If you are Neurodiverse how is your relationship with your parents?

[Rainbow03]

I can’t decided whether my Neurodiversity is the reason I don’t have a great relationship with my mum or if she just wasn’t great.

We don’t really have a relationship now. She is in my life but emotionally we have nothing. All I remember from my childhood was hiding everything from her. I can’t decide if this was because she didn’t want to listen or if it was because I didn’t know how to get it out. I suffered with terrible anxiety most of my life before discovering I was ND. I never shared my anxiety with my parents.

I don’t really have a good relationship my in-laws either. I can’t understand why. They don’t know about me being ND. I also ended up in an abusive marriage for over 10 years. I have not had the best relationships in my life. My current partner now of 4 years is great luckily.

Not great to be honest. I didn't know I was autistic until I was 35. My parents used to shout at me for behaviours clearly linked to autism (eg being antisocial) when I was growing up, and I can't overlook it.

I always felt invisible. I pushed myself to fit into a lot of situations that made me uncomfortable as an adult. I didnt know who I was for a long time. I used to hate people dressed up in costumes and I remember my parents always taking me to see this person dressed up as bear when we went on holiday and laughing at me because I was too scared to get out of the car.

I am from a single parent family and have no contact with my mum for over a decade due to toxic behaviour.

I am also late diagnosed ASD and when I think back to my childhood, I feel sad and frustrated that there was no support, understanding or love.

I have had to parent myself since childhood.

My only hope is that both of my DSs still contact me when they are adults.
One DS is also ASD but we are aware and try to understand and support him.

My mum had her own childhood struggles and an illness, she has M.S. Everything seemed to revolve around her and not triggering her. She suffered depression for quite a while if I remember. She never seemed to care about how I felt only how she felt. There would have been no use in telling her how I felt as a child anyway.

There’s a strong likelihood that if you are nd, one or both your parents are too.

Crappy relationship. Not because I'm ND but because she is ND and only just realising it, probably her parents were too... none of it managed it very well so the trauma and abuse was passed down but it stops with me. I'm not perfect, soooo far from it but I can manage to parent without violence for a start.

Even now, figuring out she's ND she's shitting on me without pointing out only negative traits we both (may) have

Agree with @Earbuddy ND is inherited. Likely your parents/grandparents are also ND.

My existence seemed to be a source of irritation and misery for my father. My mother needed a lot of reassurance from a young age and wasn't 'safe' with any personal information or worries as anything like that would be immediately repeated as gossip or to be laughed about. Both critical about everything except sometimes my academic abilities.

I have tried to work out how much of this may be me being oversensitive. Could be some but definitely not all. I left as early as I could. Brother a bit of a golden child I suppose.

I have finally gone NC with mine. Sadly, I feel that my parents, especially my dad, never really liked me. If I had a pound for every negative, critical thing he'd ever said about me I wouldn't be poor ☹️. Also, I do not recall ever expressing an opinion without my mum slapping it down and calling it "ridiculous" or "silly". "Oh god, she's started again", "Just ignore her, you know what Crack's like", etc etc.

Throughout my adult life they continued to be like this with me- the only difference is that, as I grew more confident in myself, I started to stand up the them and challenge them more, which they hated. The absolute contemptuous tone of voice my dad used in our final argument will stay with me forever.

I feel that there's a weight off my shoulders now that I've gone NC, but I will always feel the loss of not having had empathetic, supportive parents.

Oh I would add that I think my father is either ND or has schizoid personality disorder (obv not a diagnosis, this is my anonymous opinion). Mother quite an interesting one. Not sure if ND. Very immature and low empathy. Speaks and doesn't think. Understands why comments were off when explained (not just to me).
Both very negative in their views of people.

Mine is pretty good, they drive me a little insane with their faffing and dithering. I actually think my mum is undiagnosed ADHD. I do find them a little overbearing though and don’t see them very often but when I do it’s fine.

My DH is great although does get a bit irritated with me sometimes as I am such a messy so and so at home!

Wasn't great when I was a older teen, they were overprotective and thought I still needed them every day even though I had my own child (at 19) and had moved out!

By my mid 20s everything changed, they saw I was coping with everything and my own child had been diagnosed as ND as well by that point. We now have a really good relationship and they rarely interfere unless I'm having a huge meltdown.

I’m not that close to my mum, I speak to her often but she doesn’t really know me or understand me, she often pulls faces or calls me weird because of my interests. I love her to bits but she drives me nuts and I find it hard to have a conversation with her. I’m closer to my dad (mum and dad not together), he’s ND too and I’m probably more like him than my mum.

