I blog about life as an Autistic female with Bipolar 2, giving parenting & marriage my best shot. I am a passionate Advocate for Autism & Mental Health. I'll make you laugh & cry. And I promise you the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth. You can also read my blog on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vtlizzy
Picture yourself as a child, let’s say you’re 10 years old. Now add in your parents. Do you have siblings? Put them in your picture. Grandparents? Aunts and Uncles? Add them too. This is your birth family. These people represent your origins. They are your roots.
Maybe you didn’t have a traditional family set up like I’ve described, but whoever you did have, bring them front of mind for a moment.
Now imagine there are some of these individuals you love deeply and sincerely even though they hurt you. There are also some you tell yourself you love, because that’s your duty…even though they hurt you. After all, no family is perfect and you are loyal. You love hard and generously, as many children do.
Conflict is the norm in your family. Name calling, ridicule, insults, physical violence. Gradually, you learn to defend yourself with a sharp tongue; with fists. Every confrontation fills you with a confusing cocktail of fear, anger and shame but this is how you survive. You imagine running away but instead you keep treading water, try not to sink, because family is forever right?
Except sometimes it’s not.
Sometimes, (like I did) you find out that the time you DID have with your family was just smoke and mirrors. A fragile web of lies and misinformation. And because you were trusting, naive…you believed it all.
I genuinely loved my maternal birth family and imagined they must feel the same way about me. But the truth is, I was only tolerated, an outsider looking in. I was odd, different. I asked questions, shared unsolicited opinions.
I had my uses; I was fantastic at being leaned on. I could lend money, provide lifts, baby sit, dog sit, clean houses, write CV’s, listen generously to their woes. But my main purpose in that toxic dynamic was to take the blame. Ask my advice then blame me for telling you what I thought. Blame me for being too honest, too direct, too rigid, too emotional. Blame me to make yourselves feel better. Blame me because you knew I never had anyone in my corner, fighting for me. Until I met my husband. Then you tried to blame him for ‘putting up with me’.
This was my reality. A reality I’ve come to accept over the last 3 years since estranging from my maternal birth family.
I’ll never know the whole truth, not unless I develop the powers to time travel!
God how I’d love to be a fly on the wall of my childhood; to see all the players in action.
Or maybe it’s better not to know the extent of the fabrication that was the first 45 years of my life.
Did my undiagnosed Autism make it easier for them to manipulate and mislead me? Absolutely.
◦ I was extremely naive and trusting.
◦ I felt duty bound to follow rules – grown ups were to be respected and obeyed.
◦ Difficulty regulating my emotions lead to self hurting behaviours as I struggled to contain my internal conflict – I loved and pitied my family yet feared and resented them.
◦ My poor mental health was used to discredit me, ‘she’s mental. She’s mad. Don’t listen to her!’
◦ My hyper empathy made me responsible for their struggles. While many would have run for the hills, I stayed, believing I could change them for the better.
◦ Unable to interpret non verbal communication such as body language and tone of voice, I clung onto my mothers every word. Never doubted that I was hearing the truth.
But my Autism helped me too.
◦ My ability to find joy in the darkness; hope, when life was truly bleak.
◦ My hyperfocus driving me to become the best version of myself despite countless setbacks.
◦ My written communication skills providing an outlet for my deep hurts when the words would not be spoken.
◦ My intense sensory recall of memories enabling me to retain and catalogue conversations and events; to be revisited as an adult and processed with clarity and maturity.
◦ My courage to challenge my own behaviours and mistakes; to make better choices; to be kinder; to apologise; to own my behaviour and change for the better.
◦ My belief in truth and justice, right and wrong, giving me the courage to make the hardest decision I ever made; to estrange from my birth family.
But how did I get to this place of understanding? How did I come to recognise the narcissist’s greatest weapon, smoke and mirrors?
It started with my Autism diagnosis. Being handled the instruction manual for my brain taught me I was different, not bad or broken. All the behaviours I’d been judged and criticised for were because of how I experienced the world. The more I grew to know and like myself, the more secure I felt.
It continued with trauma therapy, revisiting the worst times and confronting what happened to me. The validation of another, impartial human being was lifesaving.
Writing my blog has helped too – it is cathartic to commit my thoughts and feelings to the page. In fact, I find it much easier to write than speak and always have done.
The love of my husband gives my safety and security to explore my past and believe in our shared future.
Part of healing is being able to look back and recognise when and how you were mislead. To identify the stages of deception.
As a small child I idolised my mother and believed my role was to protect her, to save her. To me, she was the perfect human being and I never doubted her wisdom in staying with my violent alcoholic father. Her decision meant I grew up feeling afraid every single day. But I knew her love too and I trusted my mother completely.
As an adolescent I began to question my mothers’ decisions. I realised that other families weren’t like mine. That violence and slavish devotion to men was not normal or healthy. Neither was the invisible gag placed on myself and my siblings preventing us from asking for help. I still loved my mother. But resentment began to simmer inside of me. I started to plan a life outside the prison I lived in.
Sensing I was pulling away from her drove my mother to punish me. Physically and mentally. She did not want me to grow up, to have independent thoughts. I was her possession. I owed everything to her. She resented my growing confidence, my maturity, my friendships. She made me feel ashamed for wanting more for myself than the life of fear and servitude she had built for me. Her violence towards me accelerated while the rest of my family conveniently looked away.
As I became increasingly isolated I began to suspect my mother was telling lies about me, working to alienate me from my siblings and extended birth family. I had seen her ostracise my oldest brother and paint him as the villain – I never questioned her judgment of him nor the fact she sanctioned him being cut off from his family. Only when I became a parent myself did I realise that a mother should love unconditionally and support siblings to repair any breakdown in relations.
But I had no proof of her treachery, only a feeling in my gut which made me confused and afraid. I did not understand the sophistication of smoke and mirrors then; how situations could be twisted, the truth embellished. I only knew that the people who I loved and should love me, ignored me or treated me with disdain.
As a young adult I kept my birth family at arms length. My relationship with my mother was volatile. My siblings were my occasional drinking buddies. Alcohol loosened our tongues and we’d talk about our upbringing, sharing horror stories and laughing as if it was somehow funny. None of us was capable of serious discussion, that would have meant confronting our true feelings. I also harboured a belief that as the only girl and main target of her physical violence, they could not understand what I had endured.
When my husband and I started our own family I was taken off guard by the desire to reconnect with my mother. Carrying our sons in my belly triggered something in me. I loved my babies with every molecule in my body and I imagined she must have loved me like that. Musn’t she?
For a while things improved and she was undoubtedly a better grandma than she ever was a parent. Naively, I began to trust her again. She in turn appeared to take me into her confidence. I was flattered and utterly naive to the danger I was in.
And so began the era of coercive control. My mother would regularly confide all the wrongdoings of my siblings, and extended family. The general theme was how they’d mistreated her and this guaranteed I would feel upset for her and resentful of them. I still very much believed my Mother was the vulnerable and exploited victim of my early childhood and my Autistic radar for fairness and justice meant I wanted to tackle these family members to enforce that they treated her correctly.
The problem was she’d swear me to secrecy, so I’d feel frustrated and disappointed in these family members but was unable to act.
Some of the things she told me were thoughtless and selfish behaviour. Some things caused me huge anxiety for the other people involved. I did not dare share these things with anyone because of the damage such information could cause if it got out.
What I understand now (oh beautiful hindsight) is that her confidences were a guaranteed way to segregate me from the other family members. If I DID confront them (which on occasion I did), my heightened Autistic emotions were like a bomb going off. Making angry accusations that only made others resent me. And of course it was always my fault. I was interfering. I’d stepped out of line. No one blamed my mother.
She knew it would happen that way.
If I DIDN’T confront them I would carry her confidences like heavy rocks on my back. I was utterly conflicted. I loved my family but I had lost respect for them. I couldn’t trust them. They were stopping me from saving my mother.
It was only in the year before my estrangement from my birth family that I started to wonder:
⁃ how much of what she had told me was actually true?
⁃ If she was feeding me lies and misinformation to separate me from the rest of the family, what on earth was she telling THEM about ME?!
There were clues to her treachery.
Strange comments made by my siblings alluding to things I’d done which I knew never happened.
Relatives who suddenly treated me coldly or acted distant when I knew I’d done nothing to warrant that behaviour.
My own husband confessed that when we were experiencing marital problems prior to my Autism diagnosis, my mother had set herself up as his confidante and sworn not to share what he told her. Yet in truth she went around telling everyone in the family exactly what he told her and embellishing it; calling me unhinged, violent ….. with no concern for my poor mental health and suffering or the fact that I was at risk of self harm and worse.
My husband’s shame at being exploited by her paled in comparison to the way I felt then; stripped bare, flesh flailed. The fragile bones of me exposed for my ‘family’ to pick over.
But the biggest clue of the smoke and mirrors was the reaction of my maternal birth family, when I ended contact with my mother. They all ghosted me, my husband and our children. There was no explanation or justification. My efforts to reach out to each of them individually were met with total silence. An impenetrable wall was put up by them.
I had loved all of those people and believed we were a close family. The injustice of their actions still sting 3 years on.
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. And it has made me question the whole 45 years of my life before the estrangement. It has made me doubt everything I was told by my mother. It has made me rethink any ‘happy memories’ with my maternal birth family (and for me there definitely were some) because they clearly had no respect, love or loyalty for me. I was useful for what I could provide to them emotionally, practically or financially. My worth expired when I refused to be responsible for my mother anymore.
In truth, this realisation eases my sadness. I have been mourning people I never really knew, who never knew or accepted the real me. They viewed me through poisonous glasses provided by my mother. This realisation sets me free.
