I am a lone parent to two young adult children. I became a parent very young. My own parents were extremely angry, disappointed and worried about the long term ramifications of potentially starting again as parents in their very late forties/early fifties. To cut a very long story short our relationship just broke down completely. My mum had always been a very heavy drinker and she died 18 months after my DD was born, and a month before my DS was born. My dad just left with another woman weeks later. So I suppose what I am saying is that I’ve raised two children totally completely alone. And it’s been hard.
Despite that we’ve coped and I’ve tried to be as good a parent as possible and looked after the children as best I could. But things just feel as if they have nosedived in recent years.
My dad died nearly five years ago, very very suddenly. We had not been close for years after my mum died but I was still devastated. There was so much left unsaid between us and even though I resented him for leaving me as a child really (albeit one a few months from her eighteenth birthday!) and for just standing by and letting my mum behave as she did, I also did love him very, very much and we ‘got’ each other. He was also always financially supportive although this also came with a certain amount of being overbearing and rather dogmatic some of the time. Even so, it was a great loss. My daughter was doing her a levels and my son his GCSEs at the time and they were upset too. Still they both did well. DD went to university. DS went to college.
My DS has autism but is very high functioning. He was generally okay when younger. He was definitely ‘intense’ and words such as ‘eccentric’ appeared with regularity when describing him but as a child these added to his charm: he had glasses and dark hair like a little Harry Potter and would regale any adult he met with stories about dinosaurs or Star Wars and he appeared cute and quirky.
As he grew up his difficulties became far more marked and he developed some quite macabre interests. His big problem (as I see it) is that he just doesn’t get humour - if someone tells him a joke he either doesn’t respond at all or robotically comes back with Ha Ha Ha. Unfortunately he started watching some comedians and reading books which derive their humour from ‘satire’ of a racist or sexist or generally socially unacceptable manner and because he doesn’t understand humour he repeats these jokes believing them to be daringly amusing and then of course they go down badly 
I have had this conversation with him so many times but in the moment when he’s trying to impress he forgets and gets carried away. He’s caused a lot of offence to people though this. He is ridiculously easily led by others - he looks to others for acceptable behaviour and can’t see when they are laughing at him.
He started to overdose on prescription medication about eighteen months ago, when combined with alcohol this makes him downright bizarre, shouting in the street and (on two memorable occasions) smearing shit throughout the house, he had to be physically pinned down in hospital in August. That was awful as like many people with autism he hates being touched and lashed out and I had to plead with the hospital not to press charges. Anyway that is by the by.
But it’s all really breaking me. I have all but given up asking for help wit DS, he won’t engage with anything or anybody so there is no point. DD met a lovely boy and moved in with him, I am happy for her but she seems to be increasingly immersed into his family and it seems to highlight all that is wrong with mine. I don’t honestly want her to become my confidante or crutch but just the same for a mother and daughter that had been so close ... I feel like I’m losing her. In addition I also had some dear friends who I’ve drifted apart from, no ones fault, just life.
But I just feel as if everything I loved and held precious and dear to me is vanishing. My son hates me. He hates me because I had him, and he hates himself. Of course he doesn’t really hate me, he hates himself, but I’m an easy target. He rants on at me and tells me he is a loser, ugly (he isn’t actually, he is a perfectly pleasant looking young man but he has wild hair and he doesn’t shower or wash as much as he should and he wears clothes several sizes too large.) He controls every room in the house: if I am watching television and get up for a wee I come back and he’s there with a horror movie on. I got him his own tv but he prefers the one in the lounge so I am in my bedroom alone most nights.
My cat was put to sleep last month. I thought it was the right thing to do. But when it came to it he mewed when the vet injected him and his eyes were open in death looking shocked and scared. I had that cat for years, and I am so upset thinking his last minutes may have been terrified and in pain. He was old, and ill.
I just feel so unhappy about my life right now. I am so lonely with my friends and dd having drifted and DS being well DS and no other family. I am dreading Christmas.
I read a book where one of the characters drove away with a gun and their passport and it said something like it being the last Christmas they would have as things were and the inference was they’d either leave the country or die. And it’s weird but it sounded so peaceful. I keep replaying that in my mind, driving away to the sea maybe on Christmas Day and walking and coming back to the car and quietly drifting away. I wouldn’t, so that’s not a suicide threat so please don’t delete my post it’s just how it feelS.