I don’t have one. They were shit parents and there is no emotional connection. I try very hard to be as unlike them as possible with my dc.

My relationship with my Mum, who died when I was in my twenties and before I was diagnosed, was always very open and accepting. She knew something was going on with me and she'd have been so relieved and enlightened by my diagnosis. She never made me feel bad about my crippling anxiety, decision paralysis and need to recharge myself after events.

My Dad, who is still with us and who I love dearly just doesn't understand me at all. He knows I have the 'label' now but I don't think he holds much stock in it. He says I 'think too much'. At times in my teens and twenties he made me feel horrific for showing my anxiety. Told me I was out to ruin everything. I find that hard to forgive. I hide nearly all the bad stuff in my life from him because he isn't interested and cannot deal. Ironically he stims almost constantly!

I’m certain we’re three generations of ND on both mine and dh’s side, all ‘mainly’ autism with other co-morbidities. I love my DM dearly, she’s so caring (and has done so much caring) but it’s all affective empathy and very poor ability to say the right thing and make people feel good. In fact I feel if her life was on the line she’d say the wrong thing she just can’t do it.

tbh, our children being diagnosed helped many people in our families have better insight.

I'm interested as I've long suspected I have some nd traits. I always was and am still so secretive from my parents. Only tell them what I want them to know. They are very opinionated and rigid in their thinking so I always knew what they'd say anyway.

My ds is very much the same with me and I would love him to be more open.. serves me right!

I think the problem is that in my parent's generation and when I was a child, there was so little understanding of ND that I'm not sure you can blame people bringing up kids at that time. They just didn't know it was a thing and thought their child was difficult.

I'm autistic (diagnosed as an adult last year). I'm an only child and have a great relationship with my parents. Usual teen arguments but otherwise we're really close. DM can rub me up the wrong way when I'm tired and stressed but it's minor annoyances on an otherwise good relationship.

DM worked with special needs kids, and later disabled adults so she's always been very caring and open to people with differences. Although we didn't know I was ND we did know I was "quirky" and found some situations difficult, overly stressed about exams etc. and my DP were always just accepting and understanding of who I was and how I was.

If you've not already @Rainbow03 then I'd recommend reading "Strong Female Character" by Fern Brady. She's a comedian who was diagnosed with Autism as an adult, the book is about coming to terms with it and how it affected her life growing up.

I'm only about half way through it at the moment, but a lot of it so far has been about her relationship with her parents, being laughed at by them and not understanding why is a common theme.

Aside from anything else its a really good read and bloody funny, I'd recommend it to anyone, neurodiverse or otherwise.

Edit: She's also got a stand-up special on iplayer that touches on some of the same stuff, which is also worth a watch.

I think my mum is ND. She left school at 12 and has never really been able to write that well. It’s hard to tell as she did suffer trauma from her upbringing too. She suffers with rejection sensitivity badly.

Absolutely terrible for as long as I can remember
Dad left when I was young, I think he was the ND parent - couldn't really cope with life as an adult
In all my childhood photos I am expressionless or miserable
Mum swung between overly controlling or completely absent
I left home at 15

I am certain that both of my parents are/were ND and they had hard lives - I do feel compassion for them and I do forgive them, but I don't have any connection to them, we just weren't brought up as a family. I read on a completely unrelated thread just now that the opposite of love is indifference and that is exactly how I feel about them - indifferent. Anger takes a lot of energy and they sucked so much life and energy out of me when I was a kid, I am not letting them have any more.

I have a pretty distant relationship with my nother. I know she loves me deeply but she doesn't communicate emotions very well and tends to worry about practicalities rather than how anyone is feeling. I find it easier to deal remembering that given how ASD tends to be genetic the chances are that she has undiagnosed ASD herself hidden under 8 decades of masking and she's not going to unmask now

This.

And it can explain family dysfunction going back centuries.

Can I just say that I have a high functioning neurodiverse child and they will not tell me anything, ask for help, communicate their needs or confide in me. They haven't wanted to connect emotionally or physically (hugs) since toddlerhood.

I believe I'm a warm and approachable parent who basically lives for my kids. I tell them I love them daily. I always remind them I'm here if they need to vent, that I won't judge or offer up unwanted advice etc etc. They are really well looked after, physically and emotionally. We have a functioning loving relationship but we are not close as I/we/they struggle to connect due to lack of communication and conversation.

I absolutely could see my child writing what you have as an adult. And it scares me to death and feels really unfair. It breaks my heart.

Just wanted to offer up a different perspective.