I received a voicemail recently from my mother. Having not heard her voice in almost 3 years it was a brutal shock and I burst into tears. Suddenly I was that helpless little girl again who idolised her Mummy and wanted to stay with her forever. She was crying and she said that she missed me and our boys. In that moment I desperately wanted to hug her.
But then I dried my tears and I reflected. Did she apologise?…No.
Did she acknowledge the terrible things she’d done to me and allowed to happen to me as a child and adolescent…No.
Did she express regret or accept responsibility for alienating me from my maternal birth family?….No.
Her voice message wasn’t for me. It was for herself. It was just more smoke and mirrors. A friend told me it’s called a ‘guilt grenade’. But by some miracle of therapy and love from my husband and children, I didn’t let it injure me.
It hurt to hear her crying. I know she’s had a very hard life and she deserves better. But I also know it’s not my responsibility to save her anymore. She has to save herself like I did.
I shouldn’t have replied to her. I know that now – doing so implies she still has some hold over me. But it also shows I have a good heart, I have empathy. I sent a kind reply wishing her well. I explained I am not part of her family anymore and I can never go back. I told her I am happy now and I need to be left in peace.
Of course, she didn’t reply.
If any of this resonates, if it sounds familiar, please be careful. Smoke and mirrors is not some mysterious party trick. It’s dangerous, it’s life changing. Whether the person using this technique against you is your mother, a friend or a lover, it will make you question everything you know. Make you think you’re going mad, that it’s your fault. That there is no one you can trust.
But there is.
Trust yourself.
Smoke clears.
Mirrors can be broken.
Find safety, seek the truth and don’t-go-back.
It’s never too late to start the rest of your life, like I did.
It was presented by the wonderful Chris Packham and featured two Autistic adults Flo and Murray, who share their lived experience of Autism.
I wanted our sons L (11) and H (8) to watch it with us so they would understand how lucky they are to have their Autism diagnosed in childhood.
I wanted them to see how uniquely individual and amazing Autistic people are.
I wanted them to understand that non speaking Autistic people have thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears and the right to be heard – that there are so many ways to communicate other than speaking!
I wanted them to understand why I love my job as an Autism trainer. Why I love helping other Autistic children and their families, so they can embrace their identities like we do in our family.
H needs to be constantly moving and challenging his vestibular sense to feel regulated. My husband gets a lot of exercise helping him achieve this!
L absolutely loved the program. He opened up about a few different things he experiences with stimming and with social communication – it makes me so proud how well he is learning to understand himself.
H kept asking ‘Mum, why are you crying?!’ When I explained I was feeling sad about my childhood growing up without an Autism diagnosis he said ‘Yes but why are you CRYING?!’ My very own little Mr Blunt still watched it to the end and said it was ‘quite good’.
My two favourite Autistic people in the Universe and the cat who walked with us.
I was crying because I was that little Autistic girl Flo described in the program. I grew up confused, feeling different, self loathing, not fitting in. Masking to try and make friends. Constantly overwhelmed and melting down only to be told I was mad or bad.
Unlike Flo, I didn’t have a loving mother to help me, to protect me, to guide me. My mother judged, she silenced, she punished, she manipulated. When I was eventually diagnosed Autistic at 42, my mother showed no empathy; no acceptance. It was just another reason to criticise me and undermine me so that ultimately, she could control me and control the way others saw me.
Chris Packham said Autistic women are 8 times as likely to commit suicide than non Autistic women. That is why I had to estrange from my mother following my Autism diagnosis at 42…because I knew I could not stay alive if she continued to be in my life. Perhaps my decision sounds extreme but there are thousands upon thousands of Autistic adults like me who grew up in persecution and choose to sever contact with their birth family to save themselves from further mistreatment, to protect their mental health.
In the program ‘Inside Our Autistic Minds’, Murray is blessed with the most knowledgeable, gentle, patient parents who are committed to helping him tell his story. It is so moving to see what parenting an Autistic person can be like, when you remove judgement and let go of neurotypical expectations.
If you haven’t watched ‘Inside Our Autistic Minds’ with Chris Packham, please do. It’s beautifully filmed and so informative. We are NOT a medical diagnosis, we just have differently wired brains that affect how we experience the World. We are a different type of human, but a human nonetheless.
A medical diagnosis of Autism is often missed or withheld unless there is obvious suffering and struggles. But ALL Autistic people should have the right to discover their neurodiversity. A diagnosis is about getting access to the rule book for our brains so we can live well and thrive. So that we can help others understand what is going on inside our Autistic minds.
Inside H’s mind is a thirst for thrill-seeking!
I sometimes joke to my husband or friends, that if they had to live inside my head for even an hour, they would run out screaming, forever traumatised! But in truth I love my different brain now I understand it. It is an honour to raise our sons to understand their Autistic minds and to see them already advocating for themselves at home and at school is my greatest achievement to date.
Authentically us. We share a mutual love of water and our happiest times are in and around it.
I never imagined the body count would be so high… the body count being the relatives I’ve lost through my decision to estrange from my mother. I think I’m maxing out at 14 at the moment. That’s not counting a few who are sitting on the fence but will likely be seduced by the ‘sweep it all under the carpet for an easy life’ theory.
There is no doubt that estranging from my mother saved my life. I am better person for it, a better wife and a better parent. My children are happy and confident, surrounded by friends and passionately pursuing their special interests. They live the life I used to dream of.
My mother claimed to love me but what she wanted was to control me. She actively and deliberately spread lies about me and diligently worked to isolate me from my support network throughout my life. I on the other hand, really did love her. I also hated her but still, I worked very hard to earn her love and friendship like the naive Autistic optimist that I am.
Cowardice and Betrayal
I knew estrangement would hurt. I’m pretty sure I could fill several bathtubs with my tears during the first year after ending all contact. What I didn’t count on was the cowardice and betrayal that would be demonstrated by my extended family.
I knew my mother was crafty, clever, and a convincing actress, but I never for one second thought she would try and take other family members away from me. And not just from me, but from my children, the grandchildren she claimed to love. Even if I had thought her capable of that, I never anticipated she would follow through with such cruelty.
I’m not sure what she did or said, how she orchestrated the exodus of siblings, grandparents and more, from our lives. Most of them have met my attempts to contact them with silence. A few made spiteful verbal attacks, unmasking their true selves. This was actually worse than the silent treatment because family I had loved and respected revealed their true murky shades of colour, undermining our shared past and making it feel like a sham.
The Fragile Love of the Loyal
But harder even than that, was the loss of family members who initially stood by me, who assured me of their love, who withstood the criticism and judgment of my mother and her followers so that they could continue to be in mine and my childrens’ lives. I was insanely grateful at the start for their loyalty and sacrifice. I also felt guilty that they were experiencing stress and pressure from my persecutors. But as time has gone on, and they have slowly pulled away from me, the hurt is ten times worse.
The Aunt I worshipped since I was a little girl; a kind and lovely person with incredible talents I admired and tried to emulate. I used to wish she was my mum, I felt I was far more like her than my own mother. But gradually her contact became less frequent. I asked her, is it too much being there for me? And she insisted it was fine, that she could cope, that she loved all of us and always would. But that was the last time I ever heard from her. And so I stay away, not wanting to cause her stress or to be a burden.
Then there is the sister in law I stood by through her difficult divorce; for many years my husband and I and our children were her constant, her safety net, offering enduring love and friendship to her children, my niece and nephew. This was no hardship. We loved them to bits and some of the happiest times in my life have been spent having adventures with ‘the cousins,’ our four children. My own childhood was so marked by fear and stress and violence, that it was wonderfully normal and wholesome to watch our kids growing up having fun together. Best of all, she treated me like I was her real sister – something I’d never had before.
But nothing stays the same and as my niece and nephew got older and navigated adolescence, my sister in law began a new relationship and had a gorgeous little boy. Exciting new beginnings for her, new family members, new friends. Gradually we saw her less and less. Still I continued to put love and effort into the relationship. I tried to create opportunities to get to know her new partner and I was supportive in every stage of her journey. I never for one second imagined a time when she wouldn’t be my sister.
But recently she surprised me with a text announcing a special event, an important ceremony, an event for closest family and friends. Her message said she wasn’t inviting us as she didn’t want to upset my mother. It was better not to invite us apparently. She was sure I would understand. She even stated that my youngest son and I would struggle to be at this event because we are Autistic. This was frankly all kinds of offensive, hurtful and disrespectful given the many special events we had shared previously.
I was heartbroken. I cried a river and then some. The rejection of me and my husband and our lovely boys was a huge injustice. How could she hurt us so badly, the ones who had stood by her in her darkest hours and her happiest times? And all because she didn’t want to upset the woman who has repeatedly tried to destroy me? The woman who ironically, had repeatedly fed me negativity about my sister in law, criticising her lifestyle and her parenting like she did the mothers of all my brothers’ children.
We exchanged angry and emotional messages and she asked me to have empathy. To see her point of view. It was as if she were a stranger. I thought we had earned a place on her VIP family list after all the years of friendship and memory making. I would never treat her like this. Never.
Unanswered Questions / My Right to Write
I don’t know what influenced her decision. Whether it was my mother, or her partner, or even my niece who mysteriously withdrew from us after I estranged from my mother. It seems like I’m destined never to know the truth, never to have answers to my questions because no one is brave enough to be honest with me let alone honest with themselves.
I want to salvage this relationship for me and for my sons. They adore their cousins and have been hurt enough by the family who’ve turned their backs on us. But how do I overcome this hurt I feel? And why should I have to fight to be loved, why should I have to fight to be included by the family members we made our number one priority for years and years? Is it better to just accept we aren’t needed anymore? That we’ve served our purpose?
