I need a holiday from my holiday

[Suzette]

First, I want to say Thank You (and you, and you too) for this forum. I came here, after having done a self assessment test, just wanting to know more and if I fit in. I do think I fit and I am awed by that.

I've been very lucky as I have had some disclosure with most of my family. They all behaved as I predicted they might but no rejection. This is yet another huge first for me as my mother is very conventional and ridgid in her thinking is ususlly the first to question anything I tell her. We do not usually have a close relationship. It was not advised to tell her anything about my self asessment at all. But, I have this perverse need to just be as I am with her, and I have always told her things I should have kept to myself! Any way, my mother was surprisingly accepting. She did ask me questions but without the patina of judgement or midplaced authority. Now the real trick, to my mind, will be to stop judging her. Stay tuned on that one, I am trying!

Anyway, I am here at my mothers house for a three month vacation from the heat of Mexico. It is not my childhood home but the chotzskies and routines remain the same.
The hard part of all of this is the seemingly endless parade of visitors, outings and the never ending commentary on T.V. shows as I meet my daughter obligations.

And my son. He quit his job just after we arrived and has spent nearly all day, every day here. I love him. We are usually not able to talk often. I do so want to hear what he has to say. But he is a chatter box.

I have been in the habit for quite some time of getting up about 3 a.m. to find a couple of hours where I can just be, by myself. My husband is completely simpatico with my usual routines and habits, but even still, there is little time for me to present "naked" except those early morning hours.

Right now though, I have escaped into the back yard to think about this idea of being on the spectrum. I am not sure if anything really changes, in a mechanical way, in my life. What has changed is how I think about myself. Like others on this forum my main parental unit was ill equiped to be a good parental unit. I've spent a good deal of my life believing a lintany of misplaced accusations and a certain knowledge that I was just too flawed and "hard to love".

And then I found out the truth. I am normal. Right now I am a little maudlin as befits my energy level, but I am not "mellow dramatic" thank you very much!

I think I had better stop here or I will start singing "Eye of the Tiger". (I really have no idea why that came to mind)

Saludos!

 

[Aspychata]

Welcome again to the tribe. Tattoos are optional.

Alone time is critical to our kind. We need to recharge and process stuff/emotions we keep trying to bury in the back yard. I swear, sometimes, things hit me two days later.

 

[Crossbreed]

First, I want to say Thank You (and you, and you too) for this forum.

(I'm feeling a little bit left out...)

 

[Suzette]

(I'm feeling a little bit left out...)

Aw shucks! My house is large. Everyone is welcome

 

[unperson]

I often wake around 3 am and do stuff for a while, it's nice and quiet.

 

[DK’s_Ghost]

Yes. Family visits are really exhausting for me and I avoid them wherever possible - not least because my mum is infuriating, sometimes. The last time I visited our family home (when my mum and dad were still together), she decided to start just yelling my name across the house and refusing to respond to my ‘what?’ replies. So I would go to her and she wouldn’t want anything specific. Grrr.

This would have been marginally less annoying if I hadn’t been trying to write an essay for my actual degree.

… and my family doesn’t even really do social time and visitors. They’re exhausting enough on their own!

I avoid visiting other people’s families like the plague, too. My partner has a standing ‘no’ to invitations to visit his parents with him, for various reasons - not the least of them being their religious limitations on our sharing a room and their habit of going to church on Sunday. Organised religion has been on my naughty list since I was ten - when I realised that it was manipulative and illogical. So, nope to all of that.

Urgh. Just thinking about family visits makes me want to curl up and hide in a cupboard.

 

[Suzette]

@DKs_Ghost

The yelling thing drives me flipping mad. This is not just weird rudeness, in my opinion. Others use this, subconsciously or not, as control. They get YOU to do their bidding, thereby slways keeping you in a subservient position. Simply refuse to play that game. Don't ask "what?", don't get up. Let the other one get annoyed. If what they have to say is important, they will come find you, or wait until you are seen. Ah hmm...I have too much experience with this I think. (lifetime family groveler)

Anyway, when I met my husband I told him (not randomly) "If one has something to say and expect to be heard, it is ones responsibility to makes onesself understood" I am pretty sure my grammar was not correct or as formal though.
Anyway, I try very hard to live by this rule but I often fail. But it is a goal!

 

[DK’s_Ghost]

Pretty much. I informed her that I’d be ignoring her from then on, unless she specified what she wanted or came to me.

Just one example of the myriad ways my family manage to annoy me. I mostly ignore them now - not least because I’m now wearing noise cancelling headphones at all times, and every time I see my mum she says ‘what are those?’ and starts asking nosy, hectoring questions. Thing is, I’d tell her… if I had any experience of her actually listening to me or respecting my opinion about myself. *shrug*

Families, huh? Who’d have them?

 

[watersprite]

Sometimes heading home is such a relief. An oldie but goodie: