![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ranty: Now you're autistic, now you're not
I guess I'm even more prone to brooding than usual, since the cats and the morning light coming in the window have conspired to give me less than six hours' sleep the past four or five nights. You'd think I'd be used to the sharper increase of light here, with latitude, by now, but apparently not. Even when my body is exhausted, my brain needs a couple of hours at minimum to settle down after everyone else has gone to bed (not really negotiable, with my wiring and without the occasional antianxiety med I can't get now); combined with waking up early, I've been lurching around punch drunk the past few days. So please excuse whatever sense I'm not making.
At any rate, recent trouble dealing with my mother has set off a mental cascade, and I'm hoping that getting some of it down in words will help get it out of my head--with any luck, enough to settle down for a nap. :) As usual, it's not proving particularly easy to translate things into words in a way that's easy to follow, so please bear with me as I try!
It's still amazing how good my mother is at pressing every button I have ever had, frequently without intending to do so. This would be the downside of knowing me as well as possible, I suppose, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. It is also frustrating that I seem to go to far greater pains not to do this to people. (Not that it never happens anyway, but I am not amazed when it does.) I know that I have a dubious talent for cutting people to the bone in their most vulnerable bits, and then rubbing salt into the gaping wounds, so I watch what I say a little too carefully. I may not expect the same level of overkill in trying not to hurt people's feelings, but I do expect that anyone who does so should not then act as if it's amazing that I am offended. My mother can take an approach to conversations which can make a bull in a china shop look delicate. I know this, and it still leaves me hurt and frustrated, and feeling stupid because I just don't know how to respond.
Friday was the last time I talked to her, I suppose, and my feelings did get hurt. It has been niggling and getting me doubting myself, but waited until I was really exhausted to pop up insistently. This is just about par, but adds an extra note of frustration.
The last time we talked, I mentioned that I was glad to find out that there's a good reason for the inertia, rather than my just being lazy and unmotivated in spite of the evidence. Even though she'd acted less than surprised, initially, to hear that I'd figured out that I must be on the autistic spectrum, she'd had time to think and come up with objections in the meantime. So, she started in on various reasons I don't seem autistic to her, one of which was that I'm "too interested in people". In response, I couldn't do much besides gasp inwardly--and still try to be polite. I really could not think of anything reasonable to say, which left me feeling extra-silly. The best I managed was something weak about each person showing things very differently, and a clumsy change to another subject.
I still find it appalling that she is spouting "Rainman" stereotypes when she is married to a man who is so obviously on the spectrum. Never mind having a daughter who frequently strikes her as weird in many of the same ways, she has married two different undiagnosed autistic men--my stepfather has since gotten an Asperger's label--and half my birth father's family is so obvious that she commented on it as soon as she got a vague idea of what autism is. So my aunt didn't talk until after she started school, and instead her brother couldn't (probably still can't) shut up, under pain of pain. (Sound familiar?) She's willing to think he's autistic, even if he's very talkative indeed, possibly because it seems kinder than her earlier insistence that he's a sociopath. Half of that side of the family has occasionally violent meltdown episodes, some very stylized-tantrum-looking into adulthood (a.k.a. the "John fit"), and she is willing to admit that this is most likely why my father got so upset when she went into overload meltdown herself. I can't help but be appalled that she has spent so much time around autistic people, and wanted to marry two of them, but hasn't made any more effort to understand what's going on.
It is exceedingly frustrating, on top of that, that she apparently prefers to think that I can, indeed, overcome what difficulties she will admit I do have if I just try hard enough, rather than admit to herself that something is "wrong". I am keeping in mind that she had a similar reaction to things when being bipolar seemed the most reasonable explanation for a lot of things, especially since she shows pretty much all of those traits herself. (Social things are easy for her, though.) In that case, she apparently felt threatened enough that she got verbally abusive and purposely made me feel stupid, which is very unusual. Now the bipolar label seems to be a big part of her identity. I really don't understand this.
Of course, with some of the similarities, I can understand why she really would have trouble seeing that things can be different. With her history of depression--probably mainly reactive, too--she honestly didn't recognize that I was having an unusual amount of trouble until I started having violent meltdowns myself, when I was 13. At least I didn't get overt pressure to behave more "normally" at home; she is also hyperactive and distractible, and has a tendency toward some stims and tics, so didn't see a problem there. (No, I should just stand up to anyone who does have a problem with it.) But, with a decent bit of it, I think she needs to pretend things are OK in the face of all the evidence.
