I feel like the family dynamic of my family is changing and I don’t know what to do. I’m in the process of getting married and my sister had a baby a few months ago, so I guess it’s not surprising that the dynamic is changing, but I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve generally got on reasonably well with my family, but I’ve never been emotionally close. They don’t understand me, and I guess I don’t understand them, which is partly autism, but also personality and other things.
I feel very conscious now of how my parents can drown me out. My Dad and I just bought suits for my wedding and I feel upset that he spoke for me and sometimes over me the whole time in the shop and I couldn't make myself heard. My Mum is similar, although to a lesser extent. They spent the whole of my childhood telling me to speak louder, speak more often, speak in class, speak to their friends, but now I think that part of the reason I didn’t was that I wasn’t really allowed to speak. They didn't like me talking about my special interests. I don’t remember them speaking over me as a child, but they have done it for years as an adult. The fact that they’re very chatty, about subjects that don’t interest me (“super-allistic” according to my fiancée) probably doesn’t help, but a lot of the problem is that I can get overwhelmed in shops and social situations, I’m bad at finding gaps to speak in conversations with more than one person and I often don’t know what to say, or I do know what to say, but am scared to say it and I speak quite quietly, so it’s easy for them just to carry on through those moments before I can say anything.
I feel that, on some level, my family don’t really register that I’m nearly forty. I live with my parents, have never had a full-time job, am only just getting married, have never owned property or had a child, so I guess I seem like a teenager still. The fact that I really do depend on my parents for emotional and financial support doesn’t help. I do feel ignored a lot of the time, particularly at family events, where the conversation is often about careers or other things I don’t know about. I’m hoping getting married will change this, but my parents are helping a lot financially, with the wedding and finding us somewhere to live, and we're even going to be staying with them until we find somewhere else, so they’re still going to be a big part of our lives for a while yet.
I’ve never been very close to my sister, although we’ve never fallen out, but since she had a baby last December, I feel much further apart. It’s nice to see her maternal side, which I didn’t know she had, but I’ve hardly spoken to her since then, even at family events where we’ve all been present. I think my sister felt in my shadow growing up. I’m older than her and we went to the same schools, so often her teachers were comparing her with me. But when I went to university and sank into depression and burnout, she “overtook” me, going to university and getting a job, then moving out of home permanently, marrying and buying a house and now having a baby. Weirdly, it feels like she’s quite a bit older than me now, which logically makes no sense.
I guess it feels like I got stuck as a teenager, plus I’ve always felt a bit of a cuckoo in my family, the one who doesn’t really fit with the personality, interests and mindset of the others. I know I should be grateful – and I am. Not everyone has supportive family, or family at all. But I really struggle to find my place in the family, and that's probably part of the reason I've struggled to find a place in the world.
Does this resonate with anyone?