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

Hi there. This is the first time I have reached out through this group so apologies in advance if I ramble. I wanted to reach out to you as you have been through what my son is going through and as a mum, I am struggling too. My son turns 18 in a couple of weeks. A very happy bright young man who went to an idyllic local primary school, I would weekly visit the school to speak to the teachers to check he was ok. He was never invited to parties or invited around other children's homes after school to play. He was doing well in class and the school always assured me that everyone loves Archie, he has lots of friends but no one special friend group. He achieved academically so no red flags for the school. High school came: he stopped going out, became withdrawn. The school assured me he is achieving and happy. He befriended a young lad who has also been diagnosed with ASD just recently. That friendship ended in school because of bullying. When I found out how bad the bullying was, I removed him from the school. He moved to a private school which was a train journey away and it was chosen purely on its pastoral care, where I knew he would be safe and looked after. County Lines grabbed him on the train journey and before we knew it, he was groomed for money mule'ing'. The police found him and they actually suggested that we have him assessed due to his reaction to a traumatic event. He was 14 then. School was tough and he started to smoke weed each day. He had a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD just after sitting his Moc exams, just before lockdown. He wanted to do A Levels and the college accepted him, due to his diagnosis he could attend college when everyone else didnt have to. I stupidly thought that was a fantastic thing but have now realise this only made him feel different from everyone else. Fast forward. He left college as could not cope with the stress of daily tasks and he increased his drug use. He was now being used by others to do their dirty work and he thought they were his friends. I have been in constant touch with the police, children's charity, drug groups and the paediatric team at the hospital and a local Autism Anglia, where he received his diagnosis. Today: he does an apprenticeship scheme for a company owned by a friend. Daily life is a struggle, he wont get up, wont use email, will not answer the phone, doesn't sleep, he is angry. He will not accept his diagnosis and whilst I thought I was doing the right thing - I feel I have let him down at each stage. I can attend all manner of of support groups to support and guide him, he will not acknowledge his diagnosis and he is struggling, on top of that, he is an 18 year old in a world of demands on him.

Reading all of these posts, I wonder; do I not continuously nag to get up in the morning, have a shower, brush teeth, go to work, study for the apprenticeship scheme, understand money or do I stop. In which case we have drugs to contend with and that feeling that he always has of feeling useless.

Obviously I am not asking for a miracle answer but if anything. Something here may resonate with you having experienced growing up with supportive parents. I have a young man who has a kind heart, who is very much struggling to know who he is or where he belongs and he comes across as if he is the font of all knowledge and will not listen to advice. He is very misunderstood but it is also hard to understand sometimes. I so want to help him but he will not speak to me.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you dont mind.

I was always the loser in my family compared to my successful siblings. Didn’t do well in school, sports, hold down a job or even maintain friends or relationships. Being diagnosed with ASD or is it ASC as apparently condition has less stigma than disorder at the age of 62 it does help me understand why now and that it wasn’t necessarily my fault.

  Allistic parents: "Why can't you just be like other children?"

Autistic children: "Because you and father / mother made me this way instead."

                               "Because I am a pacifist!"

                               "Because you're not like other parents."

                               "Cloning was neither available nor affordable then I assume?"

                               "Because evolution dictated otherwise."

                               " . . . 

I don't really see much point in blaming my parents.  When I was a young child, there was no such thing as Asperger's/high functioning autism, so it seems pointless to blame them for not realising I had it.  Since I've been diagnosed, they've been supportive, even if they don't always "get" every aspect of my autism. (Yes, I know I'm lucky.)  There were things they said to me or made me do that were counterproductive in hindsight, like trying to pressure me to socialise on the grounds that I was just shy and that with practice and experience I would find it easier to talk to strangers and make small talk (I didn't), but, again, they couldn't have known this was not the right strategy for me.

I feel more inclined to blame the kids who bullied me at school, as they should have known better, but I think even some of those mistook my autistic withdrawal for an intentional snub and the others probably had their own issues to deal with.

In Transactional Analysis there are three states of body and mind called Parent, Adult and Child.

Parent ego-states are behavioural feelings, thoughts and actions that have been mimicked with and or adapted from parents, teachers and any other authority or power figures.

Adult ego-states or mature states of mind are behavioural feelings, thoughts and actions are direct responses to the present time and location.

Child ego-states are behavioural feelings, thoughts and actions that are reproduced from childhood.

‘Critical Parent’ ego states and ‘Wounded’ Child ego states involve children’s development having been traumatically halted, or in addition distressingly hijacked with injunctive demands.

In that ‘Critical’ Parent and ‘Wounded’ Child ego states are obstructed or also corrupted states of childhood maturation, they to lesser or greater degrees obstruct or also corrupt the ability to respond maturely and reasonably in an accommodating way.

For example: your Adult state of mind states, “I fully understand that no one had any knowledge of autism” only your ‘Wounded’ Child as ‘Critical’ Parent states, “but I just find it very hard to forgive the verbal and sometimes physical punishments that were handed out.”

Rather than starting to forgive and forget the wrongdoing ~ only to continue on pressing your case against your mother, learn instead to reclaim the pent up maturational vitalities of your ‘Wounded’ Child ~ by feeling and breathing gently and deeply through the emotional pain of those events, imagining as if that your nose and mouth are in your chest, and that your lungs are as if in your lower pelvis, with each inhalation and exhalation as if pulling and drawing your feet to the floor ~ as grounding and clearing the negative energies. It is helpful also to drink water as clearing emotional pain involves bio-chemical toxins with the negative energies. 

And every time you relive your mother telling you such things as, “You’re a strange child” remind that young fragmented version of yourself mimicking her, “People” ‘are’ strange ~ which we need to recognise and respect more regarding neurological divergences these days!” And suchlike to integrate one’s selves more effectively in developmental terms.

I think that I was very lucky, though my parents undoubtedly recognised that I was 'shy', 'awkward' and anxious to an unusual extent, they were always immensely supportive. I have a huge amount to be grateful to them for.

unconsiously probably yes

not sure when it started

I realised I am doing it when I was 28 and one girl asked me as a joke how many masks I've got

Just another thought, being told to act like others from an early age. Acting is a performance, to take on a different persona. Was it the start of, to use a different word, “mask”?

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.  

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 

My father was very understanding my mother had bipolar and had her own problem to deal with 

Excellent post Roy.

As you say, for a lot of us, very little was known about Autism when we were children. Our traits were all too often misunderstood. I understand why, but sometimes I find it hard not to feel a sense of resentment.

Had more been known about Autism when I was a child, might I have been treated with more understanding by my parents, relatives, teachers, and people in general? I think it's natural to ponder these things. Of course, none of us will ever know if our lives might have turned out differently if there had been more knowledge about Autism.

I personally can understand your inability to forgive your mother, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have a rather difficult relationship with my own mother.

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.

Was diagnosed at 35