@actuallyautistic To those who do not (!) have children: Is family important to you? I can not say that my family has mistreated me in any way or not accepted me the way I am, and yet I am drifting away further and further every year. I think I haven't seen any of them in, like, 7 years? I think I just don't like spending time with humans, related or not? 🫥
@snoopy_jay@actuallyautistic my mother is abusive and my dad died when I was a young teen so my experience is coloured by that. I'm not close to them, no. It took me a very long time to get out of and away from the abuse.
But even for non abusive family members, we have nothing in common, we have never been close, I don't "get" it and tbh, the more I see other families the more I think this "family first" stuff is utter BS.
Family are the people who show up for you, genetics means nothing.
@alexisbushnell@snoopy_jay@actuallyautistic I'm used to the queer "chosen family" stuff because I was 18 in the 1980's where AIDS was ripping communities part and having chosen family around kept people alive.
In retrospect I've spent a lot of time and effort looking for "people like me" and it's fucking weird finding it. I'm grateful, and think "kids today" are so fucking lucky not to have the filters that I somehow survived. Let's not put those back.
I think that people weighed down with low self esteem are more at risk of projecting their issues onto others like them & despising those people, with the potential for abuse if they don’t take responsibility for their own behaviour.
In some families, respect & compassion are the norm.
Most families & the individuals in them are somewhere in-between. Negotiating the boundaries is difficult, but worthwhile if healthy relationships can be established, because people with similar issues & backgrounds have the potential for greater understanding .
@snoopy_jay@actuallyautistic
In most cases, we are brought up with this notion of how important family is. That family is everything, that they will always have your back and want the best for you. That they will always be there for you and how important they are. It is pushed relentlessly onto us from as early an age as possible and yet the ideal of it, isn't always something that bares any scrutiny, let alone any sort of close one.
As autistics, we tend to absorb this sort of message without really questioning it and as a consequence, sometimes feel a very real pressure and obligation to our families and feel quite guilty when we fail by our own expectations to be as active as we think we should be, or as involved.
But as autistic's we also tend to have a real problem with doing things that hold little, or no interest for us. If the family dynamic is overwhelmingly neurotypical, if so many of the dramas and issues are things that you don't even understand, let alone feel any connection to, then being really involved becomes difficult, if not impossible.
Also and perhaps something that we often fail to think about. Your family could very well include people who, as much as you may love them, aren't actually the sort of people you would choose to spend time with, if they weren't family,
So is it any wonder that many of us, even without the addition of trauma, or abuse, often find it so hard to family.
@snoopy_jay For what it’s worth, it’s ok to not want to spend time with people, or family, specifically. It’s only if it bothers you or causes issues for you that it’s a problem. Everyone does things differently, but media messages always paint perfect pictures of families. Not sure how many of those exist.
No kids, and I do want to be with my family but it’s complicated. They’re all likely ND but not identified, all traumatised. I just want to ‘be’ but I’m expected to mask heavily and perfectly in every area and level of my life. I feel hated for the fact I don’t conform, but I literally can’t. I could do it before but then got a chronic illness in my 20s which broke all that. I’m trying to accept their choices to mask etc though, not try to change them. Hoping to cultivate mutual respect and support even though our values probably differ greatly.
So I see them in measured doses. I want to see the youngest generation much more and watch them grow up, but I accept how things are. Taken a long time to get to this more ‘peaceful’ place. Not always literally peaceful, but I am ‘at peace’ with how it is, if that makes sense.
@AnAutieAtUni I know, I just don't have good interoception so I can't even say if it feels good or bad to me. I heard this phrase "family is important to me" and now I am trying to figure out if family is important to me. I just don't know. And how much of that is autism. I read so many stories here about people who have good reason to turn away from family. I can't relate so I find it difficult to figure out what it is.
I will find myself wondering wether I should make more of an effort to get on with a relative, simply because the person is a relative, and it doesn't really make sense to me.
I wonder if there's a suppressed or hidden part of me that would regret it if I let the relationship go. But I don't know if there is.
@Zumbador@snoopy_jay@AnAutieAtUni@actuallyautistic I think family is important, and I can separate the family link from people's abhorrent opinions, but I also don't go out of my way to spend more time with abhorrent family members (which is different from abuse! And I would cut that /right/ out)
@snoopy_jay@actuallyautistic I think I find it hard to understand why blood related people should matter more than others. I also do not feel close to my parents (even if I still see them a lot). I don't understand why I should trust or like someone more just because they're blood related and "only" because of that, when the relationship I have with others (friends) are built from the scratch and chosen by me ( let me clarify that my family is also not particularly bad).
@snoopy_jay@actuallyautistic I'm not sure.
I find family stressful, but I try to maintain relationships nevertheless. I have been fantasizing a lot about just cutting ties lately. Sometimes when I spend time with my siblings, for example, it's good because of shared background and vibes, but often it's also frustrating.