we work individually but I've used the same approach even in a large classroom.
Between each student I actually rearrange certain things in the room, the seating, where the clock is, etc. For some I will make sure the artificial lighting is off, others need bright light, one hates the door to be closed, another needs to be out of the sun on a bright day, I even adjust the temperature.
Then with some I work from books, others need to cover the same things but respond better to a conversational approach, or a visual approach so I might provide coloured whiteboard pens and we spend most of the time pacing around the whiteboard rather than sitting quietly in a corner.

Except for when we are working on ASC awareness, I do not teach content at all these days - the students themselves determine the content of our sessions to a large degree and anyway, in university I cannot hope to cover the content in the depth they need as a non-specialist.
What I teach them is how to access that content effectively and how to use it to achieve what they need to do.

So I suppose that my personal philosophy on education as an educator is person centered and skill based but I still can't give you any specifics and it's a pretty good bet that the next educator to answer this will totally disagree with me.

To the OP: MountainLaurel seems to have very good advice. My family is dealing with my grandmother who is something. It might be considered narcissism. She also has Munchaussen's Syndrome, but we're just the people that know her, so doctor's never listen to us (or my grandpa when he was here). She kept her four children basically not speaking to each other for over twenty years through her manipulations, but in their forties they finally figured it out and started talking to each other and ignoring her. The entire situation was helped by my grandfather reigning her in. Of course we never realized how much he did that until after he was gone, and she went into super overdrive with the lies and manipulation attempts.

It's kind of like something I saw written somewhere once. Maybe even on WP. If you find that a person has stolen cash from your wallet, and you know who it was, and have proof, what do you do? Pretty much anyone will tell you to call the police. Then identify that person as your 85 year old grandma (not mine, she doesn't steal money yet), and you're much more apt to get a response like: Lock up your valuables and be careful when you have to be around her.

Your mom is your family, and you can't change that, but just because it is family doesn't mean you shouldn't protect yourself. Lock up your valuables--in this case your private information, and do your best to set boundaries with her. I don't imagine it will be easy at all, but like the other poster said, work with your therapist.

This.

My mom has no regard whatsoever for how things are for me. Boundaries? Mine? No such thing. She knows exactly what I should and should not like. Whether I do is besides the point.
She has one of two reactions to disagreement: "you don't see my good intentions boohoo" (playing the victim) or "you are a stubborn kid that is incapable of seeing my reason" (whatever she does not like has to be because there is something wrong with you). If I don't play along she'll try the other. Over time I have gotten better at seeing this as it happens, but constantly being on guard is draining.
My best theory is that she tries to live up to an image of what our relationship should be like, while we are both not 'that kind of person'. I know this, she doesn't.

We are currently out of touch - I need a break.
The only present I want from her is her taking no for an answer. I am aware that that is unlikely to happen

Wow, Ivasha - we must be siblings. My Mom uses those same two phrases all the time.

I moved 600 miles away and screen all my phone calls. Wish I could find a more grown-up way to handle it, but you are right, it is incredibly draining.