I understand now that it’s so easy for people to say ‘I love you’ to excuse their choices and behaviour, but love is shown by what you DO, not by what you say. I am trying not to blame these family members that I still care for. I know they are torn. But it still fills me with sadness because I think I deserve more. I deserve their love and I deserve their loyalty. I gave them mine freely and generously.
I understand now that this blog of mine, this emotional download and sharing of experiences over the last few years, has probably been used by my persecutors to turn others against me and to pressure those who once loved me to give up on me. To them it is shameful and embarrassing that I am airing the ‘family secrets’. They point to my writing as evidence of my inherent badness.
But this blog is here to stay. I write only for ME and all the people like me who have lived through trauma and abuse, mental health problems or late diagnosed neurodiversity. I write to heal myself and help others. I write so that one day, when they are grown up, my sons will read my journey and understand what I’ve overcome to be here. I write so they can be proud of me like I am proud of me. Writing helps me work through the most difficult of times.
People assume if you can speak, that you are capable of discussing your feelings face to face or on the telephone. I cannot do these things unless I feel completely safe with the other person. Otherwise I crumble. This is a core part of my Autism – I have always felt more capable and in control communicating in writing. Without it my feelings would be trapped inside me, accelerating my mental health problems.
I do appreciate that heavy and emotional topics can be uncomfortable for some people. In fact my most recent and by far my most read blog, ‘The Narcissist’s Daughter’ saw my inbox jammed with messages and comments from total strangers thanking me and telling me to keep writing. In contrast barely any of my friends and family have read it or commented to me about it…but that’s ok. I know every word is a step further in my healing and every stranger who reads my blog and finds help there is a gift.
I’m aware some people turn a blind eye to avoid confrontation, that they put on a pretence to keep the peace. But I never asked anyone to get involved in my conflict. I never asked anyone to take my side over hers. I never tried to take family members away from my mother. In fact I was extremely anxious that she should have support in my absence, given I was the one carrying her for most of my life. I simply asked my birth family to hear my truth, to recognise my suffering and to accept my decision. I pleaded with them NOT to take sides. But I was ignored and gaslighted. My husband was verbally abused. Our sons were abandoned.
I realise that not everyone who knows my birth family will have experienced the pervasive, toxic, coercive control I was subjected to. Both my mother and my father can be very charming and engaging when they want to. They can show love and can perform acts of kindness. They just never did that to me. Both of them treated my siblings very differently to how they treated me although my oldest brothers definitely saw what I went through and definitely experienced their own trauma growing up in that household. In fact there are plenty of people who saw and heard what my life was like under that regime. They saw how I suffered and they did nothing because it was easier to avoid confrontation. I also think my grandparents were of the generation that believed you made your bed, so lie in it! Don’t make a fuss. Pull yourself together. No one wants a scene. Men were providers, women served and children should mind their manners. All in all, I think I had a lucky escape.
Silver Linings
There are silver linings to estrangement.
I have built loving contact with my father’s sisters. My Aunts. For most of my childhood and adolescence we were kept apart by my mother’s inexplicable resentment of my father’s birth family and his secretive manner only seeing them without us. Knowing they care about me is a huge comfort and seeing the love they have for their children and grandchildren reassures me that I am related to some really good people, not just horrible ones.
I also have a sibling who was lost to our whole family many years ago, when he divorced from my sister in law. With great shame I admit that I followed the lead of my mother and my siblings, rejecting him and judging him for his actions without ever asking why. I know now I should have talked to him. I should have asked how he was feeling. Why he’d made the decisions he had. I should never have taken sides. I should never have listened to the gossip nor caved in to the peer pressure. I should have worked to sustain my relationship with those on both sides of the story.
Somehow we’ve found our way back into each other’s lives and have struck up a tentative friendship. We message about the past and we message about the now. It is MASSIVELY validating to talk with someone who was there during our awful childhood, who can confirm what happened after my other siblings betrayed me with their silence or gaslighted me as a way to control me and shut me up.
I don’t know if our relationship will ever grow beyond messaging but I am so grateful for the opportunity to apologise for my mistakes, to apologise for taking sides, to apologise for not being a better sister and to offer my friendship as a fellow survivor of trauma. He has built a really good life for himself and whatever happens in the future I am grateful for my chance to have known the man he has become, despite my mother’s best efforts to keep us apart. I feel sick now knowing that I believed her toxic lies about him whilst all the while she was telling lies about me and I never had a clue.
Estrangement is a b****. It turns your life upside down and drags you through a maze of every possible emotion. I like to think I’m at the healthy anger and acceptance stage because I have so much to be grateful for, more than I’ve ever had. Yet it still surprises me when a ‘memory’ comes up on Facebook, or a mutual friend posts a photo; and suddenly I’m looking at my mum smiling in happier times or at my grandad looking frail and tired. Then the sadness overwhelms me. Because there were happy times and I really believe they were real. I don’t understand why they couldn’t last. I don’t understand why my mother hates me so much that she refused to acknowledge or apologise for the years and years of damage I suffered at her hands. I don’t understand why my family was so quick to betray me and take sides. Why did they have to take sides? Why does anyone?
No one prepares you for the extra body count of estrangement but still, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
You can’t put a price on freedom.
Sometimes the most difficult decisions are the best ones.
Sometimes letting go is the best and only way to be happy.
Well, it’s been a while! Apologies for the radio silence. It’s not writers block, or being too busy, the truth is, I don’t tend to write much when I’m happy.
Writing my blog is hugely cathartic. It helps me process the things I’ve experienced so I can make sense of them, draw conclusions, move forward.
Inevitably I write more when I’m struggling with life. It’s almost like counselling myself.
So the fact I haven’t blogged in a while is good news; it reflects the fact I am in a good place. My life is positive and happier, the further I move away from my past.
—————————————————————Uncovering Narcissism
What’s been interesting is that as my readership has grown despite me not writing anything new, the same content and quotes from my blog are liked and shared again and again – the content about narcissists. I have mixed feelings about this. Whilst I’m glad my blog resonates with others, it’s upsetting to realise how many adult children have grown up being controlled and manipulated by a narcissistic parent, tricked and isolated, in plain sight. There are no repercussions for these ‘parents’. Narcissism is not a crime. A lucky few manage to escape like I did, to sever ties, but often at huge personal cost.
I never even understood what narcissism was until after I succeeded in breaking away from my birth family. As the months passed I attended online workshops and joined support groups for estranged adult children, where I kept hearing the word being used. At first I thought it was just a derogatory term to describe cruel behaviour. But the more I heard and the more I researched, the more I understood why my mother had been able to abuse me for so many years, with no apparent guilt or shame, refusing to discuss or apologise for her behaviour. She is a narcissist.
These 5 simple bullet points could literally have been written directly about my mother. They are an enormously helpful point of reference for anyone wondering if their parent is a narcissist.
1. Constantly needs the conversation to be about them
My mother’s favourite topic of conversation was herself. The countless times I tried to speak with her in person or on the phone, and I’d leave frustrated as she would monologue about herself and her woes, without ever even asking how I was. She was an incredibly negative person and would dominate any meeting by talking about how hard her life was, how difficult, how tiring. I so often felt embarrassed when she’d speak to my husband, his family or my friends and whatever they shared, she’d experienced it ten times worse. To be clear, this absolutely wasn’t her empathising. This was one-upmanship. This was self indulgent bragging to garner sympathy and admiration for the hero she pretended to be. Even during my cancer treatment, after 6 round of chemotherapy and being heavily pregnant, she would insist I couldn’t possibly understand how tired she was or how tough her life was.
2. Immature and Selfish Behaviour
This was wide ranging and often deeply inappropriate. It ranged from childish teasing about personal appearance to hurt my self esteem (you look so much like me Liz…god I hate my face, it’s like a bag of nails) to attempts to make my husband self conscious (ohhhh that’s a big spot on your cheek N. Oh dear, your beard is going so grey). She was always overtly sexual which I was hugely uncomfortable with thanks to the oppressive way I’d been raised. I once came downstairs at her house to find she’d put a porn video on the television in front of my first husband and the married man she was seeing. I was so humiliated I burst into tears while she cackled with laughter and called me a prude.
She would often act in a selfless way towards my siblings and her parents, truly sacrificing her well-being to please them and serve them. Of course she complained behind their backs every step of the way, but she would jump through hoops of fire for them nonetheless.
But to me, her behaviour was entirely selfish. She couldn’t do enough to help raise my oldest brother’s children, any of my brothers children for that matter. But for my children she wanted no responsibility. She didn’t change nappies or take them out. She rarely ‘babysat’ and if she did there would be strict instructions to have them fed and bathed before we left with a strict curfew of 10pm. When my oldest son started middle school close to where she worked, she offered to come over in the mornings to help us get ready so we could leave earlier and get HER to work on time. Then she would constantly complain that I was running late, whilst drinking a coffee and being no help whatsoever. In her defence she would make them laugh, they saw her as silly and fun. But she operated on a strictly ‘no commitment’ basis and if we ever asked her to look after them there would be sighs and eye rolling. Shortly before our estrangement in 2020 my youngest brother told me I needed to rely on her less. I was so surprised and confused, as we barely saw her outside of those mornings when we took her to work. She’d become distant and secretive. Not answering calls. We had never and would never lean on her as we saw how exhausted and bitter she was from being used as a care service by certain of my brothers and her elderly parents.
