help. Particularly mums of teenagers...

[asdWasteofSpace]

I also posted this in the SN board, but thought mums of teenagers may well be able to say what would help...

I have Asperger's syndrome, am 34, am severely depressed after the loss of a baby at 25 weeks. Though I have been severely depressed as long as I can remember, mostly because of my relationship with my mother.

I am home at my parents' - DP is staying at his parents 200 miles away, we are in the UK instead of the Netherlands where we normally live. We are here for 3 weeks, and it is total hell after 3 days.

My mother is very very passive aggressive - a master of the loaded look and the nasty comment behind someone's back. I am not sure I have ever heard her be nice about someone unless she is actually talking to them. This includes her 1yo granddaughter (my niece), whom she constantly describes as knowing and manipulative.

I have ASD- I find dishonesty and stupidity really upsetting. Anyone would find my mother's behaviour weird and unpleasant but it tears me to shreds.

I also get sensory overload really easily, particularly in situations where I have to listen to her chatter on with really bitchy comments about everyone and everything. I really, really hate smalltalk, particularly when it is pointlessly unpleasant.

However I am feeling like I am making her life hell, because I am avoiding her or getting sarky like a teenager when I have to put up with her. It makes my Dad sad, and it makes me feel like a snake in the grass. Yet I can't stop because she irritates me every time she opens her mouth.

Can anyone out there say what would make the mum of a grumpy miserable teenager or ASD kid happy?

Mum knows I have a diagnosis of moderate ASD but she thinks I am just a badly behaved unpleasant cow who hates her. She frequently makes reference to what a horrible child I was, in front of me and her friends. I was a pretty typical kid with undiagnosed ASD. She thinks most diagnoses of ASD are excuses on the part of silly stupid bad parents.

Yes, I loathe her a lot of the time.

But I also desperately want to make her happy, but in a way that might help her accept me for who I am rather than who she would have liked as a daughter.

any suggestions?

[HolyGuacamole]

I don't really have any great advice. Just wanted to say that you don't have to base your view of yourself on how your mother behaves towards you.

Your nickname is so wrong.....you are not a waste of space at all. In fact, you sound like the opposite, someone who very much wants to be accepted and cares what other people think. Try not to let her get you down too much because she sounds much more like your nickname than you do, ok!

Chin up.

[GypsyMoth]

this is very sad. my mum was the same,but i don't have asd,so i don't think you can say its because of that. some people are just this way. my mothers parents were worse,so i feel she picked it up from them. i hope i'm not like this with my dc,though i possibly am!! just hope its becoming more 'diluted' as each generation passes!!

why are you there? can you not go and visit elsewhere for a few days to break up your stay a bit?

[asdWasteofSpace]

i worry about my being sarcastic and impatient with her... I find her so stupid and annoying. I think that is the ASD part- i hate the fact she is illogical and it makes me very sad.

I can't really go anywhere else... it's a sort of established pattern that we visit our families like this. Am going to see DH on the weekend, but parental expectations on each side demand we visit the same way we did when we were 18.

I think a temporary solution here would be better than nothing... just don't know what mothers actually want or like. Father no help as he is emotionally utterly passive and thinks I should know how to like my mother because I'm a girl...

[HolyGuacamole]

Sounds a bit controlling that they won't have you visiting together as a couple?

[Lilymaid]

You are 34, a mature adult and do not need to conform to parental expectations in this way. Break the "established pattern". You and your DP should be staying together, not visiting your parents separately for such a length of time. As you and your mother don't get on well, you shouldn't be expected to stay with her for such a length of time. Be yourself, don't be desperate to make someone happy when that person does not respond.

[asdWasteofSpace]

An update - this goes very deep, but seems to centre around me not being married. Interesting.

In company, everything i say is being shouted down and carefully dissected and shown to be total garbage by Dad. He is being very alpha-male about anything intellectual - he always has been , but turns it up massively whenever I am home.

