Struggling with getting my parents to understand me

Oh you need some help from some where, for sure.

The NAS don't have a general advice line any more, but they host this and we're here.

What is it you want to communicate to your parents exactly?

And, no you don't have to live a "normal" life. You can live a better than "normal" life if you live it YOUR way. Hell, we were just not born for "normal". Who cares about "normal"?

We'll help you navigate this. Break it down bit by bit and chuck out your questions here.

I made these notes a while back. I might as well post the full lot. This is basically what I'm struggling with.

- Parents have attempted to 'treat' autism and suggested autism is a personal biological 'problem' with me. This has made me feel a lot of internalised guilt

- Parents have put considerable pressure on me to behave in a neurotypical manner and mask my autism. This has reached a point where I constantly have to mask, even in my own home and feel exhausted. I reach burnout very easily which exacerbates my autism

- Stressful conditions within the home has made my mental health deteriorate to the point of suicidal ideation

- The lack of understanding surrounding structure has led to confusing household rules. I am constantly hypervigilant as my behaviours are always perceived as wrong, even when I am following their rules

- I am infantilised and my capacity is questioned. My parents have opened my post and I am under considerable pressure to get married

- I am not comfortable in my home but I do not feel that I have full independent living skills and feel I cannot leave

–

- I need support speaking to my parents to give them this information. I find it hard to articulate and I am concerned that I will not be understood when speaking from an emotional place.

I require an advocate to support me in delivering this information as I may reach a point where I struggle with my verbal language

- English is not my parents first language and there are cultural differences that may impact their understanding. It may be more appropriate for them to have cultural context surrounding my disability

- I need information surrounding autism to be tailored to me. Many resources are centred around supporting autistic children which is no longer relevant to my experience. Information needs to be in regards to the lived experience of autistic adults

- I am already aware of social groups for myself. I speak to other autistic adults and am active in the autism community. I am not seeking adult social groups

Opening your letters??

That does sound pretty controlling, violating certain pretty basic rights towards privacy!

By marrying you off, it sounds as though they want to confer a better social status on you, whilst also making you someone else's resonsibility. That would certainly be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire if the future husband did not have your best interests at heart. 

Is there any oeganisation thst could help yiu with council accommodation or assisted living?

I don't know, it's a possibility. I am in that position where I'm often hiding away in the house from my mum particularly because I don't want to have to talk about what I'm going through because I know I'm just going to get a bigger lecture/bollocking and I don't have the energy to listen to it.

That doesn't sound good either. Could you maybe get an email address at a library and ask for all future comnunications to be online, or get a box number at a post office for your private correspondence?

I don't miss Twitter. Not entirely anyway, it was nice being able to actually have more than one conversation a week but I don't miss having gotten myself into a situation where I was chatting to 30 people across 4 platforms. I'm almost glad it happened to basically stop me from further self-destruction, basically.

I spent two months writing an article for the Metro about autism & friendship and I talked a lot about Twitter and how it allowed me to form a community. I still feel glad I met the people I did, I just wish I handled it all a lot better and the nature of the conversations were a bit, well, healthier. But it only took 5 days for that article to age horrendously, and of course they emailed me to tell me they were taking it down.

If I ever did go back on Twitter (and it's a big if), I would not overshare as much as I did, nor would I engage in the autistic community (cos I know I'm not welcome). I think the main thing is to limit how many hours I spend on it.

I had one friend who I seriously could see myself being able to pursue things (appropriately) but even if this hadn't happened, it might have been a year or so before I even approached things. She's also autistic and from the same cultural background so it's a shame in a way.

Sometimes I get some hope that I could patch things up with at least some of the people I knew, but then I remind myself of what I did and that kills it. I'm still in that "you must feel bad" stage.

I might possibly consider an IRL approach in the future though, once I've sorted myself out.

Yeah TBH Twitter is just like Facebook now anyway IMO: A dumpster fire of everyone's bad day presented collectively for doom scrolling.
But you are here now, and between here and maybe some interest based Discord servers in my experience I've not missed out on Twitter since I left in in 2021.

Being an older adult (not that old just not 25 anymore) the friends I do have gradually ended up further afield just because of work and such and I get to see them less often so I'm actually joining my nearest local NAS branch so I can eventually meet more people in person myself.
If that sounds like something you are interested in it could be a good way for you to get to know other people who can relate to and understand your autism better IRL.
 

I'm concerned for you, with the possibility of Honour Killings.

Yeah, my biggest worry is that even if I've moved forwards someone will drag it up, as though something I did two years ago is relevant to what I'd be doing at that point. The person who shared it has 12k followers. People told me I'm a groomer, a nonce, an abuser etc. I'll own up to having (unintentionally) made people uncomfortable and having taken things too far but I won't admit to something I didn't actually do (or intend to do). 

It's hard because I do feel that with some of the friends I had, I had some good bonds. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it would work again, even if I was to set parameters and clear boundaries from the off. I think there were many cases where someone wasn't as open with me because they were afraid of hurting my feelings, which is understandable, but I don't want someone to feel like that again.

That said, I have also felt like that at times so it's just about being like "I won't be angry with you if you have to tell me that you're uncomfortable with something" (or along those lines).

I had to come off Twitter completely because so many people were talking about me. Angry that I was supposedly 'hiding' and then when I went back on to put out a statement they were still angry but to be fair, I understood why.