3. Brags about your achievements to others but rarely ever validates you, acknowledges you or supports you emotionally
One of my brothers told me ‘Mum put you on a pedestal’ and I was so confused by this, because I only felt criticised and shamed by her. But now I understand. Bragging, telling OTHERS about my achievements was an area of expertise for her. My mother loved to take credit for my academic successes, my career highlights, my children’s achievements. She would brag on social media about ‘my baby girl did this…’ But to my face there was rarely anything but criticism. She loved to remind me of my flaws. She criticised my parenting. She LOVED to criticise me as a wife. She thought it was shameful that I didn’t iron my husband’s shirts, that I was a hopeless cook. If we argued she took my husband’s side because she didn’t see me as his equal. Remember, I’d learned from her exactly how I DIDN’T want to be. I was undoubtedly determined not to be a slave to my man and my (extremely loving, respectful and gentle) husband did not want me to be his slave. But to my mother, it was another example of my failings, my poor character. Even whilst I was receiving treatment for breast cancer during pregnancy, my mother made lengthy social media updates to her friends about my bravery and strength. But on a practical level she just came along for the ride. I remember coming out of hospital after my mastectomy, 5 weeks pregnant. My (lovely) mother in law was visiting to help look after my older son and my mother came over and she barely spoke to me. She giggled and gossiped and treated it like a social event. I was furious, sickened, so let down. But when I yelled at her, at both of them, for being so thoughtless my mother expertly turned it into an opportunity to point out my unreasonable behaviour.
4. Well liked by others but controlling or harsh behind closed doors
I was always bemused by the fact my mother seemed well liked by others. She had many friends and attracted males easily. She had a way of winning people over by smothering them with kind and thoughtful gestures whilst making them feel sorry for her by exposing how demanding and difficult her life was. She acted like these friendships or romantic relationships were a burden, a drain on her time. But as someone who struggled to make and sustain friendships I admired the way she attracted people. I was also hurt and frustrated that the public version of her, the kind, bubbly, caring version, was left at the front door. As a parent my mother was cruel, she gaslighted us, she pitted us against each other. She was spiteful and violent. Even as an adult, I was afraid of her because any minute she could meltdown at me, crying, screaming, accusing, rejecting me. I was the verbal punchbag for all the wrongs in her life and my brothers stood by on countless occasions while she broke me into pieces. I sure they were just grateful it wasn’t happening to them.
5. Makes you feel anxious and often lowers your confidence
As pathetic as it sounds, all I ever wanted was for my mother to like me and love me. I wanted us to be friends the way she was friends with my Auntie, my female cousins. The way she was friends with her work colleagues and my brothers’ girlfriends. So I tried to look after her. I constantly bought her little gifts to pamper and spoil her. My husband and I took her on holiday with us countless times. When she was away every other weekend looking after my elderly grandparents, I would go to her house and clean up after both her dog and my youngest brother who lived with her, so that she wouldn’t come home to a mess. I found her better jobs to go for as she never had enough money. I gave her endless advice about my brothers because of all the stories she’d burden me with. When Covid hit I would regularly take our sons for doorstep visits. We even decorated her driveway with colourful chalk rainbows to make her smile.
Not one of my brothers did any of these things. They were immersed in living their own lives (some of them overseas). I think they were content in the knowledge she was ‘my’ responsibility.
But the whole time I was walking on eggshells. All I had to do was look at her the wrong way. Say the wrong thing. Dare to show frustration at her endless demands. Then all hell would be unleashed. Her rages terrified me. Her tears devastated me. Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, she’d make me feel instantly responsible. And she’d make sure EVERYONE ELSE knew I was responsible too. Her angry, selfish, rude, weird daughter. She knew I had serious mental health problems and she exacerbated that with no concern for the impact on my well-being or safety. Even AFTER my Autism and Bipolar 2 diagnoses at 42, my mother showed no empathy or kindness. Instead she made it clear these neurological differences were not an excuse to behave in a way that displeased her.
My mother broke me, time and time again, she made me a nervous wreck, she made me afraid. She made me angry. She caused me to have such conflicting feelings towards her. But the hardest part was she NEVER took any responsibility for what she said to me or did to me. She refused to discuss it. It was always, absolutely my fault and she made sure everyone knew that. Apology was not in her vocabulary. I was her very own scapegoat and that was the only value I had to her.
Of course these 5 traits of Narcissistic parents are just scratching the surface, but for me they were an important discovery on my journey to heal myself. Similarly, I found this list of characteristics of Narcissist Mothers very insightful:
——————————————————————-The Life of a Scapegoat
Empowered by my research and the passing of time, it’s been easier to recognise her behaviour for what it was. Yet in the early days of our permanent separation I felt such immense guilt at walking away, such sorrow. I grieved as if bereaved. I fretted over her well-being. I missed her. I loved her. It seemed heartless to abandon her. I believed her wicked behaviour wasn’t really her fault; that her own poor upbringing was to blame.
My feelings of guilt were exacerbated by the blaming, gaslighting messages I received from other family members who needed me to continue fulfilling the role of family ‘scapegoat’. After all, I’d done it so well for so many years and they had no intention of taking over from me.
The more I heal, the more I evolve into the person I was meant to be, the more I realise that her behaviour towards me was absolutely deliberate and calculated. It was cunning, spiteful and frightening. And my siblings, my maternal grandparents, they enabled this behaviour. Whether it was blindly believing her lies and the drama she created or ignoring the abuse happening in front of their eyes. I didn’t matter enough for them to speak out on my behalf. They didn’t want to rock the boat. I was sacrificed so they could continue pretending we were a normal, happy family.
Maybe in the beginning my mother was an innocent victim. A child bullied by her mother who’d been mistreated by her mother before her ; silenced by her father who professed to love her but not quite enough to protect her from his wife; beaten by her first boyfriend and forced to marry him when she fell pregnant with me at 16. She told me her father gave her an ultimatum; marry or get rid of the baby. Is it any wonder she resented my very existence? She was forced to marry a violent and controlling man in order to keep me alive.
I have obsessed over why the childhood trauma suffered by my mother led to her evolution as a narcissist…I have wondered why I didn’t follow that same destructive path that she did, as did her mother before her. Then I stumbled across this quote by Maria Consiglio and it made so much sense.
As an Autistic female I am hyper empathic. My feelings run extremely deep and strong, my responsibility towards others often overwhelms me. I can’t bear to feel other people hurting. I even cried for the father who terrorised my childhood. I’d hear him listening to music on his headphones late at night, sobbing, usually after beating my mum and punching holes through all the doors with his fists. And my heart would ache because I knew he felt remorse, I knew he had his own hurts and fears driving his erratic, alcohol fuelled rages.
My hyper empathy was a constant burden as I grew up believing I could save people. And I so wanted to save my birth family. I wanted to make their lives better and different. I wanted to fix their problems and right their wrongs. I had this huge unshakeable sense of obligation. My empathy stopped me becoming the bitter, twisted version of a parent that my mother became. My empathy saved me but it also caused me a lot of pain.
——————————————————————The Cunning Narcissist
My mantra growing up, ‘I’m not going to be anything like THEM’. I knew in my very bones that my upbringing was wrong on so many levels. I resented and feared my father. I pitied and resented my mother for doting on the man who beat her. She pretended to put her children first but actually her priority was always the current man in her life. I vowed to be a better person and a better parent than her. I vowed to get a better education, to have financial security, to be independent, to meet someone who’d love me as an equal. I believed I could achieve these things and I believed I deserved these things. I didn’t expect anyone else to get these things for me – I knew the buck stopped with me and that suited me just fine.
It was this mantra, my determination not to be anything like THEM, that triggered the unravelling of my relationship with my mother. She thrived on being needed and in control. She encouraged co-dependence with me and my siblings. She tried to make herself indispensable whilst at the same time leaning on us heavily, a burden no child should bear. She frequently reminded us of her sacrifices on our behalf and how much we ‘owed’ her.
Starting high school was a turning point for me. Before then my whole world had been my mother and my brothers. My role was to protect her from my father and protect them from bullies at school (or so I thought).
Suddenly unburdened of my sibling load at an all girls high school, with teachers who valued and encouraged me and friends who made me feel worthwhile, I got my first taste of independence. I pictured the World I could travel in Geography. I imagined myself with the strength and dignity of the suffragettes in History. My writing skills were lauded by my English teachers and I began to imagine turning that into a career.
But my narcissist mother took no pride in my growth. Yes she spoke enthusiastically to others about my success, absorbing the spotlight of the proud mother, but at home I was increasingly criticised, judged, beaten and alienated. I was selfish for asking for time to do my homework. I was lazy if I didn’t complete all my chores. Humiliated when I began to show an interest in boys at 15. She once called a meeting with my Head of Year at high school because I didn’t want to wear my coat to school. She saw my refusal as a defiant act and tried to enlist school’s support to force me, which of course they didn’t. But I was still deeply humiliated by her behaviour and reminded how closely she controlled me and controlled the way other people saw me.
One game she would play, involved buying me small gifts to recognise my school achievements, quickly taking them back again the next day, even the same day, never to be returned. That really messed with my head. A U2 T-shirt never to be worn, a CD never to be played. I would be told I’d spoken in the wrong tone, or argued with my brothers. The irony is I was such an innocent teen compared to my peers. I didn’t try alcohol until I was 16. I never smoked. I was a straight A student. I helped run the home and look after my brothers. I was rarely allowed ‘out’ and certainly not allowed teenage friends in the home. When I got a part time job at 17 and began socialising after work, she accused me of treating her house like a hotel (a hotel where the landlady alternately beats you and ignores you).
I realise now she was panicking. The chains were unravelling. She was losing me, fast. My childish and slavish devotion had long since eroded thanks to her vicious tongue and slapping, twisting, pulling hands. Did I retaliate? Eventually yes. Absolutely. I fought back and I mimicked her spiteful and degrading comments. I was so tired of the poison pouring from her mouth and the way she was using my brothers against me.
