So uh…I’m an aunt
And apparently have been for 7 months.
Before anyone congratulates me, I’d like to explain that this isn’t really happy news for me. It could have been, but instead it left me devastated. Allow me to explain.
I haven’t spoken with most of my family for years. My mom is abusive and neglectful, and most of my family members treat me like I’m a soulless freak. My sister was the last family member I was still talking to, but a couple years ago that ended too. Something happened, and when I was honest about my feelings about it, my sister twisted everything I said and made it all about her. As usual, the way my emotions are is not acceptable to my family. And the fact that I believe forgiveness takes work and won’t simply continue sweeping the way they treated me under the carpet makes them believe I’m a heartless, unforgiving monster.
So I walked away. For the sake of my health, so I could stop hating and doubting myself, I walked away and hoped that one day my family would understand my point of view.
Clearly, they don’t.
Last night, out of the blue, I received an incredibly passive aggressive email from my sister, stating that I’d been an aunt for seven fucking months and she
was going to write sooner but wasn’t sure if I could handle the response or probably the lack there of.
Because obviously I am an evil heartless monster who wouldn’t be happy for her.
I wasn’t even given a chance. Just like always, my family makes huge assumptions about my emotions, about whether I even have them. After all this time, they still believe they’ve done nothing wrong and I’m just cold and heartless. They think I have no heart to break, no soul to bruise, and that’s not true. I took me a long time to stop crying; my eyes still feel swollen and cruddy. I’m trying my best to cope with this, on top of everything else in my life, on top of the fibromyalgia and the depression, but I’m just so tired.
And the worst part was discovering how easy it is for all my hard work to be torn down. I thought I would go the rest of my life without wishing that I wasn’t autistic, that I was just like everyone else. I thought I had finally accepted that the problem isn’t me, it's them. Last night I discovered how fragile those things are. Those feelings don’t just stop, simply because we’ve removed ourselves from what causes them. Now I know they might always be there, waiting for me.
I hurt so much. I’m angry and frustrated and in a complete lose/lose situation. Unless I want to give in and ask for forgiveness when I’m not the one who’s in the wrong, nothing I do here will make a difference. I’m not like the rest of my family and so I will always be the cold, heartless one to them.
I guess the reason I’m mentioning this is because it might be a little quiet here at AH for a while. I’m still struggling to cope with all the other things; this has knocked me on my ass. It will take a little time to put the pieces back together, and I don’t actually know how much I’ll get done during that time. I figured an explanation was in order.
![[Made fun of by family for “strange” food habits
No one ever says a word about allistic sister eating cold ravioli for breakfast every day for years]
I hate being teased for me eating habits, and my family has done it to me for years. Yes, there’s a lot of things I can’t eat. Yes, I tend to eat the same thing over and over again. There’s numerous reasons for this, some of them seated in the way autistics are treated, some of them a direct trait of the autism.
A lot of it is to do with my texture issues. Thanksgiving was always like the worst thing ever: Mashed potatoes, all kinds of mashed up squashes, tons of things with wonky textures, and of course I got teased because all I would eat was turkey and cranberry sauce. I can’t help that I have so many texture issues. Believe me, I wish I didn’t.
I also get nervous about trying something different, for example, at a restaurant. I’m afraid I won’t like it (more because of texture than taste). Not only was my father always a stickler about not “wasting” food (I had to stay at the table until my plate was finished), but because other people didn’t have my texture problems, they didn’t believe me. I spent years convinced the problem was in my head.
But my sister, who doesn’t appear to have texture problems, would go through phases of eating the same thing. Ramen for breakfast (yes, breakfast) for years, cold ravioli, broccoli with dinner every night for months. When she did it, it was at most a bit quirky. Me? I was some sort of unnatural fucking weirdo.](http://36.media.tumblr.com/de605787d23a7509a4387c9b68c6c17e/tumblr_mnb6cvPy5x1rfhms3o1_400.jpg)
