my birthday yesterday was a disaster

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Hm.. I really wanted to talk about what happened yesterday and I think you girls and guys are going to understand it better.
My family asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday and that everyone would join. I told them I wanted to spend the day at the beach. So we went there by car, it's a good beach more than one hour from my house.
But then we went there and had lunch and everyone started to walk back to the car. So I asked what they were doing and they said we were going back home. So I really panicked because I had expected we were going to spend the day at the beach and everyone had agreed ,and then suddenly everyone was leaving after just 2 hours on the beach.
So I started to have a meltdown and yelled and sat down to cry. My sister sat by me and started to talk to me as if I was a spoiled child because everyone had gone to the beach and explain why I was wrong. And my mother started to tell me I wasn't supposed to act like a child anymore because I was turning 20. It only made everything escalate for me and then after that everyone started to fight and yell at each other. They argued all the way back home.
So it was terrible. It was not the worst birthday though, the worst one was last year's , I posted it here if anyone remember.
What do you think? They said I can't act like that but I couldn't avoid it because when things changed suddenly I panicked. I think my sister should have waited for me to calm down instead of saying those thing, but maybe I need a different perspective.

Do you think you were upset because they might of not wanted to be there/not of had as much fun as you were having?

because I had expected to spend the day at the beach as we had agreed but then suddenly they were living and I panicked. It's like things changed really suddenly and I wasn't expecting.
And then it got worse because they kept on walking to the car and I didn't know what to do so they knew how I was feeling about it. I didn't know really well what I was feeling and they kept on walking to the car as if they weren't willing to listen anyway.
And then I yelled and cried and my sister started to tell me how spoiled I was and it made me feel worse.

I would think you have every right to be upset. From my own experience from family outings, trips over an hour away to a beach or related things are usually a lot longer than a quick lunch, usually there's a hike, a bonfire, there's a lot to do.

I also know that I can't count on people to show empathy to a meltdown.. it's not fair for them to play the "grow up" card on you simply because of your age. You're autistic and it's not as if you can just not experience sensory and emotional overload.

I understand how you feel, but perhaps they never changed the plan. For them they might have gone there just to spend some time together and eat to comemore your birthday, even though they said "spend the day there".
Do you understand what I mean? Some people do that a lot. Like when people say "we should go out sometime to do something" but use this expression with none real intention of doing this. This kind of misunderstanding happens to me a lot.
But they surely could have made it clear what their intention was and I imagine how bad you felt while going all the way back with they still fighting with each other. I hate to even be near anyone who is having a fight.
I was accused of acting like a child by my brother and a few cousins a few times and everytime that it happens it makes me feel bad with myself.

I'm sorry, it sounds awful, disappointing, infuriating and humiliating all at the same time.

I think, too, though, it is good to think about what happened as those things are exhausting. IMO now you're an adult, and maybe for a long time before, no matter how much they say they love and accept you and are there for you, they expected you to be normal and adjust to the change, maybe fuss a little in the inside but be grateful, or at least act grateful, they came out. To say something like "I've been having such a marvelous time I'm quite sad to see my birthday end, you guys are the best!! !" Or worse, they might even have been setting you up to provoke a meltdown, but no matter how much it seems they should have known how you'd react, I suspect they failed to take into account your theory of mind, and are now blaming you for failing to take into account theirs. I know it's not fair, but I do think just as you may have trouble understanding theirs, they actually likely do legitimately have corresponding difficulty understanding yours.

I also think that given you're 20, they are unlikely to change and that if you can depend on friends or professionals even a little it can help you cope with their unpredictable sudden demand you be "normal". I don't think this means they don't love you, they came out, they probably do. But I think they may not accept who you are or how you think and that you deserve to feel acceptable, which they aren't able to show.

I think this is a failure to communicate

You said a I want a day on the beach with my family

they interpreted this as we all get together

But you interpreted it as we all stay on the beach all day

There is a big difference

Lilnatet, I have not checked out your profile or your history or done anything sneaky of creepy in any way,
but it seems to me like your a young aspy, that should be WAY ahead in the technological profile side of things...
so next Birthday, you plan it!
Tell them what you want to get for your Birthday Present
Tell them where you want to have it
Tell them how long you want it to last
Tell them everything!
and don't leave anything out!
It's YOUR Birthday!
It's a celebration!

(BY 'Tell' I mean 'Text')

WOOPS

Happy Birthday!

This is it.

This reminds me of a discussion in the parents' forum about a similar "failure to communicate" because of differing interpretations. The teacher told the mom, "You're kid is a really good writer and could be a novelist one day."
The teacher and the mom told the kid, "you are so good at writing. Maybe you will be a great writer some day.
The kid was upset and finally said, "I hate writing! I am so bad at it! It's so hard to form the letters." (or something like that, I'm paraphrasing)
The mom and teacher were thinking "you are good at writing" and meant "you are good at theme, plot and character: you are good at telling a story."
The kid was hearing "you are good at lettering" and thinking "are they nuts?"

I used to be a little disturbed by the description of impaired imagination in autism. I think I have a pretty good imagination. I can certainly make up stories, create settings and so on. But then I realized that I have a problem of seeing one of a number of possibilities and seeing it as the only one. I don't imagine the others. When I do this and people point it out, I am a little taken aback, but it happens with some regularity, particularly around certain scheduling and project management areas.

