DH beats himself up over the past

[Putittobedforgood]

Name changed because its a bit identifying.

DH is the youngest of 3 siblings. He is possibly undiagnosed AS (certainly has a lot of traits). He says he believes he is. He was taken to CAMHS or its equivalent when he was a child but in the 80s, ASD was really poorly understood/diagnosed. He never got any support. He was definitely a handful and did give his parents a rough ride at times. The thing that he did that seems to bother him most now is petty theft (which is absolutely wrong-but I wouldn't say is massively unusual). He would be physically punished for this (which breaks my heart because he normalises this because "he was a little shit"-but what was done to him is not OK). His 2 older siblings were "golden children" and even as adults were treated preferentially to DH.

DH is a good person. He did make mistakes as a child (haven't we all!) but he is nothing like this now.

He has spent most of his adult life making amends for this and up until his parents died, had a good relationship with both. For example, he paid their mortgage for a time in full as he felt he owed them this (this ran into several thousands, the petty theft I refer to is a few quid for cigarettes/cigarettes themselves) I am not minimising what he did-just trying to give a bit of context to the scale of it.

I was close to both his parents-and as they got older, I would help them with cleaning, cooking etc and DH was treated a little, but not much, better.

His siblings on the other hand have not "turned out" well. One behaved appallingly after the parents passed away, particularly to DH. So much so he did not even get a chance to retain a picture or momento from his parents house. It was cleared out before the funeral. The other is serving a prison sentence for a very serious offence.

Despite this, DH is still troubled by how he was as a child. I have tried lots of times to comfort him, tell him that whilst obviously wrong, what he did isn't so unusual, he has more than made up for it, the physical chastisement was not OK-but he just won't accept this. This has got worse for him since his parents passed-and I don't think he will process the grief properly until he forgives himself.

How can I help him? We can't undo the past, after all.

Your poor DH.

It seems as though he's turning the pain at his parents' treatment of him onto himself.

Counselling would probably be a useful step - he really needs to forgive himself for his perceived wrongdoing, love who he is, and feel safe to feel anger towards his parents.

It's great he has you to support him

Thank you-I'm glad its not just me that can see he does need help with this. He has had counselling previously, but this was before his parents died. Recently he has been mentioning trying to get a diagnosis of ASD as an adult. I feel like he is wanting to rationalise his behaviour as a kid with this, rather than actually needing support in the here and now, if that makes sense?

I will obviously support him if he wants to do this, but not sure it is for "the right reasons". I have kept my mouth shut on that point!

It breaks my heart how much it troubles him. He blames himself for so many things (including thinking he should have known about his sibling who is in prison).

He keeps it bottled up mostly. But every so often, it all comes spilling out and he is really distressed.

Yea agree counselling would be best. He believes on some level that he is bad. He needs to make peace with what he did and who he was and maybe make peace with how his family behaved too. That sounds tough, poor man

I'd recommend looking for a counsellor who specialises in compassionate inquiry - absolute game changer for working through childhood stuff for me. And get DH to check out books by Gabor Mate for background reading to this approach.

Thank you-I will try and broach counselling with him. He will likely be quite resistant to this now-I am not convinced the last one he went to was overly helpful.