The Dysfunctional Family and Abuse Counseling Thread

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I am nineteen years old, and in my nineteen years of existence, I have yet to see anything resembling normal parenting from my mother and father. To go into extensive detail about my suffering would take up the whole page. All I can say is that I hope my future will be better without them.

I noticed that there were not any support threads on WP regarding abusive or dysfunctional families, so I took the initiative to make one. I sincerely hope that this thread will be productive and of great use for ASD folks in situations similar to (or perhaps worse than) mine.

[Moved from Random Discussion to The Haven on OP's request]

Yeah I know what you mean. My mom tried to beat a lot of things out of me. To this day, I'm not even sure what aspects of my personality I can attribute to autism and what is just due to a rough upbringing. I remember getting beaten for a few autistic behaviors. E.g. taking two hours to get dressed because I was too busy staring at the patterns on the floor. I have a poor working memory, so I always used to get punished for forgetting things.

Now that I'm an adult, my mom actually did apologize for everything and we're working on repairing our relationship. She was also raised in an abusive household because her father had a severe case of PTSD from WWII. It almost makes me scared to have kids of my own. I don't want to turn into that person.

I always thought an abusive parent apologizing was like a child molester saying sorry to one of their victims. My disastrous upbringing has left me cynical and jaded.

Well, I think sexual abuse is a few levels up from physical abuse. I wasn't raped or anything like that. It was mostly whipping and hitting.

Well, from my experience (I am subject to continual emotional/verbal abuse), it is what it is. It just takes different forms.