Still children, the oldest two called me ‘the bike of St Paul’s Cray’ due to my alleged promiscuity (I’d only ever had one serious boyfriend that I was intimate with at 17). When I took the morning after pill due to failed contraception, her child-spies stole my diary and showed her. She told me I had ‘practically had an abortion and would probably never be able to have children’.
Can you imagine the shame and fear and regret that I felt? Extended family later told me that she’d gone around telling anyone and everyone that would listen that I’d ‘killed a baby’. How can this level of grotesqueness not be a hate crime? A crime made all the worse for manipulating my innocent brothers to take part in her nastiness.
I can see now that my mantra to ‘never be like THEM’ contributed to the breakdown in relationship with my brothers, too. Because I didn’t want my brothers to turn out like my parents either. I wanted us ALL to do better. And I guess that put a lot of pressure on them. I became distressed if I saw them behave badly towards their girlfriends and wives, or when they stayed in unhappy relationships that made them miserable. I got frustrated when I saw them neglect to care for themselves or mess up job opportunities. I felt sad when they pushed away loyal friends or they didn’t prioritise their children. And I grew resentful when my mother told me they were leaning on her financially (neither of my parents had money, they lived hand to mouth).
I made two big mistakes in how I reacted to their behaviour. First of all, I witnessed less than a third of this behaviour myself. Most of the information came from my mother who would give long, heartfelt speeches about all that they did wrong, swearing me to secrecy. I never stopped to question if she was telling the truth. I was so grateful she was confiding in me, talking with me woman to woman. It made me feel needed. I never knew about narcissists then, or how they drip feed you poison about the people you love to create segregation, to undermine the trust and respect in your relationships.
My second mistake was trying to tell them how to behave, how to change, when my own life was far from perfect. On one hand I had my own home, a loving relationship, a flourishing career, whilst still in my early 20’s. On the other hand I had a huge problem with binge drinking socially, I was crippled with feelings of anger and insecurity, my relationship was tarnished by a lack of trust. I was riddled with anxiety and so defensive that I pushed people away first to stop them hurting me. That tends to happen when you grow up in a state of constant fear, betrayed by the parents who are meant to love you and keep you safe.
My frustration and disappointment towards my brothers wasn’t even because they were repeating the same mistakes that our parents had. It was because I felt they were letting themselves down. It was because they were so much better than the things they were doing. But my inadequate communication skills as an undiagnosed Autistic person meant I talked at them, not to them. I never asked how they felt or why they were behaving as they were. I just clumsily dished out advice expecting them to take it!
The truth, is that I didn’t want them to be like ME. I didn’t want them to be damaged and tormented by our upbringing. I did my want them to hate themselves like I loathed myself. I didn’t want them to push it away good people who loved them like I did
because they didn’t love themselves. I wanted them to learn from my mistakes, to fast track to happiness. To bypass all the messy stuff and go straight to making good, sensible, healthy decisions.
I truly thought I could help my brothers bypass the legacy of our childhood. I thought I could change them by telling them what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do differently. But I guess they just looked at me, the outspoken critic whose own life was so disordered, and they must have thought I was crazy. They must have felt indignant. They must have felt hurt. And so my mothers poison continued to drip, drip, drip as she fed me stories and I tried to act on them without breaking her confidence. All I really achieved was to push my brothers away.
This next quote sums up the really well how my upbringing affected my ability to adult effectively. I was simultaneously the high achiever and the self saboteur. I see that now and I could see that then. That’s why I wanted my brothers to learn from my mistakes. No avoid that self destruct button that existed inside of each of us.
Another huge frustration was seeing how my parents enabled my brothers, validated their mistakes, encouraged them to blame everyone else and avoid taking responsibility themselves. They never gave constructive feedback, or tried to help my brothers change. They set them up to fail instead. They listened to them grow bitter towards their friends, their girlfriends, their wives, their employers, even towards each other.
Neither of my parents had ever owned a house, or a car. They’d never enjoyed stable romantic relationships that didn’t turn toxic. They’d never made good lifestyle choices to protect their physical or mental health. They’d never achieved financial security. Their friendships would sour, the other person being to blame. They would say terrible things about each other’s birth families, like it was some kind of competition. I guess they were incapable of being role models or coaches to their children.
My alcoholic father’s way of dealing with my brothers was to spend their money getting drunk with them, to drown their sorrows. My mother on the other hand, treated them like Kings who could do no wrong. She gave them every penny she didn’t have. She served their dinner on trays to their laps and collected the trays afterwards. She picked up their clothes off the floor. She did everything possible to stifle their independence. She ingratiated herself with their wives and girlfriends, only until those relationships started to spoil. Then she would spew bile about them – how dare they hurt her precious boys.
My parents treated my brothers the exact opposite to how they treated me. My father largely ignored me unless he needed to borrow money. Seeing him usually involved paying for him to get drunk or trying to force him to eat a home cooked meal because he prioritised beer money over food money. My mother see-sawed between pretending to be my friend whilst filling my head with stories of my brothers wrong doings; to aggressive and hysterical attacks where she would accuse me of mistreating her and tell me I was bad for her health. She would ignore me for long periods after one of her meltdowns until days, weeks or even months later, she would start talking to me as if nothing had happened. There would be no discussion, no reflection, certainly no apology. But I was so pathetic and weak and frankly grateful that I was no longer being rejected, that I slipped straight back into my role of caring for her. I was blinded by her ‘hard life’ and victim persona. That’s one thing my siblings and I all had in common, we felt sorry for our parents and how incapable they were. We all felt a crushing burden of responsibility towards them because we knew they couldn’t take care of themselves.
—————————————————————Finding Freedom:
When I first ended contact with my mother over 2 years ago now, I never anticipated that I would lose my brothers or my grandparents as a result. I never anticipated any of them would take sides, especially when I KNEW they’d seen with their own eyes how hard I’d tried to sustain my relationship with my mother. So I was both heartbroken and confused by my siblings callous disregard for my feelings, their harsh judgments and (in some cases) total and utter silence.
Looking back to that time I should have guessed that I wasn’t getting the full picture. The clue was in an awful message my grandfather sent me, telling me I should be ashamedy of my ‘despicable behaviour over the years’.
It was like a sword through my heart, the biggest shock, a terrible injustice. And for months and months all I could think was ‘what does he mean?! What despicable behaviour?!’ I may be outspoken, I may have a fiery temper, but I am a deeply loving and loyal, forgiving and supportive human being. I’ve supported myself entirely since I was 17 years old. I’ve excelled in my education and career. I have a strong and loving marriage, two amazing sons who I am raising the EXACT OPPOSITE of how I was raised. So what had I done that was so awful???
And then I started learning about narcissism.
I realised that once again, and probably for my whole adolescent and adult life, my mother had been feeding lies about me to anyone who should and could have cared about me. She chipped away at my reputation. She severed my support system.
As a teen both my Uncle and my Aunt (maternal siblings) aggressively confronted me during what I now understand were Autistic meltdowns. I was still a child, deeply vulnerable, yet she called on people I loved, people I thought were safe, to ‘come quick and see what she’s REALLY like, she’s mad, she hits herself, she’s out of control’.
What upsets me the most is that when I first learned about narcissism and wrote about it in my blog to describe the behaviour I’d been subjected to, I had no appreciation for how calculated and deliberate my mother’s campaign against me was. I still believed she couldn’t help it, I still bought into the idea of her as a damaged victim
For example, growing up I adored my brothers. We fought like all siblings do but I really loved them (even if struggled to show it). I ptook my responsibilities as a sister very seriously. I don’t think I appreciated how badly they’d been affected by our upbringing, naively thinking I’d protected them from the worst. But how could I? I was forced out of home at 16, leaving them to suffer her irrational rages and observe the string of no-good men she brought home after my father left.
She resented my closeness to my brothers, especially because her relationship with two of them in particular was deeply strained and dysfunctional. So she started to feed me information about them. Drip drip drip. A steady flow of stories and secrets. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything BUT…’
To my shame, I believed it all. Over the years she would time and again share private and sometimes damaging information about them. Sometimes I would confront my brothers over it, usually when it involved them mistreating her.
And of course they didn’t appreciate me getting involved. I was ‘interfering’. They didn’t blame HER for sharing their secrets but they blamed me for challenging their behaviour.
As I reflect back I can clearly see she was using me like a puppet to do her dirty work. One time she phoned my crying saying one of my brothers had been dumped by his girlfriend and she had thoughtlessly thrown a party in the flat they shared, posting photos on social media. ‘Imagine how hurtful and humiliating it is for him!’ she said. So of course I contacted his girlfriend (who is one of life‘s truly good, genuine, kind people) and verbally tore her head off for being so mean to my brother. Except it turned out the party had happened before the break up, in fact my brother had been there! My mother knew she couldn’t confront his girlfriend so she orchestrated for me to do it. The embarrassment and shame I felt at hurting this girl, who had only ever treated me with warmth and generosity, it was awful. Of course I begged for forgiveness and to her huge credit she forgave me. But the damage was done. Once again I was seen as the troublemaker. The aggressor.
Another time my mother told me she bumped into one of my brother’s childhood sweethearts whilst camping. Apparently his ex wanted him to get in touch about his teenage daughter that he hadn’t seen since she was a baby. ‘You must talk to him Liz! I can’t do it. He just gets angry with me!’ And just like a good little puppet I set the ball rolling. I contacted his ex to check it if she did indeed want to hear from my brother. Then I met up with my brother to ask him to make contact. All the while naively believing I was acting for the greater good. Reuniting father and daughter after so many lost years. I desperately wanted him to be pleased, to thank me.
