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
  • 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 

  • I have thought about this a lot and I believe that because of my parents childhood traumas and thier therefore unsuitability to become parents, social services should have intervened far earlier and had me taken into care, fostered or adopted - this would happen much more and more quickly today and rightly so, as often difficult decisions need to be made in the best interests of the child

Reply
  • I have thought about this a lot and I believe that because of my parents childhood traumas and thier therefore unsuitability to become parents, social services should have intervened far earlier and had me taken into care, fostered or adopted - this would happen much more and more quickly today and rightly so, as often difficult decisions need to be made in the best interests of the child

Children
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