I don't think you can magically not be upset when people disappoint you, but there may be things you can do to reduce the chance of this happening again. One thing is to ask questions to make sure that their understanding of "go to the beach" and your understanding of "go to the beach" are the same. Be very clear and specific about what you expect.
The other thing is that if you do get disappointed by something, try to explain why before you get very upset so maybe then can give you some space to recover, or at least be nice instead of telling you how you are at fault.

It was weird, to me, that they left the beach after lunch. Usually, people tend to "make a day of it" when they go to the beach.

I'm sorry you feel this way. I don't understand what happened myself. Seems like there was some kind of misunderstanding.

LOL...I thought Brazilians loved the beach so much that they have to be forced to leave at sunset!

Is there transportation, other than by car, from that beach? If so, maybe you should have stayed and gotten in a volleyball game or something. Then take the bus/train from the beach, back to your home.

It's true, though. You're becoming an adult. From their viewpoint, they feel that you must "suck it up" when things go wrong, instead of having a meltdown. They probably don't understand Asperger's.

In a way, though, you have to meet people halfway, for your own benefit. It's called "keeping a stiff upper lift" in English-speaking countries.

Again, I'm sorry you had a bad birthday.

Are you still seeing the person you were seeing when I last "spoke" to you? How's it going at your university?

Maybe they didn't want to go to the beach but they were willing to compromise for a couple of hours because it was your birthday. Was it unfair you only got to spend 2 hours at the beach? Probably.

I don't know if this applies to you or not but being autistic is never an excuse to not grow up. (being high-functioning that is) Will it be harder in some ways? Yes. But everyone has to learn to control their emotions because if you hurt someone or property, then the prosecutors could care less if you have aspergers or not. You still broke the law. It's the same with meltdowns at work, you do some crazy stuff at work because you're upset, you won't have a job. Autism is no excuse. Life is all about adapting.

First off, your English is wonderful! Much better than my Portuguese.

I only wish I could go to the beach! I would have to knock the icicles off my private parts though, and get treated for hypothermia. (Some nut cases do this thing were they go into Lake Michigan for like two minutes, polar bear club or something like that.)

And I agree too! A day at the beach is a wonderful. Walking along the shore, the rhythmic rolling of the waves on to the shore. Looking down in the sand and trying to find patterns. Looking at the first dune and seeing how the plants are forever in a fight with the ocean about where they can put down and keep roots.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

I have noticed that some people think the beach is just a place to get a tan, and once the sun is less than ideal for getting a tan, there is no point in staying. My (deceased) father-in-law was a radiologist and taught it too, he had a slide presentation on various cancers, including skin. That's all I needed to see to convince me that tanning is a bad decision. Maybe that is why they wanted to leave, but I would really like to point out that you should not bring this up with them - as Dale Carnegie, Jesus, Confucius, Lincoln say, "try to see it from the other person's point of view" .

I agree with this.

OP - also it was your birthday, and I always thought people liked to make the birthday person feel ''special''. Maybe you also felt frustrated because it was like they were thinking that you wouldn't care or anything if you all didn't spend hardly much time at the beach at all on your own birthday, just because you're Autistic. I've noticed that about people sometimes, that just because I have a disability it means I'm not going to have any concept of time or have any thoughts or feelings about anything, and would just follow along what they want to do like a puppy dog.

I do think it was unkind to just walk away from you, separate from how you respond, to just walk away with no discussion of how it's time to wind down, no effort to prepare you and grant you some dignity sounds like it might have been rude. And that can be a big trigger, when people fail to treat one as a real person......sometimes they take missing some cues as making it ok not to give them.....it's not ok, of course, it's unfair and very upsetting, but unfortunately pretty common.

I think that calling someone a spoiled child (even if they are a child and are used to getting their way by making a fuss) is not a productive thing to do. It's hurtful and unnecessary -- worse than unnecessary, actually, as it often escalates conflicts while doing nothing to solve them. Im pretty sure the idea is to use shame to motivate compliance.....but there are better ways to deal with conflict and better ways to tell someone you don't like their behavior than to call them a spoiled child.

I think your family doesn't understand why you were upset, and understands your behavior even less. I think that it would have been better for them to just wait for you to calm down. Or to just tell you something like, "We can't/don't want to stay at the beach any longer, we have to go/are going now. You're making everyone wait/hurting our ears/[whatever]" -- which wouldn't have been the most understanding response but at least would have been more respectful.

Makes me think of how important it is to be specific in what you ask for.

You wanted to go to the beach. For most people, a couple of hours is enough. If you asked to "spend the day" at the beach, there would not have been a basis for misunderstanding what you expected.

On the one hand, I understand how a sudden change from what you planned and imagined is distressing, but on the other hand, your family also has a point about your behavior of melting down and crying upon not getting your way. Ackshuly, I think that your behavior is not that bad in front of family, and what they said about your behavior is also not that bad coming from family. But it is a good to work on regulating your emotions in these types of situations and being more flexible in real-time, as these skills will help you in future.