But instead I was berated. I was interfering. It was none of my business. Our relationship was never the same after that. The brother I’d had over for sleepovers as a child, who I’d supported through break ups, who I’d helped secure employment on several occasions, who I’d partied with, laughed with, cried with, who told me I was his best friend and the best sister ever….he withdrew from me after that. We still saw each other but there was a gaping distance, a coldness, he blamed me. And my mother must have been so very delighted.
In the last few years leading up to my estrangement from my birth family, I started to not trust my mother. Her stories and secrets became more fantastical. I started to recognise a pattern – she would feed me information, I would act on it, I would end up looking like the bad guy.
Now I didn’t always act on it…but I allowed it to affect how I viewed my siblings and extended family. Often her stories involved her being wronged in some way and I would feel injured on her behalf. Whether she was aggrieved by her parents, her siblings, her friends or of course my brothers and their partners – the theme was the same. They were taking advantage of her. I’m sure there was some truth in all of these situations, but how much truth versus lies I’ll never know. Regardless it influenced how I felt about the rest of my family. It affected how much I trusted them and how much I respected them.
Gradually, in the months leading up to our estrangement, her secrets and stories got darker. The things she told me about my brothers were deeply personal and distressing. I became scared and sad. I tried to undo what I’d heard by making light of it. My gut instinct was that these allegations were dangerous and I COULD NOT GET INVOLVED. I knew the things she was telling me could really hurt people and I didn’t trust her motivation for telling me.
At the same time I sensed some family members treating me differently. My youngest brother asked me to ‘not lean on on mum so much for childcare’ and I was shocked and confused as we barely saw her despite living around the corner. My grandfather seemed ‘off’ when I visited but I had no idea why. My sister in law who was juggling life with a new baby seemed upset with me.
So I asked my mum, knowing how easily she slandered my brothers ‘what’s going on Mum? Do you know why they’re acting like this? Have you said anything about me?’ And she replied, ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t want to hurt you, you should trust me. I’m the only person you should trust’.
I’ll say it again, how is narcissism not a crime? How could this woman I called mother be allowed to torment and torture me like this? A mother who knew I was a vulnerable Autistic, who knew I was medicated for Bipolar 2 disorder. Who knew since I was a child how fragile my mental health was.
Even in the final hours of our relationship she sent my husband pleading messages to ‘See sense. Be brave. She’s in crisis. She needs help’! She tried to use my mental health as a weapon against me. She tried to use all the insecurities and problems my husband had confided in her about our relationship when I was at my most vulnerable, most hurting.
Fortunately my husband is a strong, brave, man. He saw through her facade and stood up to her which triggered a barrage of abuse from my brother, her golden child.
My husband feels violated now, by the way she managed to get into his head, make him feel she was a trusted confidant, a safe place. One time he confided an especially heated and emotional argument to her, when I was in a deep depression and drowning in paranoia. He didn’t understand about Autism then, or Bipolar. He just saw a very complicated woman that he loved but couldn’t understand. And he told my mother that I lashed out, which I did. How she must have rubbed her hands with glee then. And over the coming months 3 or 4 extended family members asked me about my ‘violence towards my husband’.
Can you imagine how I felt? I am a child who was terrorised and beaten on a regular basis. I grew up trusting no one and being hurt by everyone in my so called ‘family’. I loathe violence. But I have used violence as self defence; I have used violence against myself in moments of utter desperation and emotional overload; and I have used violence on a handful of occasions in the heat of the moments towards my beautiful husband who did not deserve it, but who will admit that in the absence of my diagnoses and out of pure frustration he would antagonise and shame me for my explosive emotional meltdowns because he didn’t understand me. We have grown from this, we have moved so far forward. But to my mother, this was just one more stone to throw.
So here I am. 2 years and 2 months post estrangement and I can finally see my mothers cruelty for what it was. A series of planned and intentional acts to punish me for being different to her. To punish me for pursuing independence. To punish me for being braver and kinder than her. To punish me for refusing to be the scapegoat anymore. Every action she took was designed to destabilise me and prevent me from having secure relationships with other members of my family. She tried to completely isolate me and trick me into believing that she was the one person I could trust.
Do I hate her? Yes I do. Does a part of me still love her? No, not anymore. This woman who deliberately harmed me, who painted herself as a benign victim, who has never once apologised nor tried to explain or justify her actions, she is not my Mother. She lost that right at the same time as she lost the right to be a grandma to my sons.
My advice for anyone affected by a narcissist or narcissistic behaviour, is to get the hell out of there. Save yourself. They will not change. They won’t apologise. I would have forgiven my mother everything if she’d had the courage to say sorry, if she’d committed to act differently. But her reaction to my ending contact was to rally the rest of the family against me, to reel in my siblings and grandparents with her lies because SHE WAS TERRIFIED OF THE TRUTH getting out.
So here’s the truth. Or at least a snapshot of it. I could write a book with all the material I have burned into my memories. Maybe that’s what I’ll do eventually. I’ve spent hours wondering whether to publish this blog or not. Afraid I’d be attacked by my ex-family for speaking out and revealing my mother’s true form. Then I remembered, I don’t write for THEM. This is none of their business. If they feel anything other than shame at the way they’ve treated me then they are not worth remembering anyway.
I write for ME and anybody like me who has struggled with poor mental health at the hands of a narcissistic parent.
I was born Autistic, but I wasn’t born with Bipolar, with anxiety, with OCD with symptoms of PTSD. I have both my parents to thank for that.
We all have our own trauma. We all make mistakes. But to manipulate, coerce, lie, trick and sabotage another human, especially your own child, is truly unforgivable. I will cry no more tears for my mother. I will have no more regrets. I will live my best life with my husband and the family we created and I will be FREE.
Hell is a crowd of exceptionally loud drunk men clutching beer bottles on the 5pm train. They wear a uniform of (almost) matching shorts, polo shirts and cardigans draped round their shoulders; boat shoes without socks. They all talk at once, competing for attention; maniac laughter.
I picture grabbing a samurai sword like Mishone in The Walking Dead and silencing them. Ah intrusive thoughts – a gift from my OCD.
Their shouting vibrates in my chest and makes it hard to breath. I look into the faces of the people sitting around me. Impassive. If they are experiencing what I am, how are they hiding it so well? One comment ‘knee deep in rape’ makes me stand up in disgust, ready to challenge them. But I know my hearing can be unreliable and my interpretation too literal. So I sit down and breathe through it.
Their communal stench of beer, aftershave and cigarettes makes me want to scream. It floods my nose until I can taste it.
Sensory overload – fireworks flash in my head and my chest filling me with panic
This is the first train I’ve travelled on in maybe 2 years. It shouldn’t be this torturous, this intimidating.
It took all my willpower not to have a meltdown. A meltdown that would have burst open my verbal floodgates and seen me lecturing the lot of them on Autism and respect for other peoples differences. No doubt I’d have been labelled a nutter. It’s a fair label.
My husband and I joke that I don’t like humans. But it’s not really a joke.
I like children – playing eye spy on the train this morning with a melting down toddler whose mum needed a break was a highlight in my day. I understand children and they understand me.
I also like animals.
I like lovers of nature.
People who care about the planet.
I like people who understand Autism, who embrace our differences without judgement.
Passionate people who stand up for what they believe in – I like them.
The booming clamour of voices over voices starts to ease as we pull into a station and the badly dressed loud mouths disembark taking their stinky stench with them. I feel the oppression lift and my anger subside.
The irony is, I used to be one of those loud, obnoxious drunks on a train. Before my Autism diagnosis I was a regular social drinker, wearing my vodka jacket like a shield against stranger danger. I had a lot of fun in those alcohol fuelled years but also a lot of arguments, hangovers and mental health problems.
It’s almost 3 years since I stopped drinking, slowly cutting down to zero and I feel amazing for it. I feel calmer, happier, more authentic. But there are times when my sensory processing differences make living sober feel hard.
The men are gone now. And I don’t need a vodka jacket to block them out. I can write to offload my feelings; I can walk on the beach at low tide collecting shells; I can stand in my nightie in the rain collecting snails off of my beautiful plants and relocating them to the park. I can hide in the Snug at home and just. be. silent.
I have a whole toolkit of ways to manage my sensory needs now. I choose a lifestyle that helps keep me well. I avoid the things that trigger me. I am protective of my space and time.
But sometimes I find myself in a crowded place, somewhere too noisy, or too hot, too messy, too encroaching on my space. In those moments my strategies go out the window and anxiety rolls over me in angry waves.
If you’re neurodivergent like me, maybe what I’m describing sounds familiar. If you’re neurotypical, you might be moving seats on the train because the angry woman deep breathing and clenching her fists is freaking you out!
Regardless, you could help. Open a window to let some air in. Offer to swap seats. Start a conversation – empathise. Tell the loud, stinky men to shut the hell up!
Sensory overwhelm is not a choice, we don’t want to feel like this. It’s not stupid or immature or a lack of control. It’s not over reacting. If you help us remove or reduce the sensory triggers, you will set us back on the path to calm and balance. You may even restore this cranky old Autistic person’s faith in humans and save me from getting my samurai sword out!!
Alone time and the great outdoors – these are my recipe for a calm mind.
I envy people who have close and loving relationships with their mothers. I even envy people who are bereaved and mourning the loss of the mum they loved and were loved by. They have known maternal love. I didn’t. I don’t.
My mum and I are estranged. I grieve for her, yet she is alive, She is earthly but out of reach. She lives around the corner, yet I haven’t seen her for almost two years.
My mum loved me once, but it was a jealous and fickle love. It required me to be the humble servant; obedient, compliant. Never questioning her actions. Constantly judged for being different to her.
I grew up in a permanent state of afraid, a bystander to her destructive yet intoxicating relationship with my dad. I looked at my parents and knew exactly who I didn’t want to be. What was worse? The physical beatings or the spiteful name calling? The love withheld or the shame and self loathing she caused me to feel about my teenage body, my sexual feelings?
