Frustrating telephone conversation

I'm not seeking advice or sympathy, I just need to vent and let off some steam...

During the past week, my mother has been phoning me daily. I answered a call from her on Monday, which resulted (as usual) in my brain feeling well and truly fried by the end of her usual lengthy monologue about this, that, and God knows what else. As I needed PLENTY of time to recover, I had been letting my answer machine deal with her calls, right up until today when I decided that I should probably answer.

My mother was venting and wanted my opinion on the lengthy list of things she had been venting about. If truth be told, I think she was just wanting an echo chamber. Anyway, if she had spoken about each thing one at a time, it might not have been so bad, but she had left it until the end of a 30-minute (approximately) monologue to ask me for my thoughts on everything she had said.

I have tried to explain tactfully to my suspected autistic mother in the past how my autism affects me, but she just cannot seem to grasp it. Her twin sister (suspected autistic) also has difficulties trying to converse with my mother, and I know they are prone to their fair share of squabbles and misunderstandings too. My mother says she wants a two-way conversation, but by the time she finishes her monologue, we've switched off and forgotten most of what she's said.

My mother likes to hear a human voice and prefers verbal conversations, but when it comes to communicating with my mother, I find text-based conversations considerably easier. Anyway, after politely trying to explain to my mother why I was unable to provide her with a two-way conversation, she took it rather personally. Frustrated by the thought that my mother will never understand why I find verbal conversations with her so utterly mentally draining, when she said she might as well end the call because it was a waste of time talking to me, I abruptly ended the call without even bothering to say, "Goodbye".

Because of the mood my mother was in, I know that she's now likely to be feeling like everyone is out to attack her, and will be even more wound up than she was before she phoned me. In hindsight, I should not have answered that call, especially as I knew before I answered that I wasn't really in the right headspace due to other things weighing on my mind. It is said that we live and learn from our experiences, but in my case, I'm starting to question that.

All I can say is that I am thankful I inherited my dad's sense of humour. Once I've had time to calm down, I know that I'll probably be laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. To be honest, I feel sure that my dad is in his other-worldly place laughing his head off, thinking that my mother and I are just as bad as each other. Laughing

  • Inadvertently she is causing you to trigger relapse with every skirmish at reconciliation. Perhaps your wife or a sibling can act as an intermediary between to two of you?

    I have the same issue with my grandmother, in my heart I am over it, but every time she calls or tries to interact with me, I relapse and feel as betrayed as the moment I closed myself off.
    I have a wave of rigidity and extremity, to the degree of unhealth, that it took to get to the point of meltdown with her. I then plant I string of unattainable-thresholds in front of closure that will never be reachable.  
    At this point, I believe that she would have to muster up a positive-action that is novel enough to fly over my defences, and my defences are too high these days, they block out the daylight.  I’ve been enlightened to a degree of negative-intuition that most can’t even understand as reality.

    So yeah, maybe you just need to have someone blind you to the process of recovery, so that you have a chance of failing to intercept an incoming ray of daylight.

  • Yes, you're right Roy. We have indeed shared some of our experiences with our respective mothers. You're also right in saying that it doesn't get any easier.

    The ability to be verbal isn't something that I've ever really had a problem with, so you have my sympathies. In my case, it's more the case that I'm just not in the mood to converse and listen to my mother. It's become something of a long-standing joke within the wider family that when something fairly significant happens in my life, my mother is often the last person to be told. In addition, she will seldom be given all the details, unlike everyone else.

    I do consider it a shame that your mother is unable to understand that it's not that you won't answer her calls, it's that you can't. Forgive me if you have previously told me the answer to this, but have you tried explaining to her in a letter (or text-based equivalent) how your autism affects you?

    Although I can understand your feelings of guilt when your mother posts those things on social media, you shouldn't feel guilty. It's not like you are ignoring her calls in order to intentionally hurt her and be cruel. I can only imagine how upsetting and frustrating it must be for both you and your wife when you stumble across yet another one of your mother's social media posts.

  • To a degree, I agree with what you say. However, there are a lot of senior citizens that really aren't like that and are willing to accept that not everyone will agree with what they think, say, or do.

    My mother is 68. In some respects, she can be quite open-minded and willing to accept different points of view. However, there are also occasions, especially when she's feeling run down when she does seem to want and expect people to agree with her 100%. 

    Some of my mother's behaviour results from the fact that she's a widow. After more than 40 years of being (mostly) happily married, she now desperately misses my dad and is finding it hard to adjust. They had their fair share of ups and downs, but they were a great team. In addition to obviously spending a lot of time with my mother, my dad had the patience to indulge her in conversation, even though there were occasions when he might not always have been particularly interested in the topics she wanted to talk about... In the same way that she wasn't always interested in what he wanted to talk about.

    Part of my mother's problem is that she no longer has that person in her life that she can talk with about anything and everything. It's hard for her to accept that not everyone has the time, patience, and inclination to listen to everything she wants to say. This then causes her to feel even more isolated. It's not her fault, but it's not anyone else's fault either.

