How do I handle my adult son’s abusive and confusing behaviour? Long sorry..

[mwcdisc]

I need some advice please, Not sure where to go from here now and feel I can’t do right for doing wrong. My adult son (ASD) keeps going
through the same pattern, apologises then it all happens again but it’s getting worse. He will be perfectly nice to my face and I think everything
Is ok then as soon as he leaves he will twist things into something they are not, become verbally abusive (used to only be if he didn’t get
his own way with something or I said no to him) but now it’s everything I do. He clearly hates me but at the same time will not leave me alone..

Going to use the same language as he uses with me to make my point so warning for bad language..

I invited him to mine for food, I cooked. He came, ate, left, then ten minutes later I got ‘It’s fucking weird you wanted me to come
to your house to eat, you are so strange, no other mother does that with her son’ I grew up going to family meals at my grandparents
etc so thought it might be nice to spend time together.

In my mind there I did nothing wrong but he twisted it into something bad.

If he wants me to do something I don’t want to do he will call my mum and say ’Tell her to do ‘thing’ make her do it’ etc

Ask him if he wants my old phone if I get a new one? He will take it then text me an hour later telling me I’m controlling, I ask why
and in his head me giving him my old phone was controlling which phone brand he has. As in I gave him an iPhone when he might want
a Samsung.. I have told him in the past he doesn’t have to have it I’m just asking if he wants it before I sell it! I no longer ask him if he wants
anything..

Tells me I’m messing with his head if I buy him something for Christmas or his birthday, same if I put a tenner in his card (Trying to
control him with money and gifts) then I take what he said on board and don’t get him anything and he then tells me he doesn’t
feel loved by his own mother because he didn’t get anything.. Also ANYTHING I buy him either gets smashed up, broken or put in the bin..

Latest incident was today which is why I’m writing this..

I was at my mums having a cup of tea (If that’s not too strange of me!) and my son started texting my mum saying ‘ I no longer want a relationship
with THAT THING (meaning me) I fucking hate her and hate being around her etc yet he simply won’t leave me alone.. I told him
I was there and saw the texts and he must leave me alone now as I don’t want to force a relationship that clearly isn’t there and I’m not
having anyone speak to me like that calling me a thing when I have done nothing wrong. This outburst was AFTER I did him a massive
favour earlier today.

He has called me the usual bitch, whore, cun* etc but ‘that thing’ is a new one.. Also if he gets a birthday card for me (one in his entire
life) he uses my first name not ‘mum’

His pattern is he will now not contact me for a day, then I get ‘sorry mum I was just tired’ like nothing happened and I’m supposed to just forget it.

I’m starting to feel like I’m in an abusive marriage but I can never get a divorce.

Can anyone relate or does anyone have any advice because nothing I have tried in the 31 years of his life has worked.

Thank you.

I would cut him off and get the police involved if he doesn’t leave you alone.

I’m guessing you don’t want to go no contact?

Telling your Mum not to share what he says about you and to your your Mum to tell him she won’t be passing on any abusive messages. As soon as he sends an abusive message. Reply with the same grey rock message - Your message is abusive and I won’t put up with it. I am block future messges for 2 days.

Ask him if he would prefer not to recieve money for birthdays and at Christmas time.

Does he smoke weed? I've seen this kind of paranoid aggression in men of his age who make a habit of spliffs. Skunk is very strong nowadays.

Oh @mwcdisc that sounds so hard.

He’s 31 and your job as a parent isn’t to change him, or make him behave better, anymore.

What’s important now is that you find your boundaries, and learn how to hold them.

That’s a very easy to sentence to write, and I’m in the thick of things with a 17 year old, so I know just how it happens that our boundaries end up in tatters, and how you completely lose sight of yourself because their needs are so complex, and sometimes so confusing.

I don’t know if there are any support services available to you, or who or where to ask to find out, but I think you should consider getting some help with this. Help that focuses on you, rather than being about managing him.

The comment about being in an abusive relationship you can never leave resonates so much. I read an article once that suggested that a lot of us end up with something like ptsd, comparable to soldiers coming back from the front lines. Except soldiers can leave the army, and we voluntarily keep going back in.

My older ds who is NT turned nasty. Teased viciously his younger siblings that they lived near me and he didn't need to.. Actually assaulted his small db one Christmas.. He left and we haven't heard from him. Sad yes but assume he had taken drugs and i have no time for druggies...
I would assume your ds is taking drugs.. Keep yourself safe op.

Where’s his dad?

That sounds incredibly hard! I am so sorry for you. This is abusive, whatever the explanation for this behaviour, it will/is mess with your head. You've done your best to bring him up, at 31, time to let him go. I know it is easier said than done, but you need to assert your boundaries firmly if this relationship is ever to change.

Have you heard of the BIFF method of communicating with high conflict persons? Keep messages brief, informative, firm and friendly - if you need to communicate at all. Do not do favours, invite him for meals, give him gifts. You are not his punching bag. There is a threat here about a 14 year old treating her mum like a punching bag, same advice. Your son sounds like the adult version of that teen. Boundaries. Boundaries. Boundaries.