My adolescence was overshadowed by the weight of responsibility for her and my brothers. I was an expert in picking up the pieces. No matter how much they took advantage of me, I loved them completely. I thought they loved me too.
But I made a terrible mistake apparently, because I wouldn’t accept my Lot. I wouldn’t be quiet. I wanted to know who I am, I needed to understand myself. I wanted to be a better version of me and so I expected them to be better version of themselves.
‘Don’t punish your wife for your affairs’ ‘Don’t abandon your children, don’t take their home’ ‘Be a Dad to your long lost daughter’ ‘Stop bullying your wife’ ‘Don’t take money from Mum that she hasn’t got’
It turned out they didn’t like being asked to look in the mirror. It turned out that my well intentioned pleading to be better than, more than…just made them resent me. How crushing it was to watch them repeat the mistakes of our parents, and worse.
So I went on my own journey… I discovered my true self. I live well with my mental health issues, I live well without alcohol and without the false intimacy it brings. I embrace my identity as an Autistic person. I do a job that I love for little money because it means I can help others like me. I have the most wonderful husband and two uniquely gorgeous, special sons who love and accept me for ME.
It turns out I am an absolute Rockstar of a Mum!!!
But all this came at a price. I had to estrange from my Mum. She was hurting me so much, so badly, it made my head want to explode. She made me want to hurt myself. She lied to me, She lied about me, again and again.
I didn’t want to say goodbye. I just wanted her to STOP. To LISTEN. To SEE all the sadness and fear she’d caused me. I wanted her to CHANGE. To say SORRY. To be a Mum. To be my friend. I loved her so very much. I wanted her to love me back so that I could stop feeling angry at her, so I could stop fearing her next rejection. I wanted her to be a Nanny to my boys.
But she refused to talk. She chose to punish me instead. She built a wall of silence and used my brothers as bricks and mortar. She concocted elaborate lies about me to drive a wedge because me, my siblings, my grandparents. What a shock it was to realise how fragile and shallow our relationships were, how little I was valued by my birth family. How easy it was for them to discard me once I stopped playing the role of caretaker.
It’s been almost two years that we’ve been apart. She has reached out once. A message to declare her love and share confusion about why we are in this ‘situation’. That message set me back weeks. I cried an ocean. How can she not understand? How can she not apologise? She birthed me and yet I am invisible to her, my needs, my truth, just a fantasy in her mind.
But here I am. Against all the odds. A much loved Mummy to my children, my World. My children are cherished, respected and nurtured. My children have a devoted Daddy; a playmate, a provider, their rock. My children are safe. My children are involved in decisions that affect them. My children laugh a LOT. My children are loved UNCONDITIONALLY. My children are their own people. They are not my possessions. My children will follow their hopes and dreams because we will show them how.
You don’t need a Mother’s love to be a good Mother. But I’ll always miss not having a Mother’s love.
I have a confession. Sometimes things get on top of me and I feel sorry for myself. I think ‘why me?’ ‘It’s not fair’.
This doesn’t happen often because I AM NOT A VICTIM. I refuse to see myself as that.
In my late teens, experiencing my first romantic relationships, I confided my horrible upbringing, the violence I both witnessed and was subjected to by my parents. But I didn’t want pity. I saw myself as a SURVIVOR. I saw myself as strong. I did well at school. I earned my own money. I had friends I loved and trusted. I wore my past like a medal, proof I made it out ok.
What I didn’t appreciate at the time was how badly my upbringing had affected me. The constant judgement and rejection. The conditional love of a mother who both needed and resented me. Living each day with fear somersaulting in my belly. The weight of responsibility I felt towards my siblings. The strange mix of loathing and pity I felt towards my father.
These things didn’t make me a survivor. They made me angry, so angry. I wore an invisible suit of armour but I didn’t realise it. I scared people, I pushed them away before they could hurt me. I had one female school friend who I knew I could genuinely trust, and school teachers who gave me more security and validation than my parents ever did. But for the most part I was entirely alone, lost in the chaos of my own head.
So yeah, these things didn’t make me a survivor. They made me VULNERABLE.
I escape the chaos by connecting with nature
Since my Autism diagnosis at 42, I have read, watched, listened to and discussed everything I possibly can about Autism. I’ve worked so hard to marry up my lived experienced with current research and best practice because it has allowed me to know myself in a way I never did before.
Imagine at 42, after a lifetime questioning who and why you are, knowing you are different, being told you are inadequate. Imagine suddenly being giving the rule book to your brain, the instruction manual. That’s what it was like for me. It was bloody brilliant!!
Suddenly everything from my past and present made sense, I wasn’t mad, bad, weird, horrible, difficult, selfish….I was just a different type of human being, who experienced the world through a different lens. And that was ok. Sweet relief it was ok. I had permission to make choices and lifestyle changes that protected my mental and physical health. I started to accept myself. Even like myself.
Of course there were those (ignorant, arrogant, blinkered souls) who viewed my Autism as an excuse, an inconvenience, something I needed to change about myself.
Discovering treasures; the blinkered will only see untidy seaweed and will lecture about germs!
But the people that mattered, that bothered to really know me and love me; they made the effort to understand my world and the world of my sons. We grew stronger and closer.
Yet still, I was vulnerable. I have been plagued with mental health issues my whole life culminating in my Bipolar 2 diagnosis four years ago. That suit of armour I wore turned out to be paper thin, easily torn, dissolved to pulp by rain. I break so easily. Even with almost a year of trauma therapy and psychiatric medication I was scarily vulnerable to the judgement of others. And I needed to know why. I couldn’t just accept that this was my lot. And I especially didn’t want my sons to struggle with their mental health like I have.
So I did what I do best and I researched and researched and researched some more. And I came across some work by Autistica, the UK’s leading Autism research charity. They have been looking at why Autistic people are so much more vulnerable to mental health issues.
Now I already knew that my Autistic neurology predisposed me to poor mental health. In fact 80% Autistic adults experience mental health issues versus 25% of the general population. But I couldn’t accept the idea that my neurology was to blame.
What the research also showed is that Autistic people suffer more negative life events. My reaction? ‘Tell me about it!!!’ Seriously, anyone who looked at my life on paper would probably say ‘wow, she’s been pretty unlucky!!’ But it’s easy to focus on the negatives and I’m not a negative person, so I decided to compare my good life events with the bad…
Positive AND negative life events make us who we are
What’s interesting is that a medical professional would consider me an Autistic with ‘good outcomes’. This is because I tick many of the boxes of neurotypical expectations for success. In a stable relationship? Tick. Employed? Tick. Children? Tick. Home owner? Tick.
But then you look at the negative life events and you start to see why my armour is so thin. Why I break so easily. Abusive childhood. Bullied at school. Divorced. Losing our sweet first son Pablo. Chronic diseases- breast cancer and blood clotting disorder. Estrangement from my birth family.
These things would be tough for any person to experience but especially tough for a sensitive and highly vulnerable Autistic person who grew up in a hostile and unsafe environment.
Armed with this information I started to explore the relationship between my differently wired brain and the negative life events I had experienced. And what I learned was so powerful.
You see the cognitive and sensory differences of the Autistic brain don’t CAUSE poor mental health. But these differences coupled with negative life events form a dangerous cocktail. Together these things DO lead to mental health issues.
Is it our fault that we are more vulnerable to negative life events?
Not sure if this black backed Gull would see the soaking as a negative life event, but he certainly held his ground when the others didn’t!
NO IT IS NOT! But we experience these events MORE INTENSELY.
We find it HARDER TO COPE and HARDER TO RECOVER.
We BLAME OURSELVES because so often we are told it’s our fault for not coping better.
How many times have you told another human…?
Pull yourself together!
Move on!
Get over it!
Or maybe you’ve said:
Stop crying!
You’re so sensitive!
You need to change!
I’m not judging by the way. Im sure I’ve made similar unhelpful comments when weary and frustrated. The problem is, to an Autistic person this type of commentary only serves to undermine our self esteem; it tells us that our NATURAL REACTIONS ARE WRONG. That our feelings are wrong. That who we are, is wrong.
What is happening in these situations is INVALIDATION. Invalidation creates trauma. Invalidation is the breeding ground for early mental health issues. Invalidation drives Autistic masking. It makes us say yes when we mean no. It makes us constantly apologise (I am always saying sorry!) It makes us beat ourselves up for not meeting our own impossible standards.
The worrying thing is, invalidation isn’t always deliberate. Whilst it is the tool of the bully and the manipulator, it can also be done without meaning to. Because you are tired or frustrated. You want a quick solution. An end to the drama. You want the Autistic person in your life to cope better, to fit in. You think you can talk them into being more ‘normal’. Yet all you’re doing is showing them that their differences are bad, that they’re not good enough.
This Deer on a recent nature walk reminded me of me! Easily startled and lots to say for themselves…
I could go on and on but I keep reminding myself this is a blog not a book and in subsequent posts I promise to explore:
⁃ which of our cognitive and sensory differences make us more vulnerable and why
⁃ how to improve our resilience and coping strategies by understanding these cognitive and sensory differences better
⁃ Exploring tools that can help us grow and improve the skills we have in these areas
What I want you to take away from todays writing is this…
Our differently wired brains (cognitive and sensory differences) PLUS negative life events = poor mental health
Negative life events PLUS invalidation (deliberate or not) = poor mental health
But poor mental health is NOT a given. It won’t happen to every Autistic person. It doesn’t NEED to happen to the 80% as the statistics suggest.
Instead of thinking ‘How can I protect my Autistic relatives’ mental health?’ think ‘How can I help them pursue emotional well-being?’ Let that become your mantra.
