“The worst part of having a mental illness is that people expect you to behave as if you don't” - Joker
Today, I went out to eat with my family. My mom always grabs the cups by the touching the rim where people's mouth touch to drink from. I have previously asked her to grab by the cup below the rim next time since it's unhygienic to touch the rim. She always retorts immediately by saying she did not touch the rim, despite me observing it happen time after time again. Today, I brought it up after not having done so in a few months because it boggles me how she keeps insisting she doesn't touch the rim when in fact she does it every time. Then, my sister said it's not a big deal and asked me to shut up and stop asking pointless questions, but this issue really bothered me since my mom always touches my cups to rearrange them for no reason even when I place them far away from the edge of the table, so it won't fall off, which is usually the reason why she touches the cups in the first place.
Anyway, after lunch my dad asked me if I was full after finishing the meal. He asked me three times in total, the first two times I replied yes, the first time he asked right after we ate, the second right after paying and walking to the car, the third time while in the car. On the third time, I replied "why did you ask me the same question 3 times?". I was genuinely curious and confused how my dad could forget my response despite asking the same question twice in a short period of time.
My dad went autist mode and started berating me about how rude and disrespectful I was for not just answering yes again. He says I should've answered yes 10 times even if he asked me the same thing 10 times out of seniority and respect. I told him I was just confused and wanted to figure out if he was that forgetful. My mom then told me my face always looks angry, but I think it looks neutral. In the past I have tried speaking to my parents about autism but it seems to be futile, my mom keeps telling me to just learn to change and improve and my dad is full on autistic and displays multiple signs. For example, he always talks forever about topics that have no relation to each other and goes off on long tangents and it's visibly obvious that the other party has lost the narrative & interest to continue engaging with him or to even listen, but my dad never picks up on this. At home, my mom usually just ignores my dad when this happens. My dad often asks me to help him write business messages since he can't type on the smartphone as fast as I can, he is very repetitive and is constantly talking about the same subjects over and over again, even on phone calls with colleagues. These are just some traits I've noticed that make up the larger portion of autism that my dad has.
I believe I have undiagnosed autism; I no longer tell people I'm autistic because I don't actually have a diagnosis as I don't want to pay for it. The only reason I stopped telling others I have autism is because people gaslight me and say: "but you're undiagnosed, so you just think you have it." I also don't want to go to therapy because there is no therapy for my problems and therapy is a huge cope just to make people feel better.
I hate how misunderstood I am, especially by my own family. Some say believing in NT is the same as believing that personality matters. I've always known I was non-NT as I knew I was ugly so it didn't matter even if I was NT, but life is so much more miserable being non-NT because people don't acknowledge that I have several problems and they blame me for not conforming or behaving the way they expect or want. This often happens when they tell me I speak without emotion, or that my facial expressions don't match my verbal expressions. When I was younger in highschool, when people told me something sad, I don't know why but I always smiled, despite wanting to convey genuine empathy for their situation. I attended a leadership camp while I was 17 and there was a challenge whereby you had to share a story to make the girl camp counsellor cry in order to secure a point for your group. I told her about my tragic family story but she did not believe me because she said I was smiling while telling it, I was in utter disbelief since that story was really fucked up and hit close to home. Since then I learned that I didn't know how to properly express emotions.
I am just writing this to cope with how shit of a day I've had. The worst part about my existence is that I am constantly being gaslighted and misunderstood by those around me, especially my family. I've spent countless hours journalling everything that's happened in my life and coming up with logical arguments to justify all my thoughts, but my family will never understand because they don't function on logic or have any sympathy for me. The only sympathy they have is the artificial "I love you, you're my son" just so they make themselves feel good while they ignore the truth. Everything they do or say is justified in their own eyes as doing it because they know what's best for me as they only have good intentions.
Time after time again I am forced to listen to my autistic dad lecture me about something he doesn't like about me and it's always the same, I have to just shut up and take it because my dad says so. I grew up in a dysfunctional family with toxic parents who can't understand that they don't know everything, that they can be wrong. I've long given up on trying to communicate in any meaningful with my family. I wish I could just record every interaction I have with my family and show people so they can hear for themselves how absurd it is most of the shit they say.
One more thing I hate is how my family tells me I should learn to behave in XYZ way since society will be harsher and I need to put up with people and handle situations appropriately. The single difference they fail to understand is that I can put up with people in society and shrug it off like nothing matters because these people don't matter to me as I have been in work environments before. With my own family members, I am expressing myself in the most authentic way possible because I truly express my real thoughts with people who matter to me, but they just tell me it's wrong and I shouldn't say this or do that, despite ALL my justifications for doing anything. They don't understand bias or logic in the slightest. It's hard to accept this reality, being permanently gaslighted and misunderstood by my own family. I rarely cry but just now it was just insane to me how much they were unable to understand me, it was the worst feeling ever, and to think I had overcome all my autistic traits to mask them well enough to not hinder my life... all I've learned from this experience is to just shut the fuck up and not to express how I truly feel, but to just give a normal answer to any question since my family doesn't care about me in any meaningful way besides putting me in college and housing me, which is a privilege that many don't have.
I know people won't give two shits about this post but I'm only writing it because I can't think of anything else that will help make me feel better, this is my cope. Also, I know my situation isn't truly bad and many others have it worst, I'm just in the stages of getting over the fact that my family is like that. Hope you're all having a good day.
