Hating being told no

I don't think Demand Avoidance is a diagnosis, but I do relate to it. 

I had that sort of thing a lot from my parents, usually it was 'you'll hurt yourself'. So I never learnt to do so many things, I was rarely if ever encouraged, even when I was small, I'd do something like show my Dad a picture I'd drawn and he wouldn't really look at it, he'd just say that maybe I'd grow up to be a fmaous artist, or if I said I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up, he's start shreiking about having to carry bed pans around. I even wonder sometimes if was born autistic, or somehow "learned" it, through all the things I wasn't allowed to do, say or watch. I think of it as social deprivation, if you're never allowed to do normal things and you grow up not knowing that many normal things exist, then you sort of grow up in a vacumn. How is one ever supposed to make up for it? People arn't patient, they don't understand what its like to be not allowed to do normal things, or not know they exist. On balance I think I am autistic, but I wonder what life would of been like if I had of been allowed normal things?

Have you ever been diagnosed with demand avoidance? Or is this just another way of shutting you up and denying your needs? I so often wonder if such diagnosis are real disorders or a form of official, medical denial that someone who has something like autism has legitimate needs and likes and dislikes, let alone should have any agency with their life.

Sporadic Sparkly said:

When your parents say no to you, do you ever challenge them and ask them why, or try to see if some kind of compromise can be reached? If not, then it might be worth thinking about.

Sometimes. Most times I can't think of an answer on the spot. I know their attitude is one of "let's put it off and hopefully he'll forget about it and shut up already".

That's always been the general vibe wherever I go. If I dare open my mouth, I'm told to shut up. 

I'm the oldest of four, and the only knowingly autistic one. I'm fully sure that I'm treated as the one who is stupid, knows nothing and can't possibly think for himself.

Even something like "I want a new bicycle for my birthday" is immediately shut down from a perspective of "it might get stolen", ignoring the fact that there's a risk with everything and I have a bike lock etc.

I have no advise, but I do sympathise as I sometimes used to feel similar before I moved out of the family home.

In many respects, my parents were fairly laid back, but made it clear that they expected me to abide by their rules while I was living under their roof.

During my late teens, I used to spend a lot of time at a friend's house. There were occasions when I sometimes wouldn't return home until after my parents had gone to bed. No matter how quiet I tried to be, I almost always managed to disturb them.

As a young adult, I felt I should be able to come and go as I pleased. Therefore, I didn't take kindly to them telling me that if I wasn't home by a certain time, I risked being locked out of the house.

Now that I'm middle-aged and sharing a home with my adult son, I can sort of understand some of the boundaries that my parents had set me.

When your parents say no to you, do you ever challenge them and ask them why, or try to see if some kind of compromise can be reached? If not, then it might be worth thinking about.

Or maybe they want you to be "normal" and see your wanting to do certain things as abnormal, they don't have to be abnormal in wider society, but abnormal in your families unique culture. People rarely think about the culture of certain families, what is and is not acceptable, I was called weird by an ex for buying a newspaper, his family don't read them and never have, they always listened to radio 4, which to me when I was growing up was for posh people. 

Who's really demanding avoidance? Is it you not liking no for an answer or are your family demanding that you avoid certain things because it dosen't fit with their view of what people like "us" do? It sounds like a real power issue going on, who has power in you family and how it is exercised. Is there any scapegoating going on? Are you always the "bad" one with outrageous needs, who won't fit in with every body else, the one who every body else blames for things? I think when thinking about these things you need to look at the difference between "won't" and "can't", "won't has a much more forceful and deliberate tone, maybe even a moral force to it, 'I won't smack my children' for example. Can't is problematic as on the one hand 'I can't eat strawberries as I'm allergic to them', is different to 'I can't wear that, its ugly, what will people think?'

If no has been the default answer to everything you've wanted to do in life, from I want to be an astronaut when I grow up, to I want beans on toast for tea tonight, then it would be no surprise that you feel sensitive.

HMO said:

I feel really sensitive to being told no.

I suspect this is related to PDA (Pathological Deand Avoidance) which is a common autistic trait.

Your parents are essentially demanding you do not do something and you are resisting their demand, made especially sensitive because it was something you came up with.

At age 27 you would normally have the autonomy to do whatever you like so long as you are covering the costs / effort involved and it does not impact your parents. If your parents are responsible for any of these things then you wll have to suck it up as you are not the only party to this situation.

Is it to do with how you phrase the question?

I want to go swim with sharks.

or

I'm interested to see big sea animals in their natural habitats, is there any way we could go to xxx and go on one of those boat trips?

The first indicates a potential lack of awareness of danger (which one of the books I read can be an issue for NDs). The second starts exploring the reasons why you want to do something, which gives other people a bit more to work with, they can do all their 'inferences' thinking and maybe come up with something that could work as a compromise.

BUT I may be over-thinking it!!!