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
  • This si something I have thought about alot as I get older. My dad passed in 2020 and probabably had ASD as well as other undiagnosed issues. My mum passed last year and she was the only one I got to talk about ASD with. They knew no diffrent, I blame them for nothing, I probably blame myself more for not getting help in my 20's and 30's. I was not an easy chlild, I was very clingy and genrally scared of the world and being left on my own, I was an only child that didn't help. They made my life as normal as they could, I genrally did what I was told and was not disruptive. This obviously ment I learned to mask pretty much as soon as I started school, with my ADHD helping that. 

    I am currently waiting for a copy of my medical records to see if there is anything in there. I was quite a sicly child and it was taked about me going to a special school for that reason. I was about 8 and massivley fought that because I thought I was 'normal'. Who knows how things may have turned out if I had gone there, we will never know.

    Rob

Reply
  • This si something I have thought about alot as I get older. My dad passed in 2020 and probabably had ASD as well as other undiagnosed issues. My mum passed last year and she was the only one I got to talk about ASD with. They knew no diffrent, I blame them for nothing, I probably blame myself more for not getting help in my 20's and 30's. I was not an easy chlild, I was very clingy and genrally scared of the world and being left on my own, I was an only child that didn't help. They made my life as normal as they could, I genrally did what I was told and was not disruptive. This obviously ment I learned to mask pretty much as soon as I started school, with my ADHD helping that. 

    I am currently waiting for a copy of my medical records to see if there is anything in there. I was quite a sicly child and it was taked about me going to a special school for that reason. I was about 8 and massivley fought that because I thought I was 'normal'. Who knows how things may have turned out if I had gone there, we will never know.

    Rob

Children
  • I keep thinking that if I had been a “good Catholic” and if I had learned the faith better as taught to me by parents (if they had been better able to be parents and properly pass on the faith given thier own issues in the Catholic Ireland of the time) maybe I would have dealt with all of this better - going down the gay path in my teens in the 1980’s up until 15 years ago is something that I now realise was a big mistake and would not have happened if I had been adopted by my grandparents family on my Dad’s side, as I now realise that I needed (but never got) that ultra strict and ultra harsh upbringing to (make) me “cop myself on” as I did not get enough corporal punishment often enough at crucial points during my childhood, which would have made me a far stronger and more resilient person and ensured that I would not have gone down that gay path, which many considered totally inappropriate in my particular case as an only child, as I discovered later on in the consistent prejudice, discrimination and non-acceptance that I experienced from other gay men, even outside of the commercial gay scene and especially in the “nonprofit” part of the gay world 

  • I know what you mean............so many "if onlys..."  and "what ifs..."" Sue