Do you feel like you're not even a part of your own family?

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jmorse28
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04 Jan 2011, 11:40 pm

OMG...I find this all so very sad!! ! I have a 15 year old Aspie and I hope he NEVER feels this way. He likes to seclude himself in his room and we drag him out and make him participate in family things whether it's watching a movie together, family game night or whatever. I know he's a teen and he has 2 little brothers 9 and 6 and the 6 year old is PARTICULARLY annoying and when I was a teen I just wanted to lock myself in my room and all day and be left alone too. But we go out of our way to involve him and talk to him and I always tell him "you're part of this family whether you like it or not. We're not a family of 4, we're a family of 5!" I know he HATES hearing it but I want to drill that into his head. Even when he tries to get up from the dinner table early I tell him to sit down because it's the only chance I get to talk to him. We always ask how school was, did anything interesting happen. He really only likes to talk about the latest book he's reading and that's fine. I'll talk to him about the one I'm reading.

I hope by doing this my son will never feel like you guys do. It's terrible that your families treat you this way. If they have a family member with AS they should educate themselves about it and learn how to engage the person rather than push them away because they don't like to deal with them or find them boring or whatever the case may be. That's AWFUL!! ! Please tell me I'm doing the right thing by my son.

Have any of you ever confronted your families about this? If you're not good at communicating verbally, have you ever thought of writing a letter to them? I mean, if they treat you like crap, that's one thing. But if it's just miscommunication or they don't know HOW to communicate with you, maybe you should write to them and let them know how you feel and that they could make some effort to learn how to better communicate with you. Just a thought.



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05 Jan 2011, 3:06 am

jmorse28 wrote:
OMG...I find this all so very sad!! ! I have a 15 year old Aspie and I hope he NEVER feels this way. He likes to seclude himself in his room and we drag him out and make him participate in family things whether it's watching a movie together, family game night or whatever.


You sound like a really good mom. :)

From what you said it sounds like you are doing a good job trying to keep him involved. At the very least your are letting him know how much he means because you want him around for those family times.

But remember that aspies in particular need that "sulky I want to be alone in my room" time so that we can just chill. lol



Nan
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05 Jan 2011, 3:10 am

Yep - but only my birth family. The family I've built since then fits just fine.



PunkyKat
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05 Jan 2011, 6:21 am

YES! Even as a little kid I felt like an outsider. I was adopted but I think I would have felt like an outsider even if I was related biologicaly.


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Severus
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05 Jan 2011, 6:34 am

I've always been the weird one in my birth family. Now, if a family of two counts as a family, I feel definitely better - maybe because my husband is as weird as they come.

jmorse28 wrote:
OMG...I find this all so very sad!! ! I have a 15 year old Aspie and I hope he NEVER feels this way. He likes to seclude himself in his room and we drag him out and make him participate in family things whether it's watching a moviе...

I hope by doing this my son will never feel like you guys do. It's terrible that your families treat you this way. If they have a family member with AS they should educate themselves about it and learn how to engage the person rather than push them away because they don't like to deal with them or find them boring or whatever the case may be. That's AWFUL!! ! Please tell me I'm doing the right thing by my son.

Have any of you ever confronted your families about this? If you're not good at communicating verbally, have you ever thought of writing a letter to them? I mean, if they treat you like crap, that's one thing. But if it's just miscommunication or they don't know HOW to communicate with you, maybe you should write to them and let them know how you feel and that they could make some effort to learn how to better communicate with you. Just a thought.


Reading this post second time, somehow I can't get the basic idea right. Do you feel like you are doing the right thing or, on the contrary, you reproach yourself for trying to involve your son more into the life of the family? Sorry, I really can't understand your point.
Then again, it is good to feel supported by your family but having your boundaries forced every day is not, I'd say. I myself have had a lot of trouble with my own family because I didn't want to get involved and I am sure it would have been thousand times better if they had just left me alone so as to let me think about it a bit and make my own decisions as to participate in certain family activities or not - or else you end up with a regular round of same old family trouble every Christmas, etc.



