To leave friendless young adult alone for new year as parents

[cotswoldsblue]

Hi Mumsnet!

I’m working through some issues in therapy and I can’t quite decide if this bothers me or not/if they were being unreasonable.

I’m approaching 30 and am neurodiverse. Up until 23 or so I had one to zero friends as I was painfully shy- my one friend was often in France for the Christmas and new year period.

For the Christmas period my siblings and I would go to visit my parents in the country and my siblings would leave after a few days for their New Year plans. I had no parties etc as a teen so stayed with my parents. I have quite fond memories of this- we had champagne and smoked salmon starter and then cake and then watched the fireworks on TV etc.

We have a flat in the city (I lived with my parents until I was 22) and after the age of 17 or so they said they wanted a peaceful new year just the two of them doing the same thing and that I had to leave and go to the flat alone if I had no where else to go.

I remember being sad as it made me remember what I was missing out on not having any parties to go to, and I felt like I belonged being with my parents. I remember crying one year as I did the same thing alone. I do see they deserved a break and to live their own lives, but do we reckon that’s a mean thing to do to an AUDHD 20 year old? They may of course have been hoping I’d find my own things to do and that the independence would be the making of me. I never did at that age haha :)

I have pointed out in the post above that it is entirely possible that the posters parents are also ND. It is usually familial.

Yeah, it can be really hard having dependents with you all of the time. But, of all the days to decide you desire a night alone with your spouse, away from your vulnerable DC - NYE is particularly cruel night to turf them out, don’t you think?

I have absolutely no tolerance for the OP’s parents’ attitude. Sometimes being a parent is inconvenient. Tough. Your kids’ wellbeing is at least as important as yours. Tough love is one thing. This is not tough love, this is abandonment. Even an adult needs to know that they matter. Even more important if they have no friends, to know that they can rely upon their parents. How can they have the courage to go out and try social situations if they don’t have a safe space to return to?

Yes, I have been in that situation, both as an adult child and as a parent of ND adult children. Who are, for the first time ever, all out this evening, all night.

‘Come on it’s one night’

it was one night - one night off for the parents, after 17x365 on. The op said it in her op that she never went out.

It is the one night of the year where almost everyone is celebrating with friends and loved ones. The ‘party night’ of the year.

They sent their vulnerable young person to be alone, on a city centre flat, where they were no doubt surrounded by people their own age, who for whatever reason they are unable to connect with, all having a whizzy time.

It takes a special kind of arsehole of a parent to do that. I cannot imagine any circumstances when that is acceptable (and I have really racked my brains!)

Not from the age of 20 or so to be fair. I didn’t live with them from that age- saw them once a week when my dad stayed at the flat as he was working in the city, and drove down with my mum

The OP was visiting her parents over the Christmas period not with them 365 days a year. Anyway my "it's one night" was in reference to people who felt the parents were trying to make the poster more independent so in the context of that what was "one night" out on new Year's Eve going to achieve? if that was indeed their reasoning for what I consider to be quite cruel.

I'm really struggling to think of a reason for them doing this that paints them as less cruel and uncaring. What were they like generally I wonder, does this fit into a larger pattern?

It’s hard to say without their take on it. It maybe the one night of the year they wanted for them.

Whatever your parents rationale, OP; whilst you are to be applauded for working through these issues from the past with a therapist, try not to spend today / tonight ruminating.

have you any nice plans ? If nothing in particular, try and do something a bit spoiling - a takeaway on the sofa in front of a good movie or something. You are not the sum total of your past.

I agree, especially your point about it being scarcely five minutes since they'd have been all together over Christmas.
Since OP has given us to understand that she enjoys considerable independence despite her condition, I really fail to see why she couldn’t manage that NYE without her family being in attendance, since they obviously had something planned not involving their grown offspring (and grown she was).

I think it’s ungenerous of her to still be ruminating over their decision to enjoy the night as they wished, as it seems to have taken place against a background of extensive support and indulgence.
Even if that ‘abandonment’ were indeed an error of judgement, to focus on this and not the other 99.9% of her treatment by her parents strikes me as very poor form.

But more than that it’s self destructive, as we can gauge from the responses here telling her she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and never to forget it, nor forgive her vicious parents.
That’s no way to acquire serenity and equilibrium.

This. I'd very much like to know the parents' side of this story.

Yeah fair enough.

Yes, this is valid too.

However, even if adult, it can take autistic / ADHD people much longer to ‘grow up’. This is partly what makes them vulnerable.

Also…she doesn’t have anyone. On that basis, I maintain it IS really quite cruel to leave one’s offspring alone (when they are just indoors anyway!).

Perhaps us posters who have similarly vulnerable ND young people can identify with this scenario differently.

This, or are posters really saying if as an adult your child never wants you to socialise without them you can’t? Or be branded as abusive and cruel? @cotswoldsblue are you now fully funding your own life completely financially independent?

I would never exclude any of my now adult DC, at any age. I’m sorry OP, it was very cruel.

I’m very glad you responded to my ‘mean old bat’ stuff!
I had wanted to say to you that despite my veering off into unnecessary matters, I was only motivated by a strong wish that you not invite sadness (and even bitterness) into your life now.
That’s never a good idea, if it can be avoided by a change in your viewing angle, or even turning your telescope the other way around for a bit!

Anyway I hope this evening you enjoy things as you like best. Happy New Year to you 🥳

(My New Year’s resolutions include quitting this compulsion to talk in metaphors all the bloody time )

Really? So if you were invited on a hen weekend away and your 7 year old said they really wanted to come with you, you’d take them?

It was New Year's Eve. Friendless and vulnerable, our heroine was cast out by her cruel parents into the chill of the flat they'd bought for her they hadn't bought her at all, but was purely an asset that she was protecting by living in it.

Reluctantly, they'd let her take a few bottles of fizz and some luxury picky bits. But only so that she wouldn't embarrass them by taking her heartbreaking story online.

Or so they thought...

@MixedFeelingsNoFeelings was she shod-less? (I feel shoeless doesn’t quite hit it!)

It’s also the way they expressed it to her. We only hear it now through the lens of the OP’s memory. Maybe those weren’t the words they used, but that’s the emotion she remembers.

This is very true also.

@Millytante I really hope this sentiment lands with the Op. There comes a point in all of our lives when we must allow the past to be ‘a foreign country’

Visit the part that caused you pain - reflect a bit - but then draw a line and move on, even if it feels very difficult to.

😳

Ouch.

This wasn’t really the case as described though, was it?

Let’s hope you don’t have any vulnerable, disabled people in your life, dependent on your support (who you can take the piss out of).

The parents hosted over Christmas. Why are they not afforded some consideration ? At nearly thirty how is OP a vulnerable young person ? And why is she so dependent on her parents for company ? They are not going to be around for ever and that’s a real concern.

I suppose what it boils down to for me is: are adult children always entitled to be with their parents at any time of their choosing? And to me the answer is very much - no, it's fine for them to say that they don't want their adult children around at particular times.

What I find interesting and a bit odd is that when mothers of young children post on here to say that they want a bit of time to themselves or space from their children, it's very much encouraged by other posters for them to book a babysitter, use some childcare, ask a friend or neighbour to have their child. But weirdly for adult children, who do at the end of the day, have many other options, people are calling the parents awful and selfish.

I guess there's also a difference in point of view on the status of NYE. I would understand the selfish/horrible stuff a lot more if we were talking about Christmas. But to me NYE isn't that big a deal, I don't see a lot of chatter about how people shouldn't spend NYE alone or taking meals to the elderly on NYE or anything, I don't think of it as a big family thing, more usually for couples/friends TBH