My mum is autistic and avoids me because she says I’m too emotional.

[Neverreallyknow]

I’m struggling with this really. I’m not sure if I’m too emotional as I was brought up to hide all emotions as she had no idea what to do with me. I’m not running around stupid and I have a few good friends and a nice partner.

She pretty much avoids me now as she still has no idea what to do with me. She prefers my brothers company as he is much easier, he’s more like her. Should I just leave them to it? It does get me down but I can’t turn into someone else. She isn’t horrible but she will literally blank what I say or dismiss it. She doesn’t come to visit me but she will visit my brother.

I think I’ve become danger to my mum. I’m something she can’t understand so she avoids me. It’s really shit to be of danger to your own mum. But I can understand that this is not my fault.

It's good you know this is not you that is the problem.

You're not responsible for your mum's emotions.

I definitely think you'd benefit from joining some support groups for adult children of narcissistic parents, there are threads that even come up here every so often and every one there is going through similar and there's always a lot of really good advice.

You sound like you might be in a cycle of negative self talk and then self realisation but it keeps perpetuating itself which is totally normal, but you need to be able to have the tools to break that thought cycle.

Your mum might see you as a danger to her, and try to exert some control over you but that's not the truth is it?

You are not a threat or danger to your mum. You are the child of your mum and you have looked to your mum for comfort and support and a normal adult mother daughter relationship.

Of course your mum gets upset with you when you aren't playing the part she gives you because you're no longer a convenience and she cannot use you.

It's good you know this is not how normal mother daughter relationships work, because you are able to break the cycle in your relationships and friendships, and that is a strength and should empower you.

What do you mean by emotional? Does she struggle to cope when you are showing positive emotions too?

You have announced proudly in your first post that you can't change and be someone you are not! But you expect her to change and be someone she is not? How does that seem fair to you?

@S0livagant ummm it really does depend on whether those positive emotions are about something she agrees with. For example I’ve been proud and happy at some DIY I’d accomplished at home. It means nothing to her that the house looks nice, so my happiness over my achievement won’t register. She may even say something like lol that won’t last in a I couldn’t care less. She can’t even fake it. If I’m happy about something she thinks is worth being happy over then she will be happy.

@Luminousalumnus no I don’t expect her to change. I expected her to be a mum and to love me for who I am. I was wrong.

I don't think you're a danger. You're just not easy and she wants easy. That's her failure , not yours.

Could all the defenders of the absent/distant/hostile mum stand down? Whether you think she is autistic or narcissistic she was OP’s mum—the adult in the relationship!! Developmentally, evolutionararily, the adult parent is suppised to meet the child’s needs. If that means setting aside her own needs for the duration of infancy and early childhood that is what has to happen.

Human infants are altricial which means they are born without the strength or the instincts to manage on their own after birth. We require enormous amounts of maternal input in the form if food, shelter, language acquisition, and emotional co regulation.

If through temperament,psychological issues, or developmental incapacity a orimary caregiver can not appreciate and nurture the child that child is harmed—that is what the early experiments with the wire monkey mother and the cloth mother monkey show. Just feeding a child with no emotional connection or empathy is destructive to that child.

I have enormous empathy for OP’s mother whether she is the despised on mumsnet mother with a cluster b issue or the autistic mother who is presumed to be doing her best. But this is OP s thread and OP’s pain and sadness. She has always, sadly, put her mother snd her mother’s opinion if her first. These posters “defending” the mother feel like they are DARVO’ing OP by proxy. They are denying OP’s account of her own experience and reversing victim (child) and offender (adult). OP’s mother had a duty to manage her child’s life and experience. That duty does not run the other way.

I could have posted this, so you're not alone. Whatever you call it, it hurts. Whether my mother is avoidant and I'm anxiously attached (which is down to your parents' parenting of you anyway), or whether the mother's suppressed emotions cause the daughter to need to react more visibly to be seen/heard, it all just hurts.

To go through life unseen and unheard by your MOTHER. It has lead to me forming ''relationships'' with people who don't see me.