Last edited by Severus on 05 Jan 2011, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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05 Jan 2011, 7:05 am

My family always felt I was supposed to be part of them, but I'd ceased to feel that way by the time I was in my early teens. The problem was that although they clearly felt I belonged in their group, in many ways they didn't really accept me as I was (all "for my own good" of course), so I began to avoid them to escape the criticism and the pressure to conform to their values.

But that's my original family. I had more luck with my son - after the stifling experience of my own upbringing I was determined to let him be himself, and to my relief he grew up to be fairly normal, and he doesn't avoid me.



Igor
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05 Jan 2011, 8:24 am

I do fine one-to-one with my relatives, but as soon as there are three or more of us in the room, I might as well not be there.

The classic was with one of my sibling's mother-in-law, who always used to asked questions about me, how I was, and what I was doing to other people whilst I was sitting next to her in the room :?

My wedding was also great for guests from my side:

Uncle + second wife - wouldn't come, as too far
Aunt - wouldn't come, because my uncle, her ex, might be there
Cousin - wouldn't come as all that travel is too stressy
Brother's ex + my niece and nephew - wouldn't come, as my brother would be there
Brother, wouldn't bring his kids as he was bringing his step-kids

:roll:

Now my parents have passed on, I have very little to do with my birth-family. I've been married for 15 years and one of my siblings has been in my house twice and the other never. True we live at the other end of the country, but one of them did drive past our house regularly when going abroad, so not really a huge excuse. And hey, it is England and not exactly mega-distances.

Oh, and one sibling moved, but didn't bother to tell us (though to be frank, they didn't bother to tell anyone else either 8O )

I used to make a big effort and drive up to see them every Christmas & Easter, but now I think sod them - if they can't be bothered, why should I? I always had to go and suffer their inane ramblings outside of my comfort zone, so now I'd rather spend with my own family in my own place, without the hassle.



Alfonso12345
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15 May 2012, 5:02 pm

jmorse28 wrote:
OMG...I find this all so very sad!! ! I have a 15 year old Aspie and I hope he NEVER feels this way. He likes to seclude himself in his room and we drag him out and make him participate in family things whether it's watching a movie together, family game night or whatever. I know he's a teen and he has 2 little brothers 9 and 6 and the 6 year old is PARTICULARLY annoying and when I was a teen I just wanted to lock myself in my room and all day and be left alone too. But we go out of our way to involve him and talk to him and I always tell him "you're part of this family whether you like it or not. We're not a family of 4, we're a family of 5!" I know he HATES hearing it but I want to drill that into his head.


I'm actually glad no one in my family ever did that. It would have annoyed me because I purposefully seclude myself. If my family members did this, I would feel like I was forced to do with things with people that are nothing like me and I would be miserable and want to go off by myself again. And if I had younger brothers.... I already am annoyed by kids enough as it is. It would be a total nightmare if I had to live in the same house with kids!



Alfonso12345
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15 May 2012, 5:17 pm

I guess I never really had an experience exactly like that since I always chose to isolate myself. My family and I are just so different, that I never really felt anything for them. They have always just been people I live with, not an actual family.



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15 May 2012, 6:51 pm

i feel the same way


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Tamsin
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15 May 2012, 9:00 pm

Yes. Often I feel like the black sheep of the family.



metaldanielle
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15 May 2012, 9:12 pm

Alfonso12345 wrote:
jmorse28 wrote:
OMG...I find this all so very sad!! ! I have a 15 year old Aspie and I hope he NEVER feels this way. He likes to seclude himself in his room and we drag him out and make him participate in family things whether it's watching a movie together, family game night or whatever. I know he's a teen and he has 2 little brothers 9 and 6 and the 6 year old is PARTICULARLY annoying and when I was a teen I just wanted to lock myself in my room and all day and be left alone too. But we go out of our way to involve him and talk to him and I always tell him "you're part of this family whether you like it or not. We're not a family of 4, we're a family of 5!" I know he HATES hearing it but I want to drill that into his head.