Mom enjoyed impressing upon my uncle that the two of them, necessarily, grew up in two different worlds and two different families, but she seems oddly unwilling to extend the same principle to me.
I think she is trying to ignore a lot, and has been doing so for some time. My coping ability may have declined as I've gotten older and faced more social responsibilities--especially involving people who aren't as accepting of individual difference as our family tends to be--but none of this is new. I was reminded of this just this morning, when I tore off some aluminum foil in the kitchen, and jumpy Feist ran away. Apparently I was inconsolable for hours for precisely the same reason, when I was two days old. The pediatrician had to reassure my mother that, yes, I really am that sensitive to scratchy clothes when I was a toddler, even though she has slightly less severe sensory issues herself. She didn't doubt that I heard bats and various electrical things, etc. I had a lot of "John fits"* up until I was 10 or so, and she did realize they were from frustration and general overload rather than my being purposely obnoxious. I still occasionally go into headbanging and other SIB from overload, especially from frustration over strife with other people I haven't handled well. I didn't just start being clumsy yesterday, though she has even tried to explain that one as not "actual clumsiness". My frequent trouble with what I was trying to say being misunderstood was put off on my rhotacism when I was younger; I've no clue what is supposed to be causing it now. (Though, if you want to try some headbanging yourself, you should carry around the name "Rachel Brewer" when you can't say "r". *g*) She was just puzzled when she started getting reports from the middle school that I was shy and rarely opened my mouth, and still seems puzzled at that reaction of mine. Goodness knows why I kept bursting into tears for no reason, until I was mostly broken of it by enough bad reactions.
One analogy that has worked fairly well, talking to her, is that of a deaf person. This works especially well because her best friend growing up is deaf. Her parents tried mainstreaming her before mainstreaming was known as such, ca. 1953, rather than sending her away to a residential school; their first grade teacher kept smacking Linda for not paying attention, and then smacking my mother for defending Linda. That attempt didn't last out the whole year, not surprisingly. It seems just as reasonable to yank me up, when I honestly didn't hear either. She also thought the treatment her cousin Graham (with Tourette's, and diabetes sending him to the bathroom frequently) got in school was horribly unfair, and spent a lot of time defending him, but I think was poorly enough treated herself that she still can't admit that I should never have been subjected to a lot that I was. (Another story entirely.) One analogy I am grasping at lately is that nobody would blame a deaf person for needing someone to interpret for them in situations like a doctor's visit. I do need this, probably always will, and can't get it now, which is another story again. There is no need to blame myself for it.
It may not be what she is thinking at all, but I do feel like she is trying to suggest that I just need to run up against and maim myself on a brick wall some more, "trying harder", because nothing could be "wrong" with me. She claims to be opposed to putting moral judgments on eccentricities, but sure does seem bent on misinterpreting what I do and say, slapping on motives that don't fit. Without it explicitly being said (this time), now I am just feeling like I am blowing everything out of proportion, and am afraid again that I am just "lazy, stupid, and crazy" to paraphrase the book title. I'm fighting the doubt, and the urge to justify myself to myself and to my mom, but it's not easy.
Also frustrating is my perception that she is approaching things this way partly because she is so caught up in the idea that she is somehow to blame for her limitations. If the limitations of mine she understands are similar, then I must be able to get over them too. Erm, even if she can't seem to get over them. Again, this is unconscious. I am not just pulling this one out of a hat, since it is one of the things about my Aunt Sally that irks us all--my mother worst of all, if anything.
I don't mean to sound too harsh toward her, but I am very frustrated. Yes, she has limitations just like everyone else, and she isn't going to magically understand everything I am trying to say. But our relationship is close enough (in some ways, out of necessity!) that she really can flay me without even trying. And I really can't help being as vulnerable to it as I am, which she should know by now. I have been trying (to help that, among other things) for almost 32 years now, and it hasn't worked yet. She will probably come around on this one too, like she did on the bipolar**, which inconsistency is frustrating in itself.
* So called after one g.g. grandfather, who was prone enough to meltdowns in general that at least one of his kids ran away and changed his name. I can't help but suspect that this sort of thing was a major factor in one of my grandfather's cousins doing basically the same, for that matter. She downplayed a lot in her memoirs, just from what I've heard.
