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

I've wrested with this issue for some time. I can see NOW how frustrating and wilful I must have appeared as a child. I can understand enough of the psychology to see WHY things unfolded the way that they did, and how the situation kinda forced everyone into playing the roles that they did, BUT my parents repeatedly violated the prime directive that a parent has.

Love and nurture your child.

Worse, they set me up for a life of failure, of being "Bad", simply by expecting nothing good, (and not seeing it when it did appear) 

IN SHORT, For them, ONE aspect of me was enough to define my whole as "bad", and unlike many other people who have encountered me as an adult they did not get much good out of me as a result. 

Now they are dead, they made sure to exclude me from any sort of legacy, but they did "stress test" me so much as a kid, that I'm relatively tough and functional and adaptable, and they showed me how NOT to bring up a kid, so my own child did not suffer as I did, and seems to be more sucessful and happy in life as a result, all of which are good outcomes for me. 

If anything, I'm sad for me as a child, and I'm sad for them that they never really got much enjoyment out of me, certainly nothing like the bond and enjoyment I have with my adult child. The children that they did care for and appreciate, as adults have been less reliable or helpful than many non family members, AND have proven troublesome and untrustworthy in life, so they are now strangers to me. 

This precis, masks many decades of mutual hurt and blame games and bad behaviour, which I have struggled to understand. 

I heard the song Eleanor Rigby at age six, by which time I was already one of the "lonely people" that the Beatles were singing about, so it struck a chord, and started me on a quest to understand loneliness and relationships in general. 

I've learned this:

If people have victimised you for (or at least taken advantage of) your Autism all your life, and when they learn of it,  they don't make any effort at restitution, or allow you to reframe your life in the light of the new knowledge, YOU OWE EACH OTHER NOTHING. Except to create and keep distance between you.

Your diagnosis, if nothing else, is an opportunity for change. You need people in your life who will support you to make positive changes, not anchors to an unpleasant past. 

Hello I Sperg, much of what you have written here resonates with me.  I'm 45 currently waiting for my diagnosis outcome and my parents cannot even acknowledge I'm going through it!   But then again they are emotionally immature and I've been the 'scapegoat child' my entire life.   Everyone else is allowed to be ill, have mental health problems, be diagnosed with anything and they will be believed...... but me noooo.......apparently anything that might be 'wrong' with me is just me lying/doing it for attention/being 'selfish'.   

My parents have been working really hard at appearing well-to-do and respectable and they are really afraid of being found out I think, for the despicable people they are.    I was treated very badly and I'm trying to create the distance I should have made at least twenty years ago, but I didn't realise even back then what they were doing to me. 

I have terrible daytime flashbacks that have become worse since perimenopause and during autism assessment, many aspects of my childhood and how I was treated then resurfaced and I've been left mulling these over time and time again, painfully and without redress at the moment.   I need alot of support in processing everything really.  

I cannot forgive my parents because they didn't 'know better' because autism wasn't so known in girls, I don't forget them because they were crap parents, plain and simple.   

My mask is one where I smile and grin to make people like me.  Because I learnt that if I didn't smile, joke, be funny really quickly I'd be in pain, physically and/or humiliated emotionally....  Not just from bullies at school or out playing, but from my parents.   I say to my husband you can always tell how nervous of someone I am by how much my smile is fixed on my face.   In natural, trusted company my face is neutral unless something actually funny is going on.  I'm sick of grinning like an idiot so I'm not hated.  My real face is serious and has no more f***s to give nasty people who don't deserve to breathe the same air as me.

Hello I Sperg, much of what you have written here resonates with me.  I'm 45 currently waiting for my diagnosis outcome and my parents cannot even acknowledge I'm going through it!   But then again they are emotionally immature and I've been the 'scapegoat child' my entire life.   Everyone else is allowed to be ill, have mental health problems, be diagnosed with anything and they will be believed...... but me noooo.......apparently anything that might be 'wrong' with me is just me lying/doing it for attention/being 'selfish'.   

My parents have been working really hard at appearing well-to-do and respectable and they are really afraid of being found out I think, for the despicable people they are.    I was treated very badly and I'm trying to create the distance I should have made at least twenty years ago, but I didn't realise even back then what they were doing to me. 

I have terrible daytime flashbacks that have become worse since perimenopause and during autism assessment, many aspects of my childhood and how I was treated then resurfaced and I've been left mulling these over time and time again, painfully and without redress at the moment.   I need alot of support in processing everything really.  

I cannot forgive my parents because they didn't 'know better' because autism wasn't so known in girls, I don't forget them because they were crap parents, plain and simple.   

My mask is one where I smile and grin to make people like me.  Because I learnt that if I didn't smile, joke, be funny really quickly I'd be in pain, physically and/or humiliated emotionally....  Not just from bullies at school or out playing, but from my parents.   I say to my husband you can always tell how nervous of someone I am by how much my smile is fixed on my face.   In natural, trusted company my face is neutral unless something actually funny is going on.  I'm sick of grinning like an idiot so I'm not hated.  My real face is serious and has no more f***s to give nasty people who don't deserve to breathe the same air as me.