So wonderful to hear from you. And welcome!

I know this far better than I have ever wanted to. This is my mother, hook line and sinker but also mix in the constant interrupting AND dominating every situation. Unfortunately she is living with my husband and I at the moment (hopefully for only a few more months) and feels the need to create crisis’ large and small for her to be able to come to the rescue so she feels like she has done something worthwhile that day. It’s been staying at the point that my skin gets prickly being around her for very long because everything in me is getting so severely agitated. I cannot count any more how she takes credit for things that I have done, without having a clue (or caring) that she did. Here’s a blurb from a couple of months ago:

Mom: “Have you seen my coffee mug with the dollar bill on it?”
Me: “No, have you looked (list random places)?”
Mom: “Yes, and I can’t seem to find it ANYWHERE!”
Me: “I’ll try to keep an eye out for it.”
-She tells my husband about it too and then ten minutes pass by-
Me: “Mom, I found your mug.”
Mom: “Where WAS it? I looked EVERYWHERE!” (no she didn’t, she was just expecting me to drop everything and hunt it down for her. I just happened to see it by accident.)
Me: “On the shelf above where the mugs normally are.”
-Five more minutes pass before my husband enters the room-
Mom: “Oh Craig, you’ll be glad to know that I found my mug.”
Me: “WHO found your mug?”
Mom: “Oh, well I guess you did, but at least I have it now.”
(Did you happen to notice the lack of a simple Thank You from her? I say it to my husband all the time because I know it is emotionally important, but my mother almost never says it (without sarcasm) and yet she was the one who taught me that you ALWAYS say it!)

The one thing I cannot shake is how deeply I feel cut every single time she does things like that. Normally it catches me so off guard that I’m too dumbfounded to say anything. By the time I realize how I’m actually feeling, from how she reacted to me or treated me, that it would just be too much trouble trying to bring it back up. Every single time it cuts just as badly as it did when I was a kid. Too many days I still wonder if I’m sane, and if I am, how much longer it will last.

Quote from Millie:
“And there we languish and get stuck – jammed into a state of perpetual emotional analysis that is easy for us women with AS and all the ASD problems remain and cause havoc… the vestibular issues, the sensory processing, the need for solitude (ten hours a day would be good for me) and so we remain jammed and stuck, afraid of life and still not understanding why it is we are the way we are.”

My family (mother and siblings) have accused me of “thinking too much” and being too introverted, somehow thinking it was something that could just be switched off. I’ve had a bit of a clue that the rest of the world probably wasn’t like that, but this is the first time that I’ve seen a full refection of myself in tat area without any masks in someone else’s words. So much of what I’ve thought over for so many years was simply trying to figure out how I was “broken.” This coming from someone who can take something out of a box and assemble it and only getting agitated if I HAVE TO read the directions, from simple to complex. Now finally realizing that I’m not broken.

“I was ready to kill myself…. because there was still other problems not being addressed. I was still a strange misfit mystery to myself. and to others. I worked harder at it than anyone I know with scant results. I remained firmly set in a preference for all things quiet, small, routine and safe and reclusive and special interests based.”

Clearly and simply this explains how I felt inside when my husband finally took me into our doctor and he diagnosed me as chronic depressive. It was the worst episode of depression I’ve ever had in my life (and that’s saying something.) The brokenness swallowed me whole and I was sitting at our computer every day (often for 18+ hours) unconsciously trying to get my system to slow down and simply have my heart stop. I’ve known that I can’t commit suicide because my skin screams even just thinking about it (hey it’s a plus side to being hypersensitive!) but that was about as close as I could come. It was also the same period in my life that I realized that I literally couldn’t remember how to laugh. It had been 6 months to a year before that I could remember laughing last, but thinking about it then made me nauseous. When I was little I was ALWAYS laughing, even in high school a friend would call me giggle box because I’d be laughing so much (and usually because I was that happy.)

I want to cry (happy tears) because I feel like I have finally found where I belong, without having to explain myself, or hide behind deceiving masks.

Thank you, fellow Aspies, for having the courage to be yourselves.

Many years ago, I consulted a rabbi about whether I was making the right choice. After consulting with other rabbis, he said the decision was unanimous: Yes, absolutely.

There were two basic reasons. First, with parents that are so difficult, one might be provoked to say something harsh to them that would dishonor them; better to detach than to dishonor. Second, it is a positive mitzvah to break contact when continued contact causes one to feel that one’s life is not worth living. Saving a life is the single most important thing one can do.

There’s a lot of wisdom in our tradition.

Later in life the Chafetz Chaim became a great sage. The wealthy gentlemen remembered his inhospitality and went to apologize to him. The Chafetz Chaim responded: “I can forgive you for the pneumonia but I will not forgive you for depriving me of the right to learn for several months”

We learn from this story that you dont have to forgive people if you have been terribly wronged. ”

I really feel for you, admire you for your brave decision-making, and hope that your life remains happy and fulfilled.