** Oh yeah, and at the risk of sounding really cranky, I am irked that she is so bent on my not being autistic that she won't believe I'm not actually bipolar. Now that being bipolar is a good thing, of course, and even though my mood is much more stable without the meds. Oddly, she thinks it's better than I am no longer taking them. It's enough to make one's head implode.
At any rate, recent trouble dealing with my mother has set off a mental cascade, and I'm hoping that getting some of it down in words will help get it out of my head--with any luck, enough to settle down for a nap. :) As usual, it's not proving particularly easy to translate things into words in a way that's easy to follow, so please bear with me as I try!
It's still amazing how good my mother is at pressing every button I have ever had, frequently without intending to do so. This would be the downside of knowing me as well as possible, I suppose, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. It is also frustrating that I seem to go to far greater pains not to do this to people. (Not that it never happens anyway, but I am not amazed when it does.) I know that I have a dubious talent for cutting people to the bone in their most vulnerable bits, and then rubbing salt into the gaping wounds, so I watch what I say a little too carefully. I may not expect the same level of overkill in trying not to hurt people's feelings, but I do expect that anyone who does so should not then act as if it's amazing that I am offended. My mother can take an approach to conversations which can make a bull in a china shop look delicate. I know this, and it still leaves me hurt and frustrated, and feeling stupid because I just don't know how to respond.
Friday was the last time I talked to her, I suppose, and my feelings did get hurt. It has been niggling and getting me doubting myself, but waited until I was really exhausted to pop up insistently. This is just about par, but adds an extra note of frustration.
The last time we talked, I mentioned that I was glad to find out that there's a good reason for the inertia, rather than my just being lazy and unmotivated in spite of the evidence. Even though she'd acted less than surprised, initially, to hear that I'd figured out that I must be on the autistic spectrum, she'd had time to think and come up with objections in the meantime. So, she started in on various reasons I don't seem autistic to her, one of which was that I'm "too interested in people". In response, I couldn't do much besides gasp inwardly--and still try to be polite. I really could not think of anything reasonable to say, which left me feeling extra-silly. The best I managed was something weak about each person showing things very differently, and a clumsy change to another subject.
I still find it appalling that she is spouting "Rainman" stereotypes when she is married to a man who is so obviously on the spectrum. Never mind having a daughter who frequently strikes her as weird in many of the same ways, she has married two different undiagnosed autistic men--my stepfather has since gotten an Asperger's label--and half my birth father's family is so obvious that she commented on it as soon as she got a vague idea of what autism is. So my aunt didn't talk until after she started school, and instead her brother couldn't (probably still can't) shut up, under pain of pain. (Sound familiar?) She's willing to think he's autistic, even if he's very talkative indeed, possibly because it seems kinder than her earlier insistence that he's a sociopath. Half of that side of the family has occasionally violent meltdown episodes, some very stylized-tantrum-looking into adulthood (a.k.a. the "John fit"), and she is willing to admit that this is most likely why my father got so upset when she went into overload meltdown herself. I can't help but be appalled that she has spent so much time around autistic people, and wanted to marry two of them, but hasn't made any more effort to understand what's going on.
It is exceedingly frustrating, on top of that, that she apparently prefers to think that I can, indeed, overcome what difficulties she will admit I do have if I just try hard enough, rather than admit to herself that something is "wrong". I am keeping in mind that she had a similar reaction to things when being bipolar seemed the most reasonable explanation for a lot of things, especially since she shows pretty much all of those traits herself. (Social things are easy for her, though.) In that case, she apparently felt threatened enough that she got verbally abusive and purposely made me feel stupid, which is very unusual. Now the bipolar label seems to be a big part of her identity. I really don't understand this.
Of course, with some of the similarities, I can understand why she really would have trouble seeing that things can be different. With her history of depression--probably mainly reactive, too--she honestly didn't recognize that I was having an unusual amount of trouble until I started having violent meltdowns myself, when I was 13. At least I didn't get overt pressure to behave more "normally" at home; she is also hyperactive and distractible, and has a tendency toward some stims and tics, so didn't see a problem there. (No, I should just stand up to anyone who does have a problem with it.) But, with a decent bit of it, I think she needs to pretend things are OK in the face of all the evidence.
Mom enjoyed impressing upon my uncle that the two of them, necessarily, grew up in two different worlds and two different families, but she seems oddly unwilling to extend the same principle to me.
