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

Roy

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

  • Haven't broached the subject with parents, and not sure about getting a diagnosis, for numerous reasons.

    My parents would probably not understand. They will most likely see it as me just using it as an excuse 

    I am very much a person who doesn't forgive them for punishments or they way kept making out I would never amount to anything and that I am lazy.

    Oh and the one I will never forgive my mother for, "Do you want to go into care, cause I don't want you", that phrase haunts me to this day 

  • in reply to Golf23

    I can understand why you have felt unable to forgive your mother for what she had said, and why it still haunts you.

    When I was in my 20s, my mother 'kindly' took it upon herself to inform me that when she had fallen pregnant with me, she had wanted to terminate the pregnancy. I was unplanned, and she and my dad had both felt they were too young to become parents. The bit about feeling too young to be parents I could sort of get my head around.

    My mother had then gone on to tell me that because her doctor wouldn't agree to refer her for a termination, the plan had then been to put me up for adoption. Knowing it would be impossible to conceal the pregnancy, my parents had told their parents, resulting in my dad's mother saying she would disown my dad if her grandchild (me) was put up for adoption. My mother had then ended by saying, "Don't think that we don't love you, because we do!"  To this day, I have never understood why my mother had felt compelled to tell me about the skeleton she had been keeping in the closet. I didn't need to know about it. Nor did I want to know.  

Reply
  • in reply to Golf23

    I can understand why you have felt unable to forgive your mother for what she had said, and why it still haunts you.

    When I was in my 20s, my mother 'kindly' took it upon herself to inform me that when she had fallen pregnant with me, she had wanted to terminate the pregnancy. I was unplanned, and she and my dad had both felt they were too young to become parents. The bit about feeling too young to be parents I could sort of get my head around.

    My mother had then gone on to tell me that because her doctor wouldn't agree to refer her for a termination, the plan had then been to put me up for adoption. Knowing it would be impossible to conceal the pregnancy, my parents had told their parents, resulting in my dad's mother saying she would disown my dad if her grandchild (me) was put up for adoption. My mother had then ended by saying, "Don't think that we don't love you, because we do!"  To this day, I have never understood why my mother had felt compelled to tell me about the skeleton she had been keeping in the closet. I didn't need to know about it. Nor did I want to know.  

Children
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