Well don't worry about Twitter too much, anyone worth knowing would still give you a chance if you had to explain it was just crossed wires (which Twitter is famous for even among neurotypical people on there), and you may not even have to explain it anyway, anyone who would try and dig up dirt on people they just met are a bit of a "red flag" for suspisious behaviour themselves anyway. Also Twitter is just one big  manufactured rage algorithm, people will forget all about it after a while when the next big thing to make them upset comes along. People have surprisingly short memories and you can't let the trauma of that fall out put you off meeting new people forever (as fresh and awful as it may still feel right now) because if you didn't get in any legal hot water it's not like you are some kind of list, it's just a learning curve.
I think it's tough being a young man who can't read social cues so well as others because unfortunately young women tend to feel more vulnerable and be more hinting than explicit in their feelings and what they need because unfortunately sometimes when they outright reject a guy (some take it far too personally) and they are met with a violent reaction from the guy.
It may not be the best thing to lead with, explaining you are autistic, but if you do ever get to chatting with ladies in DMs ever again it would probably be good to introduce it early into the second or 3rd conversation and explain you want to be respectful but if something is wrong then you need clear communication so you know how to respond apropriately.
I've been married for over 10 years and that's my best advice, to take the relationship slow and tentative in the early stages, let eachother get comfortable where you are at before jumping up a level. Works for platonic relationships and forming friends too, just let it take time and click int place on it's own.
Hopefully you do get back out there socially when you feel good and ready, and can form relationships mutually with other people on your own terms (sans pushing from Mum and Dad).

Well don't worry about Twitter too much, anyone worth knowing would still give you a chance if you had to explain it was just crossed wires (which Twitter is famous for even among neurotypical people on there), and you may not even have to explain it anyway, anyone who would try and dig up dirt on people they just met are a bit of a "red flag" for suspisious behaviour themselves anyway. Also Twitter is just one big  manufactured rage algorithm, people will forget all about it after a while when the next big thing to make them upset comes along. People have surprisingly short memories and you can't let the trauma of that fall out put you off meeting new people forever (as fresh and awful as it may still feel right now) because if you didn't get in any legal hot water it's not like you are some kind of list, it's just a learning curve.
I think it's tough being a young man who can't read social cues so well as others because unfortunately young women tend to feel more vulnerable and be more hinting than explicit in their feelings and what they need because unfortunately sometimes when they outright reject a guy (some take it far too personally) and they are met with a violent reaction from the guy.
It may not be the best thing to lead with, explaining you are autistic, but if you do ever get to chatting with ladies in DMs ever again it would probably be good to introduce it early into the second or 3rd conversation and explain you want to be respectful but if something is wrong then you need clear communication so you know how to respond apropriately.
I've been married for over 10 years and that's my best advice, to take the relationship slow and tentative in the early stages, let eachother get comfortable where you are at before jumping up a level. Works for platonic relationships and forming friends too, just let it take time and click int place on it's own.
Hopefully you do get back out there socially when you feel good and ready, and can form relationships mutually with other people on your own terms (sans pushing from Mum and Dad).

I don't miss Twitter. Not entirely anyway, it was nice being able to actually have more than one conversation a week but I don't miss having gotten myself into a situation where I was chatting to 30 people across 4 platforms. I'm almost glad it happened to basically stop me from further self-destruction, basically.

I spent two months writing an article for the Metro about autism & friendship and I talked a lot about Twitter and how it allowed me to form a community. I still feel glad I met the people I did, I just wish I handled it all a lot better and the nature of the conversations were a bit, well, healthier. But it only took 5 days for that article to age horrendously, and of course they emailed me to tell me they were taking it down.

If I ever did go back on Twitter (and it's a big if), I would not overshare as much as I did, nor would I engage in the autistic community (cos I know I'm not welcome). I think the main thing is to limit how many hours I spend on it.

I had one friend who I seriously could see myself being able to pursue things (appropriately) but even if this hadn't happened, it might have been a year or so before I even approached things. She's also autistic and from the same cultural background so it's a shame in a way.

Sometimes I get some hope that I could patch things up with at least some of the people I knew, but then I remind myself of what I did and that kills it. I'm still in that "you must feel bad" stage.

I might possibly consider an IRL approach in the future though, once I've sorted myself out.

Yeah TBH Twitter is just like Facebook now anyway IMO: A dumpster fire of everyone's bad day presented collectively for doom scrolling.
But you are here now, and between here and maybe some interest based Discord servers in my experience I've not missed out on Twitter since I left in in 2021.

Being an older adult (not that old just not 25 anymore) the friends I do have gradually ended up further afield just because of work and such and I get to see them less often so I'm actually joining my nearest local NAS branch so I can eventually meet more people in person myself.
If that sounds like something you are interested in it could be a good way for you to get to know other people who can relate to and understand your autism better IRL.
 

Yeah, my biggest worry is that even if I've moved forwards someone will drag it up, as though something I did two years ago is relevant to what I'd be doing at that point. The person who shared it has 12k followers. People told me I'm a groomer, a nonce, an abuser etc. I'll own up to having (unintentionally) made people uncomfortable and having taken things too far but I won't admit to something I didn't actually do (or intend to do). 

It's hard because I do feel that with some of the friends I had, I had some good bonds. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it would work again, even if I was to set parameters and clear boundaries from the off. I think there were many cases where someone wasn't as open with me because they were afraid of hurting my feelings, which is understandable, but I don't want someone to feel like that again.

That said, I have also felt like that at times so it's just about being like "I won't be angry with you if you have to tell me that you're uncomfortable with something" (or along those lines).

I had to come off Twitter completely because so many people were talking about me. Angry that I was supposedly 'hiding' and then when I went back on to put out a statement they were still angry but to be fair, I understood why.