Last night Dad parked the car and turned off the engine and started getting out, and I said "could I put my window up
please" because the window switch is right next to the handbrake (on the driver's side) and I couldn't do it while he was
parking. I said "sorry, but the window switch is placed so I couldn't do it while you were parking" So he shouted at me to
fing grow up and fing get out of the car, put the window up himself, and then slammed his door so hard that the whole car
rocked.

Meanwhile Mum seems to live in some fantasy land where she has a lovely daughter who desperately wants to become a housewife and
wants to chat all the time - and unless I give the right answer to every question I get an earful about being a disgusting little
tramp and no wonder noone has any respect for me because i'm so squalid and boring and I never say anything and I'm always
inconsiderately rude and no wonder DP's friends don't like me (on what/whose evidence???), they all knowthat to get a husband you don't give yourself away
for free, they all get married and live like normal decent people and they all have children and I'll be a sad lonely old woman
when you leave me for someone nicer and I can't get a man to keep me etc etc etc. -

and yet after that I get the moaning, whining "you're never here, and when you are here you won't do anything or say anything". I just walked off - having already said that if I do say anything it's the wrong thing.

Much passive-aggressive vacuuming, floor-sweeping and door slamming this morning because I had the stupidity to answer the phone to DSis after I had got the vacuum cleaner out. "Don't worry about it, YOU obviously have more important things to do, YOU'RE not a housewife. I hate to think what your house must look like, poor [housemate, who is married] having to live with you, she must hate all the filth and mess you seem to think is acceptable".

Well at least some of the reasoning is becoming clearer with all the unpleasantness...

[asdWasteofSpace]

sorry - "I'll be a sad lonely old woman
when you leave me for someone nicer and I can't get a man to keep me etc etc etc. - "

is I will be sad and lonely when DP leaves me, not she will be...

though obviously, she is clearly concerned that she will be - because she doesn't have two daughters conforming to the Stepford ideal - only one...

Frankly I dread the future when it is just her and there is no moderating influence from my father. He may be alpha-male about politics, history, science etc but at least he will talk about them...!

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

asd (I will not call you a waste of space),

Both your parents are completely toxic and dysfunctional. Would suggest you read "Toxic Parents" written by Susan Forward; this is a good starting point. Also have a look at the "Stately Homes" thread on this relationships webpage.

Both these people are infact deeply damaged individuals likely because their own parents treated them appallingly. It also seems like your Mother remains in complete denial with regards to you having autism.

BTW I would not let your Dad off either as he is a passive bystander to this whole situation. People from dysfunctional families often end up playing roles within them; yours is scapegoat and your sister appears to have the role of "golden child".

Why on earth should you have to stay there for 3 weeks; tradition be damned here!. Break this pattern of separately visiting your parents homes, how did that start anyway?. Because it is somehow "expected"?.

Get away from them as soon as you are able and do not visit them again on their home turf for any length of time. Infact I would say that if you wanted to cut them completely off you would receive no criticism from me. You are only responsible for your own self - it is not your job to make them happy.

Counselling for your own self would be helpful.

[flaminhell]

You cant make your mum happy, we cant make anyone happy, if she is these things thats not because of you, you are just reacting to her behaviour.

I have a 13 yr old, and I also have a child of 3 who is in precusious puberty so I understand moods!! and how I deal with it is by being a little more paitent, telling them I understand they have bad days, and I know its weird that they feel something that they have no control over, I understand, and I accept sometimes that you will be grumpy.

I love them all of them even the grumpy sides, if they go to far I say you have gone to far, I dont critise and I dont undermine their feelings. You are doing nothing wrong your mum is in the wrong. I know nothing about your illness but I know plenty about moods, be you, and maybe if you told her what you thought when she starts being a pain she may reconsider what she says next time.

[piscesmoon]

Change your name on here for a start-it isn't true!
I think that you have to accept them the way they are-they are not going to change. You can't make your mother happy.
The only person that you have any control over is yourself and I would break the pattern. You don't have to stay with them because you always have-think about it this way -would it be sensible to be a 60yr old woman and still doing it (if you are all still alive)?
I would try some counselling to get an outside view.

[overweightnoverdrawn]

I havnt read all the post but by the sounds of it I think you sound like the most normal one in the household .