This sounds familiar. I’m pretty certain my dad was on the spectrum ( my brother has been diagnosed in his 50s and is very similar to him in many ways). He couldn’t cope with the fact that I was pregnant and when he came to visit me in the maternity ward he didn’t look at my baby, wanted to talk politics and gave me a copy of the Financial Times. The sad thing is my mum was completely different and emotionally intuitive but she died before I had kids. I don’t know what to say, but it sounds like at least you understand where she’s coming from.

This is also familiar. My first intense relationship was with a guy who was emotionally avoidant and, like my dad, obsessed with politics. Took me ages to understand that one!

Whatever gave you the idea you are a danger to your mother?. Your mothers done a right number on you.

You are not a danger to your mother but she is to you. She is not an emotionally safe person to be at all around.

You are a threat to her. When a mother envies and then criticises and devalues her daughter, she diminishes the threat to her own fragile self esteem. As a daughter analyses what her mother appears to be jealous about, she comes to feel unworthy.

I also could have posted this about my Mum.

Finally, I am over it and in acceptance.

Therapy would no doubt have helped me.

My acceptance has come from matching my level of energy to hers. I've stopped thinking about her. I expect nothing from her. I get nothing from her (emotionally) and that is absolutely fine.

She's not a bad person. She doesn't mean it. She can't help it. She would love to be different. She has actually told me I'm the person she's always wanted to be. Isn't that sweet?

I can no longer have arguments in my head with her that are over 40 years old!

Happily I'm not longer reactive when we are together. This is just what we both need. She will never ask how was work, how are you, what did you do, how is your friend doing that I've also known for twenty years...I can take the monologues and self-obsessed behaviour. They are about topics she feels safe to talk about.

Both my parents and brother are undiagnosed.

Yes my family relationships have been hugely damaging, but they have given me incredible resilience. Isn't that what life's about?

Good luck OP X

Resilience is a key element to heal from past childhood abuse and trauma. Your parents have harmed you and many people with personality disorders do not ever get diagnosed (mainly because they think there is nothing wrong with them and that it’s the other persons fault). It’s not your fault they are like this and you did not make them that way,

Not at all!
I imagine it's because she doesn't find him overwhelming.
And please don't think this is a reflection on you. There is nothing wrong or abnormal about being emotional.

I'm autistic. This does not in anyway impact on wanting to spend time with my daughter and I would never say that to her.

Don't let your mum use her autism as an excuse for being a crap parent.

@AttilaTheMeerkat I kind of meant she sees me as a threat for some reason. Whether it’s because she just cant understand me or something else. I don’t think I make her feel good. I can’t work out if she just sees me as pointless or not. It’s how she makes me feel regardless of what’s intended.

@pikkumyy77 Ive also had a lot of sympathy for my mum but I’ve also developed feelings like jealousy that I’m fed up of feeling. When I see other people get affection from their mums and support I really want that but I know I can’t get it. I feel she hides behind my brother because she doesn’t really do much to support him either but they seem to get on better. He praises her more and I don’t see why I should praise someone who does nothing. She was a terrible mum. Now I’ve got my own children I can see she was a really terrible person to behave the way she did. Perhaps that’s why she stays away because she knows I know. My brother seems to want her praise and acceptance and I think I’ve gone past caring. He does get it though.

Its a long slow process to get to the other side of anger, jealousy, sadness, etc… all the way to true acceptance that it is what it is—she is who she is—but her being a lousy mother doesn’t define you.

That's a normal feeling ND or not.

That’s what I thought. It feels very selfish to me to only want to be around for the good times. When someone is down we should be there for them. Life can’t always be good.

How emotional are you being? What is it she can't cope with. Are we talking high drama? Always having problems with things. Because to be honest, those things are difficult to deal with. I 'm not autistic and yet I can't cope with my sister's over emotional behaviour or anyone's for that matter. it's very exhausting in the end there does come a time when you're an adult that you aren't over emotional all the time.

What is it she says you do?

It's not your fault op.
It's your mum that's lacking here.
I'd highly recommend you find a decent councillor to work through this.
Be kind to yourself.

"That’s what I thought. It feels very selfish to me to only want to be around for the good times. When someone is down we should be there for them. Life can’t always be good."

You are completely right OP