God that sounds awful for you! Just wondering what your mum said in response to those texts? Do you have an otherwise supportive family/ network or does your son leave you quite isolated? Does he have friends/ a job to occupy him? Agree you need to almost plan an escape, sounds so abuse. I’m afraid I don’t have any first hand experience but hopefully someone will be able to advise you of websites or support sources that can help you. Sorry you’re going through this.

How is that relevant in any way whatsoever?

ASD isn’t an excuse for being abusive.

I’ve spent an enormous amount of sessions going through this with my counsellor. If a man has ASD it’s not a free pass for all abusive behaviour.

I wondered about weed as well.

OP, you are in an abusive relationship. He's a lot worse than a lot of the cases we hear about on MN. What would happen if you pulled back and didn't contact him at all and didn't see him (without telling him you were going no contact)?

This is abusive and you need to get away from him. You cannot win if offering someone a free phone is classed as forcing them into having a certain brand and asking him for tea is more bizarre and disgraceful than having sex with Adolf Hitler's ghost?!

Honestly tell him he urgently needs therapy and you will not continue contact and will no longer accept his abusive behaviour. And that if he persists you'll involve the police.

I'm so sorry for you. And your own mum, what does she make of him?! Bullying her into making you do stuff?

He's not just abusing you, he is abusing your mum as well. This can't go on.

I mean you've left it a bit late but drugs or not he is used to giving this behaviour and getting what he wants by manipulating you all...pretty foolish tbh you and your mum should get in the same page and not stand for it

What I hear is he is angry/resentful towards you. There is obviously some history here. Dad on the scene? Positive relationships? Education? Job?

His behaviour is abusive so you should not feel obliged to continue communicating with him or providing gifts etc. As another poster suggested, boundaries are important so I’d look to get some in place going forward.

I think that you need to take a break from him.

If it was me, I would say I love you very much but you are abusive, I don't deserve the way you treat me, and you clearly don't want me in your life so let's take a break and give you some time to think about what you want.

You decide whether you can be civil to me and if you can then we can be in contact.

Does he have a social worker or any support? Is he living independently or in a group home?

What do you mean the OP has left it a bit late? A bit late to do what exactly, cure his autism?

You can not change him and for your own sanity, you need to accept that this is who he is.

Everytime you entertain his excuses you are contributing to the cycle of abuse. Your responsibility begins and ends in ensuring your physical and emotional wellbeing and he is a threat to that.

Detach, detach, detach.

I’m sorry but this sounds more than ND, he sounds unhinged and abusive. I would go no contact.

I left it too late? I have been trying to have a relationship with my son all his life and like i said he is nice to my face, i have given up buying him anything offering him anything, I now only see him if he shows up at my house, other than that there is no relationship there apart from him calling me a cun*t and blaming me for literally everything in his life..

I will give an example.. my mum was in a car accident a few weeks ago and was taken to hospital. I had my key in my front door to lock it before heading to the hospital, son called me, told me i was an evil bitch because I should be with my mum..

If I block him he just gets a new sim or calls from withheld numbers or asks one of his friends to call me etc, I tell him I don't want to see him and he just shows up or follows me to wherever i might be that day, He once went to a different town to look for my car in a car park to see if i was there.

His dad died before he was born and I'm single. Ironically he has a problem with that too.. tells me I shouldn't have a man in my life because I'm a mother, I get called a slut by him for NOT being with someone.

I just can't win at all.

No drugs as far as i know. he lives alone. a few friends, no hobbies, job, partner etc

He always tries to get me and my mum to fall out but it doesn't work. He would call me saying my mum said a certain thing about me then call her saying I said something horrible about her and we caught on to it quickly, he hates that we get on.

It sounds like a fixation. Does he use any autism services?

I have to agree with everyone - this sounds like it could become quite dangerous and I am worried for you just reading your post. I think I would be threatening to report him to the police if it continues, as hard as that is. I’m so sorry though, how upsetting and frightening for you, and sad it must be to have deal with this.

It sounds to me like he has some form of mental illness - bipolar?? I’ve no idea but something more than ASD.

I am prepared for the fall out saying this - there's a pattern on here with Autistic men and abuse. I feel like an abuse victim from my own ASD son. He's a teenager though.

He will recruit multiple people into it. I have very difficult family and am in long term therapy. I'm virtually no contact because of how awful they treat you. It's all hidden. My son has his dad and Stepmum alienating him against me. Yet, I am accused of being an abuser because I can't take anymore. When I set a boundary, collectively I'm punished.

You're in something like a trauma bond with him. I'm the same. It's the only person who is abusing with zero empathy I still come back to. But he wants to be like my family and I'm standing alone.

I know I have to cut him off. I'm so very seriously unwell physically and he still does it. He has the backing of my ex, strep mum enabling it. I feel absolutely devastated that this is it.

Your son sounds absolutely horrible.

My son same age. Isn’t autistic. I went through same when he was between 16 and about 25. He’s brilliant now. I have a lot of sympathy for you. If there is no way to change him then you have to save yourself but it is heartbreaking.