    Anyway Desmond, I'm glad that you and your brother have succeeded in putting what seems like a difficult past behind you.

  • Hi, we have spoken about a similar situation before but it gets no easier. I’ve tried to explain to my mother that it’s not that I won’t answer a call it’s that I can’t. I have tried to explain how autism affects me and just can’t be verbal at times. Every call is like ground hog day. My wife looks at social media and sees posts my mother has put on about loving and talking to a parent while you can as one day they won’t be here. I then feel guilty. I really don’t know what the answer is.

  • Older people don't like being challenged, and expect you to agree with everything they say. Their truth isn't ours. 

    My gran demanded to be right on EVERYTHING. Whenever, in reality, she was governed by her own paranoia. It was unbearable whenever my brother underwent a difficult teenhood. But we're over it, now. 

  • I will take your word for it, whilst continuing to think that anybody willing to take my mother on would need to be completely insane. Laughing

  • Ah yes a very-powerful weapon, but my grandmother is a devout Mormon, so my monologue capabilities hold even when all hope seems lost..Sweat smile

  • You and my mother might well be an interesting match. To be honest, I would both admire you and fear for your sanity if you were willing to find out. Laughing

    Her monologues can consist of what can seem like the life story of someone she doesn't know and has never met. I don't mean people who are in the public eye. As an example, it could be some tale about how a work colleague of a neighbour's brother-in-law had a messy divorce. Without barely pausing for breath, the topic could suddenly change to something completely different, without it necessarily being obvious that she's now talking about something else.

  • That is precisely why my grandparents avoid triggering one of my monologues.. Sweat smile .. I think myself and your mother might be an interesting match..

  • You haven't met my mother! Laughing

    It's no exaggeration when I say that there has been at least one occasion when I have interrupted my mother to say I'm bursting for the loo, and she has completely ignored me and carried on talking. If there is one thing my mother dislikes, it's when she can hear that the person she's on the phone with is doing stuff in the background. However, after one occasion when I had repeatedly interrupted and ended up requiring a change of clothing (due to wetting myself), I now don't feel guilty about taking the phone with me into the bathroom during her monologues.

  • Oddly enough, I've had similar thoughts about writing to my mother, although I would probably do it the old-fashioned way (a letter, as opposed to an e-mail).

    It will probably sound terrible, but even when my mother and I are capable of having a two-way conversation that doesn't result in us coming to blows, there is something about the tone of her voice that sets me on edge. When she leaves messages on my phone's inbuilt answer machine, I find I have to psych myself up to listen to them, as the sound of her voice is enough to cause me to feel anxious.

  • I must admit that there was an occasion a few weeks ago when I left my phone in one room and walked into another room. It's unclear how long it was before my mother realised that she was talking to herself. She had known I was feeling exhausted, so naturally assumed I had fallen asleep. Laughing

    Unfortunately for me, my mother worries. If she has been unsuccessful in trying to contact me and/or my son, she will worry herself silly about us, which makes her even more determined to get hold of us by whatever means necessary to check that we're okay. As I'm a mother, I completely understand it because I can be exactly the same with my son. However, the more determined my mother gets, the more it causes my son and I to want to avoid her.

  • The way I usually deal with things like that is to intercept each cue with one of my tangents, which as you might imagine, turns each conversation I have with someone into a fight-for-the-mic as it were. 
    To be fair I used to be terrible at expressing my concerns as a child, I was practically-mute with low self-esteem in public, and was shot-down and disregarded a lot in-private. But over-time my conversational-skills have developed the way they could, and the distracting-nature of my interjections and diversions, make for a pretty-effective stress and low-mood buster.. I’m not so sure you can declare to someone how to be that, it’s just something that is, most never need to develop that skill..

  • If your mother is indeed autistic then she may need to have it spelled out to her - in a non-judgemental way - how to have a 2 way conversation that she seems to crave but is unable to engage in.

    You could explain this to her in writing (email possibly better than text as it is a bit more permanent) and tell her that you love her and want to find a way to have a conversation that works for you both.

    This may have the effect of making her think about the fact that she is controlling the conversation so it ultimately sabotaging the thing she seems to want.

    The sort of suggestions could be to have a time limit on how long she can talk for without stopping to get your feedback or for you to have a beeper to press when you want a chance to respond. She may need something to regulate her uncontrolled talking so these interruptions may be it.

    Maybe use Whatsapp to send / receive voice memos so there is no need to interrupt one another if this is an issue. Agree to have it cover one subject at a time and you then get time to record a response.

    This approach may start to remind your mother that she is the one stifilig the diaglogue that she wants and may lead her to allow you space to reply.

    Just throwing some ideas in the mix.

  • Hello,

    if you are not in the right frame of mind then do not answer. Even better, if she calls again and you do not feel like talking then simply place the handset down and let your mother talk to herself for a while. This may seem blunt but you need to put yourself first here. You have explained to your mother about your difficulties and this has not been respected. I have had similar issues with my own undiagnosed mother. If people are not willing to understand or make allowances then why should you?