⁃ Protect them from the invalidation of others.
⁃ Advocate for adjustments that meet their cognitive and sensory needs.
⁃ Support them through negative life events gently and at their own pace.
⁃ Learn what makes them feel good about themselves, and do it! This is usually linked to their special interests.
For me, when I start to feel overloaded, when I start to feel sorry for myself, I get out in the fresh air, amongst nature, and I look for the small things. The details. The proof of magic. Recently my husband and I had a rare afternoon off from parenting and despite the freezing winds, he agreed to take me beach combing.
Another happy nature walk where we spotted this noble Stag and I rebalanced my busy brain.
I photographed seagulls being battered by the waves. I rummaged through seaweed to uncover a piece of coral, a dried up jellyfish, a sea worn piece of driftwood. The pinks and blues on the inside of a crab shell. My husband and I held hands as we walked along. These are the small things that ground me. That bring me back to feeling calm and safe.
In years gone by we’d have sat on the beach with a bottle of vodka and some takeaway noodles, chatting and giggling. These are happy memories. And this would cheer up. But I’d feel terrible the next day, hungover. And we’d be bickering a few days later, the alcohol impacting our mood and our sleep.
The way I cope now is much calmer and kinder on both of us. It suits my needs as an Autistic person. We still chat and giggle but I’m a cheaper and less volatile date!
I am on a lifelong mission to achieve and sustain emotional well-being. This is just the start. See you for my next blog post 🙂
I was overjoyed to spot these wild pigs sleeping snout to snout at the weekend. They reminded me that sleep is so important for emotional well-being!
This is for the child I was, the adolescent, the young adult, the wife and mum I am…for all the abuse, manipulation and lies I was subjected to…
It’s been 18 months since I went ‘no contact’ with my mum and 18 months since my brothers and grandparents abandoned me for daring to question the multi generational abuse that was accepted and hidden in our so called ‘family’.
Even after years of counselling including 11 months of trauma therapy, the consequences of the abuse I suffered are far reaching. Unlike the lady who wrote the article linked below, I don’t take abuse anymore. I speak up if people hurt me and I advocate for myself fiercely. Sometimes that scares people; I hope they remember my back story and don’t take it personally.
For the child I was, the adolescent, the young adult, the wife and mum I am…
I love you I’m proud of you You are wonderfully neurodiverse You are bonkers Bipolar You are 2 years, 4 months sober You are brave and strong You are totally bad ass You are honest and real You have the biggest heart You have the best husband and children You have 2 awesome but stinky cats You are the future You are happy You are safe You are free
I have always loved Christmas and this one will be particularly special – our last in our current home. So I will bathe in the smiles of our beautiful boys, enjoy the twinkly lights, the presents, the Christmas movies, the ton of food and I will look to 2022 and our new beginnings.
It’s time to live the life I’ve always deserved. Are you living yours?
My recent blog post ‘The Art of Being Different’ explores my frustration at being judged and misunderstood for simply trying to be my true and authentic self, an Autistic female with a pick and mix of mental health problems and a heart marked ‘fragile – easily broken’.
This morning my husband sent me a link to a song and said ‘this could have been written about you!’
Now my husband is not one for grand gestures, nor is he expressive with his feelings. And over the last 18 years, despite the fact I love the bones of him, I’ve told him I want to leave him many times out of sheer frustration that our brains are so different. Lucky for me, he’s not a quitter!
So today I listened to the song he sent me, then I listened again. And I must admit (because I’m Autistic and the meaning of words can confuse me) I had to ask my husband ‘what do you mean, why is it about me?’
And he explained that I have a low opinion of myself, but that’s not how he sees me. And he explained that he understands I just want to be accepted (weirdness and all) rather than forced to be ‘normal’.
Then I felt a sparkly star burst of love for my husband because the song is his way of saying ‘I love you. I see you. I get you’. That means the World to me.
The song is by Fred, again. It’s called ‘Dermot (see yourself in my eyes)’.
If you love someone who has a different type of brain, go have a listen. The best gift you can ever give them is the freedom to be themselves, to make their own rules and to shine in their own unique way.
‘’And if only you could see yourself in my eyes You’d see you shine, you shine’’
“Fall in love with someone that enjoys your weirdness Not someone that tries to talk you into being normal”
Thanks to @fredagainagainagainagainagain for fab lyrics and an amazing song.
You do you, I’ll do me. That’s how it’s supposed to be…
I saw this image this morning and it resonated so strongly I had to share.
So often I’ve seen quotes and memes emphasising that Autistic people are ‘Different not Less’. Which of course is true and correct but that is rarely how we are treated in real life.
A Different Neurology
Most people are born with the typical brain you would expect to see in a human being. They have typical developmental, intellectual and cognitive abilities. Many (most) refer to this as ‘normal’. Normal, grinds my gears. There can be no normal if we are committed to diversity and inclusion.
Autistic children and adults are under constant pressure to behave like the neurotypical (or NT) majority, to appear ‘normal’. We are expected to adapt, conform, follow social rules and standards that AREN’T our rules.
The NT majority for whatever reason, think their way is the right way and not meeting their expectations means we are labelled as difficult, rude, bad, mad, uncooperative and over the top.
Even those neurotypical individuals who are well educated about Autism, and have good intentions, are disappointed and frustrated by our behaviour because it doesn’t match how they think people ‘should’ behave.
Spot the Difference
Don’t get me wrong, most of the people I know, love and respect are neurotypical. It’s rare that NT’s are deliberately dismissive and cruel. But very few truly understand and respect the neurological differences of the Autistic community. And that is so, so hard to live with on a day to day basis.
I’ve lived my whole life being told the way I feel is wrong, my emotions are wrong, my reactions are wrong. Not only is this exhausting but as someone with lifelong mental health challenges and a Bipolar 2 diagnosis, it is soul destroying. It means I struggle to trust people, rarely feel accepted or that I belong and am under real pressure to mask, pretend, and ‘fake’ my behaviour to please others.
Equity not Equality
Equity – giving each individual what they need to flourish.
There is so much talk of equality, equal rights. But equality means everyone is treated the exact same way, regardless of their needs or differences.
What Autistic people need and deserve is equity. Equity means each individual is given what they personally need to succeed. For example, equality would be all offering all children a place in school. Equity would mean ensuring each child is given a school place where the environment and style of learning can be adapted to meet their individual needs.
D is for Discrimination
Think about this. If Autistic people were seen as a different culture, our customs and practices would be studied and respected.
Yet we are constantly discriminated against, often worse than any other minority group. The vile hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community is at least spoken about in the media, there is a good level of social awareness. But people with Autism and especially Autism and learning disabilities, are openly treated as ‘less than’ and our access to a suitable education, work and healthcare is severely restricted.
The medical profession classifies us as disabled, yet we receive few if any concessions or assistance like a physically disabled person would.
In my work as an Autism trainer I consistently find that my lived experience of Autism and professional expertise as a trainer are hugely valued and welcomed. However, my Autistic behaviours and ways of working can frustrate the people I work with. My obsessive attention to detail, need for control and struggle with ambiguity mean I ask a lot of questions, need a lot of context and am very opinionated. I often feel like other professionals want me to be an Autistic person ONLY when I’m designing and delivering training and a neurotypical person in all other aspects of the job!
Unconscious Bias
Our Autistic brains are different to the typical human brain but you can’t see our differences. We look just like you. So even when you are told we are wired differently, your brains unconscious bias revolts against the way we think, feel and act.
You tell yourself you understand, that you are making concessions for us, flexing your rules; but if you do so with resentment in your heart, then you are still guilty of discrimination.
We will never feel safe or trust you nor will we feel accepted if you can’t let go of the idea that your way is the right way. Because it isn’t. Your way if ONE way. Not the only way.
The overwhelming judgment for being different makes us feel insignificant and lost.
A Different Future
I doubt things will change significantly in my lifetime and my hurts, the rejections, the judgements, the burden of being misunderstood, is tattooed all over me now like scars. But my hope and focus is that my sons will have a different experience to me. I am raising them to understand their neurology, the good and the not so good. I am teaching them to advocate for themselves. I am showing them how to look after their mental health and make lifestyle choices that will protect them from emotional and sensory overload. I am teaching them they are different, NOT less, and to educate or ignore people who judge them. I am celebrating their uniqueness, their strengths and their passions every day so they never have to feel the way I’ve been made to feel.
A future with the freedom to follow your own path
What Part will you Play?
You can play a part in this change by educating yourself on Autism and Neurodiversity. You can teach your brain and open your heart to embrace our differences and squash your unconscious bias. I’m not saying it will be easy. I can see why neurotypical people think we are awkward, difficult and frustrating. I have a very patient, loving, (sometimes infuriating!) neurotypical husband who has experienced more than his fair share of stress trying to understand me and our children. We are raising two very different but equally strong willed Autistic sons together, who make us cry, pull our hair out, laugh our heads off and burst with joy in equal measure. Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. Add two different neurotypes into the mix and of course it is harder, because different minds don’t think alike!
I don’t think there’s a magic formula and I don’t think it’s a one way street. One of the things I’m teaching my sons is about social rules and expectations because I want them to integrate in society and appreciate the typical customs of others. I also see how hard it’s been for my husband trying to understand my neurology when he has been brought up to believe there is a ‘normal’ and a right way for people to behave.
What I do know is there can be no normal in an inclusive society. That there is more than one way, no right way. And that no one has the right to judge the correctness of another persons thoughts or feelings. My brain and my heart belong to me as does yours to you. But TOGETHER, we could achieve truly amazing things…
My AMAZING family using our hearts and minds to work together and achieve wonderful things xxx