I'm actually glad no one in my family ever did that. It would have annoyed me because I purposefully seclude myself. If my family members did this, I would feel like I was forced to do with things with people that are nothing like me and I would be miserable and want to go off by myself again. And if I had younger brothers.... I already am annoyed by kids enough as it is. It would be a total nightmare if I had to live in the same house with kids!


I agree. My family tries to guilt me for shutting myself off, but being around 5 ppl yelling at each other plus background noise is WAY past my limit for overstimulaton. My parents forced me to be more involved as a kid and I hated it. The reason I don't feel like a member of my family isn't because I spend most of my time alone, it is because the treat me like a second class citizen.



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15 May 2012, 9:21 pm

Yup. When I was younger I thought it was because my fathers family are upper-middle class and mothers family working class so I was rejected as too common for one side and too posh for the other - after learning I'm on the spectrum it makes more sense that it's due to AS.

I'm estranged from my mother - she is abusive but even without that there was never a mother/daughter relationship and my mother was clear to point this out in therapy in my teens, on the odd occasions we do talk she's too busy with her life to bother talking to me. Growing-up I always watched her with other people's kids such as spending Christmas with my neighbour and their kids while leaving me alone, another is her refusing to let me take dance classes...yet my mother made all the costumes for my best friends dance competitions, helped her practice, did her make-up etc. she always had mother/child relationships with other peoples kids and not me.

When I was younger my neighbours refused to babysit me because I'd just sit there not talking or interacting with them and it would creep them out - my mothers family had the same issue with me, they're very close-knit and very much NT so they didn't understand me or why I didn't interact like they did with each other. I can remember when a few of us would visit my grandparents everyone would get mad at me for not helping myself to food during tea time, for not being able to leave my mothers side, for not talking, and not wanting to play with all my cousins. We have our black sheep in our family, but nothing like me as there was never any sort of connection with them at all so now they don't bother with me at all. Before my mother and I stopped making contact she came to visit and was talking to my boyfriend about how I refused to ever speak to my family - my mother doesn't know about the asperger's, my boyfriend does so he really had to bite his tongue not to put her in her place when she was implying I was snobby or ignorant towards her family.


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cthulhureqiuem
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15 May 2012, 10:22 pm

"you're part of this family whether you like it or not. We're not a family of 4, we're a family of 5!"

your going to hate this but... this just comes across as lecturing 90% of the time.
maybe your son has a hard time dealing with all the sensory input that 5 people at a table brings... have you asked him?

for myself, during my childhood i felt connected to my family... but we lived through very rough situations (homeless for a while even) so i think i am lucky there... however since i have become an adult... my family has drifted away, they know my phone number and i ask my mom about them when i see her... but everyone else has pretty much disappeared from my life as well.

the 1-2 times a year that i do see my brothers, they say nothing to me and do nothing... i mostly end up playing with the kids. its frustrating. '

hell i dont know what else to say that hasnt been said already :p



cthulhureqiuem
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15 May 2012, 10:24 pm

I agree. My family tries to guilt me for shutting myself off, but being around 5 ppl yelling at each other plus background noise is WAY past my limit for overstimulaton. My parents forced me to be more involved as a kid and I hated it. The reason I don't feel like a member of my family isn't because I spend most of my time alone, it is because the treat me like a second class citizen.[/quote]

^ this! absolutely this... the worst is talking to them about a subject your intimately familiar with... and having them look at you like your dim, because they do not understand what you are saying.



ScottyN
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15 May 2012, 11:54 pm

One should realize that if you are different from the rest of your family, of course they will be sometimes indifferent to you. It happens to me, but it is not as bad as some of these stories.