Why can’t you just be like the other children? Late diagnosed or self diagnosed adults, Can we forgive parents?

Hi, a really good question was asked earlier in the week about our earliest childhood memories. Most seemed to be how we had been taken to different events and were unable to join in. A thread that I noticed was that as late diagnosed or self diagnosed we seem unable to forgive parents for how we were treated. The usual, “ don’t show me up” or “why are you so awkward”?, the one I can still hear is, “your a strange child” these  are just a few of the instances that a lot of us endured. This was whilst we didn’t know why we couldn’t  identify with other children either. I find I just can’t forgive my remaining parent, my mother. I fully understand that no one had any knowledge of autism but I just find it very hard to forgive the verbal and sometimes physical punishments that were handed out. I actually keep contact now to a minimum. I don’t know if I’m being “out of order”  or making too much of this, I am still processing a lot of my childhood, a lot of these memories still haunt me and just find it very hard to forgive and forget.  Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Parents
  • You would make good data analyst probably (my current delusion is to become one), you're the only one who pieced it together.

    I did not say it in the post about early memories but the phrase that I remember best from childhood was ''Act normal !!!''. The only adults who treated me like I'm normal were my granpa (mom's dad). who died when I was 11, and my math teacher I had during 7th and 8th year of primary school.

    I face similar dilema now, and I reached the point where I decided that I could forgive if my mom acknowledged that I'm autistic and stopped telling me that my life is all wrong and that I must do something about it all the time. At least it was all the time until I stopped answering phonecalls and emails after my last visit home 3 and a half years ago.

Reply
  • You would make good data analyst probably (my current delusion is to become one), you're the only one who pieced it together.

    I did not say it in the post about early memories but the phrase that I remember best from childhood was ''Act normal !!!''. The only adults who treated me like I'm normal were my granpa (mom's dad). who died when I was 11, and my math teacher I had during 7th and 8th year of primary school.

    I face similar dilema now, and I reached the point where I decided that I could forgive if my mom acknowledged that I'm autistic and stopped telling me that my life is all wrong and that I must do something about it all the time. At least it was all the time until I stopped answering phonecalls and emails after my last visit home 3 and a half years ago.

Children
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