Parental Acceptance.

I’m most probably only oversharing, some of you will know the slightly fractious relationship I have with my mother. I invited her for Sunday lunch last week and tried again to explain how autism affects my life, I just mentioned that I never shower, it’s too overwhelming, the reply was, “ yeah, your dad was just the same.” I then mentioned a meltdown at infant school because PE was to be done barefoot, l explained how I can still not tolerate being barefoot, the reply was the same as my previous comment. 
My dad would only use the same plate, knife and mug, 
I then went onto how dad would “ go into one,” I remember how he would totally meltdown, the reply was, “ yes he would be inconsolable and had no memory of what had happened afterwards .” I told her of some the situations when dad ‘lost it,’ She explained that she was often medicated or ‘Sectioned’ and away. I then went back further to dads mother, she was known for never having emotions and being a ‘cold’ person, she was like a robot,  I just said that all of this is typical autistic behaviour.

My mother actually agreed that there seems to be a pattern, I’m not the only autistic in the camp. I then opened up more which is unusual for me, told her how school was,  she said that she just never knew and kept apologising, obviously it’s no one’s fault, I did a good job of masking. Mum had three children to look after and my younger sister was often in hospital. Mum offered to pay for a private diagnosis, I thanked her, but I’m not far from the NHS assessment now plus the private providers seem to be struggling to keep up at the moment.

It was like finally finding acceptance and an unspoken peace, when I first mentioned autism 2 years ago, I was totally shutdown and told I was not like the Dustin Hoffman film, the same as the Scottish play, it’s name must never be mentioned!

I went to the village pub last night with my wife and mum joined us, the pub was very noisy, so many people were talking at once and I could hear everyone but couldn’t process it all, I ended up blurting out to mum, “ please stop talking,” I felt guilty straight away but mum said,”yes, I do understand, I was feeling the same but talking to cover it”.