I think she is trying to ignore a lot, and has been doing so for some time. My coping ability may have declined as I've gotten older and faced more social responsibilities--especially involving people who aren't as accepting of individual difference as our family tends to be--but none of this is new. I was reminded of this just this morning, when I tore off some aluminum foil in the kitchen, and jumpy Feist ran away. Apparently I was inconsolable for hours for precisely the same reason, when I was two days old. The pediatrician had to reassure my mother that, yes, I really am that sensitive to scratchy clothes when I was a toddler, even though she has slightly less severe sensory issues herself. She didn't doubt that I heard bats and various electrical things, etc. I had a lot of "John fits"* up until I was 10 or so, and she did realize they were from frustration and general overload rather than my being purposely obnoxious. I still occasionally go into headbanging and other SIB from overload, especially from frustration over strife with other people I haven't handled well. I didn't just start being clumsy yesterday, though she has even tried to explain that one as not "actual clumsiness". My frequent trouble with what I was trying to say being misunderstood was put off on my rhotacism when I was younger; I've no clue what is supposed to be causing it now. (Though, if you want to try some headbanging yourself, you should carry around the name "Rachel Brewer" when you can't say "r". *g*) She was just puzzled when she started getting reports from the middle school that I was shy and rarely opened my mouth, and still seems puzzled at that reaction of mine. Goodness knows why I kept bursting into tears for no reason, until I was mostly broken of it by enough bad reactions.
One analogy that has worked fairly well, talking to her, is that of a deaf person. This works especially well because her best friend growing up is deaf. Her parents tried mainstreaming her before mainstreaming was known as such, ca. 1953, rather than sending her away to a residential school; their first grade teacher kept smacking Linda for not paying attention, and then smacking my mother for defending Linda. That attempt didn't last out the whole year, not surprisingly. It seems just as reasonable to yank me up, when I honestly didn't hear either. She also thought the treatment her cousin Graham (with Tourette's, and diabetes sending him to the bathroom frequently) got in school was horribly unfair, and spent a lot of time defending him, but I think was poorly enough treated herself that she still can't admit that I should never have been subjected to a lot that I was. (Another story entirely.) One analogy I am grasping at lately is that nobody would blame a deaf person for needing someone to interpret for them in situations like a doctor's visit. I do need this, probably always will, and can't get it now, which is another story again. There is no need to blame myself for it.
It may not be what she is thinking at all, but I do feel like she is trying to suggest that I just need to run up against and maim myself on a brick wall some more, "trying harder", because nothing could be "wrong" with me. She claims to be opposed to putting moral judgments on eccentricities, but sure does seem bent on misinterpreting what I do and say, slapping on motives that don't fit. Without it explicitly being said (this time), now I am just feeling like I am blowing everything out of proportion, and am afraid again that I am just "lazy, stupid, and crazy" to paraphrase the book title. I'm fighting the doubt, and the urge to justify myself to myself and to my mom, but it's not easy.
Also frustrating is my perception that she is approaching things this way partly because she is so caught up in the idea that she is somehow to blame for her limitations. If the limitations of mine she understands are similar, then I must be able to get over them too. Erm, even if she can't seem to get over them. Again, this is unconscious. I am not just pulling this one out of a hat, since it is one of the things about my Aunt Sally that irks us all--my mother worst of all, if anything.
I don't mean to sound too harsh toward her, but I am very frustrated. Yes, she has limitations just like everyone else, and she isn't going to magically understand everything I am trying to say. But our relationship is close enough (in some ways, out of necessity!) that she really can flay me without even trying. And I really can't help being as vulnerable to it as I am, which she should know by now. I have been trying (to help that, among other things) for almost 32 years now, and it hasn't worked yet. She will probably come around on this one too, like she did on the bipolar**, which inconsistency is frustrating in itself.
* So called after one g.g. grandfather, who was prone enough to meltdowns in general that at least one of his kids ran away and changed his name. I can't help but suspect that this sort of thing was a major factor in one of my grandfather's cousins doing basically the same, for that matter. She downplayed a lot in her memoirs, just from what I've heard.
** Oh yeah, and at the risk of sounding really cranky, I am irked that she is so bent on my not being autistic that she won't believe I'm not actually bipolar. Now that being bipolar is a good thing, of course, and even though my mood is much more stable without the meds. Oddly, she thinks it's better than I am no longer taking them. It's enough to make one's head implode.