Today, I went out to eat with my family. My mom always grabs the cups by the touching the rim where people's mouth touch to drink from. I have previously asked her to grab by the cup below the rim next time since it's unhygienic to touch the rim. She always retorts immediately by saying she did not touch the rim, despite me observing it happen time after time again. Today, I brought it up after not having done so in a few months because it boggles me how she keeps insisting she doesn't touch the rim when in fact she does it every time. Then, my sister said it's not a big deal and asked me to shut up and stop asking pointless questions, but this issue really bothered me since my mom always touches my cups to rearrange them for no reason even when I place them far away from the edge of the table, so it won't fall off, which is usually the reason why she touches the cups in the first place.
Anyway, after lunch my dad asked me if I was full after finishing the meal. He asked me three times in total, the first two times I replied yes, the first time he asked right after we ate, the second right after paying and walking to the car, the third time while in the car. On the third time, I replied "why did you ask me the same question 3 times?". I was genuinely curious and confused how my dad could forget my response despite asking the same question twice in a short period of time.
My dad went autist mode and started berating me about how rude and disrespectful I was for not just answering yes again. He says I should've answered yes 10 times even if he asked me the same thing 10 times out of seniority and respect. I told him I was just confused and wanted to figure out if he was that forgetful. My mom then told me my face always looks angry, but I think it looks neutral. In the past I have tried speaking to my parents about autism but it seems to be futile, my mom keeps telling me to just learn to change and improve and my dad is full on autistic and displays multiple signs. For example, he always talks forever about topics that have no relation to each other and goes off on long tangents and it's visibly obvious that the other party has lost the narrative & interest to continue engaging with him or to even listen, but my dad never picks up on this. At home, my mom usually just ignores my dad when this happens. My dad often asks me to help him write business messages since he can't type on the smartphone as fast as I can, he is very repetitive and is constantly talking about the same subjects over and over again, even on phone calls with colleagues. These are just some traits I've noticed that make up the larger portion of autism that my dad has.
I believe I have undiagnosed autism; I no longer tell people I'm autistic because I don't actually have a diagnosis as I don't want to pay for it. The only reason I stopped telling others I have autism is because people gaslight me and say: "but you're undiagnosed, so you just think you have it." I also don't want to go to therapy because there is no therapy for my problems and therapy is a huge cope just to make people feel better.
I hate how misunderstood I am, especially by my own family. Some say believing in NT is the same as believing that personality matters. I've always known I was non-NT as I knew I was ugly so it didn't matter even if I was NT, but life is so much more miserable being non-NT because people don't acknowledge that I have several problems and they blame me for not conforming or behaving the way they expect or want. This often happens when they tell me I speak without emotion, or that my facial expressions don't match my verbal expressions. When I was younger in highschool, when people told me something sad, I don't know why but I always smiled, despite wanting to convey genuine empathy for their situation. I attended a leadership camp while I was 17 and there was a challenge whereby you had to share a story to make the girl camp counsellor cry in order to secure a point for your group. I told her about my tragic family story but she did not believe me because she said I was smiling while telling it, I was in utter disbelief since that story was really fucked up and hit close to home. Since then I learned that I didn't know how to properly express emotions.
I am just writing this to cope with how shit of a day I've had. The worst part about my existence is that I am constantly being gaslighted and misunderstood by those around me, especially my family. I've spent countless hours journalling everything that's happened in my life and coming up with logical arguments to justify all my thoughts, but my family will never understand because they don't function on logic or have any sympathy for me. The only sympathy they have is the artificial "I love you, you're my son" just so they make themselves feel good while they ignore the truth. Everything they do or say is justified in their own eyes as doing it because they know what's best for me as they only have good intentions.
Time after time again I am forced to listen to my autistic dad lecture me about something he doesn't like about me and it's always the same, I have to just shut up and take it because my dad says so. I grew up in a dysfunctional family with toxic parents who can't understand that they don't know everything, that they can be wrong. I've long given up on trying to communicate in any meaningful with my family. I wish I could just record every interaction I have with my family and show people so they can hear for themselves how absurd it is most of the shit they say.
One more thing I hate is how my family tells me I should learn to behave in XYZ way since society will be harsher and I need to put up with people and handle situations appropriately. The single difference they fail to understand is that I can put up with people in society and shrug it off like nothing matters because these people don't matter to me as I have been in work environments before. With my own family members, I am expressing myself in the most authentic way possible because I truly express my real thoughts with people who matter to me, but they just tell me it's wrong and I shouldn't say this or do that, despite ALL my justifications for doing anything. They don't understand bias or logic in the slightest. It's hard to accept this reality, being permanently gaslighted and misunderstood by my own family. I rarely cry but just now it was just insane to me how much they were unable to understand me, it was the worst feeling ever, and to think I had overcome all my autistic traits to mask them well enough to not hinder my life... all I've learned from this experience is to just shut the fuck up and not to express how I truly feel, but to just give a normal answer to any question since my family doesn't care about me in any meaningful way besides putting me in college and housing me, which is a privilege that many don't have.
I know people won't give two shits about this post but I'm only writing it because I can't think of anything else that will help make me feel better, this is my cope. Also, I know my situation isn't truly bad and many others have it worst, I'm just in the stages of getting over the fact that my family is like that. Hope you're all having a good day.
